Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar (49 page)

All three of them knew how it must play out, and the scene would replay across the front. Arden could not decline to engage, could not offer to surrender to unarmed men. If asked, he’d have to refuse.

As he drew back for another blow, one of the two lunged at him. He spun, shifted, and made to take a swing. His trained reflexes prepared to strike a blow that would cleave a man.

Then the ground shifted and he tumbled, cracking his head against his helmet as he crashed. His sword arms flew above his head, and bashing fists broke his grip. He kicked, snapping his right foot in a blow that elicited a pained grunt. The fists rained down on his chest, driving the breath from him.

“Mercenary, you are disarmed! Will you now surrender to Lord Namhar’s courtesy?”

“I will,” he said.

There was no dishonor in surrender once unable to fight, and he’d followed his orders exactly. His employer—former employer—had been the lowest filth imaginable. To be captured thusly should make him feel proud. It didn’t.

Surrender. The Toughs didn’t surrender. A wrenching pain that wasn’t physical tore at him. Certainly, the fight had been honorable, but it was a defeat in the employ of a weakling. That cost dearly in reputation, in pride, in selfrespect. Not to mention the hundreds of townsfolk who had been killed.

“I am to offer you employ with Lord Namhar, at Guild scale and with a bonus of one fifth. Or else you may have free passage to our northern border.”

He heard the words, but there was no pleasure in him. He’d won this battle for his honor by losing the battle in the field. Even though he’d planned it that way, it was dizzying, shocking.

Slowly, he rose to his feet. One of the two had rushed to join a group of fellows beating Balyat to the ground. The bulky warrior needed six of them to restrain him before he finally acceded. Arden couldn’t help but grin. It restored some small breath of life to the unit that even disarmed they fought so hard.

His remaining escort was panting for breath and bleeding from nose and lip. Arden had acquitted himself well enough, though he would have a hard time convincing himself.

“I am Captain Onri,” his captor said. “If you will give your word of honor to be peaceable, I will escort you to Count Namhar.”

“My word you have, Captain,” Arden said, feeling a slight rise from the depths his soul had sunk to. He walked away from the village, smiling. He had lived through his oath to a coward. He had lost by his oath to a good man.

T
ARMA’S stomach growled, and she tried to appease it with a long drink of water.

It wasn’t fooled, and growled again.

The problem with being a low-level mercenary pair without an impressive reputation was that sometimes you wound up at the end of a job in a place where your talents weren’t needed. And when that place was as law-plagued as this one . . .

They’d escorted a very nice old lady to the timid niece who was going to take care of her in her old age. An exceptionally low-paying job, but one that Kethry’s sword Need had insisted that they take. Appropriately, as it had turned out, since the poor old woman evidently bore a striking resemblance to a very wealthy old woman in the same town, and kidnappers had decided erroneously that they were one and the same.

Still, it hadn’t done much to fatten their purses; it had led them here, the Duchy of Silverthorn, possibly the
most
law-abiding part of the world that Tarma had ever seen, and no one wanted them. Worse, everything was horribly expensive because of the taxes on everything that paid the salaries of the lawkeepers and constables. Worse still, there were more than enough lawkeepers and constables keeping a jaundiced eye on strangers that when their money ran out and they had to leave their inn, it was obvious that it was going to be difficult, if not impossible, to acquire food for themselves by underhanded means without getting caught.

So the only way to handle the situation was to saddle up and move out, ignoring hunger pangs for the two or three days it was going to take them to get out of the Duchy. Normally it would only take a day at most, but—

But traffic was held by law to a snail’s pace here. And constables enforced that as well.

The only members of the party that were happy were the warsteeds and Warrl. The ’steeds, because not only was grazing the road-verge permitted, it was encouraged. So they were getting enough to content them. And Warrl, because he was resorting to the usual food-source of wolves and things that looked like wolves in the summer.

Mice and rats.

