Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar Read online

  :Not even a day to my cave. After they stole my cubs, they settled for the night only a short distance away. They’ll be coming in this direction, I think, but more north.:

  Laeka sat back on her heels, turning her head up to the canopy above her while she thought. With her daughter Jeatha gone to the trade fairs in Mornedealth, the stables were as lightly guarded as possible, so more outriders could travel with the string and protect the valuable animals. To take away any more guards, even for a day or two, would mean risking the entire breeding line, should the bandits come further south, and it would be foolish to send anyone but the trained guards. Foolish to send any of her people.

  She stood, brushing leaves and fir needles from her leggings. “I will be back in a little while. I promise you, we will free your younglings.”

  Laeka trotted back down the path, her mind making plans and as soon discarding them. In the few minutes it took her to reach the stables, she had the essence of her plan clear in her head.

  “Who goes?” Meros’ voice rang out as she approached, and she sighed in relief. Meros, she thought, she could talk around to her side. They had been friends for a long time, ever since the guard’s ornery gray gelding (not one of her breeding) had bashed in her right leg. Her knee, never properly healed, throbbed at the memory. With quick words, she explained the situation and outlined her plan.

  “You’re a fool, Laeka. How in Agnira’s name do you expect this to work?”

  “Do you have a better idea? We can’t just let those cubs be used by a Blood Mage.”

  “Send the kyree to the Tayledras.”

  “And how long do you think that will take? Why do you think she came to me, traveling ahead of the bandits instead of going in the opposite direction to the Tayledras?”

  “Well, shouldn’t someone else go instead of you? Or at least take someone with you.”

  “Who else should go? The kyree will recognize me, at least. Who else could be spared? Certainly not any of the guards. Duty roster’s thin enough already, with Jeatha gone with the outriders. Unlike the other trainers and horsefolk, I at least have a little bit more than the rudiments of training with the sword. It’s not so far-fetched as you think.”

  Meros looked at her long and hard in the growing light, then finally nodded. “I’ll help you gather what you’ll need.”

  The sun was not even fully risen when Laeka returned to the forest, this time mounted on the intelligent coppery mare that was her favorite, the lead lines of another mare and a gelding tied to the pommel of her saddle. She wore a leather jerkin and breeches now, and a sword hung at her side. It was an unfamiliar weight, a reminder of the reality of what she was attempting. When she practiced with the horses that would be sold to fighters, she never actually bore the weapons for very long.

  The kyree had not moved from the clearing, although she sat half up on her side when Laeka approached. Dismounting, Laeka dug a small jar and a larger, wrapped package from one of her saddlebags and came forward to the kyree. In the stronger light, she could see the matted blood in the animal’s fur and was glad she had made sure to bring the jar.

  “I brought food and some of our strongest healing ointment for you,” she said, unwrapping the raw meat and laying it on the ground before opening the jar. “It will only take a few minutes to apply, and you will be much the better for it.” While the kyree ate, Laeka used swift, gentle strokes to spread the sharp, clean-smelling salve over the barely healed cuts and gashes, kneading it into the muscles where she noticed swelling. Even as she worked, she could see the kyree lifting her head, becoming more alert as the pains eased.

  “Now, can you stand and walk, even just a few steps?”

  :Thank you, yes. The rest has been good.: The kyree shifted her legs beneath her, then pushed to her feet, swaying only slightly.

  Laeka stood and walked over to the horses, pulling at the lead line on the chestnut gelding to bring him to where the kyree stood. He shied at first from the strange scent, then quieted, and Laeka noticed a look of concentration in the kyree’s eyes.

  :It is only to get past their first fear.:

  Laeka nodded her understanding of the kyree’s manipulation of her animals’ minds. “Speed is more important.” She gestured, and the gelding bent his knees and folded halfway to the ground. With Laeka’s guidance, the kyree walked over and climbed onto the gelding’s lowered back, settling herself on the pad that Meros and Laeka had rigged onto the gelding’s saddle. One hand on the kyree to steady her, Laeka tugged at the gelding’s bridle, and he rose back up.

