Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  "He left the path here," she said, clenching her hands to keep from hitting him. "He walked backward in his own tracks, and then jumped off the trail into that pile of leaves."

  Daren looked at her scornfully. "I'm not some green little boy who believes in Pelagir-tales. I'm a prince of Rethwellan, and I've been trained by some of the finest hunters in the world. You—"

  She lost her temper, and grabbed the lacings in the front of his leather tunic, then dragged him past the pile of leaves, surprise making him manageable for the necessary few steps. "Does that look like a Pelagir-tale, little boy?" she hissed, pointing at the very clear paw-print in the mud. "Seems to me you'd better start growing up pretty quickly, so you know what to believe and what not to believe. I've beaten you at this game five times out of six, and you know it, so don't you think you'd better stop playing the high and mighty princeling and start paying attention to somebody who happens to be better at this than you are?"

  He pulled out of her grip, his face growing red. "Since when does half a year of training give you the right to act like an expert?" he shouted.

  "Since—"

  That was all she had a chance to say.

  Something very dark, and very large suddenly loomed up out of the bushes just behind her. She never had a chance to see what it was; the next thing she knew, she was flying through the air, and she had barely enough time to curl into a protective ball to hide her head and neck before she impacted with a tree.

  After that all she saw was stars, and blackness.

  Eight

  This was the worst headache she'd ever had—

  —and the most uncomfortable bed. It felt like a bush. A leafless, prickly bush.

  What happened?

  Kero tried to move, and bit back a moan as every muscle and joint protested movement. It felt as if the entire left side of her body was a single ache. And her head hurt the same way it had when one of the horses had kicked her and she'd gotten concussed.

  "Well?" That was Tarma's voice. "You two certainly made a fine mess out of this assignment."

  She opened her eyes, wincing against the light. Tarma stood about twenty paces away; just beyond her was Daren, lying up against another tree, as though he'd impacted and slid down it. Fine mist drooled down onto her face; droplets condensed and ran into her eyes and down the sides of her face to the back of her neck. Her mouth was dry, and she licked some of the moisture from her lips.

  Looks like he got some of the same treatment I did, Kero decided, and shivered. Even wet, her wool clothing would keep her warm, but she must have been lying on the cold ground for a while and it had leached most of the heat out of her body.

  "You've managed to botch everything I told you to do," Tarma said coldly, arms crossed under her dark brown rain cape. Her harsh features looked even colder and more forbidding than usual. Her ice-blue eyes flicked from one to the other of them. "First you don't even bother to set up a plan, or agree on who is going to do what. Then you, Daren, storm off into the game leaving behind a trail a baby could follow, so that Kero has to spend twice the time she should covering it for you. Then you, Kero, let Daren waste his time in a fruitless search when you knew from the moment you saw Warrl's tracks that he was chasing a wild hare. Then you both start arguing at the tops of your lungs. An army could have come up on you and you'd never have known it until it was too late."

  She glared at both of them, and Kero didn't even try to move under the dagger of that stare.

  "Keth was working with me on this," she continued, pitilessly. "We decided to make this run dangerous for you, to teach you that if you fouled up, you'd get hurt; just like real life. You triggered one of her booby traps with your arguing. And that's exactly what it caught; two boobies, two fools who couldn't even follow simple orders to keep their mouths shut. Well, I have a further little assignment for you: get home. There's just one catch. Until you cooperate, you won't be able to find your way back." She smiled nastily, and turned on her heel, stalking off into the rain. In the time between one breath and the next, she was gone, as if the drizzle itself had decided to step in and hide her.

  Kero struggled out of the bush she'd flattened in her fall. Twigs scratched her, as she slowly pulled herself up onto her knees, then from her knees, shakily, to her feet. Her head ached horribly, and she guessed that she was one long bruise from neck to knee along her left side. The only good luck she'd had was that she'd fallen into that bush in the first place. There had been enough dead leaves and grass between herself and the ground to keep her out of the mud. Bits of leaves clung all over her, making her look as if she'd slept in them. She brushed herself off as best she could, and waited for Daren to join her.

