Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

Cogern stood. “Sir, I want to make sure that I understand what we’re for. We commit treason here, just by moving without orders. We strike against V’Kandis’ own priests, and if the army splits, then we start a civil war. A civil war to protect one middle-ranking priest?”

Tregaran met his gaze, long and level. “Yes.”

Cogern shugged and took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m in. Never liked any of those bastards anyway.” He rubbed his hand over his face, touching the harelip. “How d’ya know all this?”

Tregaran smiled, measuring how far Cogern was out of depth by his lack of “Sir’s”. The warmaster, even in the worst battle, the line broken, and enemy in the camp, would never let the honorifics slip. Tregaran nodded over to the firecat, who lay curled up on the camp chest, quietly watching. He had finally gotten used to the ’cats ability to simply . . . be overlooked. He gestured to it, a sort of “Well?” Cogern’s eyes followed his hand.

The cat chose to be noticed.

Cogern took a deep breath, air hissing between his gapped front teeth, as he registered its presence. “Is that a firecat? A real firecat? It told you?”

The ’cat, its tail kinked in annoyance, stretched and hopped down from the chest. “Yes.” The creature’s voice sounded clearly in their heads, irritation clear to them both. “IT told him, and IT is hungry . . . and as you haven’t even a saucer of milk for IT, IT is going to find ITS own damn dinner.” It stalked out of the tent, stiff-legged, tail still bent and flicking, a semaphore for a feline snit. “IT. Peasants.”

Cogern jumped in his seat as the ’cat’s mental voice sounded clearly in their heads, the offended tones fading as the avatar, insulted, stalked away. “What’s got his tail in a kink?” He looked back at Tregaran.

Tregaran shook his head. Cogern was, if nothing else, flexible. In the space of a few moments the warmaster had moved from an empty village, placed himself in opposition to the strongest force in the land, and insulted the avatar of the god himself, without seeming to show the slightest concern.

He smiled, then reached into his pack for the carefully rolled map.

“You’re gonna love this.”

Tregaran, followed by Cogern and the regiment’s officers, jogged hard up the hill. The late afternoon sun lay almost directly behind them throwing long, red shadows. They closed quickly on the ring of scouts who stared down at what Tregaran first took for a pile of laundry. The circle parted for them.

The townsman lay staked out in the sand, naked alongside the trail of the missing villagers. His belly had been opened and the entrails carefully removed, so carefully that none had torn, and there remained astonishingly little blood. The man had most likely died from the exposure of being staked out, rather than the vivisection. The corded muscles and death rictus gave evidence of the man’s agony.

The scout who’d marked the back-trail stood nearby. His hands shook and his face was still pale, even after vomiting into the sand. Tregaran didn’t blame him. He was little more than a boy, a stock thief saved by a stint in the army from Karse’s rough justice. Tregaran looked at his pale face and shaking hands, and wondered if the boy thought keeping his hand now seemed a bargain.

Cogern toed the body with his boot, breaking into Tregaran’s thoughts. “What does this mind you of?”

Tregaran was a few seconds late. Mindalis, a scout leader, piped in first. “The man we found up by the border, Warmaster. The man with the horse.”

“Yeah,” Cogern said, in a troubled voice. “All we need is a horse’s head on a pike, and this’d be a perfect match.” He looked at Tregaran under his brows. “Absolutely perfect. This could be the same guy.”

Tregaran studied the body, comparing it to a body found in the borderland hills where Karse and Valdemar came together in the regiment’s Terilee River sector. The dead Herald, staked and tied out . . . not naked, but with his white leathers still about him to show what he had been. He had similarly been tied, flayed, and left to suffer unto death. Identically tied, once Tregaran saw what to look for.

“The Herald was little more than a boy,” Tregaran said slowly. “Whatever secrets he held would have been given up early in the torment. What had taken place after that had been for fun.”

Yet, the Herald’s surgical pain looked nothing to the outrages visited on the horse. The animal had been torn apart, by a hatred strong enough to shatter equine bones. The animal’s head, blue eyes open, set on a spearstave.

He returned to himself and shivered. Cogern’s marking the spear as Karsite, and the presence high on the border where Karse’s brave defenders protected them from the demon horses of Valdemar. The official version had paled when faced with the reality. They did not protect Karse from the demons . . . they protected the demons. A hard moment, the worst of his life.