He had no doubt she knew what she was doing, but he wasn’t sure the horse did.
Three people buffeted him as they darted past, urgently clearing the street and seeking somewhere out of reach of rearing hooves and twisting wagons.
Then the horse, a very handsome dapple, reached Nerea at a near-gallop still dragging the remains of the cart. She stood calmly, stepped aside just enough to avoid it, and stroked his flank with her fingers.
He slowed haltingly and stumbled two steps forward as the tilting cart’s momentum shoved at him.
Nerea walked around him, fingers tracing his muscles. After the dapple was calmed, she stepped over to a dun mare. Nerea held a hand to her muzzle, and she quieted. Then a roan stallion dropped, relaxed and stepped out of the wreckage of a pushcart yoke. The waves of calm rippled out, where waves of panic had flowed only breaths before.
Nerea turned back to the dapple, walked around, and touched his injured leg. He raised it at once, and she studied his hoof. Taking out her belt knife, she pried something long and sharp out of the frog. Releasing the foot, she patted the dapple’s flank.
And Keth’ smiled, because he knew what could keep her here, near him and near the horses.
He would stay here and finish his studies, because Mind-magic, and Animal Speaking, ran through his people. It was inevitable others would show their talents, and possibly more of them. He’d be needed to teach those children of the Shin’a’in who had Mind-magic and who could not or would not leave the Plains. Nerea would stay here until then and teach the Valdemarans about horses, for wisdom ran both ways.
He also understood why the day had been so sweet, even though Valdemar wasn’t his home. Nor, anymore, were the Plains.
Home was where Nerea was.
“So, how are our lovebirds doing? More importantly, has Nerea started home yet?” Teren asked Lo’isha hopefully, after serving the Shaman some tea.
Lo’isha smiled at him.
“I think that is a vain hope, my friend. She does not look as if she is leaving anytime soon. If she were easy to dissuade, she would have never left the Plains in the first place.”
Teren sighed and leaned against his desk. “What am I going to do with them?”
“Why do anything? They will solve their own problems and have indeed begun to do so.” Lo’isha calmly sipped his tea.
“What do you mean?” asked Teren suspiciously. He had the feeling that he wasn’t going to like this.
“After that incident at the horse market, Nerea has received more offers for work and horse training than she knows what to do with. She isn’t going anywhere,” he repeated.
“What about Keth’? Has he spoken to you at all?”
Lo’isha sat back and steepled his fingers.
“Yes, he has asked me about becoming a teacher on the Plains. He believes his talents lie not with Valdemar but with his—our—people. He’s not entirely wrong. Her talent, of course, is a latent power manifesting itself. There will be others. He can hardly be the only one needing to be trained in Mind-magic. Since the Storms there is now no reason not to. My people would learn better from one who has the proper attitude; magic is not to be meddled with but controlled and tempered.”
“But he is supposed to be a Herald! Anyone a Companion chooses has to be a Herald!” Teren was agitated. He’d thought Lo’isha concurred with him.
“Why? ‘There is no one true way.’ It’s time to change. Not every Shin’a’in with power can trek to Valdemar, and certainly they can’t remain here. At some point, we must have our own schools. In the meantime, he will be an intermediary, learning here, then mentoring others. Perhaps one day he will return to the Plains.”
Teren said, “That’s not what he wants.”
Lo’isha replied, “Nor is it what you want. Nor even what I’d want, if I had a choice. None of us do, though. The Storms have blown the slate clean for us down on the Plains.”
He took a final sip of tea and placed the cup down on a clear spot amid the clutter.
“I believe they have for Valdemar as well.”
Gonwyn pressed the bloody, filthy rag down onto where his teeth had been broken by the arrow hit. The helmet’s cheek-piece had saved his life, but pain from the splintered molars flared as he tried to stanch the bleeding. He spat more blood and fragments onto the leafy ground. Distant fighting flared up, the rattle of combat carried across the torn ground. His part of the field might have gone quiet, but fighting still raged in the center and on the left.
He nudged Rath with his heels, and they moved together up the draw,and through the trees. The Companion, fastidious about her hooves, stepped around the windrows of fallen bodies. Tedrel and Valdemaran lay commingled, embraced in death.
He crossed into the rally point, well behind the lines . . . at least until the lines had moved and brought heavy fighting. The low mounded hill and its sparse trees stank of blood and loosened bowels, thick with the stench of death. Nearby wounded had been gathered here, at least until the Tedrels had swept the Valdemaran forces back. Now, the injured felt no pain.
He thought Adreal lay dead, propped against a tree with a bloody blanket pressed to his middle. The Herald Master opened his eyes and reached for his notched sword, bringing it up in defense before he recognized Gonwyn.
Gonwyn slid out of the saddle and moved closer. Claris, Adreal’s Companion, came into sight, lamed by a gashing wound in her left rear leg. The skin lay open, exposing the muscle beneath. Blood slicked the Companion’s side, running from haunch to hock.
“Where the hell was our support?” Gonwyn asked. “It was raining anvils on us over there.”
Adreal half-smiled at him. “You sound like you have a mouth full of marbles.”
Gonwyn made an apologetic gesture toward his blood-crusted face. “Got hit by a spent arrow. Lost most of the afternoon asleep in a warm pile of dead other people. Was missed by the Tedrel looters.”
“There’s your answer.” Adreal shook his head. “Tedrel happened. Their cavalry never showed. The Lord Marshal took all the reserves and our horse to go deal with something clever the Tedrels thought up. They took all the Heralds who were controlling movement on this side. They went out of play just as they would have been useful.”
Adreal coughed as he shifted his weight against the tree. “You do know that King Sendar was killed?’
Gonwyn winced as he brushed his tongue over the damage. “Yes.” It came out as “yeth.” “I heard he was down but was back up. Rath told me he was killed when I came to. What happened?”
Adreal shrugged and coughed again. A thin spittle line of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. His tone remained dry and normal. “Don’t know the full of it. He took what body of troops was near and charged into the center. Cracked it. Most of the Tedrel forces fell on that wedge. Just about everyone in that charge was killed, but it took the pressure off the flanks.”
“What about the Heir?” Gonwyn asked.
“Alive.” Adreal wiped his hand across his face. Gonwyn could see the sweat even in the cool air. “Selenay is alive. I heard Alberich got her out before that part of the line got swamped. There was some kind of assault or raid. He got her out.”
Gonwyn spat again and reached into Rath’s saddlebags for sour field wine. He rinsed his mouth, winced at the astringent bite, then offered the bladder to Adreal. The Herald refused with a shake of his head.
“He didn’t turn on us?” Gonwyn asked. “I always thought he was too good to be true.”
“Nope. Mr. ‘Hide in Haven’ was all over the map today, bad cess to the Tedrels. He got Selenay out after Sendar died, kept the attack going in the face of the King’s fall, and led the regrouping in the absence of the Lord Marshal.”
“Where’s Talamir, then? Where’s the King’s Own?”
“He was near Sendar when he went down. They got Tavar.” Both men shared a glance, first at Adreal’s Claris, then at Gonwyn’s Rath. The ultimate horror for a Herald, the loss of bond and blood, of a Companion’s fall. Gonwyn knew both that he would take his own life if Rath fell, and that they talked about a dead man.
They both glanced as the fighting on the left side of the Valdemaran line grew more intense. Distant horns followed by a giant crash as two forces came together.
