Verati opened one sapphire eye.
:She doesn’t think you’re funny,: Gervis translated helpfully.
At Herald’s Hill, Tamis stirred three spoonfuls of honey into his breakfast tea and told a full common room the story of the merchant they’d met at Dog Inn. Later, while loading the mules, Jors saw a carter in the inn yard checking his axles.
:Oh, look, the moral of the story.:
:Chosen, that’s ...: The pause continued long enough that Jors turned to look. Gervis tossed his head, looking a little sheepish. :Okay, it’s actually pretty funny.:
At Crescent Lake, Tamis told the story of a farmer he’d met back when he’d been riding Circuit and the girl he’d spent twelve years wooing.
:He remembers every detail about that but he can’t remember my name?:
:Or that he told us about Shorna falling off her horse?:
:What does Verati talk about while we’re walking?: Jors wondered, setting the pack on Willow’s pad.
:How the roads were straighter and carrots were sweeter when she was young.:
:And I bet mules were better behaved,: Jors muttered, dodging a flailing hoof.
On their own, even with a mule, Jors figured he and Gervis could have made Crescent Lake to Hartsvale in one long day. Tamis and Verati didn’t do long days.
When it started to rain about mid-afternoon. Jors pulled an oilskin cloak out of Tamis’ bag, tucked it around him, and gave some serious thought to riding all night. He wanted to get Tamis out of the damp as soon as possible.
:Do you think Verati could do it?:
:I think she would try for her Herald’s sake, but she is also very old. We’ve been traveling for some time, and she is more tired than she will admit to.:
:All right, then, I’ll build a lean-to.: He repeated his plans out loud as he dismounted.
“You’re fussing.” Tamis’s protest would have held more heat had he not begun to cough.
“Gervis hates getting wet.” Which had the added benefit of being the truth. His Companion had a cat’s opinion of water.
“You’re handy with an axe.”
“My family are foresters.”
“My family are foresters,” Tamis repeated, rubbing a gleaming drop of mucus off the end of his nose. “What kind of a story is that?”
“A very short one,” Jors grunted as he drove the first of the stakes into the ground.
No children ran out to greet them as they entered the north end of the village late the next day.
Gervis lifted his head. :I smell smoke.:
:So do I.:
Verati stopped so suddenly Willow trotted up her lead rope and smacked into a gleaming white haunch. Tamis, wrapped in every piece of dry clothing he had remaining, looking more like a pile of white laundry than a person, pulled his cane from the saddle ties. “Something’s wrong.”
Then a dog started barking and, between one heartbeat and the next, men and women spilled out of the houses, children watching wide-eyed from windows and doors.
“Heralds! Thank the Lady you’ve come, we’ve had ...” The heavyset woman out in front rocked to a halt and frowned. “Uncle Tamis?”
“Who were you expect ...” The querulous question turned into coughing, his cane tumbling to the ground as he clutched at the saddle horn with both hands.
“What happened here?” Jors snapped, pitching his voice to carry over the coughing and the babble of voices it provoked.
“Quiet!” The heavyset woman turned just far enough to see that she was obeyed, then locked her attention on Jors. “Raiders,” she growled. “They hit around noon, when most were out in the fields and no one much here to stand up to them. Eight or nine of them rode in and tossed a torch onto Kervin’s roof. Same group as has been hitting the farms—ride in and set a fire, grab a lamb here or a chicken there, and ride out thinking no one can touch them. But Bardi—that’s Merilyn and Conner’s youngest girl ...”
A man and a woman, neither of them young, pushed forward through the crowd and stared up at him with grieving eyes.
“... well, she’s a dab shot, and she put an arrow into three of them. Knocked one out of the saddle, hit one in the meaty part of the thigh, and the third up in the shoulder. Well, they didn’t like that, did they? And the one on the ground, I’m guessing he was a brother or something close to him they called their leader because when they saw he was down, and folk were starting to run in, they grabbed her.” Thick fingers closed around a handful of air. “Grabbed her and rode off.”
