Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar (5 page)

Supply trains were on the way from the south, and a wagon or two arrived every few candlemarks during the day. Proper, larger tents were being unloaded even now by a mix of the Guard and the local, but now largely unemployed, populace. Harvest crews would never come, so the large households that depended on them for their crops now faced hardship. The stalks and rushes from the grain harvests wouldn’t be collected, and peddlers who sold the baskets and other wares made from them would have no goods, and so on down the line.

The locals were being compensated for their goods and work, but a government chit didn’t change the fact that so soon after the terrors of the Storms, when hope was building up again, their livelihoods had been smashed.

Still, where there is life there is hope,
he thought as he looked around the convalescents’ tent.
And here I am alive to see it. And I’ll see Haven again and walk its streets again with Genni.

“First. Sir.” The senior officer of the tent gave him a salute with her one unbandaged hand. Even that was unexpected; most decorum went out with the slop in places like this. “Good t’see y’back with us,” she said, and it didn’t take a genius to read the subtext.

“Thanks, Corporal. You being seen to well here?”

The obvious answer came right on cue. “Well as can be expected, sir.” A couple of others chuckled—no matter what region you were from or what Valdemaran dialect you spoke, some answers are utterly predictable. Things sobered up quickly as she spoke her mind. “Whole thing’s been a bit of a toss, honestly. It’s not a proper deployment, we say, ’cause we’re moving against, well, our own really. Ain’t a one of us feels right bein’ here ’cause of moving on fellow Valdemarans. We ought not be fightin’ our own.” The senior enlisted man nearby coughed, discreetly trying to wave the corporal down from making some kind of blunder. She gave him a rude gesture with a few fingers. “ ’Ey, it’s true. We talked ’bout it an’ that’s how we all lean. First’s got the right t’ know how we feel, even if we are stuck as gimps.” She looked back to Hallock. “Might be a black mark on m’record to say all that, sir, but just the same, I’d as soon not get promoted in the Guard over fightin’ my own countrymen.”

Hallock leaned a little less on his stick and eyed everyone there who’d meet his gaze. “It’s not exactly treasonous to say this kind of thing, but it bends some regs. Someone with less ribbon than me might bust down hard on you over what you just said. So why tell
me
this, of all people?”

Hallock felt himself unexpectedly moved from the words that followed. Right here were all of his country’s virtues summed up in a few minutes of hesitant confession. The corporal spoke up first.

“Because you’re here, sir. I mean, we coulda writ it up, an’ sent it all official. Or could’ve gotten a clerk t’pass it’round in rumor-mail. But fact is, sir,” she hesitated, but then saw others nodding. “Fact is, sir, we get put off duty roster, there ain’t much use for us. ’Cept as idle hands an’ cot-warmers—but we ain’t got idle minds, an’ we’re still Guard even if we get stuck off t’ bleed-in-place.” Another soldier grunted at that particularly derogatory term for convalescents.

“We told you, ’cause you came here to us. Not us to you. An’ that means a bunch to us gimps.”

Murmurs of agreement came from around the tent. A junior enlisted footman added, “You bein’ so close to bein’ one yerself, sir, we figured you’d understand better than the mill.” The group nodded to that as well. “Isn’t everyone gets magic-saved by a—” and he looked around for suggestions. “By one of those. Gods and spirits got t’have plans for you, sir, that kind of thing just doesn’t happen to regular folk like us. We figure y’gotta be somethin’ amazing for that t’happen.”

Hallock steadied himself on his staff again, and licked his lips. “There is something amazing, at that, but I’ll tell you what,” he began. “We were under orders and got hit hard. A gryphon none of us had ever met struck out of the sky like a thunderbolt and near laid down his life to help Valdemaran soldiers just like me and you. Then he near killed himself just so I could get home to see my wife.” He looked to each of them, completely holding their attention. “Every one of you here lost blood, bone, or tooth defending your fellow soldiers. You didn’t even know their names, but you bled for ’em just the same, so they could get home to
their
families.” He shook his head and leaned on his walking stick more heavily. “You’re lookin’ the wrong way here. You think
I’m
special because a fury shot out of the sky and fought to save Guard? To save
me
? Hell, no.” He paused for a few breaths, looking at each of them again. “
You’re
all amazing because you’re like
him
.”