  Remounting her mare, Laeka turned to look into the kyree’s eyes. “Where?”

  :West, and north after a bit. I will recognize the path I took.:

  Laeka nodded and tightened her knees. The mare headed out at an easy jog, and the other two horses followed into the deeper forest.

  For a long time, they rode in silence through the twisting deer paths, alternating periods of walking with a loping run. It would never match the ground-eating pace of purebred Shin’a’in horses, but she had bred the best of the mares she had acquired from Liha’irden to the strongest stallions she could find to replicate that trait. She noted landmarks as the horses moved deeper into the Pelagiris Forest, marking them in her mind just in case.

  Each time the kyree Mindspoke to her to change their direction, her Mind-voice seemed stronger, but still tinged with anger and pain. Laeka ate waybread in the saddle, bringing the gelding up next to her mare to place some on the saddlepad for the kyree, who gulped it down whole.

  Early in the afternoon, they came upon a small clearing where traces of recent occupation remained. New scorch marks blackened a long-disused fire-circle, and the grass was freshly cropped. Laeka dismounted to examine the area more closely, stretching her leg as her knee protested the long candlemarks in the saddle.

  :The smell is still fresh.: The kyree’s nose wrinkled as she sifted the air. :My cubs were here, and not long since.:

  “Perhaps they stopped for nooning.” She walked the perimeter of the clearing, her eyes following the patterns of crushed grass. Bending, she pushed some branches aside and found several clear hoofprints. “They’re heading almost due east, now. Definitely going toward Ruvan.”

  She swung into the saddle on the other mare, a dark gray, absently rubbing her knee as she settled herself and turned the horses east. The kyree kept her head up, her nostrils flared in the breeze, seeking the scent of her cubs or the men who had taken them. As the afternoon wore on, traces of both became more frequent, and Laeka kept the pace slow, not wanting to either lose the trail or alert the bandits.

  :Stop.: Laeka pulled up the gray and turned to her companion. :They are very close. I smell smoke, too.:

  “They must be making camp for the night. We will wait until they are settled, then move in. We could not take them all, so we must be sure to act when few of them are able to respond. We need only a few moments to get to the cubs and then flee.” The kyree bared her teeth in a silent snarl, clearly unwilling to be so cautious, but Laeka held up her hand. “My abilities with the sword will not stand a true test, and you are still injured. Full revenge will gain us nothing, and could lose us much.”

  She dismounted and flipped the reins of the gray mare over her ears, so they hung down to the ground. The mare stood for a moment, then bent her head and cropped at the rich grass. Leaving her, Laeka moved over to the gelding, gesturing for him to kneel as he had before. This time, the kyree required no aid to jump off the saddlepad, only holding up her left foreleg as she landed. Again, Laeka pulled out some meat for the kyree, who settled to feed while she tended to the horses. She loosened the saddle girths, reaching underneath the tack to test for swelling or heat, running her hands down each of the horses’ legs, checking their hooves. When the horses were as comfortable as she could make them, Laeka retrieved the jar of salve, returning to the kyree and reapplying the ointment. The wounds seemed to have improved after the day of travel, not worsened as she would have gu
essed. Laeka raised her eyebrows but kept her silence. The kyree had Healers of their own, after all.

  :I will scout their camp,: the kyree said. :Even wounded, I can move more quietly and in smaller places than you. And I will know their thoughts.: Laeka nodded, and the kyree stood, shaking herself and stretching, then trotting into the underbrush with only a little stiffness in her stride.

  Dusk was beginning to settle when the kyree slipped back into the clearing, sitting on her haunches in the bracken.

  :They are confident. Only one guard sits to the south edge, looking toward where they will meet their buyer at the main road tomorrow. There is a tent, where most of them sleep. My cubs are in a woven cage to the east, just on the other side of the fire. One bandit sleeps on each side of the cage.: The kyree paused, then bared her teeth in a fiercely lupine grin. :They are mine.:

  “Their horses?”

  :Loosely hobbled in a separate clearing. Unguarded.:

  Laeka smiled. “We’ll take care of them first.”

