Under the Vale and Other Tales of Valdemar

by Mercedes Lackey

  He shrugged. “They would have had us, except that a whole horde of Tedrels took off and started running for the center. There were enough left to make us pay, but it thinned them enough to give us a chance.”

  Gonwyn flexed his hand and stared at the trickle of blood that ran down between his middle and ring fingers. The wound in his shoulder had broken open again. “Most everyone got back into the trees,” he continued. “We were scattered from hell to breakfast in those woods. Once those black-hearted bastards sort out Split-Face and figure out we’re broken, they’ll turn the position. Then, we’re done.”

  Adreal paused, assessing Gonwyn’s report. “It’s not that easy. Looks like most of the Tedrel leadership went down in Sendar’s charge. There are a whacking great lot of them still out there, but their army is breaking up. Nonetheless, I take your point. This fight may be won, but it isn’t over.”

  Gonwyn nodded, feeling the need to explain his own presence away from the fighting. “We’d just gotten word that the King wasn’t down . . . the message got garbled somehow. Rath thinks we picked up a piece of the local chatter—that the King had gone down into the valley . . . but who knows?”

  He continued to draw with the arrow. “We heard from Horvis, who was up closer to the center, that King Sendar had charged down into main body, and we were to press forward in support. Orthallen was nowhere to be found. Ormona was supposed to be Mindspeaking for Arland, but Orthallen took her with him, so we got word from a very confused Guardsman riding his captain’s horse. He was looking for a Captain Elesarn, who was supposed to have a cavalry troop, when he found us. He was about a quarter compass off the mark, looking for a horse unit that were gods’ only knew where at that point. We policed him up.”

  “Arland ordered us forward, but it took a few minutes to Mindspeak with Horvis and Ormona and get everyone singing the same hymn. Orthallen was supposed to join back up, but Arland didn’t wait. He did a half-left with what he had and started sweeping in toward the center. I think our linear distance would have been about two miles at that point.”

  “Most of the Tedrel shock troops scattered when we came back out of the tree line. I was with about a half-company . . . a mixed bag of Guardsmen and militia. We’d hit what was left of the Tedrel shield wall and were doing okay until I got hit with this . . .” he made a gesture at his marred face, . . . “and I went down. When I came to, anything that wasn’t dead was scattered. Arland and the regiment were long gone. I worked my way back to the rally point . . .” He dismissed an hour’s terror, sharp fighting, and the shoulder wound with a shrug.

  He looked around at the piles of dead and dying,and the evidence of heavy battle. “. . . Such as it is.”

  A shared glance with Adreal told him that the history lessons were over.

  “I’m staying here to redirect whoever tries to make the rally point back to the assembly areas below the village. That’s where Her Majesty is trying to spin dung into diamonds.”

  “You want me to go there?” Gonwyn asked.

  “No,” Adreal replied, “What I want is for you to get to Split-Face and get him to back off . . . but you’d never make it.” He looked at the battered chainmail on the bloodstained Herald. “You were a Guards officer before you were Chosen. I need you to get into those woods and start rounding up the stragglers. There are parts of units all over these hills, and we have to get the strays moving back toward the village . . . that way Her Majesty can knit something together that buys us time. If I can break through the Companion babble, I’ll get word to someone on what you’re about.”

  Gonwyn reached down and gripped his friend’s arm. “Be careful. I saw something in the woods that made a Karse demon look like a kitten.”

  Adreal returned the grip. “Probably was Karse. The Tedrels raped and burned their way across the country, even if they were in the Sunlord’s pay. This battle is the best thing that ever happened to them. If Tedrel wins, they get a weakened and defeated Valdemar with a Tedrel client for a buffer. If they lose, then they get rid of an annoying and expensive problem. If it calls a draw, then they bleed us. Three throws, and they win each one. So Karse’ll be watching this all very closely.”

  Gonwyn looked at the bloodstained blanket and knew the answer beforehand. “Can I help you?”

