Arrow's Flight

Book 2: Heralds of Valdemar

by Mercedes Lackey

Genres: Sword & Sorcery; Coming of Age

Synopsis

Talia could scarcely believe that she had finally earned the rank of full Herald. Yet though this seemed like the fulfillment of all her dreams, it also meant she would face trials far greater than those she had previously survived. For now Talia must ride forth to patrol the kingdom of Valdemar, dispending Herald's justice throughout the land.

But in this realm beset by dangerous unrest, enforcing her rulings would require all the courage and skill Talia could command—for if she misused her own special powers, both she and Valdemar would pay the price.

Release date: September 1, 1987

Publisher: DAW

Print pages: 320

Sample

One

Thwack!

The flat of Alberich’s practice-blade cracked against Talia’s ill-guarded side. She hadn’t seen the blow coming, she truly hadn’t. That had hurt, and she would lay money on having a bruise despite the padded jerkin that had absorbed most of the blow. The practice blades may have only been wood, but Alberich tended to wield them all the harder for that.

“Faugh!” he spat in disgust, and came at her again before she had recovered from the last blow. This time he connected with her knife-arm, right at the elbow. She yelped, the arm went numb, and she lost her blade entirely.

The hawklike eyes glared at her with no trace of pity, and the scar-seamed face was a demonic mask as he passed judgment on her performance.

He was at least in his mid-forties, if not older, but he hadn’t lost a fraction of his edge or agility in the five years Talia had known him. She was panting with exertion—he might as well have been taking a leisurely stroll. His well-worn, dark leathers (he was the only working Herald in Talia’s experience who never wore Whites) showed not so much as a tiny sweat stain. The afternoon sun pouring down on all of them had made him look as thin and insubstantial as a shadow. And he had been just as hard to catch.

“A pity it is that Skif is not here to see you. Die of laughter he surely would!” he growled. “Eighteen you are—one would think you eight. Slow, clumsy, and stupid! Paugh! Had I been a real assassin—”

“I would have died of fright before you touched me.”

“Now it is jokes! This is a battle-practice—not a comedy. If I wish amusement, I shall find a jester. Once again—and correctly, this time.”

Once she was ready to drop with exhaustion, he turned his attention to Elspeth. Now that both of them deserved special tutelage he had changed the hour of their lessons to one shared by no one else, so that he could give his full devotion to the Queen’s Own and Heir-presumptive. Rather than being held on the training grounds outside, the two had their drills in the salle. This was a barn-like building with a sanded wooden floor, lined with mirrors, with high clerestory windows to admit the maximum amount of light. Lessons were always held here during inclement weather, but it was too small for mass practices and classes for the combined Heraldic-Bardic-Healer’s Collegium students. Only those “privileged” to receive private lessons with Alberich took those lessons habitually in the salle.

Now that his attention was off her, Talia found her thoughts drifting back to her surprise of this afternoon.

* * *

Talia tugged and wriggled impatiently until she had succeeded in getting the supple, soft, white leather tunic over her head. Pulling it into place over the white raime shirt and leather breeches, she finally turned to admire the effect in the polished metal mirror in front of her.

“Havens!” she laughed, not a little surprised, “Why don’t the Grays ever look like this?”

“Because,” a harsh voice drawled from the next room, “You youngsters would have your minds on anything but your studies if they did!”

Talia laughed, turned back to the mirror, and preened. Today was the anniversary of her first class at Herald’s Collegium—a fact that she’d forgotten until Keren and Sherrill (senior Heralds both, and instructors at the Collegium as well as Talia’s longtime friends) arrived at her room with their arms full of white uniforms and wearing broad grins.

For the Heraldic Circle had considered—for less than five minutes, all told—had voted—and had passed Talia into full Herald status with the rest of her year-mates—no surprise to anyone in the Collegium, though by tradition the trainees were not to know when they were to be evaluated until the evaluation had already been made and they had passed.

Keren and Sherrill had claimed the right to give her the good news.

