Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  When the last pebble ticked down, a heavy silence descended. The haze of dust hanging over everything made Lan cough.

  "Wha' the de'il hoppened?" Wulaf asked rhetorically, and sneezed, his eyes as round and big as prize whortleberries.

  "I—don't know," Lan said, who had heard him only through a ringing noise in his ears. He made his way to the edge of the precipice on his hands and knees, testing each step before he took it, and looked down.

  The fortress was gone. Where it had been was a tumble of rock shaken down from the mountain above it, a tumble that continued down the side of the mountain and into the valley, seen imperfectly through a thick cloud of dust. Lan's jaw dropped; Wulaf appeared beside him, and whistled.

  "Way-ell. That be a nest'a snakes we hain't to handle," Wulaf said, with a studied air of disinterest.

  But Lan could only think that once again, the dragon had feasted on blood, for no one in that fortress could have escaped.

  They found their way down the mountain with some difficulty; in many places the path was blocked by boulders or small landslides and they had to backtrack to find another route. When they finally reached the scouts, however, they found that the mood was one of elation—and there was no question there about what had happened. They had already worked out what had caused the explosive eruption.

  "It was a farm, you see?" Diera said as Lan and Wulaf waited for someone to enlighten them. "You must have ignited the grain dust in the silo."

  Lan's complete bafflement prompted more of an explanation. "The dust from grain—powdered chaff, pulverized grain, bits of straw—can build up in a silo. And the silage at the bottom can ferment and give off fumes, too—sometimes farm workers drink the stuff to get drunk. Set a spark to that, if it's thick enough, and you get what—you got."

  "Oh," was all that Lan could think of to say. "Were there any captives in there? Women? Children?"

  "Probably not," Diera replied, dismissively. "And even if there were, all you did was set a spark to what would have gone off eventually anyway. Anyone poking around with a lamp, a candle, or a torch would have done the same, and they were obviously too ignorant to prevent it from happening."

  Lan didn't answer; instead, he turned to Kalira for comfort. He was doing that more and more as the days passed, going into a wordless communion with her whenever he was troubled. Somehow she managed to make him feel that his guilt was no greater than anyone else's, and that he must go on, for the greater good of everyone in Valdemar. He found reassurance in her that he could not extract from anyone or anything else, and a bond of love that was beyond anything he had ever dreamed of. It was not that she loved him unconditionally, it was that she knew the very worst of him and loved him despite that knowledge.

  One of the scouts rode back to tell the rest of the army that the way was clear; the rest of the scouts pitched camp where they were, for there could be no safer place to spend the night than one where they had cleared they enemy out beyond question.

  Lan went about his chores mechanically, most of his attention bound up in Kalira. Not surprisingly, he was in charge of the fire, and he and Tuck had the task of gathering wood and water. The scouts did not use tents, so a fire was all the more important to their camp; they camped rough, often supplementing their dried rations with game hunted as they moved.

  A wind sprang up above them and carried the dust away in a long, trailing plume, but nothing could hide the ugly scar down the mountainside. Lan was grateful for the evergreen trees, for their thickly needled branches hid that scar from him.

  When he brought back the first load of wood, he added it to what Tuck had brought and the others had gathered from around the campsite. He built a long fire, rather than a typical pyramid; after all, he could keep anything he chose burning, and this way everyone would have a place right at the fireside to keep warm. With a careless flick of his mind, he set it burning.

  Green wood or windfall, dry or wet, it all burned at his touch, and burned totally, leaving behind only ashes and producing very little smoke. He went out into the scrubby forest time and time again, returning to the campsite with loads of wood or great enormous logs. Kalira helped there, dragging the logs in tied to her girth. He laid or rolled the logs down on his fire with Tuck's help; an advantage of having a long fire, since it meant that no one had to chop the logs up to fit. Calum had charge of the primitive cooking by common consent, since he never, ever burned anything. Tonight's catch was hare and squirrel, and very tasty it smelled, too, at the point when Lan was ready to stop hauling in wood.

