Under the Vale and Other Tales of Valdemar Read online

  Maybe I could find something in the supply wagon.

  It took a lot of patience to just sit there, getting thirstier and thirstier, and it was worse when we finally stopped for the night. But finally the voices at the fire whose glow I could see through the canvas side of the tent ebbed into silence. I got out, and to make a long story short, I did find a bucket I didn’t think anyone would miss, since it was buried in the back of the supply wagon. That was when I realized that all they did was unhitch the teams and picket them; they left the wagons in the road all night. I suppose it didn’t matter; it wasn’t as if anyone was going to run into them in the dark.

  Days went by that way, which I whiled away by getting into the wagon one-off from the front and listening to the drovers talk. I was going to need a lot of practice in understanding Valdemaran, of which I had barely a grasp. I did get better over time, and I was anticipating getting out in a larger town—until I managed to puzzle out from something that they were saying that they were about to head deep into the wilderness.

  Wilderness was not where I wanted to go. Oh, no. I don’t do well in wilderness. I’m not a wilderness sort of fellow. That was when I figured it was time for me to steal whatever I was going to need for (what I thought would be) a day or two until I found a farm and a way on to civilization. So once the drovers settled down for the night and snores told me that a tempest wouldn’t wake them, I did just that. I loaded my pack with those ration bars, grabbed a wineskin off the back of the supply wagon, plus a tinderbox, and followed the road until it was dawn. Then I got off the road and hid for a while, just in case they actually realized something was missing and backtracked. By midmorning, though, I figured I was safe and got back onto the road.

  I didn’t want to stay on it for too long, though, because it would only take me farther into trouble. So the first time I saw another road—this one plain dirt, with some grass growing on it, and no groove—I took it. Roads always go somewhere, right? I figured this one would lead me to a farm or, better still, a village.

  Only . . . it didn’t.

  By midafternoon, I knew I was going to have to sleep outdoors, and I knew enough to know I needed to find some water too. So I did . . . and I did . . . I’ve mentioned I’m not a wilderness sort of fellow, right? It was the worst night of my life. I mean, the worst. I tried making a sort of bed out of leaves, only the leaves were home to some sort of ants, and they got into my clothing and bit the hell out of me. So I gave up and tried to sleep on bare dirt, but that sucked all the heat out of my body, and I spent most of the night shivering. The fire I made smoked, and I kept hearing things out in the woods that sounded big. Really big. Bears? Wolves? Whatever it was kept prowling around and around my campsite. And I did tell you I’m not a fighting sort of fellow, right?

  I finally did get to sleep around about dawn. I’m not sure what exactly woke me up, but when I did wake up, all at once, I could hardly believe my luck. Because standing right in front of me, on the other side of my fire, was a fantastic-looking white horse.

  Now there was my way out of here! Provided I could catch it. I knew how to ride bareback; it’s one of those things that’s useful to know in case your lady wants to get a romantic ride along a beach or a river and maybe swim with the horses. You don’t want a saddle on them if you do that--it gets wet, and you make the grooms angry at you when you bring the horses back because they are the ones that have to make sure everything dries out right.

  I was still fully dressed, of course, so I got up slowly and carefully and felt in my pack for my silk rope. Yes, silk rope. It’s something I have with me in case the lady—never mind. Let’s just say it comes in useful when ladies want something to . . . ah . . . keep me from going anywhere. It fell right into my hand. I could hardly believe my luck.

  The horse stared at me. I made soothing sounds at it and straightened up, rope held behind my back. It didn’t move. I walked toward it, slowly and casually. Behind my back, I got the rope into a loop to throw around its neck. The closer I could get to it, the better.

  It let me just walk up to it and drop the loop around its neck.

  And that was when it suddenly snaked out its neck, grabbed the back of my tunic in strong, white teeth, and shook me like a dog shakes a rag.

  :What the hell do you think you’re doing?: said a voice in my head.