They didn’t even give her a chance to think, either—just appeared at her door, swept her up one on either side, and herded her down the long, dark wood-paneled hall of the Collegium dormitory, down the stairs to the first floor, and out the double doors at the end.

From there they had taken her off to the Seneschal’s office to claim her new quarters. Now she stood in the bedroom of the suite she’d chosen, marveling at her reflection.

“I look like a real grownup for a change!”

“That is the general idea,” Sherrill laughed richly.

She cocked her head to one side, regarding the tiny, slender figure in the mirror. Her unruly red-brown curls were as tousled as ever, but somehow gave an impression now of being tumbled the way they were on purpose. The huge, deep-brown eyes that had been utterly guileless seemed somehow wiser; the heart-shaped face no longer so childlike. And all that change wrought by the magic of a new uniform!

“Talia, your head is going to swell like a spongetoad in rainy season if you’re not careful.” Keren interrupted her train of thought a second time. By craning her neck to peer around the doorframe Talia could see the riding instructor grinning sardonically from where she was sprawled on the wooden-backed, red-cushioned couch in the other room.

“Don’t you know what the Book of the One says?” Sherrill added piously over her mate’s shoulder. “‘Great pride shall earn equal humiliation.’”

Talia left her bedroom to join them. They were lounging comfortably in her sparsely-furnished outer room, sharing the lone couch.

“I suppose you’re both going to claim that you never spent so much as a minute in front of the mirror when you first got your Whites,” Talia taunted, strolling toward them with her hands clasped behind her back.

“Who? Me?” Sherrill replied in artificial innocence, lifting an airy hand and batting thick black lashes over wide hazel eyes. “And feed my vanity? W-e-l-l, maybe a little.”

“I happen to know for a fact that you spent half the day there. I’m told you were trying every hairstyle you could twist that black mane of yours into, seeing which one went best with the new outfits,” Keren countered dryly, running her fingers through her own close-cropped, graying brown hair.

Sherrill just grinned and crossed her legs elegantly, leaning back into the cushions. “Since I can’t claim equal knowledge of what you did on that august occasion, that’s hardly a fair blow.”

“Oh, I did my share of mirror-gazing,” Keren admitted with mock reluctance. “When you’re as scrawny as a sapling and flat as a boy, it’s rather astonishing to see yourself in something that actually flatters you. I swear I don’t know how they do it—it’s the same pattern for everybody, and not that dissimilar from the Student Grays—”

“But Lord, the difference!” Sherri concluded for her. “I don’t know anybody who doesn’t look fantastic in their Whites. Even Dirk manages to look presentable. Rumpled, but presentable.”

“Well, what do you think of me?” Talia asked, turning on her toes in front of them, and grinning impishly into Keren’s eyes.

“What do I think? That you look fabulous, you young demon. Keep fishing for compliments, though, and I’ll likely dump you in the horse trough. Have they told you anything about your internship?”

Talia shook her head, and clasped her hands behind her again. “No. All they said was that the Herald they want to pair me with is in the field, and they won’t tell me who it is.”

“That’s pretty much to be expected. They don’t want you to have time to think of things to impress him with,” Sherrill replied. Suddenly her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Oh, but I can think of one prospect that would give Nerrissa a litter of kittens!”

“Who?” Talia asked, head to one side.

“Kris and Dirk are due back in the next few weeks, and Dirk got the last greenie—as you should know, since it was Skif—so it’s Kris’ turn next! Nessa would die!”

“Sherri, it’s only my internship assignment.”

“A year and a half Sector-riding, most of it spent alone together, and you say it’s only an assignment? Talia, you must have ice water for blood! Do you have any notion of the number of hours Nessa—and half the females of the Circle, for that matter—spend on their knees praying for an assignment like that? Are you sure you don’t have leanings our way?”

Talia chuckled, and wrinkled her nose at them. “Quite sure, darlings. Just what is Kris’ attraction for Nessa, anyway? She’s got most of the males of the Circle panting at her heels as it is.”

