Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

She smiled at him. He inhaled her scent, of honeysuckle and jasmine. “You have guarded your country, obeyed those you swore to obey, and held to duty when faith swayed.” She leaned down to him and kissed his brow. “Your god is pleased with you, Tregaran.”

“I love you, Solaris,” he whispered.

And in Cogern’s arms, he died.

The firecat lay still as the noon sun streamed down overhead. Tregaran’s body had been removed in great honor. Cogern’s men had worked their revenge, rooting out Black-robe sanctuaries all over the outskirts of Sunhame. It would be a miracle if even a few survived who lived within a day’s ride of the capital.

The ’cat felt the surge and heave of the god’s presence, even this far from Sunhame, as He made His own appearance. By now, Laskaris would be dead, and Solaris, ascendant.

A small tendril of that power settled at the place where a man gave his life for a woman, for love.

A second firecat shimmered out of the void and stepped down. It didn’t seem to know exactly what to do with its tail.

“Was that me?” it said, looking at the place where the colonel had died.

“Yes,” said the firecat. “Your task now is to watch over her. She is handmaid to our Lord, and she must survive.”

“I will,” said the new ’cat.

“In the meantime,” said the old, “let me show you the joys of field mice. They go best with toast.”

The chirurgeon deserted the next morning. A month later, he knelt before his own bound liege.

“Arise, Healer, and report,” said Queen Selenay of Valdemar. “What of Karse?”

THE BLUE COAT

by Fiona Patton

Fiona Patton lives in rural Ontario, Canada with her partner, a fierce farm Chihuahua, and inumerable cats. She has four novels out with DAW Books:

The Stone Prince, The Painter Knight, The Granite Shield,

and

The Golden Sword

. Her fifth novel,

The Silver Lake

, was published in hardcover by DAW in 2005. She has twenty-odd short stories published in various DAW/Tekno anthologies including

Sirius the Dog Star, Assassin Fantastic

, and

Apprentice Fantastic

.

SPRING had come late to the Ice Wall Mountains. Although the warm afternoon breezes had brought the first of the tiny purple-and-yellow flowers pushing up through the snow, the passes were still closed and the nights still frosty and cold well into the season. Two figures, each heavily bundled in hides and fleece and wearing thick caps made of the soft, luxurious brown fur that gave the Goshon clan its name, walked single file along a narrow, barely passable mountain path. Each carried a short hunting bow and several brown-fletched arrows in ornate quivers at their backs and long knives, waterskins, and a brace of rabbits at their belts. The older, just past twenty years in age, was tall and thin, with a short length of beard and long, dark hair, plaited in several thick braids and tied with bits of hide. The younger, closer to fourteen or fifteen, was clean-shaven, lighter in coloring and more compact in build, but still bore a striking resemblance to his companion. As the path widened to reveal a small, protected vale, they paused to study the tableau below them with an apprehensive air.

A stout hide tent stood in the lea of a copse of pine trees with four shaggy ponies cropping at the dry grass before a ringed fire pit. Two figures, one old, the other young, were the only people to be seen. For a moment, there was no sound except the piercing call of a hawk high above the trees, and then the sharp, painful birthing cries of their cousin Dierna that had driven the two men from the vale that morning began again. The younger backed up a step, but the older put his arm about his shoulders and drew him forward.

“There’s nothing for it, Kellisin,” he said, keeping his voice firm and even. “Take the hares and prepare them.”

“But Trey . . .”

“I know.” Treyill k’Goshon glanced over to where his brother Bayne stood guard before the tent’s entrance. The other man met his gaze, then shook his head, and Trey nodded in resignation. “Shersi’s doing all she can,” he continued, handing Kellisin his kill. “Maybe a thick rabbit stew will help her and Dierna both, yes?”

Kellisin swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“So go on, then, little cousin.”

As the younger man made for the fire pit, his face clouded with distress, Trey walked the short distance to where Vulshin, the family’s shaman, sat weaving his fingers through a thin trickle of water running down the rocks. As Trey touched him lightly on the shoulder, the old man raised his head, the expression in his rheumy gray eyes making words unnecessary.

Trey crouched beside him. “It’s as you dreamed then,” he said, studying the collection of stones and small bird bones lying on the ground before them.