Finding the Way and Other Tales of Valdemar (6 page)

In her mind, Sherra heard the words,
:I Choose—:
and then got a profound sense of confusion from Vesily.
:Wait.:
Sherra got a mental impression akin to a case of mistaken identity.

“Chosen or not, we need to get her out of here,” Sherra snapped, and pulled up on the woman’s shoulders. Sherra’s footing slipped, and she tried again, and finally backed off to rig a rescue noose with her waxed rope. Sherra became aware of a taste in the air, something like the bleach the Tayledras used on cloth and cookware but with a tinge of copper. It was a little anesthetic, in fact, numbing the hertasi’s tongue the longer she was near the latticework. She blinked, realizing that she was standing on some of this glowing latticework, and looked up, following the lattice from one joint, to another, to another. They made a platform, three horse-lengths wide, that was in turn caged in by many smaller strands. Every part that glowed was warm, like a living thing.

Sherra couldn’t stop herself from looking. She
had
to see what was in the cage of strands, even while her intellect screamed at her that she didn’t really
want
to know.

She pulled herself up on the strange resinous links of the platformed cage, finding that the stuff wasn’t like spiderwebs; it didn’t flex in the slightest. The stuff was as hard as any wood she’d ever felt—even when it was as thin as an arrowshaft it might as well have been a roofing beam. Sherra’s claws held firm and she pulled herself up to peer into the cage. Inside she saw, lit in that mysterious orange glow, a single egg as large as Sherra. It was so ornate in design that it was more like an
artwork
of an egg than it was like any egg she’d seen before. Whorls and pits and bands of color repeated around its circumference, and it was on a nest of sorts made up of smooth riverstones. It sat, as if it was a display, in the center of a dished platform of tiny resin rods woven so tightly Sherra probably couldn’t have wedged a finger between them.

In the distance, just after a roll of thunder, the roar from the Mire sounded again. Sherra’s danger-sensing Gift nudged her, and she climbed down quickly to rejoin Vesily and the stricken woman. The Companion was resting her head against the woman’s forehead, as if trying to push strength into her. “We’ll get her up into saddle. It will just take time.” And again, she spotted movement in the water. If it had just been a dark shape, she wouldn’t have the sense of terror with it—no, this shape displaced so much water that the surface swelled upward, and the
hertasi
had a dreadful feeling of what was coming. Stepping back up on the root, Sherra dug out the vial of repellant oil and slung the liquid in a wide arc, on woman, Companion, water, and tree alike. “That will buy us some time,” she snapped, and looped the rope on Vesily’s pommel. “Step in, yes, there. There,” Sherra directed, until Vesily was in position, and then the
hertasi
pulled, hoisting the barely conscious woman up. She was heavy. In a few more tugs they understood why.

She was very much pregnant.

:My Chosen—:
Vesily said in astonishment.

There was no time left to say more before the water around them opened up.

What had been an ominous swell finally broke the surface, and it was a snake beyond the measure of
any
that Sherra had seen before. To Vesily’s eyes it was an image of death itself. Lighting cracked all around them, further reinforcing the snake’s demonic appearance. Translucent fins and frills, some bitten through, cut, or marred by unknown decades of combat for Mire supremacy, were backlit by a roll of lightning that all but blinded Sherra. It projected not just a sense of fear, but also of great age, and tremendous weight. Sherra sensed, as it reared up farther into the rain-streaked air, that a hundred Companions couldn’t match the sheer mass of even the part of the great snake that was exposed outside the water. Its eyes weren’t even discernable, among the complex of scars, scales and plates of its head, and that somehow made its visage even worse. Its head was wider than Vesily was tall, and Sherra wouldn’t even be a snack to it.

No rescue was going to come for them. No gryphons from the sky, no Hawkbrothers from the ground—here there was only terrain that wanted to kill them, storm that wanted to blind them, and this implacable, ancient creature that wanted to eat them. There was no escaping any of it, and they knew it.