And that, too, was encouraged. Once constables saw him pouncing and gulping in the ditches, they were perfectly happy to leave him alone.

:You really ought to try these,:
Warrl said happily in Tarma’s head.
:They’re quite delicious. Fat, tender. I don’t know why they have a rodent problem here, but I am certainly pleased that they do.:

Tarma’s stomach growled again, suggesting that at this point, fricassee of rat was sounding good.

But Tarma’s brain went into revolt. No matter that she had eaten worse things. This was not something her mind wanted to contemplate, surrounded as they were by civilization.
There should be meat pies, stew, bread and cheese,
her mind insisted.
Pease porridge, bread, and onions at least.
It was not going to put up with the idea of eating mice.

You’ve eaten voles,
she reminded it.

Those were clean wilderness creatures,
her mind said primly.
Mice are not. You don’t know where they’ve been.

Well, her mind had a point. And if they couldn’t afford to eat, they most certainly could not afford to get sick.

:They taste just fine to me,:
Warrl said gleefully, as he pounced, tossed, and gulped. Their current pace—stalled, actually, while they waited for a big hay-laden cart to negotiate a difficult turn—was so slow that Warrl was having no trouble in hunting for such small prey.

Urg,
said her mind, and she resolutely turned her thoughts away from the idea. Properly speaking, Warrl should have been Kethry’s familiar, not hers. Kethry was the sorceress. Kethry was the one who had cast the spell to summon a familiar. But Warrl was his own
kyree
and he had decided that Kethry, who already was bound to the spell-sword Need that gave her fighting powers equal to just about any swordswoman Tarma had ever seen, did not need a familiar. But Tarma evidently did.

So the two of them were bound to exceedingly useful but occasionally vexing partners. Kethry to a sword that forced her to come to the aid of any female in jeopardy, and Tarma to a calf-sized wolfish-looking beast with a penchant for sarcasm, a weakness for Bards, and a distinct and unique sense of humor.

Usually at his mind-mate’s expense.

The hay-wain was still stalled in front of them. Now the driver was arguing with a constable. Her stomach growled. She resisted the urge to ride along the verge; the last time she’d done that, the constable had threatened to fine them. The only reason he hadn’t was because Kethry turned out their purses, proving they had nothing, and pointed out that if they were jailed, they would be housed and fed at the expense of the Duchy.

Mind, that was beginning to look attractive—

Except that the warsteeds and everything they owned would be confiscated and sold.

No. Not a good option.

Tarma was all in favor of laws, but this place was ridiculous.

Kethry couldn’t even earn some money by performing minor sorceries, because she wasn’t licensed as a magician in this Duchy. Which license, of course, cost money.

Kethry was looking around with impatience. The other side of the road—reserved for traffic going the other direction—was absolutely clear.

Well, of course it was. The hay wagon was blocking it. “Is there any reason why we
have
to go in this direction?” she asked Tarma.

“Well, no, but—” Tarma didn’t get to finish that statement. Kethry nudged Hellsbane with her heels, turned the warsteed’s head, and set off down the clear and open side of the road.

:It’s all the same to me,:
Warrl said philosophically.
:There are just as many mice in that ditch.:

 

Tarma had no idea where they were, and she didn’t much want to stop long enough to find out. As long as they got out of the Duchy, that was all she cared about.

:We’re heading for the Pelagirs,:
Warrl remarked philosophically.

Oh, bloody hell—
“Keth. Warrl says we’re—”

“Headed for the Pelagirs, yes I know.” The Pelagir Hills were as chaotic and magic-infested as the Duchy of Silverthorn was law-abiding. “That’s probably the reason why these people are so law-obsessed. It’s their way of dealing with the insanity on their doorstep.” Kethry, who was usually far more cautious about venturing into the Pelagirs than Tarma was, seemed entirely cavalier about this idea.

