Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar

:Me? You Choose me?: Only then it occurred to Mola that she had used Mind- hearing, Mindspeech.

:The clover made the Herald stronger!:

Mola pulled a handful from her pocket and looked at the drooping plants. “But I haven’t even delivered it yet.” The significance of the words penetrated deeper. “Charlin is better? She’s better?”

Melahar reached down and gently ate the clover off of Mola’s palm: :No, Mola. I’m afraid Charlin’s dead.:

A boulder hurled at Mola’s chest could not have hit her harder. :But ... how can that be? You said the clover made the Herald stronger.:

:And it did, my Herald. It made you stronger.: Melahar nosed through Mola’s pocket for more clover. :Your mind channels were just open enough for me to send you the dreams. It took this journey to fully activate them.:

Absently, Mola pulled out a huge batch of clover for her Companion and reveled in the soft touch of Melahar’s nose against her hand. My Companion. I have a Companion. She threw her arms around the delicately arched white neck, spilling the clover to the ground. Joy beyond what she had ever known surged through Mola and, with it, an incredible sense of responsibility. :Melahar, can you help me find Corry’s knife? I need to return it.:

Melahar whinnied. :He said not to worry about it.:

:He said ... You mean he was ... in on it?:

:They all were. I had to spread the word. Otherwise, you might have talked one of them into going instead of you.:

Mola flushed scarlet. She had tried to do exactly that.

:Corry would have done it. He’s sweet on you, you know.:

The warmth spread from Mola’s cheeks to the roots of her hair. Now that she had her own Companion, a relationship with him became a real possibility.

:And then the journey would not have made the right Herald stronger.:

:Me.:

:Yes.:

:I’m a Herald.: To Mola, the words seemed more like random sounds. Such a thing could not be true.

:You will be once you finish your training. I had to take a bit of poetic license.:

:And the clover. Does it really have healing properties?:

A wicked sense of excitement wafted from Melahar. :It heals my cravings. I love that clover.: He lowered his head to pick up the bits Mola had dropped. :Hop on, soon-to-be Herald Mola. I sent your other mount home.:

Mola did not need a second invitation. She scrambled onto Melahar’s back, feeling like the tallest person in the world. “Home, trusty mount!”

Melahar raised his head proudly. :There’s not a bear, nor a swamp drake, that could stop us.:

The Cheat

by Richard Lee Byers

Richard Lee Byers is the author of over thirty fantasy and horror novels, including

Unclean

,

Undead

,

Unholy

,

The Rage

,

The Rite

,

The Ruin

, and

Dissolution

. A resident of the Tampa Bay area, the setting for much of his horror fiction, he spends a good deal of his leisure time fencing and playing poker. Visit his Web site at

richardleebyers.com

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Falnac was nervous. I could tell by the way he kept swallowing.

I put my hand on the lad’s shoulder. “Use what we practiced,” I said. “Leap into the distance, feint to the groin, and finish on the outside.”

“Yes, Master Selden,” he whispered.

“And if the two of you wind up close together, stay there and stab like a madman. Alsagad’s taller than you. Close quarters will make him awkward.”

I could have said more, but a swordsman about to fight for his life can only retain so much advice. Indeed, given that this was Falnac’s first duel, it was an open question whether he’d remember anything I’d just told him, or anything from his six years of lessons, either.

When they deemed the light sufficient, the seconds called the duelists to a patch of ground where there were no tombstones to trip them up. As they advanced, Dromis caught my eye. He was Alsagad’s fencing master as I was Falnac’s, and the protocol of dueling required that we treat one another with stately courtesy. Instead, the big man with the curling mustachios, pointed beard, and hair all dyed a brassy, unnatural yellow gave me a sneer, as if to assert that my teaching and my student were so inferior to his that Alsagad’s victory was assured.

For a heartbeat, it made me want to see Alsagad stretched out dead on the dewy grass, and then I felt ashamed of myself. Like many quarrels, this one had materialized over a trifle, and any decent man would hope to see it settled by, at worst, a trifling wound.

The seconds gave the principals the chance to speak words of reconciliation, and of course, being proud young blades of Mornedealth, they didn’t. So Alsagad’s second whipped a white kerchief through the air. That was the signal to begin.

The duelists circled one another while waking birds chirped, a cool breeze blew, and dawn stained the river on the far side of the graveyard red. Then Falnac sprang forward.

His blade leaped at Alsagad’s crotch in as convincing a feint as I’d ever seen. But the move didn’t draw the parry it was meant to elicit. Instead, Alsagad simply cut into Falnac’s wrist. My student’s blade fell from his hand.

The seconds opened their mouths to shout for a halt, but they were too slow. Alsagad slashed Falnac’s neck.

Falnac collapsed with blood spurting from the new and fatal wound. Dromis crowed and shook his fist in the air. “Yes!” he bellowed. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

“That murdering little whoreson,” I said. I reached to refill my cup and knocked the wine bottle over.

Marissa’s scarred, long-fingered hand caught it before it could spill. The close-cropped hair framing her heart-shaped face was inky black in the dim candle-light of the tavern. “You’re drunk,” she said.

“It was murder!” I insisted.

“If no one had called the halt, then Alsagad was within his rights to keep fighting. And he was a boy, too, wasn’t he, no doubt as frightened and frantic as Falnac.”

“Don’t bet on it. All of Dromis’ pupils are arrogant and vicious.”

“And yours aren’t? Mine are, and thank the gods for it. Otherwise, they wouldn’t pay good coin to learn to kill.”

I shook my head. “There’s a difference, and you know it.”

“I suppose. By all accounts, Dromis himself is a ruffian, and brutish fencing masters turn out brutish swordsmen. There’s no great mystery in it.”