  He used the tree trunk to steady himself as he got to his feet; he wavered quite a bit getting there, and looked as if he felt just as shaky as she did. When he saw she was watching him, he glared at her, and limped off after Tarma without taking a single backward glance at her.

  That little bastard! she thought, indignantly. Well, two can play—

  Then she looked around.

  She had been in and out of these woods for the past several months. They weren't that far from the back door to the Tower. It was late autumn, most of the leaves were off the trees, which should have made it easier to see through the woods in spite of the rain.

  She didn't recognize anything now. She was totally, inexplicably, lost.

  And in three breaths, Daren came storming out of the mist, head down, limping along like a wounded and angry bull, and ran right into her.

  "Hey!" she yelled, indignantly. He caught her as she started to fall, then shoved her away.

  "What are you doing, running into me like that?" he shouted.

  "Run—you pig! You ran into me!" she spluttered.

  "You weren't anywhere in sight!" he yelled back, turning red again. "You just jumped out of nowhere!"

  "I did no such—" but he was gone again, as fast as his bruised legs would take him, this tune going in the opposite direction to the one he'd been traveling when he ran into her.

  That— she couldn't think of any name that was bad enough to call him. That swine! That rat! Unreasonable, pigheaded, overbearing, arrogant— She looked around, angrily, dashing water and wet hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand. That vague shape looming up through the rain, beyond and above the trees—that might be the cliff of the Tower.

  I think.... It changed from moment to moment, shrinking and growing, and sometimes vanishing entirely behind the trees. Well, I have to go somewhere. I'll bet I make it back, no matter what Tarma said. And I'll bet he doesn't. All I have to do is head for the Tower and watch for where we were. Or find Tarma's tracks.

  She limped off, keeping her eyes alert for signs of disturbance that marked their travel. She found plenty of little snags of wool, a sure indicator that Daren had been there. And she found traces of his footsteps, and of her own.

  But she found nothing identifiable as Warrl's or Tarma's tracks, and though she stopped frequently to reconnoiter, she saw no landmarks that looked familiar, and no sign that the Tower cliff was any nearer. She might as well have been on the other side of the world. She couldn't even tell if she was wandering in circles. The forest seemed utterly lifeless; the steady dripping of rain on dead leaves hiding any other sounds when she stopped and listened. She couldn't even tell where the sun was; the sky was a uniform gray everywhere. Her head throbbed, and her stomach knotted with nausea; walking was torture, but at least it kept her warmer than standing. When she stopped to try and hear past the falling rain, she was shivering in moments.

  Finally, for lack of anything better to do, she took out her belt-knife, and began to mark the tree trunks. At least this should keep me from going around in circles, she thought, slogging her way through heaps of soggy leaves, shivering with the cold rain that kept trickling down the back of her neck. As long as I keep going in a straight line, I'll come to something I recognize. I have to find the place eventually. Either I'll r
un into the cliff, or I'll run into the path, or I'll find the stream. If I don't do any of those things, I'll get to the road. I have to cross either the stream, the road or the path. There's no other way off Tower lands.

  Or so she thought. Until she stopped to ease her bruises, side aching so much she wanted to cry, and rested a while leaning up against a tree trunk. And when she felt a little less tired, and started to mark the trunk, she happened to look at the other side, first.

  And saw her own six-armed star chipped carefully into the bark as Tarma had taught her; the least amount of damage to the tree that she could manage and still have the mark visible. It was still so fresh that the wind hadn't disturbed the fragments of bark still clinging to the tree.

  She looked around in a panic, sure she couldn't possibly have touched that tree. The place was in no way familiar. But the mark was indisputably there.

  She clung to the rough bark, suddenly faint and dizzy. But this isn't possible—I know I'd have seen that huge pig-shaped rock, or the little cave under it! And the tree with the hawk's nest in the fork! And there's no way I could forget that clump of holly, it's the only green thing I've seen all afternoon!

