Finding the Way and Other Tales of Valdemar Page 23

  “We should ride . . . ”

  “No, they’ll have loaded crossbows ready.”

  Now she’d mentioned it, Jors saw the butt of one bow lying close to hand.

  “They’ve shot as many horses as people. Maybe more. Raya and Gevais can distract them, make some noise over that way where they won’t be big white targets ...” She pointed past the opposite side of the hollow. “ . . . just before we move in.”

  The girl threw back her head and laughed, punching the man next to her in the shoulder with the side of her fist when he reached out to pull her braid. Brother, Jors realized, and tried not to wonder about the wave of relief.

  “Jors? Can you do this?”

  He twisted to see Erika staring at him, her expression so neutral she had to be hiding something. “What? Why . . . ?” He twisted a little farther to see both Companions staring at him as well. :Gervais?:

  :The girl. . .:

  :Is as guilty as the rest.: She was. Erika had tracked them to the cattle holding. They’d tracked them together this far. The girl was one of the bandits and the bandits were thieves and murderers. If she hadn’t thrown the torch herself, she allowed it to be thrown, knowing that horses would die and not caring if people did.

  :If you are sure.:

  The girl threw back her head and laughed . . .

  “Jors?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  Erika glanced over at the Companions and shrugged., a quick rise and fall of her shoulders that said, Let’s get on with this as clearly as if she’d spoken aloud. It was Erika’s call. She wasn’t senior but Jors had joined her hunt. Pulling her sword, she nodded toward the fire. “All right. Go.”

  It worked exactly as planned.

  Heads started to turn as Erika rose out of her crouch, then jerked back the other way as the two Companions managed to sound like a charging cavalry unit. Jors got two shots off, confident enough in his ability to shoot past the other Herald. The first arrow pinned one male bandit to the ground through the trailing end of his jacket, and the second went into the shoulder of the second male, causing the throwing knife he held to slide from spasming fingers. The third . . .

  The third . . .

  Her eyes were as dark up close. There was grease on her chin and a perfect line of white teeth showed between slightly parted lips. She had a mole on one cheek, the flat dark kind Jors had heard girls refer to as beauty marks. Fitting. She was beautiful. Not very tall. But strong. Her gloves on the ground by the fire, she wrapped one bare hand around the saddle horn and swung up onto the moving horse, feet not touching the stirrups until she’d been in the saddle for half a dozen strides. She bent low, tucked behind the cantle, further hidden behind a sudden scud of blowing snow. He didn’t have a shot.

  The ring of steel on steel spun him around. Erika was fighting the bandit he’d pinned. The man—visibly older than the bandit girl—had shrugged free of his jacket, but the delay had given Erika time to seize the advantage and she clearly had no intention of giving it back. One blow, two, and he went down . . .

  ... as the bandit with the arrow in his shoulder rose up to his knees, his knife in his other hand, leaning in to slash at Erika’s hamstrings.

  Jors charged forward and kicked the knife clear, then pivoted and kicked the bandit in the head.

  The girl was gone, the pounding of her horses hooves growing fainter.

  “She’ll be nearly to those canyons by now,” Erika growled.

  “If you can handle these two, I’ll go after her.”

  “Those canyons are a maze; you’ll never . . . ”

  “I’m a better tracker than you are, you know I am. And she hasn’t got that much of a lead.”

  Erika wanted to say no. He didn’t know why, but he could see it on her face. Thing was, she wanted to bring these people in more, and he could see that too. Finally, she nodded.

  Gervais ran past and Jors swung up much the way the bandit girl had, bow in his free hand. As they cleared the hollow, he saw the girl reach the line of black and disappear.

  By the time they reached the canyon it was snowing hard enough Jors appreciated the cover the cliffs provided. He’d left his heavy winter leathers behind in Devin. The lighter clothing he wore wasn’t made for extended cold weather, but, hopefully, he wouldn’t be out in it long enough for it to be a problem. :She can’t have gone far.:

  She hadn’t.

  Nor was she trying particularly hard to hide her trail, Jors realized as they headed up a slope steep enough he felt himself sliding back in the saddle. She probably assumed her familiarity with the canyons would help her to get away. Only that familiarity would allow her to move so fast over such treacherous trails.