  Laeka went back to her horses, tightening the saddle girths and fastening the stirrups securely up underneath the saddles. She untied the lead lines from the two mares, flipping their reins back and tying them to the pommels so that they would neither constrict the horses’ movements nor drag and catch in the brush. She pulled the rigged saddlepad off the gelding’s saddle, stowing it in one of the saddlebags that she had filled with meat for the kyree, and mounted. She held out her hand, and the two mares followed the gelding into the trees as surely as if she still held lead lines.

  She kept the pace slow, letting the horses choose their way carefully, guiding them where the grass was still soft and avoiding brush and deadfall that would give away their approach. The kyree moved noiseless through the trees, a shadow in the twilight.

  :Over the crest of this hill. The horses are in the clearing on this side.:

  Laeka dismounted, ground-tying the gelding with his reins as she had earlier, then slipped into the trees behind the kyree, moving toward the bandits’ horses with steps as quiet as she could make them. While the kyree stayed downwind in the trees, she walked into the clearing, speaking to the horses in the soft whistling words she had learned from the Shin’a’in. A few of the animals chuffed nervously, but she soothed them with gentle hands on their necks. Working quickly, always keeping the bodies of the animals between herself and the camp, she used her boot knife to slit the hobbles. When all the horses were untied, she backed out of the clearing.

  Mounting the gelding again, Laeka loosened the sword in its scabbard and looked down at her strange partner.

  “Well,” she whispered, “we’ll never have a better chance, hai?” She shook out the reins and gestured to the two mares, then kneed the gelding into a run, over the crest and straight through the center of the bandit camp. With an eerie howl, the kyree followed her.

  As she passed the lone guard, Laeka lashed out with her sword, catching him on the side of his head and neck. He slumped to the ground, and she tried not to notice the spray of blood that spattered her arm and the side of the horse. Somehow it was very different from the cow’s-blood-filled bags she and her trainers used when sword practicing with the horses that, like the gelding, would be sold to fighters.

  While she moved through the bandit camp from south to north, followed by the galloping mares, the kyree darted off to the side. Laeka heard a cry of alarm cut off with a gurgle and knew that the kyree had dispatched one of the guards by the cubs.

  She kept the horses moving through into the darkening trees on the other side of the camp, then turned to the west, repositioning herself for another pass through the bandits’ midst. Her angle brought her to the clearing where the thieves’ horses had been hobbled, but the startled horses fled at the noise of her charge. She smiled grimly to herself. If there were pursuit, it would be slow. She tightened her knees, and the gelding and mares headed back into the camp.

  This time, two of the bandits, who had been sleeping on the ground near the fire, were standing and searching the trees surrounding the camp, swords drawn; but with most of their armor set to the side, she simply ran them down, using the horses’ bodies and hooves as weapons. On the other side of the fire, the kyree had set her back to the cubs’ cage, defending them with all the fury Laeka had heard in her Mind-voice. She could see a body on each side of the cage, but two more of the bandits approached the kyree, and she would not be able to account for both of them. Laeka guided the gelding to leap over the fire, pulling up behind one of the men with a swing of her sword at his exposed back. His companion glanced over at him, startled, as he fell, and that moment was all the kyree needed.

  Laeka dismounted and ran to the cage. The men her horses had run down were struggling to their feet, one leaning over to aid the second. The noise had also roused the sleepers in the tent, and she heard shouts and thrashing inside the canvas. With surprise no longer on her side, she had no desire to test her rudimentary skills against more foes. Grabbing the cage, she hoisted it onto the copper mare’s saddle, using the lead line to lash it into place. Pulling herself back into the gelding’s saddle, she gestured to the mares. The kyree snarled at the men, but when Laeka and the horses moved out of the clearing, she followed.

  “Are you able to skirt back, to see if they mount a pursuit?” Laeka tried to pitch her voice so only the kyree would hear.

  For answer, the kyree melted into the underbrush.

  Thankful for the near-full moon, Laeka pushed the horses in the darkening forest, putting distance between them, the remaining bandits, and the buyer. Finally, she pulled up in one of the clearings where they had rested late in the afternoon. A small creek ran along one edge, and she led the horses to drink while she cleaned her sword and refilled her waterskins.