  Adreal lifted the blanket. Gonwyn saw the poniard rammed to the hilt through the chainmail and between Adreal’s ribs. A bright bubble of blood leaked out as he exhaled. “Healer Janse took the pain when they first brought me here, so it doesn’t hurt. I passed out.” He pointed with his chin to where the wounded had been slain as they lay. “When I awoke, this was over.”

  He shifted the blanket to cover himself. Gonwyn bent to offer his hand in farewell. Adreal grabbed it with a fierce strength, his expression direct and forceful. “Gonwyn, do you remember what the King said before he left Haven? You like handstrokes too much, and if we’re going get out of this we need brains. Leave the sword in the scabbard. Promise me you’ll steer clear of fights.”

  Gonwyn dipped his head, acknowledging without promising. He raised his hand in salute. “See you on the other side.”

  Adreal raised his hand in reply, then let it drop. He turned his attention to obliterating every vestige of their quick maps. That was Adreal, careful beyond careful. “Get something to eat and wash your face.” he said, as Gonwyn turned away. “You look like you’ve been wading in an abattoir.”

  Gonwyn returned to where Rath stood. The Companion had all but demolished a pile of oats poured from a bag and onto the leafy ground. He could feel the hunger in the big mare, and the bone-deep fatigue.

  :No rest for the wicked.: With Rath, there were never questions. Just statements. It used to annoy Gonwyn, but he’d had twenty-five years to get over it.

  “Is there ever?” he replied.

  The wounded Guardsman stood nearby. He held a soot-stained, steaming pail of water, the handle wrapped in rags. Blood seeped through the bandage on his head and ran down the side of his face. Gonwyn looked at him . . . one pupil the size of an olive, the other a pinpoint.

  “Just put it down, son,” he said gently.

  The Guardsman looked at him, confused and still.

  Gonwyn took the bucket from him. He watched as the young soldier drifted back to where a larger pot of water boiled over a fire.

  The Companion answered his unasked question. :His brains were dashed about. Severe, but not fatal if he is well cared for. There will be damage.:

  Gonwyn poured most of the warm water into a pail, mixed a double handful of oats into it, and squatted on his heels to use the rest of the hot water to wash off some of the blood and filth. He took a rag and gingerly swabbed the contusion on his temple from when he’d been knocked off Rath. The mare had nearly done a backflip to avoid stepping on him but had still clipped his head and put him out.

  :You done making yourself pretty?: Rath was still nose down in the pail, lipping out the last of the steaming oats.

  “Yeah,” Gonwyn replied. “You ready?”

  :Yes. We should go. Too many oats will make me fat.:

  Gonwyn looked at her. With Rath, you could never tell. She might even be serious.

  He tightened the bellyband and mounted, settling in the worn saddle.

  Herald and Companion moved back down the hill and across the narrow draw at a ground-eating canter. They avoided the lines of dead by unspoken agreement, angling away from the road and down through the leafy drifts to the stream that had been the control feature for the Valdemaran reserve line. They followed it some quarter of a mile, to where it bent sharply to the right. The stream went straight ahead on their crude map.

  That had been the beginning of a very bad day. Turned out the map they’d copied was wrong. There were two streams, about a quarter of a mile apart, which meant some of the troops had withdrawn to the wrong stream when Orthallen called retreat. Then, when they’d tried to turn it around, the units were hopelessly scattered, and the reserves were gone. Everything else abou
t this campaign had been a dog’s dinner, so why not the maps?

  :Enough.: Rath’s mental voice cut through his internal monologue. The mare stopped suddenly and tensed.

  “Adreal?” Gonwyn asked.

  :He has passed. Claris has gone mad.: The very matter-of-factness of the mare’s tone told him how deeply she felt the loss. All Companions shared a bond deeper than mortals could understand, but Rath and Claris had been exceptionally close.

  Gonwyn forced himself still, pushed down the grief at Adreal’s death and Claris’ loss. He buried it alongside the crushing fatigue, the pain from mouth and shoulder, and the belly-deep fear . . . all the things that were normal to feel,but which he just couldn’t afford.