“The lure of the unattainable, or so I would surmise,” Keren supplied, lids half-closed lazy with only a glint of brown iris showing. “He hasn’t taken a vow of chastity, but he’s so circumspect about his dalliances you’d never know it. It drives Nessa wild, and the harder she chases, the faster he runs. She’s as caught up now by the chase as by the face.”

“Well, she can chase him all she wants. I am not at all impressed by Kris’ handsome face,” Talia replied firmly.

“Or the gorgeous body—?” interjected Sherrill.

“Or the gorgeous body. Nessa can have all the gorgeous bodies in the Circle, for all I care. Holderkin men are handsome specimens, and I can do without them—my father could have given Kris stiff competition in his younger days, and I’ve told you what kind of a petty tyrant he was. And my late-but-not-lamented brother Justus was actually handsomer, if you favor blonds, and he was the foulest person I’ve ever known. I’d rather have a good heart and plain packaging.”

“Yes, but Kris is a Herald—” Sherrill pointed out, tapping one long finger on her knee for emphasis. “That guarantees the good heart without having to settle for a homely exterior. No handsome, smiling bastards in our ranks—”

“Sherri, this is all sheer speculation. Until I find out who I’m interning with, I refuse to worry about the subject,” Talia replied firmly.

“You are no fun at all.”

“I never said I was.”

“Hmm. Dirk’s interning that scalawag Skif—” Keren said thoughtfully. “You and Skif were very thick there for a while. In fact, as I recall, you and he had a rumor or two floating about your heads. Is that why you aren’t interested in Dirk’s partner?”

“Maybe,” Talia smiled enigmatically. The fact that their “romance” had been entirely without any result was Skif’s secret—and hers. The streak of ill-luck and accident that had plagued their meetings had not had any effect on their friendship: except that they had never managed to be more than just that—friends. Oddly enough, though, except for a brief period of anxiety when word had come that Skif had been hurt during his first three months in the field, Talia had thought less of Skif, and more of his counselor. To her own amazement—and for no reason, logical or fanciful, that she could think of—when her thoughts strayed in the direction of the former thief and his internship assignment, it was in Dirk’s direction that they tended to wander. This was annoying; she’d met the man all of three times in her life, and had never been in his company for more than an hour or two at most. Yet, that homely face and those wonderful blue eyes kept lingering stubbornly in her thoughts. It did not make sense.

She shook her head to free it of those fanciful images. She had little enough time, and had none to spare in daydreams.

“Well, this little wardrobe change of yours ought to surprise little Elspeth,” Sherrill said, changing the subject.

“Oh, Lady Bright—” Talia sat down with a thump on one of her cushions, joy extinguished. It almost seemed to her at that moment that the bright sun-rays pouring through her windows had dimmed. “Poor Elspeth—”

“Something up?” Keren asked, one eyebrow rising.

“Just the usual.”

“What’s usual? You know I don’t get around the Court.”

“Intrigue rising beyond gossip. She’s almost fourteen and still not Chosen; there’s muttering in the Court that she’s still the Brat under the skin and she’ll never be Chosen. In Council meetings one or more of the Councilors is usually trying to pressure Selenay into naming an Heir—‘pro tem,’ as they put it—”

“Who?” Sherrill asked in alarm, sitting straight up. “Who’s stirring up the water?”

“You know I can’t tell you that! Anyway it isn’t just those particular Councilors; it’s more than half of the Court. Elspeth doesn’t say much, but it’s got her very depressed, poor baby. Their timing couldn’t be worse. She’s already moody enough with the normal adolescent woes, and this has got her in near-tears on a regular basis. When I’m not getting my shoulder soggy, I keep finding her at Companion’s Field whenever she’s free, sort of lurking—”

“Hoping any minute to be Chosen. Gods, no wonder she’s wearing a long face whenever I see her. What’s Rolan got to say about this?”

“Be damned if I know!” Talia gifted Keren with a look of exasperation. “You know he doesn’t Mindspeak me in words.”

“Sorry,” Keren winced, “I keep forgetting.”

“He’s worried, but it could be as much over the machinations and power-maneuverings at Court as anything else. The current candidates are Jeri, Kemoc, and your oh-so-lovely Kris.”