  He accepted his rabbit hindquarter, with a mug of strong tea, and sat down beside Tuck to eat it. Stars bloomed overhead, and it seemed an impossible thing that this place could have been scarred by war only a few candlemarks ago.

  Tuck poked him in the side as he sucked meditatively on a rabbit bone. "What're you thinking?" he asked. "I can almost hear your thoughts jabbering to each other."

  "Nothing much," Lan demurred. "Just that I don't know what they'll do with me when the war is over."

  Tuck snorted, and punched Lan lightly on the upper arm. "No fear of that any time soon. Did you hear the scout reports? This Karsite lot doesn't know when to give over!"

  "And we do?" he countered with a dim smile. "But it's our land we're fighting on, so I suppose we can't give up."

  "Suppose! You know we can't!" Tuck exclaimed, giving him a peculiar look, as if he suspected his friend had gone mad.

  Lan didn't respond; he just dropped back into his link with Kalira, who came to stand behind him.

  :When is this going to end? And when it does, what will they do with me?: he asked her plaintively.

  :I don't know for certain, but you mustn't fret about it, love,: she replied, :you will always be needed—:

  Something interrupted her. Her head went up and her eyes unfocused for just a moment. Across the fire, the same was happening with Fedor's Companion, and Tuck's Dacerie as well—and that could only mean one thing. The situation had just changed again, and they were getting new orders.

  Kalira snapped out of her trance first. :No rest for the weary, love,: she said apologetically. :Get the tack; we have to ride.:

  Lan had not been aware that the rest of the scouts were watching him, Tuck, and Fedor, but the moment he got up and reached for Kalira's saddle-blanket, the scouts started moving.

  "Load and ride," Fedor said shortly, as he and his Companion came back to themselves. "The Karsites are moving faster than we thought they would. Our job is to get Lan here to a point where he can hold them back until the rest of the army conies up."

  Me? They're depending on me?

  Although he had been told that something of the sort might happen, the words still put a chill down his back and a lump of cold fear in his stomach. They are all expecting me to do what no one else can. He froze for a moment, but no one else even paused in what they were doing.

  In fact, if anything, they put a bit more speed on.

  His fingers fumbled with the buckle on Kalira's girth until she enclosed him in a cocoon of calm. He couldn't help but feel comforted and steadied; his hands stopped shaking, and he finished his jobs just as quickly as the rest of the scouts.

  They all mounted within moments of each other. "Kill the fire," Calum ordered, and Lan, who had discovered that he could extinguish fires as easily as he started them, obeyed. The flames shrank down to nothing in a heartbeat, the coals lingered a moment, then with a metallic clinking, went black. You could put your hand right into the middle of the ashen remains now, and feel nothing more than a bit of residual warmth.

  "Right," was all Calum said; he turned his horse's head up the trail, and motioned to Fedor to take the lead. Companions had infinitely better night vision than horses; Fedor and his Companion would find the trail and set the pace.

  The pace—in a moment, as Lan and Kalira swung into place behind Diera and in front of Ben—was going to be grueling, at least as far as the horses were concerned. It was a good thing that
there was a full moon, and that the snow reflected back so much moonlight. They alternated between a fast walk and a canter, holding the latter as long as the horses could bear up. Only when the first began to flag did they slow; interestingly, the horse that failed first was generally Calum's mount, not the shaggy little pony that Wulaf rode.

  : Where are we going?: Lan asked, keeping himself low over Kalira's neck.

  :A bit farther in than we'd planned to—you're going to be blocking a pass at the southern tip of that pine forest,: she replied. :On the way there is one more possible Karsite stronghold, but it's another wooden fortress; you can probably bum it out as we go by.:

  True, but he wouldn't be able to do so in a way that would ensure the Karsites got out before he sent it up. That's just too bad, he told himself—or tried to. They're the enemy, after all. They've killed plenty of our people without caring what happened.

  But had they? He couldn't say for certain if this particular batch of Karsites had been cold-blooded killers like those priests, or the assassin that had attacked Pol. They might just be ordinary folks, as troubled in their minds about dealing death as he was....