  Something else came crunching through the underbrush, and as the horse dropped me at its feet and, with a contemptuous toss of its head, shook off the rope, another big white horse emerged from between two bushes.

  I looked wildly around for the owner of the voice.

  :He’s all we’ve got, Destin,: said another voice. :We missed the wagon train, we can’t get her to them, and they can’t backtrack. He’ll have to do. I just wanted to make sure he knew we were nothing to fool about with.:

  The new horse snorted with contempt and stamped a foot. :He looks about as useful as teats on a boar.:

  I suddenly realized that there was no one else around but the two horses, I knew I wasn’t asleep or hallucinating, so the voices had to be coming—from them—

  :Of course the voices are coming from us, you moron,: said the second voice, as the second horse put his face down to mine and let those blue eyes burn contempt at me. :We’re Companions, and unfortunately we don’t have hands, but you do, so you’re going to help us.:

  “I’m—wait, what now?” I was beginning to think I’d fallen and hit my head, that I’d been poisoned by something that had bitten me in the night or had come down with a fever, and I was hallucinating. I vaguely recalled something about white horses in Valdemar, but I hadn’t paid much attention at the time. I never expected to be here, after all. It didn’t make any sense to come here, where I didn’t know the language or the laws, or, well, anything else. What was it about white horses?

  :You. Up. On your feet. You’re coming with us.: That was the second voice in my head, the one belonging to the horse whose face was right in mine. :What we’re doing is Mindspeaking. We’re Companions. We are the equivalent of Constables. Or City Guards, except we can enforce law in the entire country.:

  All I could do was blink. “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Who’d obey a horse?”

  One huge silver hoof stamped the earth right between my knees. The threat was, well, obvious. : You will, if you know what’s good for you,: the horse said ominously . :Now get your pack and get on one of us. You’re coming with us.:

  Several thoughts flitted through my mind, but—look, I was in the middle of nowhere, with limited food, limited water, and no idea what to do with myself out here. It just did not make sense to argue with the creature. Hopefully, wherever they were taking me was going to at least have shelter. With more luck it would have a nice lady I could wrap around my finger and convince her to get me away from these . . . things. Companions. Whatever those were.

  So I did what I was told. At first I had a sort of death grip on the thing’s mane, but within a few paces I realized that not only was I in no danger of falling off, this was probably the best ride I’d ever had in my life. I’d have really enjoyed it, except, of course, that I was being carried off into the woods by a couple of possibly-demonic creatures disguised as horses that could talk in my head. Tends to make a man a little nervous.

  I was hoping at least they’d take me toward something like civilization. But no. They left the road for a trail. They left the trail for a path. They left the path for something that might have been a thready little track. Wherever we were headed, it was obviously not civilization.

  “Uh—” I said, finally, “I should point out that I’m a city sort of fellow.”

  : You’ve got two working arms, two working legs, and something akin to a brain. Not much of one, but we don’t need much of one.: That was the second voice, which was coming from the thing that I wasn’t riding.

  Great. Just great. By implication, that meant they were heading even deeper into the wilderness.

  : Yes, we are heading even
deeper into the wilderness,: the voice said, somehow conveying both sarcasm and a great deal of glee at my discomfort. : There are bears.:

  I knew there would be bears! The thought flitted through my mind again that I could jump off . . . but I couldn’t outrun these beasts, and the thick . . . stuff . . . on either side of this pitiful excuse for a trail was going to trip me up as much as it would impede them. Assuming it did, they had tough horsehide, not tender human skin.

  And that was when they shouldered through some branches that slapped me in the face (of course), and we came out into a clearing. A lovely little clearing, a meadow, really, with a pond, and a little cottage, and a well—

  A cottage! I brightened immediately. At least I wouldn’t be sleeping with ants tonight.

  Even as I thought that, the second beast grabbed me by the belt and unceremoniously pulled me off the first one. I yelled, and something white stirred in the long grass next to the cottage door.

