Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

: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—”