Kelvren slept far longer than he’d intended, and it was a sleep with unsteady dreams. These dreams were more like sharp images, that struck and faded like the pluck of a bowstring, leaving afterimages and the memories that spun off from them. The worst were ones of his body coming apart, splitting open from each of the wounds he’d suffered until he floundered, drowning, in a deep pool of all his blood. The other dreams were less grisly—there was sky, in most of them, in the deep blue of chasing dawn, or the dazzling blaze of white only seen when emerging from one cloud towards another in bright day. There was the view of the Londell River, and Lake Evendim, and the descent into Errold’s Grove. Some memories were sexual—which was no unusual thing for a gryphon, especially him. He’d been on quite a few backs over the years. Skydancing, solicitous crooning, laughter, and intimate nibbling were well recalled, then they’d fade away until another of those bowstring images shocked into his mind. His friends at k’Valdemar—Darian and Snowfire, and Steelmind and that insufferably enigmatic Firesong. And his
trondi’irns,
who made him feel so good, and got him prepared so finely for his assignations—and then it was back to the sex dreams again.

“Sir? Time for your feeding, sir.” The boy with the mottled skin was back, looking under the flap of the tent.

Kelvren rolled onto his belly, startled. He immediately regretted it, crushing his sheath. He yelped and then kept his eyes closed a while, seeing only dazzle.

“Sir? You all right? You made a funny noise.”

Kelvren coughed twice and answered, “Funny forrr you. Not ssso funny forrr me.” He winced and slowly opened his eyes. “I may have brrroken sssomething I’ll need laterrr. Urrrh. Food?” he asked, ears flicking forward. “Or isss it what you brrrought lassst time?”

“Uhm. It’s not the, ah, exact same as last time. Some of it’s new colors. And I brought some bread that didn’t turn out right, but they didn’t want me to tell you that. They figured, if you didn’t know it was burned, you’d maybe think it was a treat.”

Kelvren’s eyes went to slits and he stood up on all fours, but kept his head down as he exited the tent. As he came out into full sun, despite the haze left from the heavy rain before, he swung his head to bear dead on the village.

“A trrreat. I am wearrry of thisss disssrrressspect. You. Boy. What isss yourrr name?”

“Boy. I mean, that’s what most people say to call me, is Boy. My full name’s Jeft Roald Dunwythie. The Roald part’s named after the king, o’ course. No relation. But like I say, most everyone here knows me as Boy. So I’ll answer to that if you want.”

“Hurrrh. Do you like being called Boy?” Kel asked.

“It’s not as if I have to like it, sir. Boy’s what they call me.” At the gryphon’s unblinking gaze, he finally admitted, “No, I don’t much like it. My mum gave me a proper name and, if it’s good enough for her, it should be good enough for anyone else. If things was right. But things ain’t so perfect in this life. They are as they are.”

Kelvren turned away. Half a minute passed before he returned his gaze to the young man. “Jeft Rrroald Dunwythie, if you learrrn nothing elssse frrrom me, I wisssh it to be thisss. Hold it clossse to yourrr hearrrt and never forrrget it.
It doesss not matterrr what otherrrsss call you, asss much asss it matterrrsss what you anssswerrr to.”
The gryphon limped away heavily, and stamped some tallgrass down on the other side of the tent for several minutes. He shook out his feathers, feeling renewed strength despite his restless innards. His anger and pain were transitioning into resolve, and a Plan. “And asss sssoon asss I am done making rrroom, we arrre going down therrre to get my next meal. If they
expect
a rrrampaging monsssterrr, they’ll find out I am
not
that. They’ve ssseen me hurrrt and delirrriousss, but I ssswearrr to you—they’ll neverrr forrrget what I am like when I am hungrrry, annoyed, and
deterrrmined
.”