  If Gervais had been a horse, it might have worked.

  :There!:

  :I see her!:

  When she realized he was close, she put her heels to her horse so that bandit and Herald ended up galloping single file along a narrow ledge. To the left, sheer rock rose over Jors’ head. To the right was a drop of maybe twice his height, down to what looked like a dry riverbed. Dangerous but not deadly.

  The next time he looked, the riverbed had fallen away down a tumbled hill of rock to flatten out a considerable distance below.

  The girl was a brilliant rider, he’d give her that.

  Jors could almost reach out and grab the blowing ends of a dark tail when the horse screamed, hooves striking wildly at the rock as it tipped to the right and fell.

  She twisted around, met Jors’ eyes . . .

  Jors clutched at the saddle as Gervais threw himself back, front feet flailing at the crumbling rock until finally he stood, sides heaving, nose out over a section of the ledge that no longer existed.

  :Heartbrother? Are you all right?:

  Gervais didn’t answer for a moment. :That was too close.:

  :Not arguing. If you back up about fifteen feet, there’s a place that’s wide enough I can dismount.:

  He felt Gervais draw in a deep breath and let it out slowly. One foot at a time, raising it carefully and lowering it more carefully still, Gervais backed up until a cavity in the left wall gave Jors enough room to swing down to the ledge beside him and slide past.

  When he got back to the break, the blowing snow and the angle of the rock kept him from seeing the riverbed until he dropped to his knees.

  The horse was dead.

  The rider . . .

  He couldn’t see her on the riverbed. If she’d been thrown . . .

  There!

  She lay on her back about halfway down the cliff on a triangle of ledge about six feet long and no more than two feet wide at the narrow end. One of her arms dangled; the other was flung out as though she’d been grabbing at handholds as she fell.

  :Is she dead?:

  :I don’t know.: With her head turned away from the cliff, Jors couldn’t see her face.

  Then her outstretched arm moved. Pale fingers flexed.

  Jors crawled a little farther forward. :I can get to her. The rock’s crumbled all the way to the ledge.: But when he went to move again, a hoof caught the edge of his breeches, holding him in place. He twisted to stare up at Gervais. :What? I can’t leave her there to die!:

  :Raya says Herald Erika cannot leave the bandit men without shelter. Particularly not the one who is injured. She must get them to the cattleholding before she can return. She is . . . : He paused and his ears flicked forward. :She is not happy.:

  Jors had no idea if it was Raya or Erika who was unhappy, nor did it particularly matter. Heralds made hard choices. It was part of the job. The good new was, if Gervais could still reach Raya, they hadn’t gone far.

  :Gervais, you need to catch up to Erika. Have her tie the bandit horses to your saddle so Raya can make a run for the cattleholding while you follow at the speed of the horses. Erika needs to grab a stretcher if they have one, boards if they don’t, so we can secure . . . : He didn’t know the bandit girl’s name so he gestured down the cliff instead. : . . . her in suc
h a way we can lift her out without injuring her further. Have Erika send out a rider to meet you and take the horses,: he continued hurriedly, feeling Gervais readying a protest, :so that you can join her as she heads back here.:

  Reluctantly, Gervais lifted his foot. :I will go after you reach the ledge safely. If the girl is not badly injured, you and I will pull her out.:

  Jors took another look over the edge. :That’s not likely.:

  :And yet, it is possible. Tie the rope to my saddle.:

  :I can’t risk pulling you over with me if I fall.:

  Gervais snorted. :I know exactly how heavy you are, Chosen. I can hold you.:

  They lowered Jors’ gear first, just in case. Then, gloves tucked into his belt, as little weight on the doubled rope as possible, Jors started picking his way carefully down the path of broken rock. Most of the loose stone had been swept clear when the bandit girl went over, but the route was treacherous enough still that more than once only the rope kept him from following her horse to the riverbed. The last few feet to the ledge became a barely controlled fall.

  A little surprised he’d made it, uninjured but for a bleeding scrape on his cheek, Jors knelt beside the bandit girl.

  Her heart was beating.

