Under the Vale and Other Tales of Valdemar (26 page)

“Mount up. We need to move.”

She mounted lightly, moving with a grace that Gonwyn lacked, even when not wearing chainmail and two week’s worth of grime.

She settled in her saddle and looked at him, her eyes haunted. He knew what was coming and hated it, hated her for it. He didn’t like being involved, didn’t want to be involved, and she was going to involve him.

“I ran,” she confessed, bringing the monster in the room out in the open.

Now he had to deal with it.

“When they broke through, I helped in the fight . . . I did. I killed two with my sword. Then everything fell apart. There were so many. They killed Captain Elagen and Herald Valean and smashed Companion Saneel’s head wide open. The pikemen started to run. That’s when I panicked.” She began to weep, tracking more clean across a landscape of caked mud, dirt, and blood. “I’m so sorry.”

Gonwyn hated weeping. Anger he could deal with, drunken stupidity (his and others’) a specialty, and the myriad petty squabbles and cases of two decades of riding Circuit proved a cinch. Give him a few tears, and he was utterly at a loss.

:You and half the population ever born,:
commented Rath drily.
:Say something encouraging, and move out. We need to go.:

“You broke. It’s not part of the job description, but it happens. It also happens to be history. We need to round up whatever troops we can find and send them back to the village. And we have to do it sometime before I have a birthday.” He stopped, feeling himself starting to run on.

:Nice,:
said Rath.
:Why don’t you kick her puppy while you’re at it?:

He snarled a curse by way of reply. The Companion turned downstream. The map showed this draw feeding into the creek that marked the border, but that was wrong too.

:Don’t take it out on me.:
Rath replied.
:It’s not my fault you have the emotional range of a sling bullet.:
The Companion’s mental voice carried a tired good humor, but there was an edge. The last time he’d heard that edge, she’d dumped him in a well.

:Of course, the caterwauling when you were drunk may have helped.:

“I was singing.”

:Oh, is that what that was? It sounded like a cat hung by its tail. The maid’s father wasn’t impressed either. He chased you for nearly a mile. And having him present the foundling’s bill to Haven for the babe was what got you busted back to Circuit. That was what . . . second promotion, second bust. You know what they say about you in Haven? That’s our Gonwyn . . . stand up guy in a fight or for a girl, stands up for every fight and every girl.:

Gonwyn felt stung. “Anything else?”

:You’ve got your own issues, Chosen. So lighten up on the kid.:

He looked back to where Danilla followed. She had mounted. Her Companion moved slowly on the injured leg. The young mare wasn’t likely to pull up lame, but she wasn’t going to run any races either. He furrowed his brow. Same leg, same injury as Adreal’s Claris. He lodged that one away.

“Look,” he tried again. “We’re in a fix, and I need you in the here and now.” He softened his voice, adding firm but fair compassion. Anything she interpreted as pity would only make the situation worse. “What is done is done. We can’t change what happened. But we can learn from it and move on, try to do better. We won today, but it may not be over. We’ve got units all over these hills . . . along with many Tedrels. Our job is to find as many of the good guys . . . and as few of the bad guys as possible . . . so that we can reknit the army in case we have to fight tomorrow. Understand?”

She nodded. “Yes.” A little firmer.

“Now, time to ride.”

They pressed farther into the hills, calling several Valdemaran units, a half-company here, a few scattered squads, a platoon of mismatched parts, and a string of individual men lost from their units. They skipped around Tedrels, some of whom remained bent on violence, but most were as lost and confused as the Valdemarans. Gonwyn got the further sense that while the great center of the battle may have retained some organization, out here in the boonie-flanks command had all but collapsed on both sides.

He noted as they rode that the girl had firmed up. She’d stopped looking at the dirt in front of her. Once it became plain that there were others there who’d broken in that first confusion, she felt less alone. They weren’t Heralds, of course, but they were all human. By the time they stopped for the evening, she was watching for traps and ambushes, and had some of her confidence back.