  Rath, sensing his resolve, pressed onward, picking up the pace to move through where the Tedrels had pressed forward, been stopped, and then driven back. The combat here had been brutal, with quarter neither asked nor given. The dead lay thickest where the lines had struggled longest. They rode around a few fragments of Tedrel units, none of which looked much like fighting. Gonwyn and Rath moved together with an abundance of caution, alert to Adreal’s order to avoid trouble. From such came the Karse stories of “ghost horses.”

  They slowed after a mile or so, to pick their way carefully through a narrow draw where a small fight had taken place. A dozen dead Valdemarans and rather more Tedrels lay in little heaps and piles. He and Rath had passed this way less than two candlemarks earlier, so this fight had taken place recently. Tedrels were still bleeding through the original Valdemaran lines and into the border hills. This was bad news that needed reporting.

  He slid out of the saddle to walk ahead of the mare, scuffing his feet in the leaves as they went. The Tedrels liked caltrops, and having Rath take one through the hoof would be a death-sentence.

  He searched the dead Tedrels, rifling through equipment and pockets and looking at shoes. The journey bread was fresh-baked, so they had both ovens and wheat. The shoes were mostly old, but well tended and stuffed with fresh hay to pad the feet. The equipment tended to be simple and poor but well maintained . . . the standard tools of a sell-sword. There were a few small coins but no significant booty or loot. That suggested a couple of things, but none definitive. No writing material, orders, or maps. The mix told him that they were decently supplied and had resources close by. Bakers and cobblers did not strap their kit on a field pack. This was no Tedrel advance guard. This was the Tedrel nation.

  In some ways the Tedrels were better supplied than the Valdemarans they faced. King Sendar had to cajole and command to force the Council to put aside its spats and march as one country. The delay gave the army a thrown-together feel, and it was larger than the commissary could support for any length of time. Sendar . . . no, Selenay now, would have little choice but to begin disbanding the army very soon, before it started eating itself to death. They had to do for Tedrel here and now.

  He took some buttons, small coins, and other trinkets that might show where the Tedrels had been. He also gathered up a brace of fat rabbits they had snared along the way.

  :What are you going to do with those?: Asked Rath. :It’s not like you can chew right now.:

  “I’m not going to leave two patriotic Valdemaran rabbits in the clutches of the Tedrels. It’s only right I find a good Valdemaran stomach for them. Even if it’s not mine.”

  :Whatever.:

  He took the journey bread as well. He wasn’t sure when he would eat, and while food hadn’t been an issue, it was just a matter of time before it was.

  He felt Rath touch his mind, sort his conclusions, and make his report.

  :It’s still too hard to get through. I’ve passed word to Kantor directly, but he’s preoccupied with Alberich’s problems. I’m trying to get to Eigen, but he and Rimlee are almost out of range. They’re mopping up some Tedrel cavalry. Anlina is up in the center. She’s tied up with sorting out something about the King, and Adreal is dead. Otherwise, there’s still too much confusion.:

  Gonwyn shook his head. “The Mindspeaking is an advantage, but we rely on it too much. Once the plan fell apart, so did the way we’d planned to Mindspeak. The Queen might be able to get orders down, my friend, but no way are we going to get word back up.”

  :These militia did well. They held their own, then withdrew in good order in about company strength. Should we follow and make our report in person?:

  Gonwyn considered it, and the attendant benefits of Healer, wench, bottle, and bed . . . in exactly that order. He judged the direction and likely time and frowned. The sun was well past afternoon and into evening. Adreal knew what he was about. Damned duty.

  “No,” he said, reluctantly. “They’re headed toward the roadstead. They’ll be halfway to the village by now. Someone will police them up. We’ll press along the main line of resistance.”

  :Thy will be done,: replied the mare.

  He turned to mount and felt Rath stiffen.

  :Be still, now. There’s a Herald nearby, back up that side wash. Up among the trees.:

  Gonwyn turned to look. “There where the big oak is slanted and thicket is close in where the stream tumbles?”

  :Yes. It is Herald Danilla. She panicked in the fight. Her Companion is very young and was . . . overcome.:

  “What the hell does that mean? Overcome.”