“Wonderful people in and of themselves,” Keren observed, “But with some not-so-wonderful relatives lurking in the family trees. One would think Kris’ uncle Lord Orthallen would have his hands full enough as chief Councilor without wanting to be the Heir’s uncle—”

“That man will never have enough power to satisfy him,” Talia snapped bitterly.

Keren raised an eyebrow at the outburst, and continued. “Kemoc’s horde of lazy cousins would swarm the Court, looking for sinecures—and Kemoc’s such a soft touch he’d try to manage it. And Jeri—Lady Bright! Her mother!”

“We’d have a battle royal every day between Jeri and Lady Indra over how Jeri’s Council votes should go. I wish her husband would lock her away. Or buy a gag for her.”

“Amen. Pity none of them come without baggage. Not my idea of a fun situation. And poor catling caught in the middle.”

Talia sighed in agreement. “Speaking of no fun, I’d better scramble. Alberich informed me in no uncertain terms that my new status does not exempt me from his special lessons. I have the sinking feeling that he intends to slap my inflated pride down to pre-student levels, and probably with the flat of his blade.”

“Can I watch?” Keren asked wickedly.

“Why not? Elspeth’s always there, and there’s nothing like being worse at something than a thirteen-year-old girl to really deflate your opinions of yourself. Well, that ought to reinflate her self-esteem a bit. Ah, me, it’s a pity to have to get these lovely new clothes all over dirt and sweat—”

As they descended the cool darkness of the spiraling staircase, Keren and Sherrill in the lead with their arms casually linked, Talia reflected that bringing them together was probably the best thing she’d ever done. The bond between them was easily as strong as the one Keren had shared with Ylsa—and had Ylsa lived, they might very well have formed one of the relatively rare, permanent threesomes. There was no doubt that they were very good for each other. Poor Ylsa . . .

Talia’s chosen living quarters were at the very top of her tower at the end of the Herald’s wing. The suites in the four towers were seldom used—probably because they were more than a bit inconvenient. The walk up and down the darkened stone staircase was a long one, but she felt that the view (and the privacy) were worth it.

But the trudge was likely to bring complaints from Talia’s friends—and Keren voiced the first of many.

“I’ll tell you one thing, my fine young Herald,” Keren grumbled a little when they finally reached the ground floor. “Visiting with you on a regular basis is going to keep your friends in shape. Why you chose to roost with the birds is beyond me.”

“Do you truly want to know why I chose that particular suite?” Talia asked with a grin.

“Say on.”

“Pray remember, if you will, what my Gift is—I’m an empath, not a mindspeaker. Either of you remember who my neighbor was?”

“Mm. Destria, wasn’t it?” Sherrill replied after thought. “Turned out to be a good Field Herald, despite her—ah—”

“Randiness,” Keren supplied with a hint of grin. “That girl! Anything in Grays or Whites, so long as it was male! Havens, when did she ever have time to study?”

“Then you both know about her habit of ‘entertaining’ with great frequency and—um—enthusiasm. What I couldn’t shield I could most certainly hear! Between her nocturnal activities and Rolan’s, I got a quite thorough education, let me assure you! That’s when I swore my privacy was worth any inconvenience. I don’t want to eavesdrop on anyone else’s fun ever again, and I certainly don’t want anyone eavesdropping on mine!”

“Talia, I don’t believe a word of it,” Sherrill giggled. “What could you possibly have to fear from eavesdroppers? You’re practically a temple virgin compared with the rest of us!”

“You ought to believe it, since it’s all true. Well, here’s where we part company. Wish me luck—I’m going to need it!”

* * *

Pity that they hadn’t wished her luck—she might have gotten a few less bruises. Talia fanned herself with a towel while she paced back and forth to keep from stiffening up, and watched Elspeth with unforced enjoyment. The girl was a pleasure to observe, moving through the sparring bout with the grace and agility of a dancer, and making it all seem effortless and easy. She was much better even than Jeri had been at her age, but then she had had the benefits of four years of Alberich’s remorseless training; Jeri had only had the finest arms-tutors money could obtain. No amount of money could buy Alberich’s expertise.