So much for peaceful and quiet. Jors cursed himself for thinking it ever had to end. “The raider Bardi shot, do the others think he’s dead?”
“No, he was thrashing and yelling.”
“So they’ve probably taken her to trade. Her for him.”
“Then why not do it? Then and there?”
“You said she injured two of them? It’s hard to drive a bargain when you’re in danger of bleeding to death. They’ve ridden just far enough to tend their wounds, and they’ll be back.” He glanced west, at the sun sitting fat and orange just above the horizon. “Tomorrow.”
“So we wait?” A voice from the back of the crowd.
“No!” Tamis answered before Jors could.
“No,” Jors agreed, cutting him off. There was no need for more detail than that. And everyone knew it. Twisting around, he untied the lead line and began tossing unnecessary gear to the ground. “Which way?”
“East. We tried to follow, but they’re on hill ponies, tough and fast, and we lost the trail in the rock. Nearly lost two of our own as well.” Her voice grew defensive. No one wanted the Herald to think they’d given up too soon. “The hills are treacherous if you don’t know them. They do.”
“We can handle the hills.” He checked that his quiver was full. “I’ll find them.”
“We’ll find them,” Tamis protested, struggling to free himself from his wrappings, Verati shifting her weight to keep him from falling. “When I was a boy, I all but lived in those hills. I know their stories!”
:Chosen . . .:
:I know.:
But fate intervened before Jors had to speak as another coughing fit nearly pitched the old Herald out of the saddle. Would have pitched him out of the saddle had the heavyset woman not moved close enough to support his weight.
“Take care of him,” Jors told her. He swept his gaze over the gathered villagers, who needed hope as much as anything. “I’ll mark the trail for those who follow.”
Then Gervis spun on one rear hoof and headed east.
Easy enough, even as the daylight faded, to see where a group of mounted men left the track, following a deer trail into the trees.
:What are you going to do when we catch up?: Gervis asked, barely slowing.
:Depends on what we find.:
:If that woman is right, there’s at least eight of them.:
:But two of them are wounded.: Bending low in the saddle, he tried not to think of what the others might be doing.
:Verati isn’t happy.:
:We were sent with them to keep them safe. Safe does not include tracking armed raiders through hill country at night. I know her heart is willing, but ...: Underbrush pulled at his boots. Gervis was larger than the horses they followed and was breaking a path a blind man could see. :We’ll bring them a story with a happy ending. That’ll have to do.:
When they emerged into one of the long ridges of rock that ribbed through the hills, the sky was a deep sapphire blue, and long, dark shadows hid the trail. Jors dismounted and found a scar where a hoof had scraped lichen off rock. :Southeast:
He nearly missed the point where they left the rock to go east again, but Gervis caught the scent of fresh blood, and a spattering not yet entirely dry showed the way.
:I smell smoke.:
:They must have lit a fire. They’ve made camp, then, and we’re close.:
The camp, when they found it, looked almost familiar. Jors checked his mental maps. Unless they’d traveled a lot farthe
r from the village than he thought, they were still some distance from the border, but there was no mistaking the pattern of fire and picket line and the way the weapons had been set, butts to the ground, points crossed.
:They’re army, or ex-army. Hardorn lancers.: Bow in hand, he moved closer carefully. :I’m betting some bright officer came up with a way to use their troublemakers to their advantage. It’s why they took the girl. Why they’ll want their man back so badly. I bet their first order was not to get caught.:
:I don’t see the girl.:
:Neither do I. We have to get closer.:
He lifted a foot and set it down again as a rough voice growled, “I may miss you in this light, but I’ll not miss the big white horse. You keep him calm and you do what I say, and you might just survive this.”
:Gervis?:
:Crossbow bolt up in under my jaw. Point touching skin.:
Companions were fast and moved in ways a man seeing a horse wouldn’t expect. But were they faster than a finger tightening around a crossbow trigger? Jors couldn’t risk that.