  Legs and arms were unbroken.

  Bubbles of blood stained her lips and teeth with every labored breath.

  :Broken ribs. Probably a punctured lung. We can’t move her without a board.: He jerked the rope and ducked the loops as it slithered around the saddle horn and fell. :Go.:

  :Be careful.:

  :It’s okay.: Jors forced a smile he wasn’t wearing onto his mental voice. :I think I can take her.:

  :That is not ... : He felt Gervais sigh. :I will be back as quickly as I can. Herald Erika says you must stay warm.:

  Staying warm would be the trick. Between the blowing snow and the setting sun, Jors could barely see Gervais up on the ledge, a white blur moving backward along the narrow path more quickly than looked safe.

  He’d left a lot of his gear in Devin with his leathers and the mule—the cattleholdings were barely a day apart and he’d intended to spend a day in each and end up back in Devin—but heading out with Erika, he’d packed against sleeping rough. A sheepskin for insulation against frozen ground and two felted wool blankets to keep out the cold.

  First, he looped the rope half a dozen times and carefully worked it under the bandit girl’s body, tucking her one arm up to her side, securing it against her ribs, then threading the end of the rope through the loops and pulling it snug. He had to slide her onto the sheepskin or she’d freeze, but he wanted her ribs to shift as little as possible while he did it.

  Tenting one blanket around them almost sent him over the edge when he leaned out to anchor it with arrows jammed into cracks in the rock face. In spite of the best efforts of the wind to blow everything off the ledge, he finally had her safely inside a triangle of felt, his pack keeping the blanket up off their faces, one corner flipped back just enough to keep the air fresh and allow a beam of weak gray light. He pushed the second blanket between his body and the cliff, then wrapped it around them both. The bandit girl wasn’t exactly in his arms, but Jors couldn’t have fit a horsehair between them given the width of the ledge.

  “I knew you’d come for me.” Her voice was weak, thready, but their faces were barely a handspan apart. She licked at the blood on her lips and nearly smiled. “I’m your prisoner, then.”

  Jors wanted to say no, knew the answer was yes, and said instead, “Are you in much pain?”

  “My heart hurts. And if yours does not, then you lie in spite of your pretty clothes.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Her eyes met his. “I’ve thought of nothing but you since I first saw you.”

  He shrugged as much as their position allowed. “I’m a Herald and you are . . . ”

  “Yes.” When she laughed, she choked a little and he slid his arm behind her head to help her breathe. “I am paid for my wicked ways,” she said at last. “But I wonder what you’ve done, Herald, that the Goddess treats you so badly.”

  “She sent me to save you.”

  “From this?”

  “From this as well.”

  “As well?” Dark brows rose. “You’re late, Herald. Years and a great deal of wickedness late.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  When she sighed a trickle of blood ran down to mat in her hair, a dark line against the curve of her cheek. Jors caught it on his thumb. “I wasn’t.”

  “You weren’t what?”

  “Sorry. Not for anything I’ve done. It was ...” She paused long enough Jors thought she might have drifted into unconsciousness again. Then she swallowed and continued. “ . . . an exciting life. Just after the ledge drops down to the riverbank, there’s a cleft.”

  It took him a moment to follow the change.

  “It opens into a box canyon,” she continued slowly. “We have a base there. My cousins . . . You could take me to them.”

  He actually considered it. Discarded it. “No. I couldn’t.”

  “No, you couldn’t. You’ll choose your pretty clothes over me.”

  Jors wiped the blood away again. “I couldn’t move you safely the rest of the way down the cliff, and I have no way to get you to the cleft or into the canyon or to your cousins without making your injuries worse.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. “Ah,” she said at last. “So you don’t have to choose your pretty clothes over me.”

  “It’s not the clothes . . . ”

  Her free arm rose and punched him weakly in the arm. “Idiot. I know.”

  She sounded so exasperated with him that he laughed and bent his head to touch his face to her hair, breathing in her scent. “You said you weren’t sorry,” he whispered against her hair.

  “What?”

  “Weren’t.”