  The beast didn’t let me go; gods, it was strong. It carried me by the belt over to whatever was there and then dumped me, and I could see that the “something” was a rather pretty girl in white. She was younger than my usual sort, probably younger than me, red-haired and green-eyed, round-faced without looking dollish, and clearly in a lot of pain.

  I’m no Healer, but her left leg and arm did not look at all right. She looked up at me and grimaced.

  :He’s the best we could do, Millissa,: said the first horse, apologetically. :I know you need a Healer, but there isn’t one close, and if you don’t get things straightened up soon—:

  “I know,” she said out loud. “Believe me, I know.” She looked as hard at me as she could, through the pain. “All right, fancy-man. I’m Herald Millissa.”

  “The ladies all call me—” I stopped myself. “My name’s Donnat Stains. Call me Don.”

  “All right, Don. What do you know about dislocations and bone setting?”

  “Nothing,” I said, honestly. “How bad is this?”

  “Things haven’t seized up yet, so—“ She bit her lip. “Just do what they show you. I think we can manage.”

  What they—

  A very clear image came into my mind. First, I needed to deal with her leg. The horses were pretty certain it was broken but that it was a clean break. Working very, very slowly, I straightened the leg under their direction, pulling on it to align the broken bone, feeling it to make sure it was aligned. That poor girl was as white as her clothing, and her hair was soaked with sweat before I was done, but she never once cried out.

  The horses showed me how to bind up the leg to keep the bone in place. Then it was time to deal with her shoulder. They had me go inside the cottage and wrestle out a table. I put her on the table with her arm dangling over the edge, then held her wrist in one hand and slowly began pulling her arm downward, increasing the pull a little at a time. I gently rocked her arm at the wrist, while keeping her shoulder pushed against the table. And slowly, very slowly, I felt the shoulder slip back into the socket, until at last she gave a little cry, the first yet, that was full of pained relief, if there can be such a thing.

  After that, following the horses’ directions on how to tie up her arm and shoulder was easy.

  They didn’t have to tell me what to do next, it was pretty obvious. There were packs and a saddle lying on the ground, and I figured, smart as these things were, each of them had probably stripped the other before going for help. There was a bedroll right on top; I may be a city sort of fellow, but I know how to make up a bed, and before too long I had her in the cottage, in a bed made up on one of the bedboxes there. That was when she passed out. Not that I blamed her. The pain must have been incredible. Frankly, I’ve seen strong men who endured less pain with more complaining. I certainly had.

  Now . . . at this point I figured that I was done. This was a stout little cottage, stone walls and floor, a real fireplace, strong shutters on the windows, which I suspected the evil beasts could close, a strong wooden roof with slate tiles, a door as thick as my thumb. She was fine for now, one of these things could go off for some help while the other stood guard. In fact, I was going to volunteer to ride off on the not-quite-as-mean one to do just that, provided that they left me there (which I presumed would be civilization), when the mean one planted himself across the doorway.

  : You are not going anywhere. Neither are we.:

  Now, I am considered an easy sort of fellow. But I was just about ready to take an ax to this thing’s he—

  :Do it, and you’re paste, fancy-man.: The beast reared slightly, and I backed away from the door so fast I tripped over my own feet. :We were on our way to meet something, which is still coming this way. We have to be here for it, and someone human has to be here with two good legs and two good arms. Besides that, it’s a good seven days—even as fast as we can go—between us and help. And we don’t have hands. You tell me how we’re to feed her, get her drink, and all the rest of it.:

  All right, put that way, I could see his point. The girl might or might not get fevered. She certainly wouldn’t be able to take care of herself . . .

  “So is one of you going to go?” I asked. “Seriously here, I’m . . .” I gulped. “My skills are not exactly that of even a Healer apprentice.”