“But why—”

Kethry turned in her saddle and looked back at her partner. “Because if I’d had to look for another candlemark at the back of that hay-wagon I was going to kill someone. Because they longer we stay in this place, the more likely we are to do something that gets us thrown in jail. Because my stomach is growling. And because I’m getting a faint twinge from Need that is sending my head in this direction.”

Oh, bloody hell—
“Oh, no. Oh,
hell,
no. Not this time,” Tarma protested. “The last time is what got us stuck out here in the first place!”

“So we’re due for a change of luck,” Kethry replied, with no hint of irony. “She owes us one. Maybe she’s responding to our hunger pangs by finding us a good client.”

“Maybe you’re living in a dream world,” Tarma growled under her breath. “Not that it matters all that much. We still have to get out of here, and whoever this is, if they have food, we’ll already be ahead of where we were.”

In answer, Kethry nudged the gray flanks of the warsteed again, moving her into a slightly faster pace. Tarma knew that sign by now; the magical pull on Kethry was getting stronger.

They rode over the top of a hill and found themselves staring down a long flat slope that went on for leagues, until abruptly, as if at an invisible line that marked a place where sanity ended. The landscape changed abruptly, from the rolling, manicured fields to steep, rock-crowned hills, whose tops rose above a forest of trees so tortured and twisted it looked as if some sadistic giant had been wrenching their limbs about.

“In the Pelagirs, then,” Tarma sighed, “Oh, hold back my surprise.”

They were stopped at the border by guards who were immensely suspicious of anyone who wanted to go into the Pelagirs, and from the look of the fortified wall they were going to have to pass under, the Duchy put a lot of time and effort trying to keep things from the Pelagirs out.

After dealing with their questions for the better part of a candlemark, Tarma finally lost patience. She glared at the guards, and silently summoned Warrl, who rose up from where he had been hidden in the grass of the ditch

He moved in to stand by her side as the guards became very still. Tarma looked their officer in the eyes.

“We just want to go home,” she said tonelessly.

Within moments they were looking back at the closed gate from the Pelagirs side of the wall.

“You know, they’re never going to let us back in there,” Kethry remarked in a conversational tone.

“I can live with that,” Tarma replied. “At least there are enough normal animals in here that we can hunt.”

Her stomach growled agreement.

At least Kethry didn’t take off across country, following the sometimes-elusive trace that her sword would give her. She allowed Hellsbane to trot sensibly along what passed for a road here, which was a faint track among the trees. Tarma kept a sharp eye out for game, but just as importantly, so did Warrl. Warrl, with his keen nose and sharper eyesight, should be able to pick out what was safe for them to eat.

But the forest was deserted. She would have said, “strangely deserted,” but these were the Pelagirs, and nothing much was strange there.

Ever.

Her stomach growled.

“Mushrooms?” she suggested to Kethry. “Watercress?”

Kethry shook her head. “I wouldn’t try it,” she advised. “Very bad idea. You can have no idea what’s been changed in the blasted things. Maybe they wouldn’t be poisonous, but do you really want to find yourself in the middle of hallucinations or intoxicated to the point you can’t stand up?”

Well, no.

Silent forest with the silence interrupted only by the faroff drip of water and the dull thudding of the warsteeds’ hooves on the turf.

And, of course, by the growling of Tarma’s stomach.

:I believe, mind-mate, I have found Kethry’s goal,:
came the familiar voice in Tarma’s mind, at the same time that Kethry said, “By the feel of things, my target is—”

They rode up over a rise.

“—there,” Kethry finished.

It certainly looked that way. In the valley below, in what looked like a temporary camp, was a woman. A particularly ageless-looking woman with a relatively unlined face despite a coiled mass of silver hair fastened in place with pins, a little plump, but otherwise in very good physical shape. There was no way of telling what she was from her costume, a well-made set of brown riding leathers with a split skirt rather than breeches or trews. There were three horses with her, all with saddles. There were two ominous mounds of earth off to the side of the camp.

She looked up and spotted them at the top of the ridge line, and regarded them thoughtfully.