  She made a soft chuff of sound that might have been a laugh. “You caught that? I may be a little sorry now.” Her fingers closed loosely around his wrist. “Tell me about you. Tell me all the things I don’t have time . . . to find out.”

  “You should rest.”

  “I can rest and listen. I don’t want ...” Her fingers tightened. “I want to be with you for as long we have.”

  “We’ll have . . . ”

  “Herald!”

  “Jors.”

  “Jors.” She said his name like she was telling him something she’d always known. “Please. Tell me . . . ”

  So he talked. Told her about growing up in the forest. About the day he’d looked into sapphire eyes and known the forest was no longer his life. About getting his Whites. About the Demon’s Den. About the charcoal burner’s child. He talked and he looked into her eyes and he cataloged every expression, storing them safely away.

  Finally, when it had gotten so dark he could barely see her, she lifted her hand to his cheek and he paused.

  “Mirgayne,” she said.

  “What . . .?”

  “My name, you idiot.” He could hear the smile he couldn’t see. “You never asked.” Her fingertips were cold against his skin. “Seems I’ll be punished for my wicked ways.” When he started to speak, she moved her fingers across his mouth. “Will you wait for me?”

  He swallowed, nodded, and said softly. “I’ll wait.”

  “Good.” Her fingers slipped down to lie on her chest.

  :Chosen?:

  “A little sorry,” she said, and closed her eyes.

  It was very, very dark on the ledge.

  :Heartbrother!:

  Jors felt almost beside himself as he climbed up off the ledge, as he helped Erika bring Mirgayne’s body up, as they rode back to the cattleholding. He told the other Herald about the box canyon and the bandits’ base and had nothing else to say. He knew Erika watched him all the long way back but she let him ride in silence. Gervais was a constant presence in his mind; Jors kept his eyes locked on the gleam of white that was his Companion’s head so he c
ouldn’t see the darkness all around.

  They laid the body out in a corner of one of the barns.

  “This is the beginning of the end for them,” Erika said quietly. “Even if Truth Spelling the others gives us little else, we can take their base in the canyon. It’ll be a wedge driven in to weaken them enough we can clear them off the road. It’ll save a lot of lives.”

  Jors pulled Mirgayn’s braid out from under her back, laid it gently along her arm, then pulled the blanket up over her face. When he stood, Erika closed a hand over his shoulder.

  “Are you all right? When something like . . . like this happens . . . ”

  No one had said the words life-bond. No one ever would.

  Jors shook his head, shook himself out from under Erika’s hold, and moved blindly out of the barn until his hands touched familiar warmth and his arms wrapped around a familiar neck.

  :Chosen?:

  “My heart hurts,” he said.

  And he wept.

  A Bard by Any Other Name

  Fiona Patton

  Oh! Roses sweet upon this wall,

  Where p’haps your rapturous gaze might fall,

  And to my pining breast give cause,

  to live for love’s first kiss to pause.

  A crisp autumn breeze whispered along the capital’s quiet thoroughfares as Sergeant Hektor Dann of the Haven City Watch read the words splashed across the mill wall in as neutral a tone as possible. Nevertheless, the mill owner who’d reported the “vandalism” to the Iron Street Watchhouse first thing that morning softened his customary scowl just long enough to squint up at the brightly painted green letters with an expectant expression.

  “Pause fer what?” he demanded.

  Hektor just shrugged. “I dunno, sir. A longer kiss, maybe?”

  “Humph. Maybe.” The mill owner crossed his arms over his chest. “This be, what, the fifth time The Poet’s struck in as many days?” he asked, content now to discuss the situation once he’d had his curiosity about the poem’s meaning satisfied.

  Hektor nodded with a resigned expression. There was no point in trying to pretend that the rash of verses appearing on walls all over Haven in the last week wasn’t the talk in every shop, tavern, and private parlor across Valdemar’s capital city. The citizens had dubbed the mysterious author “The Poet,” and there was wild speculation about his identity and purpose. Less wild was the speculation on how long it would take the city’s watchmen to find him. Hektor’s youngest brother, eleven-year-old Padreic, himself a Runner with the Iron Street Watch, and a depository of all news and gossip since being promoted two months ago, had reported that local betting stood at three to one against them finding him at all.