She ran through the assigned exercises with careless grace. Then, at the end of a bout, she unexpectedly executed one of the spin-and-tumbling-rolls that Alberich had been trying to train into Talia—a move that was not one Alberich had been teaching her. And she scored a kill on him.

He stared at her in startled amazement for a long moment, as both Talia and Elspeth waited breathlessly for the roar of disapproval they were certain would come.

“Good!” he said at last, as Elspeth’s jaw dropped in surprise. “Very good!” Then, lest she dare to grow careless because of the compliment, “But next time must be better.”

Despite this unexpected kudos, Talia found when she brought Elspeth a damp towel at the conclusion of the lesson that the girl was subdued and depressed.

“What’s wrong, catling?” she asked, seeing how like her mother Elspeth was, despite the brown hair and eyes rather than Selenay’s blond and blue. At this moment the shadow on her face matched the one the Queen wore when troubled. She knew the answer already, but it would do the girl good to talk it out one more time.

“I can’t do anything right,” Elspeth replied unhappily, “I’ll never be as good as you, no matter how hard I try.”

“You can’t be serious—”

“No, really, look at you! You spent half your life on a backwoods dirt-farm; now you can’t be told from Heralds that were highborn. You got good marks in your classes; I’m abysmal in all of mine. And I can’t even manage to be Chosen. . . .”

“I suspect it’s the last that’s eating at you the most.”

Elspeth nodded, the corners of her mouth drooping.

“Catling, we’re two different people with wildly different abilities and interests. In the five years I’ve been here I’ve never once managed to earn a ‘good’ from Alberich, much less a ‘very good’! I’m still so stiff when I dance that they say it’s like dancing with a broom.”

“Oh, huzzah, I’m a marvel of coordination. I can kill anything on two legs. That’s a terrific qualification for being Heir.”

“Catling, you’ve got the qualifications. Look, if I live to be two hundred, I will never understand politics. Think back a minute. At the last Council meeting, I could sense that Lord Cariodoc was irritated, but you were the one who not only knew why and by whom, but managed to placate the old buzzard before he could start an incident. And your teachers assure me that though you may not be the best in your classes, you aren’t the worst by any stretch of the imagination. As for being Chosen, catling, thirteen is only the average age for that. Think of Jadus—he was sixteen and had been at Bardic for three years! Or Teren, for Lady’s sake—a man grown and with two children! Look, it’s probably only thatyour Companion just hasn’t been old enough, and you know very well they don’t Choose until they’re ten or better.”

Elspeth’s mood seemed to be lightening a bit.

“Come on, love, cheer up, and we’ll go see Rolan. If riding him will bring some sun to your day, I’m sure he’ll let you.”

Elspeth’s long face brightened considerably. She loved riding as much as dancing and swordwork. It wasn’t often that a Companion would consent to bear anyone but his Chosen; Rolan had done so for Elspeth in the past, and she obviously counted those moments among the finest in her life. It wasn’t the same as having her own Companion, but it was at least a little like it. Together they left the training salle, and headed for the wooded enclosure that was home to the Companions at the Collegium (partnered, unpartnered, and foals) and that also held the Grove, that place where the Companions had first appeared hundreds of years ago.

And although she took pains not to show it, Talia was profoundly worried. This situation with Elspeth’s status hanging fire could not be maintained for much longer. The strain was telling on the Queen, the girl, and the Heraldic Circle.

But Talia had no more notion of how to solve the problem than anyone else.

* * *

Talia woke with a start, momentarily confused by the strange feel and sounds of the room in which she found herself. She couldn’t see a blessed thing, and over her head was a rattling—

Then she remembered where she was; and that the rattling was the shutter of the window just over the head of her bed. She’d latched it open, and it was rattling in the high wind that must have begun some time during the night.