It wasn’t in him to go tale-telling, so the girl would not have to face the Heralds’ version of censure . . . where everyone understood, of course we understand. When what they meant was, we understand you failed, and then the duties got easier after that. You were still a Herald, but not quite in the same league as those hadn’t let down the side. He’d sipped from that bitter cup himself and saw no reason to pass it to another.

It was better in the Guards, where the senior Sergeant took you behind the woodshed and just beat the dung out of you when you screwed up. The thrashing fixed all and let you back in the platoon’s good graces.

He pulled up as the sun was eaten by the hills to the west. Full dark would be here soon, with some hours before moonrise. Rath found a good campsite, well back in a valley, with close overhead trees, a steep rill that would provide a way out in an emergency, and good water. Gonwyn’s camp-picking ability remained a running joke between them, at least since the flashflood and the beehive.

He turned in the saddle back to where she followed.

“It’s getting too dark to continue,” he said, “with all of these Tedrels in the hills. We’ll rest here until the moon comes up. Until then, it’ll be too dark to be blundering about. We should have a couple of candlemarks to eat and sleep, then we’ll press on.”

He dismounted with a grunt and loosened Rath’s bellyband.

He could see her in the failing sunlight, copying him, her brow puzzled.

“Why do you do that?” she asked.

“Do what? Ever tried to put a saddle on in the dark, when arrows are flying?”

“No. I got that. I don’t understand why you usually talk to your Companion, to your Rath. Why don’t you just Mindspeak, as I do with my Enara?”

He looked at her as he leaned into Rath, crossing his elbows on the saddle-bow. “I’m almost totally head-blind. I can hear Rath, and she can read me, but I can’t send worth a damn. If I buckle down and really focus, I can just about get a whisper out. It’s just easier to do it this way.”

Her expression appeared no more than half-believing. “What’s your Talent?”

:Drinking?:
Interjected Rath.
:Wenching?:

Gonwyn ignored the Companion. “I don’t really have one. I was already a Guards officer, nearly twenty-one when I was Chosen. The masters said I was too old to learn Mindspeech, which is why almost everyone who is Chosen is a child.” Alberich hadn’t been the first adult chosen, though clearly the oldest. He wasn’t comfortable with this topic or its memories and wanted to change the subject. “What’s your Talent, then?”

“Oh, me?” she replied. She looked around and found a stick as long as her forearm, and as thick as her finger. She snapped it, green wood splintering along the ends of the break. She held the stick between her hands and stared at it in intense concentration. Gonwyn was just convinced she was having him on when a thin wisp of smoke emerged, and the splintered ends burst into flame.

Gonwyn thought she looked a little relieved.

“You’re a Firestarter,” he said.

“I’m not very good. I can just about manage this stick, and it doesn’t always work.”

“Well, I’d bet it beats my flint, steel, and profanity when I can’t get my tinder to light.”

She smiled then, showing dimples.

:Uh oh.:

The girl had turned back to her saddlebags and had pulled out a bedroll when she abruptly laughed. She looked back over her shoulder at him. “Enara tells me I am in the presence of a notorious womanizer and flirt. She is worried you’re going to seduce me.”

Gonwyn turned his head and gave Rath a long stare. Rath contrived to look innocent, a dead giveaway.

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Seducing me.”

Gonwyn gave her a disgusted look.

“All right, all right” she said taking her bedroll, and heading toward their campsite. “How about now? Are you seducing me now?” She smiled again. “If you were, I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

Gonwyn managed to convey his response in a single snort that encompassed Rath, Enara, and Danilla.

“I mean, at your age, you probably would want to give it a good running start.”

Gonwyn took his blanket out of his rather thin field pack and followed. “Did you have to?” he asked Rath as he passed.

:You do have a certain reputation.:

He gathered such small wood as he could find as he crossed to where the stream burbled down underneath a widespread oak. She had already dug a narrow, deep hole in the dirt and had started the side vent to let in air. The fire would burn hot and small within its deep pit, cook well, and throw out little light. Her campcraft seemed good enough, even if it looked more like a final exam than a field rig.

