Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

The two exchanged glances. “I’ve got no objections,” Tarma said, “But I’m not the one that makes the decision on whether or not to move in the dark.” And she cast a significant look at Hellsbane and Ironheart.

Nanca followed her look, and raised one silver eyebrow. “All right,” she said. “If your horses refuse to move, we stop.”

And as it happened, the moon rose large and bright, and though the warsteeds slowed their pace to an ambling walk, they were able to see well enough that they didn’t actually object to moving through the night. At least until the moon began to descend. And at that point, both mares snorted and made their objections to going on in pitch dark known.

For her part Tarma was nodding off in the saddle, and though Nanca groused and grumbled, she didn’t do so for long. The “camp” that they made was sketchy at best; they only unpacked their bedrolls, arranged the horses around them, and crawled into the blankets in the dark

They were on their way again at dawn. Tarma got the impression of a certain amount of urgency, as if their employer had a deadline she had to meet. So she pushed the warsteeds a little more than she might otherwise have done, and with three mounts to switch off, Nanca was well able to keep up.

And so it was that they reached their goal on the second day, just as the sun began to set. Which was about at the point where Tarma gave serious thought to walking on their deal.

Because their goal was a Gate.

“You didn’t say anything about a Gate,” Kethry said, as the three of them stared down into the little valley. The thing was alive and active, too; the pillars on either side shimmered with energy, and the strange blackness that was the hallmark of any active Gate pulled and tugged on the eyes in a way calculated to make whoever was looking at it feel sick.

“You didn’t either,” their employer pointed out. “Is it an issue?”

“You don’t know where those things come out,” Tarma objected, with a glance at her partner.

“Ah, but I do,” Nanca replied, with the faintest of smiles. “It comes out in the place where I am supposed to meet my colleague.”

Of course it did. “And then what?” Tarma demanded.

“Then you continue to do what I contracted to you for. You guard me and fight off anything physical that comes to attack me and I deal with anything of a magical nature, until we reach my colleague, and once we are there, I pay you and he provides the exit point, which will drop you through another Gate relatively near the Dhorisha Plains.” Nanca shrugged. “After that, where you go is your business.”

That was another thing. Granted, Kethry was probably not the magician that Nanca was—but why forbid her to work magic at all?

Unless it was because the nature of what lay on the other side of that Gate was of such a strange nature that Nanca didn’t want a sorceress unfamiliar with it meddling with it.. . . .

Tarma and Kethry exchanged another glance. And finally Tarma fingered the mind-bond that held her to Warrl.

What do you think? she left lying on the surface of her thoughts.

:I think that I sense deception in her, but no harm. Whatever is going on here, she intends nothing unfortunate for us, nor does she foresee anything unfortunate.:

Hmm . . .

Nanca dug into her saddlebags and passed over journey bread to both of them. Tarma gnawed on it while she thought, looking and not-looking at the Gate. In the end, it was her full stomach that decided her. Nanca was certainly right about that part.

“Let’s go.”

Now it was Nanca who hesitated a moment, but before she could say anything, Tarma was already drawing her sword and parrying-dagger, and looping Ironheart’s reins through the pommel hold on the saddle. She felt Ironheart shift under her into full alertness, ready to answer to leg and weight-shift signals rather than rein. She heard the sound of Need clearing her sheath and knew that Kethry was doing the same.

She turned her attention to their employer. “Shin’a’in proverb,” she said. “It is better to prepare for an ambush and look foolish than not and look dead.”

Nanca smiled broadly, and gestured. “In that case, after you.”

Warrl went through first. Gates were probably Tarma’s least favorite way to travel, and thus far she had only had to endure two. This was the third and, as usual, it was horrible. There was a sense of dislocation with the world, the bottom dropping out of everything, a freezing cold that wasn’t really cold, blackness like the inside of the head, and a myriad of other sensations, all awful, that passed too quickly to be identified.

Then they were on the other side. There was an ambush.

Warrl had already gone after them; the ambushers must not have counted on anything that wasn’t human because he already had control of the group locked down. With a harsh Shin’a’in war-cry, Tarma waded in.