The three of them could only stand there, paralyzed. Sherra’s danger-sensing Gift went quiet. Her Pathfinding Gift took over. And it told her—
stay here
.

The snake opened its mouth. It gaped upward at the rain, as if gathering the downpour to drink, and extended its tongue. Its tongue was easily as wide as Sherra’s entire body, and ended in flexible, spike-like points half a horse length long. As the titanic monster lowered its head again, it closed its mouth, leaving the tongue extended to whip up and down, taking in the air. Thunder boomed closer than ever before, and the snake weaved its head side to side. Sherra pulled on the rope, getting the pregnant woman onto Vesily’s back, but the whole time the
hertasi
watched the demon snake. Her limbs just worked on their own. Vesily was rooted in place, and Sherra could sense Mindspeech screaming, but not directed toward her. She wrenched her attention away from the snake and looped her rope here and there in Vesily’s tack, cinching the woman to the saddle. It was as well, because Sherra could see what was left of the woman’s legs. It was best that there was little light here. The bandages the woman had made covered only a few of the gouges in her lower legs, and Sherra could—

—could not taste or smell the wounds at all. In fact, she could not taste or smell
anything
at all.

If it had been possible for Gifts to be independent of her and exude an aura of smugness, they would have. They had led her here, to the Chosen and safety, as one.

“This tree,” Sherra whispered to Vesily. “Get in closer to this tree. Climb up if you can, but be careful. Look down. Look away from the snake, Vesily. Listen to me. Look away and get in closer to the tree.” Vesily turned her head and looked dazed in the orange glow. She took a few sidesteps in and the snake swung its head and stopped when Vesily did. It was clearly tracking the movement.

:Something about this tree or this—stuff—is dulling the snake’s senses. The lightning blinds it. The heat from this lattice hides us. The vapors from the tree numbs its ability to taste us. The rain and thunder deafens it,:
Sherra projected hard to Vesily.

At that moment, the roar of the unknown beast of the Mire sounded over the thunder, and it was close. Closer than Sherra had ever heard before. The giant snake unfurled every spike and fan it bore, in its most threatening display, first in one direction, then another. The display slackened and then the snake scanned its head up high around the stormy swamp, then low, and then gathered itself. It knew there was prey here. Somewhere.

Another roar came from the deep swamp, closer still. Despite the rain, despite the splashes and ground cover, it actually echoed.

That was enough for the snake. Its body tensed into a rigid S-shape and then it uncoiled and headed to the southwest. Its body seemed to never end, pushing wave after wave against the tree roots where Sherra, Vesily, and the Chosen hid. Sherra followed the fleeing snake with her eyes as long as she could, and then Vesily and Sherra both Mind spoke to each other, simultaneously.

The Path broke upon Sherra’s mind, as welcome as a ray of sunshine would have been. She led the way, as sure as if she had been in her own little house. And somehow it was a Path free of obstacles, of mudholes, of sinks and snakes and crocodiles and perils. The rain did not let up, but didn’t get any worse either, until they were out of the Mire. When they arrived at a clearing, lit by a sliver of moon, Vesily stopped suddenly and a streak of gray went through the air past them, and looped back. A Tayledras bondbird owl looped over them twice, then vanished into the distance. A candlemark later, a
dyheli
stag crashed out of the forest, and accompanied them until they crossed a cartpath leading to the Vale. The
dyheli
vanished into the forest and by morning, in the haze of pain and fatigue, the three travelers felt warm hands helping them along, lifting them, and tending to their aches and travel wounds.

By noon, in the embrace of the Vale, the three became four.

The Tayledras woman, with the help of the Vale’s Healers, gave birth to a son.

:My Chosen,:
Vesily Mindspoke to the baby, and nuzzled at him with her warm, soft nose. Vesily’s blue eyes shone in the thousand lights of the Vale, and she looked to Sherra, who was wrapped in blankets nursing a bowl of soup.

