Under the Vale and Other Tales of Valdemar Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  The Simple Gifts - Mercedes Lackey

  Catch Fire, Draw Flame - Rosemary Edghill and Denise McCune

  In an Instant - Elizabeth A. Vaughan

  A Healer’s Work - Daniel Shull

  A Leash of Greyhounds - Elisabeth Waters

  Warp and Weft - Kristin Schwengel

  Discordance - Jennifer Brozek

  Slow and Steady - Brenda Cooper

  Sight and Sound - Stephanie D. Shaver

  The Bride’s Task - Michael Z. Williamson and Gail L. Sanders

  Fog of War - Ben Ohlander

  Heart’s Peril - Kate Paulk

  Heart’s Place - Sarah A. Hoyt

  Family Matters - Tanya Huff

  The Watchman’s Ball - Fiona Patton

  Judgment Day - Nancy Asire

  Under the Vale - Larry Dixon

  About the Authors

  About the Editor

  TITLES BY MERCEDES LACKEY

  Raves for the Previous Valdemar Anthologies:

  “Fans of Lackey’s epic Valdemar series will devour this superb anthology. Of the thirteen stories included, there is no weak link—an attribute exceedingly rare in collections of this sort. Highly recommended.”

  —The Barnes and Noble Review

  “This high-quality anthology mixes pieces by experienced authors and enthusiastic fans of editor Lackey’s Valdemar. Valdemar fandom, especially, will revel in this sterling example of what such a mixture of fans’ and pros’ work can be. Engrossing even for newcomers to Valdemar.”

  —Booklist

  “Josepha Sherman, Tanya Huff, Mickey Zucker Reichert, and Michelle West have quite good stories, and there’s another by Lackey herself. Familiarity with the series helps but is not a prerequisite to enjoying this book.”

  —Science Fiction Chronicle

  “Each tale adheres to the Lackey laws of the realm yet provides each author’s personal stamp on the story. Well written and fun, Valdemarites will especially appreciate the magic of this book.”

  —The Midwest Book Review

  “The sixth collection set in Lackey’s world of Valdemar presents stories of Heralds and their telepathic horselike Companions and of Bards and Healers, and provides glimpses of the many other aspects of a setting that has a large and avid readership. The fiften original tales in this volume will appeal to series fans.”

  —Library Journal

  Under the Vale

  TITLES BY MERCEDES LACKEY

  available from DAW Books:

  THE HERALDS OF

  VALDEMAR

  ARROWS OF THE QUEEN

  ARROW’S FLIGHT

  ARROW’S FALL

  THE LAST HERALD-MAGE

  MAGIC’S PAWN

  MAGIC’S PROMISE

  MAGIC’S PRICE

  THE MAGE WINDS

  WINDS OF FATE

  WINDS OF CHANGE

  WINDS OF FURY

  THE MAGE STORMS

  STORM WARNING

  STORM RISING

  STORM BREAKING

  VOWS AND HONOR

  THE OATHBOUND

  OATHBREAKERS

  OATHBLOOD

  THE COLLEGIUM

  CHRONICLES

  FOUNDATION

  INTRIGUES

  CHANGES

  VALDEMAR ANTHOLOGIES:

  SWORD OF ICE

  SUN IN GLORY

  CROSSROADS

  MOVING TARGETS

  CHANGING THE WORLD

  FINDING THE WAY

  UNDER THE VALE

  BY THE SWORD

  BRIGHTLY BURNING

  TAKE A THIEF

  EXILE’S HONOR

  EXILE’S VALOR

  Written with LARRY DIXON:

  THE MAGE WARS

  THE BLACK GRYPHON

  THE WHITE GRYPHON

  THE SILVER GRYPHON

  DARIAN’S TALE

  OWLFLIGHT

  OWLSIGHT

  OWLKNIGHT

  OTHER NOVELS:

  GWENHWYFAR

  THE BLACK SWAN

  THE DRAGON JOUSTERS

  JOUST

  ALTA

  SANCTUARY

  AERIE

  THE ELEMENTAL MASTERS

  THE SERPENT’S SHADOW

  THE GATES OF SLEEP

  PHOENIX AND ASHES

  THE WIZARD OF LONDON

  RESERVED FOR THE CAT

  UNNATURAL ISSUE

  HOME FROM THE SEA*

  And don’t miss:

  THE VALDEMAR COMPANION

  Edited by John Helfers and Denise Little

  *Coming soon from DAW Books

  Copyright © 2011 by Mercedes Lackey and Tekno Books.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-55247-6

  All Rights Reserved.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1568.

  DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  First Printing, December 2011

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  S.A

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  “The Simple Gifts,” copyright © 2011 by Mercedes Lackey

  “Catch Fire, Draw Flame,” copyright © 2011 by Rosemary Edghill and Denise McCune

  “In an Instant,” copyright © 2011 by Elizabeth A. Vaughan

  “A Healer’s Work,” copyright © 2011 by Daniel Shull

  “A Leash of Greyhounds,” copyright © 2011 by Elisabeth Waters

  “Warp and Weft,” copyright © 2011 by Kristin Schwengel

  “Discordance,” copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Brozek

  “Slow and Steady,” copyright © 2011 by Brenda Cooper

  “Sight and Sound,” copyright © 2011 by Stephanie Shaver

  “The Bride’s Task,” copyright © 2011 by Michael Z. Williamson and Gail L. Sanders

  “Fog of War,” copyright © 2011 by Ben Ohlander

  “Heart’s Peril,” copyright © 2011 by Kate Paulk

  “Heart’s Place,” copyright © 2011 by Sarah Hoyt

  “Family Matters,” copyright © 2011 by Tanya Huff

  “The Watchman’s Ball,” copyright © 2011 by Fiona Patton

  “Judgment Day,” copyright © 2011 by Nancy Asire

  “Under the Vale,” copyright © 2011 by Larry Dixon.

  The Simple Gifts

  Mercedes Lackey

  The last thing I expected when I woke up that morning was to find myself running for my life with my clothing in one hand and the other hand holding a sheet rather insecurely about my impressive torso.

  Wait, let me back that up a bit.

  First, please understand that I have no illusions about myself. I know what my talents are: charm, rugged good looks, wit, a great voice, and an instinct for how to make a lady very happy. I know what my flaws are: the desire to do as little actual work as possible, coupled with a taste for all the finer things in life, and a tendency to stretch the truth paper-thin. These two things make me the ideal candidate for no actual job, but they make
me very good at being company for females (face it ladies, you really do not want to know that your butt looks like the rear end of a brood mare in “this dress”).

  Yes. Alas, I am a man-whore.

  Now that we have the technicalities out of the way, let me add that I specialize in ladies of a certain . . . age. Those who (so they tell me, and so I will fervently believe as long as I am with them) are underappreciated by the husbands. Because, oh yes, I only specialize in married ladies. That way if anything happens, they have a husband to deal with the consequences. And most of them actually are underappreciated. In the class I deal with exclusively, those husbands will have gone out and gotten themselves one or more pretty, young mistresses, so why, I ask you, is the sauce for the gander not just as appropriate for the goose?

  I had somewhat worn out my welcome in the western part of Hardorn, so I had crossed into the eastern part of Valdemar, a country with which I was just marginally familiar. Hardorn was rather more to my liking: lots of rich merchant wives, lots of rich minor nobility, lots of husbands who were always somewhere else. However, I’d temporarily run out of the former, and since I was ill-equipped to fend for myself for very long, I took the very nice farewell present from my last “friend” and got a ride with her cousin’s trade caravan west. Her cousin was a widow, and I made an exception to my rule of wives only, and we passed the time pleasantly enough in her plush little wagon.

  They left me in a little town called Winefold, which produced, strangely enough, not wine but a pungent little berry that they liked to use in Hardorn to flavor alcohol. Geniver, it was called, and collecting the harvested and dried berries there was the end of the road for the caravan. So I bid the immensely grateful (have I mentioned that ladies of a certain age are always enthusiastically grateful?) widow a fond and somewhat teary farewell, got the best room in the inn (for now, I didn’t intend to be paying for it long) and set about looking over my prospects.

  They seemed rosy. A lady of the correct age and more than correct income, spouse away and (supposedly) unappreciative, and charms that, while a bit on the weathered side, were still, well, charming. And besides, candlelight is always flattering. Like me. The campaign was easy enough, pity on the poor stranger with only a few halting phrases of Valdemaran in the marketplace, a meal or two together at the inn, a meal or two together at her manse, a brief overnight trial of my paces, certain key phrases exchanged and understood, and there you go. I was quite satisfied with the results of the evening and was looking forward to leaving my room at the inn and setting up in a guest room as a “cousin”—in fact, I was mulling over just those arrangements while idly tracing circles on the bare shoulder next to mine, when my musings were rudely interrupted by five men bursting into the bedroom with drawn swords and daggers. One of them was richly attired, also of a certain age (but of a dismayingly athletic build) with the outraged expression on his face that told me he was either a husband or a brother.

  Now, this sort of thing happens in bardic songs all the time; the sort with seven hundred verses to them. There’re about two hundred to get to the bedroom, and then comes the part where the outraged husband says, “Get up, it will never be said I slew a sleeping man,” allows the subject of the song to get up (and presumably get dressed, though that never seems to be mentioned no matter how many verses there are), arm himself, and even strike the first blow—presumably so the spouse can claim self-defense. This usually takes about another hundred verses. The rest of the song describes how the subject is cut down, mangled, dismembered, eviscerated, hung up for all to see, has various bits pecked out by crows while women lament, and finally is buried beneath a willow, which weeps for him eternally.

  I was not going to be around for those several hundred verses, thank you. Especially not the killing and dismembering part.