  But if he left them in place, they would kill Valdemarans, whether or not they were troubled afterward, so he had no choice.

  Far sooner than he would have liked, the time to act came upon him.

  Fedor brought them all to a halt with an upraised arm, and motioned to Lan to come up beside him. "See that little dot of light?" he asked, pointing to the mountainside. Lan sighted along his arm and nodded.

  "That's the last Karsite post, and it's a wooden fort." Fedor didn't bother to say anything more; Lan already knew what was needed.

  Lan gritted his teeth and steeled himself against what he was about to do to those unsuspecting Karsites in what they thought was a safe shelter. Best to get this over with—

  "I can't do this!" In memory, Ilea sobbed in Elenor's arms, the recollection painfully clear in Lan's mind. "Nothing I've tried is enough! I can't bring back his sight!"

  Never again will I hesitate.

  The dragon came up in a rush of fury, and flung itself at the proffered target. On the mountainside, a fire-lily flung open hectic petals to the moon.

  His mind closed to anything other than the fires, Lan let the dragon have free play. At least they were far enough away that he couldn't hear the screams. Only when there was nothing left to burn did he haul the dragon back to its lair deep within his soul, only partly sated at best.

  He opened his eyes, grateful that he could not see the place where the fires had lately raged. Calum and Fedor put their heads together for a moment, then Calum signaled to the rest of them to move forward behind Fedor. He and Wulaf headed up a trail toward the Karsite fortress to make certain that it had been cleared out.

  :Steady-on love,: Kalira said soothingly. :You did just fine.: But she didn't say anything about the men in the fortress—and Lan added another load of guilt to the one he was already carrying. Striking without warning, without giving them a chance to surrender or flee... what am I becoming?

  Calum and Wulaf rejoined them some while later—it wouldn't have been at all difficult to see their trail, even with only moonlight to guide them. They weren't trying to hide it, after all; this would be the trail that the rest of the army would follow. And it was no odds if Karsites followed it as well; they'd either be met by fire from the scouts, or fire from the army.

  At the pace they were setting, it was unlikely that anyone would overtake them anyway.

  Lan hadn't intended to sleep in the saddle, but evidently Kalira had already made up her mind about that.

  He wasn't riding anymore. In fact, he couldn't remember where he'd been or why he'd been riding. He and Kalira walked slowly and dreamily, side by side but not touching, through a landscape that was too wild to be a garden, but too well-ordered to be wilderness.

  Beside him moved a brightness—Kalira—and it seemed to him that she had always looked that way. He wasn't thinking much; his mind was entirely taken up with simply being.

  Golden light, thick and sweet, poured down over them. There were no other people here, but this wasn't a place that needed people. The birds, animals, and plants here acted as if they had never seen a human before. And Lan himself felt so entirely swathed in peace and loving warmth that he felt no urgency about anything; for that matter, he couldn't remember if there had ever been any urgency about anything. Perhaps he had always been here, and always would be.

  Then he woke, with the sunrise casting long blue shadows across the white faces of the mountains, the peace fleeing from him in a rush. He could have wept like a baby at being thrust back into this world, this horrible war—

  Then, although the peace did not return, the love and warmth did, flooding from Kalira into him; and if it did not return him to peace, it did comfort him.

  This looked pretty much like every other piece of country that they had passed through, but Calum reined in his horse and looked about with satisfaction.

  "Good, we've beaten them here," the scout leader said. "Most of you, rest. Lan, start a fire. Tuck, come with Wulaf, Fedor, and me. Let's find a place to put our young friend."

  Lan climbed down from the saddle, feeling nowhere near as tired as the rest looked. While they wearily dismounted, he cobbled together as much deadfall as he could find and set it ablaze; as they gathered around, he and Kalira brought back large branches and logs and piled them on the roaring fire. By his third trip, someone had put water on for tea and broken out the field rations.

  He was happy enough to help himself to both, and it wasn't long until Calum returned.