She still smiled in good humor but kept her attention on her work. He moved to one side and gutted the rabbits, using the skins to lay the carcasses on while he jointed them. He dug a second pit for the offal and trash, deep enough for scavengers to be put off the scent, at least until what they left began to rot.

Their camp preparations went quickly, both moving with an efficiency driven by the quickly fading light. He took a small leather bucket from his bags and soaked it in the creek water to thoroughly wet it, then set it on a small tripod to boil. He began cutting small pieces of meat from the rabbit and dropping them in the water.

She made a face at his filthy hands, then frowned as a drop of blood fell from between his fingers and onto the rabbit pelt.

“Damn,” he said, seeing the blood. He reached up under his surcoat and adjusted the rag he had stuffed under the hauberk to try to contain the bleeding.

“You’re hurt,” she said. Not a question.

“Took an ax in the fight this morning. It split the mail.”

She crossed to where he knelt to work and knelt in front of him. She pulled back the surcoat and pulled the dirty rag out of the cut in the chain where Gonwyn had pressed it back in. Blood streaked the chainmail links and stained the linen undertunic.

Her expression told him what she thought of his efforts. “No, no no” she said. “This just won’t do. That wound may need to be stitched.”

Gonwyn felt his stomach drop. “Stitched? Don’t I need a Healer for that?”

She glanced around. “Do you see any Healers? My dad raised cattle, and I’ve stitched lots of bulls after they’d gored each other.”

Gonwyn did not find this reassuring. Nonetheless, he slid out of the dirty remains of his White surcoat, then winced as he moved his arm back to unlace the hauberk. She moved to help him.

“Oh, that’s interesting. The footloops here allow the laces to be drawn with one hand and tied off. One person can do it one handed, and while the metal doesn’t overlap, it does let you loosen it to let in some air if you have to.”

She took the weight of the hauberk as he slid out of it, then felt the heavy weight drop onto his blanket. The armor was already dirty and would need a good scouring in the sand barrel, but more grime wouldn’t do it any favors.

Gonwyn was surprised and more than a little concerned at the amount of blood that soaked his undertunic. The wound had not seemed that bad.

She looked at the blood on his side, then at his face, which he kept carefully expressionless.

“I need to see it.”

He started to unlace the tunic, then gave it up as his arm wouldn’t reach.

“I’ll need your help.”

She smiled at him. “Don’t get any ideas.”

They both laughed at the joke, however thin.

She helped him out the tunic when he couldn’t raise his arm above his shoulder. Now that they’d stopped moving, the shoulder was stiffening quickly, and the movements threatened to cause the pain he’d banked away to break through.

“Gods, Gonwyn,” she said, as the undertunic came away.

His entire right shoulder was a single massive black bruise, where the chain had taken the force and spread it across the links. Broken links had scored the skin when they had been driven through the undertunic. The ax wound itself was about two inches long and looked deep enough to have cut into muscle. A large, black, crusted scab covered the entire wound and oozed blood. He moved his left hand to press on the skin, and she smacked it away. He did not tell her that while he’d been hurt before, he’d badly underestimated this one.

“Bastard knew what he was about. Got me longwise instead of chopping down, just where the mail splices together. He cut right through.”

“Those hands are filthy. Keep them away from the wound.”

She moved to the stream and, with that innate facility that women have, produced a cake of soap. She washed her hands thoroughly and returned to him with her healing kit.

She carefully cleaned the wound, while Gonwyn pretended this was all routine. He did swear when she doused it with the astringent wine, but just the once. The sun was nearly down before she finished probing the wound, extracting a small sliver of metal that had entered, stitched it . . . bigger stitches than the Healers used, as cattle call for different threads . . . and dressed it in linen. She set his undertunic to soak in the stream for a time and hung it to dry, as he had no other. For his part, he tested the arm and made several practice swings with his sword. It hurt like blazes, but he thought he could still fight if it came to it.

“Don’t do that. You’ll pick them free.”

She came over to him as he moved the chainmail and settled the blanket around his shoulders.

“Let’s see that mouth.”

He leaned away and spat out a gob of bloody phlegm.

“Nice,” she said. “Now turn into the light so I can see.”