She turned over and levered herself into a kneeling position on her pillow, peering out into the darkness. She still couldn’t see much; dark humps of foliage against barely-lighter grass. The moon was less than half full, all the buildings were dark, and clouds racing along in the wind obscured the stars and the moonlight. The wind smelled of dawn though, and sunrise couldn’t be far off.

Talia shivered in the chill, as wind whipped at her; she was about to crawl back under her warm blankets when she saw something below her.

A person—a small person—hardly more than a dim figure moving beyond the fence of Companion’s Field, visible only because it was wearing something light-colored.

And she knew with sudden surety that the one below was Elspeth.

She slid out of bed, wincing at the cold wood under her feet, and grabbed clothing by feel, not waiting to stop to light a candle. Confused thoughts tumbled, one over the other. Was the girl sleepwalking? Was she ill? But when she reached unthinkingly and tentatively with her Gift, she encountered neither the feel of a sleeping mind, nor a disturbed one; only a deep and urgent sense of purpose.

She should, she realized in some dim, far-off corner of her mind, be alarmed. But as soon as she had touched Elspeth with her Empathic Gift, that sense of calm purpose had infected her as well, and she could no more have disobeyed its promptings than have launched into flight from her tower window.

In a dreamlike state she half-stumbled out into the middle room, fumbled her way to the door, and cautiously felt her way down the spiraling staircase with one hand on the cold smoothness of the metal railing and the other on the rough stone of the wall beside her. She was shivering so hard her teeth rattled, and the thick darkness in the stairwell was slightly unnerving.

There was light at the foot of it, though, from a lamp set up on the wall. The dim yellow light filled the entranceway. And the wood-paneled corridor beyond was lighted well enough by farther wall-hung lamps that Talia felt safe in running down the stone-floored passageways to the first door to the outside she could find.

The wind hit her with a shock; it was a physical blow so hard that she gasped. It nearly wrenched the door out of her hands and she had to struggle for a moment she had not wanted to spare to get it closed behind her. She realized that she had gotten only a hint of its force from her window; her room was sheltered from the worst of it by the bulk of the Palace itself.

She found herself at the exterior bend of the L-shaped Herald’s wing; just beyond her bulked the Companion’s stables. Elspeth was nowhere in sight.

More certain of her ground now than she had been in the unfamiliar wing of the Palace, Talia would have run if she could, but the wind made that impossible. It plastered her clothing to her body, and drove unidentifiable debris at her with the velocity of crossbow bolts. She couldn’t hear anything now with it howling in her ears; she knew no one would hear her calling. Now she became vaguely alarmed; with the wind this strong and in the dark, it would be so easy for Elspeth to misstep and find herself in the river—

She mindcalled Rolan for help—and could not reach him—

Or rather, she could reach him, but he was paying no attention to her whatsoever; his whole being was focused on—what it was, she could not say, but it demanded all his concentration; for he was absorbed in it with such intensity that he was shutting everything and everyone else out.

It was up to her, then. She fought her way around the stables toward the bridge that led across the river to the main portion of Companion’s Field. It was with incredible relief that she spotted the vague blur of Elspeth ahead of her, already across the river, and headed with utter single-minded concentration in the direction of—

There was only one place she could be heading for—the Grove.

Talia forced her pace to the fastest she could manage, leaning at an acute angle into the wind, but the girl had a considerable head start on her, and had already entered the Grove by the time she had crossed the bridge.

The pale blob was lost to sight as the foliage closed around it, and Talia stumbled over the uneven ground, falling more than once and bruising hands and knees on the stones hidden in the grass. The long grass itself whipped at her booted legs, tangling her feet with each step. She was halfway to the Grove when she looked up from yet another fall to see that it was—gods!—glowing faintly from within.

She shook her head, blinking, certain that her eyes were playing tricks on her. The glow remained, scarcely brighter than foxfire, but unmistakably there.

She started to rise, when the entire world seemed to give a gut-wrenching lurch, disorienting her completely. She clutched at the grass beneath her hands, as the only reality in a suddenly unreal world, the pain of her bruised palms hardly registering. Everything seemed to be spinning, the way it had the one ti