  The scout squatted down beside the fire and accepted a mug from one of the others. Lan supplied Fedor and Tuck with food and drink as the scout drained his mug in a single swallow.

  "We've got a good spot for you, lad, and just in the nick of time," Calum told him, passing his mug over for a refill. "As soon as you get something into you, we'll take you up there and get you settled in. The Karsites will be here in about a candlemark, or so Fedor thinks."

  Calum's casual statement chilled Lan to the bone, though he did his best not to show it. He gulped down his own tea, ignoring his scalded tongue, and bolted his ration bar. "I'm ready now," he said, putting on his bravest face.

  :That's my Herald,: Kalira crooned as he mounted, and he felt a little glow of pleasure warming the chill of fear.

  Dutifully, they followed in Fedor's wake; Calum remained behind to direct the scouts to a place where they, too, could guard the pass. Tuck started to follow, but Fedor waved him back. "We'll need you here, youngster," Fedor called over his shoulder as Lan turned to look back. "Lan's job will be simple enough and he won't need anyone to relay him orders."

  Tuck nodded and dismounted, gratefully accepting a second cup of tea. Lan sighed and faced forward again. He would have liked the company.

  :Oh, now, you always have me,: Kalira replied. :Besides, Tuck always feels bad when there's nothing for him to do.:

  :That's true enough, love,: he replied, and Fedor motioned to him to come up beside him.

  "This is a very narrow passage," Fedor said, as they rode side by side through a thick grove of pines. "You'll be able to stop them from coming through the pass directly, and we think you'll also be able to block most of the attempts to use the high passes, because you'll be able to see them from where we're putting you. And they shouldn't be able to get anywhere near you; you're going to be on a slope that had a rockslide in the last year or so, there is no kind of cover on it."

  "Do you know much about what's coming?" he asked, rather shyly.

  Fedor shook his head. "Only what they told me. All of the Karsite forces have consolidated for this, so I suppose this is their big push to break us. If that's true, winning here could win the war for us."

  "Oh, I hope so," Lan said fervently. Fedor smiled, with understanding in his brown eyes.

  "I hate this, too," Fedor said softly. "That's one reason why I as
ked to be a scout. Blood makes me sick."

  "It does?" Lan felt immensely better to hear a senior Herald confess the same weakness he felt. "I hate killing people," he said in a rush. "I hate it! I don't care if they're our enemies!"

  "And thank the gods you feel that way, Lan," Fedor said solemnly. "Anyone who doesn't is perilously near to becoming a monster. Most of these people wouldn't be fighting us if their leaders weren't forcing them, or at least telling them such lies that they're afraid we'll slaughter them if they don't get rid of us."

  Lan wanted to talk more to him, but the trail narrowed at that point and he had to fall back to the rear. They came out of the pine trees onto the lower slope of the mountain, and began to climb it on a switchback path rising alternately through more trees and stretches of barren rock.

  Only a goat, a mountain pony, or a Companion could have taken this route safely, and Lan's attention was entirely occupied by helping Kalira as she climbed by shifting his balance in the saddle like a tightrope walker on a rope. At times he hung over her neck, at others over to one side, or practically hanging off her tail. He kept his eyes down on the ground—and on the sheer drop-offs just beyond Kalira's hooves. The trail didn't always switch back under itself, and even when it did, the likelihood of catching themselves if they started down was minimal.

  It wasn't until Fedor said, "We're here," that he looked up from the trail, and gasped at the vista that unfolded before him.

  This place that Fedor and Calum had chosen for him was a little scooped-out section in the middle of the goat trail. A boulder might well have once been here, and been knocked out of place by that rockfall. He had a perfect view of the passage between two snow-covered mountains, and the zigzag valley below. A mist hung over the valley, glowing with the golden light of morning, rilling the vale to a point halfway up the peaks. It wasn't a thick mist; he could see the sparkle of a river and the forms of trees perfectly well through it. The mist was nothing more than a tenuous, gilded veil that softened the edges of what lay beyond.