  :It means that we are not perfect, Chosen. The girl is frightened, and both are ashamed. Be gentle, Herald Gonwyn.:

  “When am I not?” he replied.

  Rath flickered about a hundred quick mental images between them.

  “All right, but that last one wasn’t my fault. She said the pig was tame.”

  He slid his sword out of its scabbard and laid it across the saddle-bow. “Better safe.”

  Rath did not respond. The Companion started down the washed-out creek bank and splashed across. Her steps were dainty and careful, feeling for a caltrop even in the water before she put her hoof all the way down.

  Gonwyn, in no mood for a fast arrow from a frightened girl, stopped just inside calling distance to the stand of oaks.

  “Herald Danilla,” he called. “Come down. It is Herald Gonwyn.” He used a note of command, broadened with inflections of concern and wary friendship.

  He could feel the edges of Rath’s Mindppeaking to Danilla’s Companion. Many Heralds could actually hear the great pool of minds that the Companions shared. The skill, not shared by Gonwyn, had been alternately described it as a great joy and great annoyance.

  Some few moments passed before he saw movement, then a quick flash as a young Herald in new chainmail and White surcoat led her Companion down from the copse of trees. He waited, letting her come to him, while he scanned the surrounding trees. They had been in this draw too long and were too exposed.

  He assessed her condition as she approached, her head down. Her surcoat was streaked with blood, and the left shoulder was spattered with gray lumps that his experienced eye told him were someone else’s brains. Her coat was still a damned sight cleaner than his, though. Her hauberk was tight-laced in the school style, rather than field-laced, telling him she was fresh from the Collegium. First mission, first fight, and it was this butchery?

  The Companion was injured, favoring the rear left hoof. The girl looked up at him as she approached. There was a shallow wound high on the haunch, toward the back. It had been well-tended and dressed.

  Tear marks traced clean streaks across the Herald’s filthy face. Her hair was matted with blood, probably a cut in her head. He didn’t see any fresh blood, and in any event, he’d lost his healing kit. It would have to keep.

  “Equipment?” he asked.

  “Sword. Bow,” she replied softly, her voice muffled as she studied her feet.

  “Can you ride?”

  A pause while she conferred with her Companion. “Yes. Can walk. Can’t run.” Almost a whisper this time.

  :I don’t have time for this,: he thought to Rath.

  :Make time,: the Companion replied. :They’re Herald
and Companion. Leaving them is not an option.:

  “Mount up. We need to move.”

  She mounted lightly, moving with a grace that Gonwyn lacked, even when not wearing chainmail and two week’s worth of grime.

  She settled in her saddle and looked at him, her eyes haunted. He knew what was coming and hated it, hated her for it. He didn’t like being involved, didn’t want to be involved, and she was going to involve him.

  “I ran,” she confessed, bringing the monster in the room out in the open.

  Now he had to deal with it.

  “When they broke through, I helped in the fight . . . I did. I killed two with my sword. Then everything fell apart. There were so many. They killed Captain Elagen and Herald Valean and smashed Companion Saneel’s head wide open. The pikemen started to run. That’s when I panicked.” She began to weep, tracking more clean across a landscape of caked mud, dirt, and blood. “I’m so sorry.”

  Gonwyn hated weeping. Anger he could deal with, drunken stupidity (his and others’) a specialty, and the myriad petty squabbles and cases of two decades of riding Circuit proved a cinch. Give him a few tears, and he was utterly at a loss.

  :You and half the population ever born,: commented Rath drily. :Say something encouraging, and move out. We need to go.:

  “You broke. It’s not part of the job description, but it happens. It also happens to be history. We need to round up whatever troops we can find and send them back to the village. And we have to do it sometime before I have a birthday.” He stopped, feeling himself starting to run on.

  :Nice,: said Rath.:Why don’t you kick her puppy while you’re at it?:

  He snarled a curse by way of reply. The Companion turned downstream. The map showed this draw feeding into the creek that marked the border, but that was wrong too.