Kelvren Set into the first part of his Plan.
Principles of magic
, he thought,
learned early on. Transmutation. Turn what is useless into what is usable.
He hobbled toward, and then past, his companion.
If I cannot preen for beauty, then I will preen for effect.
He laboriously groomed—badly—wincing several times from the persistent agony of his wounds. He took a few deep breaths and stared up at the sky when he was done.
If I am going out of this life,
he thought,
I am not going as a disrespected animal shoved away to rot. If I die, I am damned well going to do it with a full belly, and the satisfaction of knowing I ruined some idiot’s day.

The gryphon limped around to face the young man. Bandages askew, feathers at all angles, and his stitches exposed, he looked to be in poor shape to anyone’s eyes.

“Brrring your sssack, Jeft. Time forrr fun.” Jeft did just that, crashing along through the tallgrass and brush to catch up. “Why arrre you ssso disssresspected that they give you the worrrssst jobsss?”

“It’s my face, I think. I’m not any different from the other younglings here, ’cept my face.”

“What isss wrrrong with yourrr facsse?” Kel asked, pausing ostensibly for Jeft to close in on him, but in reality, it was because he was having trouble moving well. His right side haunch folded up on him, and jarred his lanced shoulder badly, eliciting a short whine. “It looksss fine to me. You have good marrrkingsss.”

“That’s just it there, sir, these, uh, markings,” he confirmed as he stopped beside the gryphon, pointing at the splotches that randomly covered his face. “People think my face is really ugly. They say it’s ’cause my mum married a far-southerner, and he had bad blood in him, an’ so I came out like this, all ugly from both sides, they say. And there’s nothin’ can be done about it, so I just do what I do.” He hoisted the heavy bag up again.

“And yourrr fatherrr?”

“He died. He was one of the traveling harvesters, an’ when he went away up northwest, he got crushed by one of those big carts, they said. Mum took it hard and still hasn’t gotten better after that. Anyway. He’s in a better place now.”

Kelvren levered himself up gingerly, mulling that over, then snorted at the flies pestering his wounds and resumed his trek. “I am . . . sssorrry you—hurrh!—have—
kah! sketi!
—lossst yourrr fatherrr,” he said breathily, tripping on brush. “I have not ssseen mine in fifteen yearrrsss. We sssend messsagesss but—ah. It isss not the sssame as sssharrring sssky with him.”

“Sky’s prob’ly where my father is,” Jeft smiled. “We always did like talking about birds, me and him, so’s maybe he’s a bird now. He’d like that a lot ’cept, I guess he couldn’t get stew an’ scrapings as a bird.”

Kelvren could see that soldiers and villagers were taking notice of them as they closed the distance to the encampment. Kel angled toward a recently cut tree stump and suddenly fell against it.

“Sir? Master Kelvren, sir? What’s wrong?” Jeft dropped the bag and crashed toward the gryphon. “You’re bleedin’ again, sir, an’ that, uh, sewin’ they did on you’s torn up some. Sir?” He waved at the flies, to little effect, and then Kel could feel the boy’s hand on his eartufts. “Sir? You hear me? Can I help? Sir?” He was sounding desperate.

Slowly Kelvren opened an eye, toward Jeft. “Hurrrh. It isss—all forrr effect,” he wheezed, and smiled as best he could. “Ssso brrrave. You rrrun towarrrdsss me when the rrressst of yourrr village would rrrun away.”

“Well—I was scared, too!” he blurted, and then confessed, “I mean, if you—I—I’d be in a lot of trouble. Mayor said you were my problem now, an’ I bet they’d whup me if you died.” He pulled back his hand and wiped it on both of his eyes, under the brim of the sun hat. “It—I just don’t want you t’die, all right? An’, an’, if y’need a healer, or somethin’, I’ll run get you a healer—” Jeft looked all around, and saw a dozen Guard soldiers were headed their way at a brisk walk. “I, uh—I think maybe help’s coming, sir?”

Kelvren rumbled softly. “Yesss. Ssso they arrre. Heh.” He closed his eyes, to rest. “Let the gamesss begin.”