:I hate to interrupt your introspection,: Tyrsell said dryly in his mind, :But just about everyone has left. I’d wait until you were done with your mental soliloquy, but then I’d have to gallop to catch up, and I don’t believe you ‘d enjoy that.:
He came to himself with a start. Tyrsell was right, the last of the laden dyheli herd had lined up to pass through the entrance of the Vale, and it was time for the rear-guard - himself and Tyrsell - to get on their way.
:Uh - thanks,: he said with embarrassment, as Tyrsell took his place at the end of the line.: I promise, I won’t do any more woolgathering.:
:I should hope not,: the dyheli stag replied with dignity.
As he and Tyrsell passed through the Veil, Kuari dropped off the branch on which he had chosen to perch and winged silently past them, into the uncontrolled, mist-wreathed forest outside. At this time of the year, the first couple of candlemarks before and after dawn brought floating streamers of mist up out of the ground to circle among the trunks until the heat of the day drove them off. There were no such mists inside the Vale of course, except on the rare occasions when the Elders decided that mist would make a pleasant “effect.” It was cooler out here, too, understandably damper, and the first thing he noticed when he came out through the Veil and took his place at the end of the group was the absence of flower scent. Flowers bloomed constantly in the Vale, day and night, regardless of season, but not out here. It was too late for spring flowers, which were all that bloomed in a heavy forest; spring was the only time that enough light reached the ground for blossoms, except in places where there were clearings. So the perfumes he had become accustomed to were replaced with the metallic tang of fog, the earthy taste of decaying leaves and needles, and the faint musk of the dyheli.
Tyrsell led a new herd, much bigger than the previous one, composed of his original core and most of the adolescent and young adult dyheli from the other herds of k’Vala. This gave some much- needed population relief to the k’Vala home-herds, and a much-needed outlet for the youngsters. It also greatly increased Tyrsell’s status - both that his herd was three times the size it had been, and that he was considered capable by the other king-stags of controlling so large a herd. Darian had been suitably impressed when he’d been told; this new herd established Tyrsell at the very top of herd hierarchy, a kind of dyheli Great Lord of State.
Because of the size of this herd, and because gryphons had been ferrying baggage and would continue to do so as long as there was baggage to ferry, there had been no need for anyone to have to leave anything behind. All in all, this would be a relatively easy resettlement, as orderly as any migration from an old Vale to a new one.
Except that we can’t just step across a Gate to get there, more’s the pity. It would take a week, roughly, of dawn-to-dark riding to get there, and he had no doubt that Snowfire meant that quite literally. They would rise before the dawn and not make camp until after dusk.
Still, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t done before, and he fell back into his habits of rear-guard, habits that fit him as comfortably as a well-worn and supple hawking glove.
:We’re about to be relieved of duty,: Tyrsell said suddenly, on the last afternoon of the journey, as they passed beneath trees that had changed very little with the passing of a mere four or five years. The dyheli pricked his ears forward, and Darian turned to see a figure riding back along the line of baggage-laden dyheli, coming toward them. A moment later, he recognized Nightwind, and waved at her. She waved back, and when she got into conversational distance, told him, “Kel and I are going to take rearguard; we’re just about at the new Vale, and Snowfire and Starfall thought you two might like to enter at the head of the line instead of the tail.”
:Well! That’s a courteous thought!: Tyrsell said with approval. :Thank you; I know I would prefer it.:
“Me, too,” Darian agreed self-consciously. He sent a brief thought to Kuari, then relinquished his duty to Nightwind.
By going into a hard canter, he and Tyrsell came up to the front of the line well in time to go through the titular entrance side-by-side with Starfall and Snowfire. He felt a swell of pride so powerful that he flushed as they gravely made space for Tyrsell to fit between them.
There was no entrance as such, no Veil, for there was as yet no real Heartstone, only a kind of superior node anchored in a physical rock formation. But the hertasi and the few Tayledras who had preceded them had set up two rough pillars of stone on either side of the pass that let them into their valley, to mark where the Veil would one day be.
And they had done some subtle defensive improvements as well, although you would have to know what you were looking for to find them. They had made the sides of the hills far steeper, making it very difficult for an armed force to get into the new Vale by climbing the hillsides. There were well-camouflaged guard points on those hillsides, and anyone who tried to invade that way would shortly be full of arrows. But to look at them, there was nothing more unusual here than exceptionally steep rock formations, formations that had probably been this way since the beginning of the world.
No swarm of dyheli and hertasi met them this time; the hertasi were probably working hard on the building. But Ayshen, who had gone on ahead, did meet them, standing in the center of the path, actually bedecked in his formal costume, bowing ceremoniously to all three of them.