  The thing shook its head. :I wasn’t joking about the bears. Or other things. Heralds like Millissa have enemies, and we’re not entirely certain that the fall we took was an accident. With three of us, you can take the day watch, and Ardred and I can take the night with one of us at the door and one out patrolling the perimeter. With only two, it’s more difficult, since you aren’t the fighting type.:

  Well, there was that; the best I could do would be to yell a warning.

  :Once what we are waiting for is here, Millissa will be healed enough to ride, and we can all get out of here. Or else the help we’ve already asked for will be here.:

  Wait—what?

  “How did—”

  :Same way we talk in your head. Only at a distance. It takes another of us, or some human who is very strong in this power.:

  Oh. Well, if we were seven days from the first vestiges of civilization, then we were probably farther than that from whatever this help was. I didn’t imagine that these white monsters were all that thick on the ground, even here.

  :Exactly.:

  I gritted my teeth for a moment. I was beginning to resent their ability to read my thoughts.

  “What’s a Herald?” I asked, finally.

  The beast snorted, tossed his head, and walked off. Great.

  The first voice sort of—murmured at me. :Ah, I’m Ardred. Sorry about Destin. He’s touchy, and right now, he’s feeling very angry at himself for what happened to Millissa. I’ll be happy to answer your questions.:

  The horse wasn’t in sight. I sighed. This was going to take a lot of getting used to. And meanwhile, well . . . the girl was going to need food and drink eventually, and I needed a bed, and although there is a style I am accustomed to, I’m not altogether incapable of some basic tasks, provided that I’ve not been dropped nearly naked into the middle of a howling wilderness. “Fine,” I said aloud, going out to fetch the packs, mine included. “Let’s start with, ‘What’s a Herald?’ ”

  The first thing that Millissa did when she woke up was try to knock out my brains with a dish. I could see why she and Destin were paired.

  By this time there was a small fire in the cottage—excuse me, “Waystation”—fireplace, and there was food of a sort cooking over it. That was thanks to Ardred, who talked me through how to make it. My knowledge does not include cooking. There was tea brewing—that, I knew how to make myself. I had a bed in another of the boxes—Ardred had been kind enough to show me where there was some bracken that wasn’t home to insects, and I did have a cloak to lay over it. All the gear was in the Waystation. I knew, more or less, what a Herald was and what a Companion was. It didn’t entirely make sense, as in, I wasn’t at all sure why anyone would trust the dealing out of law
s to creatures as ill-tempered as Destin was, much less something that looked like a horse for the gods’ sake, but, well, not my kingdom.

  So I had put down a dish on the side of the girl’s bed as I leaned over to check on her, and the next thing I knew, she’d grabbed it with her good hand and broken it over my head. Fortunately it was a very cheap dish, so it broke easily and without braining me, but I ended up on my behind on the floor, staring at her.

  “Ow,” I said, very much aggrieved. “What did you do that for?” I completely forgot where I was and spoke Hardornen.

  She stared back at me, wild-eyed, as if she were going to find something else to hit me with. Then, as if someone had inserted a different person into her body, her expression changed, and she flushed and winced a little. “Ah . . . oh. Sorry,” she said in passable Hardornen. “I forgot where I was and I thought you were attacking me.”

  “I was going to feed you,” I pointed out, crossly, rubbing my head. “We’re now short a dish, thank you.”

  “There’re metal ones in my pack,” she retorted.

  “As if I were going to go rummaging through your pack,” I scoffed. “I have standards, you know.”

  “Which you refuse to rise above,” she murmured, then said, louder, “Well, go ahead, you have my permission. It’s the one with the frying pan handle sticking out of it.”

  Lovely. She had a frying pan. Which she would doubtless use to brain me if she got the chance. I made a note to keep it well out of her reach. But I did go rummage and got out the dishes she mentioned. I didn’t give her the . . . well whatever the mess it was I had cooked . . . in them though. I’d use the metal ones, she could use the pottery. One less thing for me to worry about.