“A little young for a Herald, isn’t he?” Sherra asked.

Vesily’s eyes showed mirth and she whickered, and then returned to nuzzling the child.
:Yes. Yes. But it is all right. You have showed me the wisdom of patience. The moment to leave will come in its own time and there is no use in rushing forward to exhaust us both to no purpose. I will wait.:

In Burning Zones We Build Against the Sun

 

At the coronation of Queen Alliana, an envoy of Karse had told her that if she and all her people renounced their heathen ways and banished the white horse-demons from their land, Vikandis Sunlord would welcome them as His worshipers. And that King Nabeth of Karse would surely consent to her marriage to his eldest son, Prince Salaran. Of course she had refused both offers, saying Valdemar was pleased with things as they were, and any who wished to worship Vikandis in Valdemar were free to do so, so long as nothing they did violated Crown Law. The coronation festivities ended, and the Karsite envoy departed, and everyone was sure that was the end of things.

Less than a year later, Alliana was forced to summon her armies to defend her borders. Hardorn remained neutral, but that did not mean she would obstruct the Karsite armies traveling across her frontiers to strike at Valdemar from the east.

It soon became clear she did not dare, for the red-robed priests of Vikandis Sunlord conjured demons to wage their war, and the Sunsguard carried with it captives to slake the demons’ blood-hunger until the moment they would be loosed against the foe.

 

Hedion could hear the sound of the screaming from the foot of the hill. The voice had gone thin and hoarse with a sound, not of fear or pain, but of a fathomless unslakeable rage. He paused a moment to collect his strength for the climb up the path to the guard tower. Two years ago—five—the hike would have been nothing. These days, weariness burdened his shoulders and made his very bones ache. He looked upward toward his goal, wincing when the sunlight threatened to rekindle his headache. South of the Old Quarry Road—though not even the Collegium’s Bards could say what had been quarried here, or when—the air was sharp and cold even in summer, and the sun was mountain bright. Here in Yvendan they were only a few miles from the invisible line where the Terilee River changed its name to the Sunserpent River.

From the border that separated Valdemar from Karse.

He pulled the hood of his cloak forward in a futile attempt to shade his eyes, and sighed as he began his ascent. Every Healing took its toll these days, awakening savage headaches that never quite went away. He knew his old mentors would tell him to rest, to take care of himself, that a Healer’s health and stamina were his greatest tool and he should husband them always.

He couldn’t do that.

Every day of rest was a day someone who needed him suffered. Died, if he didn’t reach them in time. Nor was that the worst. The worst was what they might do to others.

He wrenched his mind determinedly from the well of memory and quickened his pace up the hill.

“Healer, thank goodness you’ve come!”

“I came as soon as your message reached me,” Hedion answered. “You’re Captain Dallivant?”

The garrison commander hung back, looking wary. The man who had greeted Hedion was a captain, to judge by his uniform. His face bore the characteristic bruises of one whose helm had deflected a sword-blow. The bruises were faint now. Perhaps a sennight old. Karse had tried the border here around that time.

“Yes, sir. Is it true what they say, you can—”

“You don’t have to call him ‘sir,’ Dallivant, he isn’t in the army.” The new speaker was the garrison commander. A veteran, from his scars. A good man, but a hard one. “You’re Healer Hedion? The Mindhealer?”

“Yes.” Hedion waited. He couldn’t do his work if people meant to get in his way. There was a trick—simple but effective—that usually gained him the cooperation he sought. He listened intently. Yes. There. “Tell me, Commander Felmar—did Brion hurt anyone before you captured him?”

Felmar grimaced, refusing to acknowledge—aloud at least—that Hedion had impressed him. “Had to put down three of the horses after he got at them. Broke Maret’s arm before we got him down. Don’t know why I bothered letting Dallivant talk me into waiting on you, except I thought he might like to say a few words before we hanged him.”