  Out of careful habit and no few close calls, I keep all my clothing right at hand in an easy-to carry bundle when I go to bed with a lady. So as the outraged gentleman opened his mouth, I was already halfway out the window, clothing in one hand, sheet held around me as best I could.

  The advantage of going out a window is that your pursuers, if there are more than one, always manage to get themselves jammed up trying to follow you. By the time they sort themselves out, you’ve got a lead on them.

  Small problem being in a little town, however: They were going to know where to find me, or rather, my belongings. Which meant I had to get there before they did. Fortunately it was early enough (good lord, not even dawn, what kind of uncivilized barbarians were these?) that I didn’t attract too much attention sprinting through the streets in nothing but a sheet. Bad idea going in through the door, but the inn building was a single, sprawling story, all at ground level. I had left my shutters unlatched but closed—I had all my money with me, and in a town this small, stealing my clothing and other gear would be pretty foolhardy, since it would be immediately recognizable. I’d nipped in, grabbed my gear, pulled on my pants and boots, and nipped out again by the time they came roaring up to the door, which the innkeeper’s servant was only just opening for the day.

  I saw all this from my vantage point hiding in the thatch of a roof across the street.

  And that was where I stayed, figuring I would wait until the fuss died down, then get a ride out with a farmer or something.

  But the fuss didn’t die down. This fellow was persistent! First he made the innkeeper turn out my room to prove I wasn’t in it. Then he made the innkeeper turn out all the vacant rooms to prove I wasn’t hiding in them. Then he made the innkeeper turn out all the other guests to prove I wasn’t with one of them! Then he ransacked the stable. Then he and his four bully boys began searching the rest of the town.

  Fortunately none of them thought to look up in the thatch of roofs. I suppose they figured that someone of my sort wouldn’t know how to climb. Silly fellows. Windows aren’t always on the ground floor.

  However, this left me with a real problem. By the time they were done, the entire town would know about me, and I hadn’t been here long enough to round up any allies. Which meant not only could I not find a real place to hide out, but it was going to be hard to find a way out of town.

  Which was when I saw it: the army-supply wagon train.

  We’d passed this thing on our way in, and my hostess had told me what it was, because I honestly had never seen anything like it in my life. The main roads here in Valdemar all had this groove running down the middle, which I had assumed (wrongly) was some sort of gutter. In fact, it was a slot for a guiding wheel for a peculiar sort of thing that she called a “wagon train”—as in, “trailing along behind.” These people didn’t have a lot of bandits (if any!) on their main roads, so they didn’t need a lot of guards on the wagons that carried common supplies. Which meant they really only needed people to drive and care for the dray animals. And if they could hitch a lot of wagons together, they didn’t need as many of them. The problem with that was that pulling a lot of wagons was difficult; they tended to stray off the road. But not if you had a guide-wheel in the center of each that dropped down into that groove down the middle . . .

  Ingenious, really.

  So there it was, pulling through town. Twenty mules at the front, a couple of drivers, fifteen wagons, each carrying two tons. The last wagon in the string carried the supplies for the men and the mules and had two spare mules tied to the back. They wouldn’t stop in town; they’d stop once at midday to water the animals and again at night. Because they wouldn’t stop in town, and because they belonged to the army (called the “Guard” here), no one would bother searching these wagons. Ideal!

  I watched for my opportunity, and as soon as the street was clear, I was down off that roof and in under the canvas flap at the rear of one of the middle wagons. A quick survey of the tightly packed interior showed me the only way to get to the front of the wagon was over the top of the crates. I was hoping that since all the wagons looked alike (that’s an army for you), there would be a space at the front with
a driver’s area that you couldn’t actually pack goods into.

  I was right—though let me tell you, it was a tight squeeze to get in there under the canvas roof, and I had to be careful and inch my way along so no one would notice a moving bulge. There was a driver’s bench all right, with the canvas stretched down tight across the front of the wagon, giving me just enough room to settle. No one would look up here; if anyone did inspect this thing, they’d look at the back at most. I made myself comfortable with my pack and my stolen sheet, waited until we were well clear of town, just in case, and then resumed my interrupted sleep.

  I woke again when they stopped the mules at noon for watering. When the voices were distant, I took a quick look at the crates that surrounded me and could hardly believe my luck when I saw they were all labeled “field rations.” At least I wasn’t going to starve! I spent the rest of the afternoon slowly and carefully prying the side off one of the crates. Sure enough, it was packed full of bars of something covered in what felt like wax. When I got a bar out, I saw that it actually was wax, the sort some cheeses are coated in. It peeled right off with the help of my knife, and the bar proved to be dried fruit and meat pounded together, just about as hard as ironwood. I spent the rest of the afternoon whittling slivers off and eating them. I’d had worse. I got thirsty; I made up for it by sucking on a few peppermints that I keep to make sure I have pleasant breath. I was lucky that it didn’t get too hot, and I could manage to hold off thirst for a while, but I was looking forward to getting out and finally getting a drink, let me tell you. I’d have to find something to hold water, though, because the only time I’d be able to get any would be late at night when the drovers slept.