  :One stays with the injured. They found several of their horses, but we have a good lead,: the kyree Mindspoke, coming into the clearing behind her. :One is a passable tracker, so I took some time to muddle the trail. If we walk in the stream for a while, that should throw him enough that we can get a little rest tonight.:

  Laeka swallowed her sigh, rubbing her knee a little bit before swinging up into the gray mare’s saddle. “Then we ride, as long as we have the moon to guide us. The creekbed does not seem too full of stones, so the horses should be safe enough if I let them choose their own pace.”

  :I will go ahead a bit, to find a place to spend a night.: The kyree stepped into the water and started to wade downstream, and Laeka nudged the horses to follow. She allowed the horses to pick their way carefully, to find the best footing, and it wasn’t long before the kyree had vanished ahead of them. Try though she might, Laeka could hear no sign of pursuit. Not that I could hear much over our splashing in the stream, anyway, she thought.

  The moon’s light was waning when the kyree returned, pacing them along the farther bank of the creekbed. :I have found a shelter. Follow me.:

  The horses were clearly relieved to be out of the creek; the chestnut gelding almost seemed to shake the water from his hooves as he stepped onto the bank. Not too far into the forest, there was a thickening of undergrowth, but the kyree led her down a twisting path that avoided the worst thorns. They broke through into a tiny clearing, just large enough for the three horses. One edge was marked by a giant treefall, and the lower half of the tree had rotted away to form a natural half-cave.

  Immediately after dismounting, she pulled the cage from the copper mare’s saddle, using her knife to work at the knots that held the cage together until the top came off. Silent until now, the cubs spilled out, swarming over their mother with excited yips and Mindspeech so enthusiastic they even broadcast it to Laeka.

  Laeka smiled as she stripped the horses’ tack, then poured water from her waterskins into the clever folding leather trough she had acquired from the Shin’a’in and held it up to each thirsty muzzle. When they had drunk their fill, she readied them for the night, wiping them down, rubbing salve into cuts and scrapes, lavishly praising them in Shin�
�a’in while the ebullient cubs’ Mindspeech washed over her.

  :Where did you find the lady? Why is it only her? Wasn’t she brave? Will we go back to the cave? Will they come after us? Will you make this into a tale, just like the stories of our famous cousin Warrl? Will you tell us everything so we can tell it to everyone?:

  Most of the Mindspeech was in one bright voice, and Laeka looked to identify the speaker in time to see his mother put her paw over his small body, gently pinning him to the ground.

  :Rris, that is enough. Now is not the time.:

  :There’s always time for stories. Please?:

  Still holding the pup down, the kyree raised her head and gave Laeka a long-suffering look, one so elementally maternal that the woman had to hide her laughter in the copper mare’s shoulder. When she had regained sobriety, she turned back to them.

  “We should be ready to ride with the first light of dawn, little one, so you must rest. As must I, and your mother, and the horses.” The pup stared up at her with fascination.

  :I heard you speaking Shin’a’in. How do you know it? Are you a fighter? How far to your home?:

  Laeka resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I will tell you tomorrow, and I will even tell you how I once met your famous cousin Warrl, but I will only tell you if you sleep now.” If a creature with the face of a wolf could look awed, this one managed. He stared deep into her eyes, as though trying to either read her intent or impose his own, and she folded her arms and stared back at him. I am a mother with a daughter long grown, Laeka thought. You, little one, don’t stand a chance.

  Whether the pup heard her thoughts or not, he curled up with his littermates in blessed silence.

  Laeka took the saddlepad that the kyree had ridden on, unfolding it on the ground to make a sort of bed-roll and lay down, willing herself to wake before dawn. She did not see the measuring gaze that the kyree gave her before she, too, lowered her head to rest.

  Morning seemed to come mere moments after they had made their camp, and Laeka woke to the first birdcalls before dawn. She stretched experimentally, biting back groans as her every muscle protested the treatment it had received in the last day. It took several moments before she felt sufficiently limber to stand and begin to ready herself to travel again.