  Nevertheless, it was her unique marking. In a place she'd never seen.

  She closed her eyes, the dizziness and nausea increasing. She fought them down, telling herself not to panic.

  But when she opened her eyes again, fear clutched her heart and made it pound painfully in her temples, for her sight was darkening, too.

  Then she realized that it was not her eyesight dimming—the sun was setting, dusk closing in rapidly, and she was nowhere nearer to getting home than she had been from the moment Tarma left them.

  Tarma—she can't mean to leave us out here all night—we're both hurt, and we haven't eaten all day. She'll come and get us. She'll come and get me, surely—none of what happened was my fault. I followed the rules.

  For one moment, she let herself believe that. Then, as she thought about how angry her teacher had been beneath that mask of indifference, she knew with a sinking heart that there would be no rescue tonight. We aren't children. One night in the forest isn't going to kill either of us. We'll just wish we were dead. And even if I followed the rules, I didn't make sure he did. When I saw he wasn't going to measure up, I should have forfeited the game by turning around and going home.

  She heard a thrashing sound behind her, then, the noise of someone forcing his way through undergrowth rather than looking for paths. She knew what it was before she turned. No animal would ever make that much noise, and no animal in the forest limped on two legs.

  It's a good thing we're not really in enemy territory—they'd have heard him a long time ago. She moved to the other side of the tree and put her back up against it to watch the dim shape grow more distinct as it neared. Finally it was close enough to make out clearly.

  She put her knife away and watched Daren stumble toward her, shivering visibly inside his soggy woolen cloak—no longer a handsome russet, it was mud-stained and snagged in too many places to count. And Daren looked much the worse for wear.

  He didn't act as if he saw her. He didn't act as if he saw anything.

  "Hey," she said wearily, as he started to blunder past her. He stopped dead in his tracks, and blinked as if he was surprised to see her.

  Maybe he was. The more Kero thought about it, the more certain she became that her grandmother had a hand in this confusion of what should have been familiar territory. Hadn't she read in one of Tarma's books on warfare about a spell that fogged the enemy's mind, and made him unable to recognize his surroundings?

  "K-k-kero?" Daren said, stuttering from the cold. "Are y-y-you still lost, t-t-too?"

  "I guess so," she replied reluctantly. Full dark was descending, and with it, more rain. Harder and colder, both. Somebody needed to make a decision here, and it didn't look as if Daren was up to remembering his own name.

  We need to get out of this, and we need to find someplace to hole up for the night, otherwise we're going to wander around until we drop. The only place at all close was that enormous rock she'd noticed earlier; the size of the Keep stables, and right now that little hollow place under it was the closest thing they were going to get to real shelter.

  "Look," she said, grabbing him by the elbow and pointing at the stone outcropping. "There's just enough room under that rock that we can both squeeze in out of the rain. Right now even if I knew where I was, I wouldn't be able to find my way back. In a candlemark you won't be able to find your hand at the end of your arm."

  For a moment, it looked as though Daren was going to protest—he frowned and started to pull away from her. But evidently he was at the end of his resources; he gave in as she tugged at him, and they both stumbled through the downpour to the shelter of the overhang.

  It was a lot drier in the little cave than she had thought, and the cave itself was larger than she had estimated. As she crawled on hands and knees into the hollow, feeling her way with her left, dry sand gritted under her probing. Dry, relatively clean sand; there didn't seem to be anything in here but a pile of dry leaves blown into the back. No snakes, for instance—and mercifully few rocks. There was enough room for both of them to get completely out of the weather if they squeezed in tightly enough, and the leaves cushioned them from the worst rough edges of the rock wall. Without being asked, Daren pulled off his soggy cloak and draped it over both of them. Shamed a little, she squeezed some of the water out of her outer sweater and handed it to him—wet wool stretched, and he managed to get it on over his tunic.

  Her prediction of coming darkness proved true; within moments after they took shelter, it was impossible to see anything out beyond the mouth of the cave. For that matter, it was impossible to see anything in the cave.

