get a weakened and defeated Valdemar with a Tedrel client for a buffer. If they lose, then they get rid of an annoying and expensive problem. If it calls a draw, then they bleed us. Three throws, and they win each one. So Karse’ll be watching this all very closely.”
Gonwyn looked at the bloodstained blanket and knew the answer beforehand. “Can I help you?”
Adreal lifted the blanket. Gonwyn saw the poniard rammed to the hilt through the chainmail and between Adreal’s ribs. A bright bubble of blood leaked out as he exhaled. “Healer Janse took the pain when they first brought me here, so it doesn’t hurt. I passed out.” He pointed with his chin to where the wounded had been slain as they lay. “When I awoke, this was over.”
He shifted the blanket to cover himself. Gonwyn bent to offer his hand in farewell. Adreal grabbed it with a fierce strength, his expression direct and forceful. “Gonwyn, do you remember what the King said before he left Haven? You like handstrokes too much, and if we’re going get out of this we need brains. Leave the sword in the scabbard. Promise me you’ll steer clear of fights.”
Gonwyn dipped his head, acknowledging without promising. He raised his hand in salute. “See you on the other side.”
Adreal raised his hand in reply, then let it drop. He turned his attention to obliterating every vestige of their quick maps. That was Adreal, careful beyond careful. “Get something to eat and wash your face.” he said, as Gonwyn turned away. “You look like you’ve been wading in an abattoir.”
Gonwyn returned to where Rath stood. The Companion had all but demolished a pile of oats poured from a bag and onto the leafy ground. He could feel the hunger in the big mare, and the bone-deep fatigue.
:No rest for the wicked.: With Rath, there were never questions. Just statements. It used to annoy Gonwyn, but he’d had twenty-five years to get over it.
“Is there ever?” he replied.
The wounded Guardsman stood nearby. He held a soot-stained, steaming pail of water, the handle wrapped in rags. Blood seeped through the bandage on his head and ran down the side of his face. Gonwyn looked at him . . . one pupil the size of an olive, the other a pinpoint.
“Just put it down, son,” he said gently.
The Guardsman looked at him, confused and still.
Gonwyn took the bucket from him. He watched as the young soldier drifted back to where a larger pot of water boiled over a fire.
The Companion answered his unasked question. :His brains were dashed about. Severe, but not fatal if he is well cared for. There will be damage.:
Gonwyn poured most of the warm water into a pail, mixed a double handful of oats into it, and squatted on his heels to use the rest of the hot water to wash off some of the blood and filth. He took a rag and gingerly swabbed the contusion on his temple from when he’d been knocked off Rath. The mare had nearly done a backflip to avoid stepping on him but had still clipped his head and put him out.
:You done making yourself pretty?: Rath was still nose down in the pail, lipping out the last of the steaming oats.
“Yeah,” Gonwyn replied. “You ready?”
:Yes. We should go. Too many oats will make me fat.:
Gonwyn looked at her. With Rath, you could never tell. She might even be serious.
He tightened the bellyband and mounted, settling in the worn saddle.
Herald and Companion moved back down the hill and across the narrow draw at a ground-eating canter. They avoided the lines of dead by unspoken agreement, angling away from the road and down through the leafy drifts to the stream that had been the control feature for the Valdemaran reserve line. They followed it some quarter of a mile, to where it bent sharply to the right. The stream went straight ahead on their crude map.
That had been the beginning of a very bad day. Turned out the map they’d copied was wrong. There were two streams, about a quarter of a mile apart, which meant some of the troops had withdrawn to the wrong stream when Orthallen called retreat. Then, when they’d tried to turn it around, the units were hopelessly scattered, and the reserves were gone. Everything else about this campaign had been a dog’s dinner, so why not the maps?
:Enough.: Rath’s mental voice cut through his internal monologue. The mare stopped suddenly and tensed.
“Adreal?” Gonwyn asked.
:He has passed. Claris has gone mad.: The very matter-of-factness of the mare’s tone told him how deeply she felt the loss. All Companions shared a bond deeper than mortals could understand, but Rath and Claris had been exceptionally close.
Gonwyn forced himself still, pushed down the grief at Adreal’s death and Claris’ loss. He buried it alongside the crushing fatigue, the pain from mouth and shoulder, and the belly-deep fear . . . all the things that were normal to feel,but which he just couldn’t afford.
Rath, sensing his resolve, pressed onward, picking up the pace to move through where the Tedrels had pressed forward, been stopped, and then driven back. The combat here had been brutal, with quarter neither asked nor given. The dead lay thickest where the lines had struggled longest. They rode around a few fragments of Tedrel units, none of which looked much like fighting. Gonwyn and Rath moved together with an abundance of caution, alert to Adreal’s order to avoid trouble. From such came the Karse stories of “ghost horses.”
They slowed after a mile or so, to pick their way carefully through a narrow draw where a small fight had taken place. A dozen dead Valdemarans and rather more Tedrels lay in little heaps and piles. He and Rath had passed this way less than two candlemarks earlier, so this fight had taken place recently. Tedrels were still bleeding through the original Valdemaran lines and into the border hills. This was bad news that needed reporting.
He slid out of the saddle to walk ahead of the mare, scuffing his feet in the leaves as they went. The Tedrels liked caltrops, and having Rath take one through the hoof would be a death-sentence.
He searched the dead Tedrels, rifling through equipment and pockets and looking at shoes. The journey bread was fresh-baked, so they had both ovens and wheat. The shoes were mostly old, but well tended and stuffed with fresh hay to pad the feet. The equipment tended to be simple and poor but well maintained . . . the standard tools of a sell-sword. There were a few small coins but no significant booty or loot. That suggested a couple of things, but none definitive. No writing material, orders, or maps. The mix told him that they were decently supplied and had resources close by. Bakers and cobblers did not strap their kit on a field pack. This was no Tedrel advance guard. This was the Tedrel nation.
In some ways the Tedrels were better supplied than the Valdemarans they faced. King Sendar had to cajole and command to force the Council to put aside its spats and march as one country. The delay gave the army a thrown-together feel, and it was larger than the commissary could support for any length of time. Sendar . . . no, Selenay now, would have little choice but to begin disbanding the army very soon, before it started eating itself to death. They had to do for Tedrel here and now.
He took some buttons, small coins, and other trinkets that might show where the Tedrels had been. He also gathered up a brace of fat rabbits they had snared along the way.
:What are you going to do with those?: Asked Rath. :It’s not like you can chew right now.:
“I’m not going to leave two patriotic Valdemaran rabbits in the clutches of the Tedrels. It’s only right I find a good Valdemaran stomach for them. Even if it’s not mine.”
:Whatever.:
He took the journey bread as well. He wasn’t sure when he would eat, and while food hadn’t been an issue, it was just a matter of time before it was.
He felt Rath touch his mind, sort his conclusions, and make his report.
:It’s still too hard to get through. I’ve passed word to Kantor directly, but he’s preoccupied with Alberich’s problems. I’m trying to get to Eigen, but he and Rimlee are almost out of range. They’re mopping up some Tedrel cavalry. Anlina is up in the center. She’s tied up with sorting out something about the King, and Adreal is dead. Otherwise, there’s still too much confusion.:
Gonwyn shook his head. “The Mindspeaking is an advantage, but we rely on it too much. Once the plan fell apart, so did the way we’d planned to Mindspeak. The Queen might be able to get orders down, my friend, but no way are we going to get word back up.”
:These militia did well. They held their own, then withdrew in good order in about company strength. Should we follow and make our report in person?:
