Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

He couldn’t remember. :Gervais?:

:She got you drunk and now she’s taking advantage of you.:

:What?:

:It was Donnel’s suggestion, but it seemed sound.:

The bunk hit the back of his legs and he was suddenly lying down holding a soft, willing body.

:Help.:

His Companion’s mental voice held layers of laughter. :Say that like you mean it, Heart-brother.:

Actually, for a while, he wasn’t able to say anything much at all.

Jors stood staring down at the pond watching the early morning sun tease tendrils of fog off the icy-looking water, trying to work the kinks out of muscles he hadn’t used for far too long. Alyise was as enthusiastic in bed as she was about everything else and he’d been hard-pressed to keep up.

He guessed he had been a bit of an ass about that whole position of power thing. Still . . .

:What is it, Chosen?: Gervais’ velvet nose prodded him in the back.

:I’m still her mentor for another seven months. What if this changes things between us?:

:You think she will no longer trust your judgment because you have shared her bed?:

Put that way it sounded a bit insulting. :Well, no.:

:Then what is the problem?:

There didn’t seem to be one. Jors leaned against his Companion’s comforting bulk and thought about it.

He wasn’t Jennet.

Alyise was a Herald. That made her responsible for herself.

Donnel said his Chosen was glad he was a young man.

They had well-defined roles in the villages.

There was no reason for them not to continue sharing a bed as long as they both remained willing. No reason at all for it to detract from his ability to teach what he knew or learn what she offered.

Jors grinned. He had other nights like last night to look forward to and days of cheerful conversations combined with an enthusiastic welcome to whatever the road ahead might bring, and a high-energy approach to life that definitely got results since a village-wide party turned out to solve a petition about a disputed pig.

His grin faded as a muscle twinged in his back.

“Havens,” he sighed, as he realized what the next few months would bring, “I’m too old for this.”

Gervais’ weight was suddenly no longer a comforting presence at his back but rather a short, sharp shove.

The water in the pond was as cold as it looked.

WAR CRY

by Michael Longcor

Michael Longcor is a writer and singer-songwriter from Indiana who wrote a dozen songs for the Mercedes Lackey album,

Owlflight,

released by Firebird Arts & Music. He’s also had stories appear in the Mercedes Lackey anthologies

Sun In Glory

and

Bedlam’s Edge

. Here, he tells the tale of a young Valdemaran soldier with a dangerous problem facing his first big battle and the bloody, final clash of the Tedrel Wars.

RURY Tellar pulled the blanket closer around his shoulders and stared into the yellow heart of the campfire. The blanket and the Valdemaran Guard surcoat were enough to keep off the night’s cool, but still he shivered. His throbbing head didn’t dim the whispering feelings crowding in; feelings of doubt, fear, hope, despair, cheer, loneliness and sadness—the massed feelings of an army camped close on the eve of battle.

It had started three weeks ago, soon after his seventeenth birthday and the call for the Oakdell village militia to march off and join the main army. The intruding feelings were very faint at first, like the not-quite-words heard late at night in the settling of an old house. They’d grown steadily stronger and now they constantly jostled his thoughts. His head ached with the pressure of other people cramming in. Sometimes he felt like his brain was the anvil from the blacksmith shop where he’d apprenticed, with strangers’ feelings hammering and ringing on it like the smith’s sledge.

Around him were the night sounds of an army encamped. Thousands of soldiers shifted in sleep, muttered in dreams, coughed, or whispered curses. The air smelled strongly of campfire smoke and more faintly of horse dung. Ten paces away, Aed snored in the tent alongside Milo and Snipe. Rury would likely have to nudge space to lie down between them when he finally turned in.

They’d been in the big camp for two days, waiting for the Tedrel army to come over the border. Somehow the brass hats knew the Tedrels would cross near here, and there would be plenty of them. Camp gossip said this would be the last battle of the Tedrel Wars, one way or another.

Rury was tired, but trying to sleep made it easier for the feelings of others to crowd in. It was better, a little, to sit and stare at the dying fire until his eyelids drooped and his head nodded.