  "At least we don't have to worry about bears or wolves or anything," Daren said after a long silence. Both of them had finally stopped shivering, even though Kero doubted that either of them was really warm. She thought, with a longing so sharp that it hurt, of hot tea and her hot bath, and a fire in the fireplace in her room. This isn't fair. I wouldn't be out here if it wasn't for him playing the fool. I wouldn't be bruised and battered if he'd had any sense.

  Still, being surly wasn't going to accomplish anything. And if he decided she was insulting him and left in a huff, she'd freeze. Together their bodies were keeping the little hollow of their shelter tolerable. By herself she'd shiver herself to pieces. "You think we're safe because nothing with any sense would be out in this rain?" Kero asked. "You're probably right. Unless there's any truth in the stories about water-demons—and I doubt either of us would be of much interest to a water-demon."

  "Not even water-demons are going to stumble around in this," Daren replied, his voice dull and dispirited. "Dear gods, I hurt. Even my hair hurts."

  "I know what you mean," Kero told him, glumly. "The colder I get, the stiffer my bruises get." She hesitated a moment, then said, "You know, we could have handled this better."

  "You mean you—" He stopped himself. "I guess you're right. We. I just—I never thought you were serious about all of this. And I didn't think there was any way you could keep up with me. You're a girl."

  "So? Half of the mercs Grandmother hired for the Keep are girls," Kero retorted curtly. "Half of the mercs that put your father on his throne were girls. His sister, the Captain of the Sunhawks, was a girl. I'd have thought it would have occurred to you by now that being a girl doesn't mean your mind is dead, or that you can't handle anything more dangerous than a needle."

  "You're going to become a mercenary?" His voice spiraled up and broke on the high note. "But—why?"

  "Because I have to keep myself fed and clothed somehow, your highness," she said sourly. "Nobody's going to give me anything. My father was a common merc himself before he married my mother, and Grandmother's the only family I've got besides my brother. I'm not going to live out my life on her charity or as the old maiden aunt if I can help it. I've seen too many old maid
en aunts, taking care of every chore the wife finds inconvenient. And I really don't have any interest in selling anything other than my sword."

  She thought by his coughing fit, followed by an embarrassed silence, that she'd made him blush.

  Finally he cleared his throat, and asked, "Just exactly what are you? You speak like a noble, but you dress like a peasant half the time—a male peasant, at that."

  "That's because dressing like a peasant is a lot smarter than you think in conditions like this 'hound and hare' game," she pointed out, shifting a little to ease an ache in her hip. "The grays and browns blend right into the forest. And you can't fight in skirts and tight bodices. Or hunt, or ride, or do much of anything besides look attractive. You'd discover, if you ever bothered to look closer, that a lot of the peasants working in the fields that you think are men and boys are actually women."

  "They are?" Evidently this had never occurred to him.

  "How in hell are you supposed to swing a scythe with a skirt in the way?" she asked him. "You'd have your skirt in ribbons! As for us, we were supposed to be thinking 'enemy territory,' right? So I was dressed like a peasant, hard to see, and if anyone did see me, they might not think I was anything dangerous. And I was warm, might I add; peasants know how to dress for bad weather. And there you are in a bright red cloak, in the middle of a dead forest. I suspect we'd have been tagged for that alone."

  "Oh." He sounded gratifyingly chagrined.

  "So you just found out for yourself how well those hunting leathers of yours keep you warm in the rain," she persisted. "You didn't pay any attention to the weather this morning, you didn't ask Tarma about it either, did you? I've never once heard you ask what the weather was going to be like when we were going to be out all day. It's been unseasonably good since you arrived, if you want to know the truth."

  "You could have told me," he replied sullenly.

  "Why?" Her own repressed anger was warming her better than all her shivering. "You come in here and take my teacher's time away from me, you treat me like I'm too stupid to know that you're insulting me with your superior attitude, you act like you expect me to be excited about the so-called 'privilege' of training with you. Why should I tell you anything? Why should I share my edge with you? You haven't done a thing to deserve it."