:How did he move in so close?:
:I don’t think he moved in, I think we stopped right beside him.:
Not so much ex-army that they didn’t have a man on watch.
“Let me kill him, Adric.”
“He’s a Herald, you idiot.” Torso bare but for streaks of blood and a field dressing on his shoulder, Adric scowled down at Jors, who struggled up onto his knees. With Gervis’ life in the balance, he’d walked into the camp and been slammed to the ground with the butt of a lance. The point of that lance was now centered in his chest. “Kill one and they all come down on you.”
“Then we tie him and leave him here,” the first man grunted. “Take the horse with us, probably get a pretty penny for it.”
:Chosen!:
:I’m okay.: More or less. :You?:
:He hasn’t moved the bow away.:
They might not understand what a Companion was, but they’d dealt with Valdemar enough to know Jors wouldn’t provoke the shot.
“We’re not,” Aldric growled, “going anywhere without Lorne.”
“And that’s why we have the girl.”
Eyes adjusted to the firelight, Jors could see her now, sitting on the ground with her knees drawn up, gaze locked on his face. Fifteen maybe, no older, on that cusp between girl and woman. She looked frightened but determined. A boy, not much older, stood behind her, arms crossed, and a man with his breeches cut away and a bloody dressing on his thigh—the man who’d spoken—reclined beside her.
“Not the only reason, mind you,” he added reaching over and lightly smacking her cheek.
Bardi jerked away from his touch, provoking a shove from the boy behind her, but as near as Jors could tell, it hadn’t yet progressed beyond touching and threat. They’d got there in time and had provided, if nothing else, a distraction. Now, they just had to get away.
He’d seen six of the eight men—Adric, obviously their leader, the one who spoke first, the one with the lance, two by Bardi, the one with the crossbow on Gervis. The other two had to be behind him, but the point of the lance kept him from turning to make sure.
“You know, I’ve heard stories about Heralds. This one ... “A boot impacted with his thigh without much force, making the point that Jors was there to be kicked. “... isn’t much.”
Seven.
“He tracked us over rock in the dark,” Adric snorted. “What more do you want?”
“He got caught.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t sneak for shit wearing all that white. Get the rope, Herin, and tie him. We’ll leave him here when we move out,” Adric added as the kicking man moved toward the piles of gear, “but we’ll kill the horse. Drive it off a cliff. Everyone knows who the damned things belong to, and we don’t need that kind of trouble.”
“If you don’t need trouble ...” Jors forced himself to look in control regardless of position or lances or crossbows. “... then you should pack up and go now. You don’t think I came out here alone, do you?” He added as Adric’s brows pulled in. “You don’t think Valdemar is going to ignore Hardorn violating the border, do you?”
“I’ll give him violating,” the man with the thigh injury snarled, reaching for Bardi.
“Leave her be!” Adric snapped. “I want to hear this. Go on.”
Jors met his gaze and held it. “We were already on our way out to deal with you. When you took the girl, you just hastened the inevitable. Lorne is in custody, all you can do now is run for the border.” He was giving them an out. If they thought they were cornered ...
“All I see is you,” Adric told him.
“I was out front, tracking. I’ve marked the trail for the Heralds following behind me.”
He could hear men shifting position nervously, but he kept his eyes on Adric’s face. He thought for a moment he’d done it; then Adric shook his head.
“I think you’re telling me a story.”
“He isn’t!” Bardi tried to stand but the wounded raider dragged her back to the ground. “We sent for the Heralds after you burned down Kirin’s barn!”
:Smart girl.:
:We will free her, Chosen.:
Adric stared at her for a long moment. “How many?”
“Heralds?” She rolled her eyes. “How should I know? I was with you when they arrived!”
:Brave girl.:
:We will free her.:
“Two lies,” Adric growled, “do not make a story true.” He turned, firelight painting orange streaks on his torso. “Herin, the rope!”
“Got it.” Herin straightened, coil of rope on one shoulder, started back and paused, head cocked toward the surrounding woods. “There’s something out there!”
“Animal.”
“Something big.”
“Big animal,” Adric scoffed. “Now get your thumb out of your ass and get that rope over ...”
The sound of a large animal moving through thick brush was unmistakable.
:No one could have followed that quickly from the village.:
:Verati says Tamis says to be ready.:
:What?: That was all the protest he had time for as Verati charged out from between the trees, screaming a challenge as she galloped through the camp. Gone was the stout old lady who fell asleep being brushed, replaced by a gleaming white dervish ridden by a rider in white whirling a sword above his head.
A man screamed on the side of the camp, going down under her hooves.
Eight.
Diving forward under the lance, Jors took the man who held it to the ground as Gervis answered Verati’s challenge. A crossbow bolt slammed into packed dirt. The distinctive crunch of shattering bone was nearly drowned out by another scream.
Verati charged back out of the trees, closer to the fire, sending the raider with the wounded thigh rolling away from her hooves. Bardi seemed to be dealing with the boy. Jors got his hands on the lance, drove the butt hard into the lancer’s stomach, and twisted just in time to block a blow from behind. Gervis reared. Herin dropped the rope and ran.
“Call them off!”
Jors looked down to see a lance point driven into his stomach, the edge sharp enough to cut through his leathers. Pain caught up a second later as blood began to dribble out of the tear. “Call them off,” Adric repeated. “Or I’ll gut you.”
“It’s too late,” Jors told him. On the other side of the fire, the boy threw himself up onto a horse and rode out into the darkness. Adric was now the last man standing. “You’ve lost.”
“No.”
“It’s over.”
“No!” His eyes were wild. His chest heaved. Blood seeped through the bandage on his shoulder. “Not possible! We were riding against farmers! Shepherds! Stupid villagers!” He spun on one heel, shifted his grip, drew back his arm, and hurled the lance directly at Bardi, silhouetted in front of the fire, snarling, “Her fault.”
Bardi and the lance in flight. Then a white blur. The lance took Verati in the throat
. Blood sprayed. She slammed to her knees, Tamis flying over her head.
Jors took Adric down, quickly, efficiently, not even thinking of what he was doing. Gervis was already there when he slid to his knees by Verati’s side. The blood had already begun to puddle, it was pouring so fast from the wound.
:You cannot save her, Heartbrother.:
:Maybe not her, but Tamis . . .:
The old man lay crumpled, reaching back weakly for his Companion. He still wore his scarf wrapped around his throat, and instead of a sword, his cane lay broken by his side. Jors had seen dying men before, and he knew he saw one now. He moved him, carefully, until he could touch Verati’s face. She sighed her last breath against his fingers.
Tamis smiled. “Every story,” he said, his voice barely louder than the breeze in the surrounding trees, “has to end.”
He moved a finger just enough to wrap a line of silver white mane around it. “Stop fussing,” he murmured. Then he closed his eyes. And never opened them again.
“My fault?”
Jors looked up to see Bardi standing on the other side of Verati’s body, the firelight glinting on the tears running down her cheeks.
“My fault?” she repeated.
“No.” He tried to put all the reassurance he could into his voice. “Not your fault.”
“I just ... I just couldn’t let them ride in and ride away. I just needed to do something. I just needed . . .”
She needed her story to start.
One of the raiders was dead, skull caved in by Gervis’ hoof; the rest they tied with their own ropes, trussed up by their own fire waiting for justice. Only the boy had gotten away, and Jors found himself hoping he made it safely to the border, that he carried the story home of how Valdemar’s borders were defended—farmers, shepherds, villagers not there for the plundering.
Bardi helped him take off Verati’s saddle, then watched as he tucked Tamis up against her side. “What do we do now?” she asked, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
“We wait until help comes,” Jors told her, moving to build up the fire. The villagers might not have followed him, but he knew, knew without a doubt, that they’d followed Tamis. One thing to let a young man in Herald’s Whites save the day and another thing entirely to let an old man do it. While they waited, he’d tell her a story. Practice the story he’d write in his report.
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