Finding the Way and Other Tales of Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey Read Free Book Online Page B

Karsite envoy departed, and everyone was sure that was the end of things.
    Less than a year later, Alliana was forced to summon her armies to defend her borders. Hardorn remained neutral, but that did not mean she would obstruct the Karsite armies traveling across her frontiers to strike at Valdemar from the east.
    It soon became clear she did not dare, for the red-robed priests of Vikandis Sunlord conjured demons to wage their war, and the Sunsguard carried with it captives to slake the demons’ blood-hunger until the moment they would be loosed against the foe.
     
    Hedion could hear the sound of the screaming from the foot of the hill. The voice had gone thin and hoarse with a sound, not of fear or pain, but of a fathomless unslakeable rage. He paused a moment to collect his strength for the climb up the path to the guard tower. Two years ago—five—the hike would have been nothing. These days, weariness burdened his shoulders and made his very bones ache. He looked upward toward his goal, wincing when the sunlight threatened to rekindle his headache. South of the Old Quarry Road—though not even the Collegium’s Bards could say what had been quarried here, or when—the air was sharp and cold even in summer, and the sun was mountain bright. Here in Yvendan they were only a few miles from the invisible line where the Terilee River changed its name to the Sunserpent River.
    From the border that separated Valdemar from Karse.
    He pulled the hood of his cloak forward in a futile attempt to shade his eyes, and sighed as he began his ascent. Every Healing took its toll these days, awakening savage headaches that never quite went away. He knew his old mentors would tell him to rest, to take care of himself, that a Healer’s health and stamina were his greatest tool and he should husband them always.
    He couldn’t do that.
    Every day of rest was a day someone who needed him suffered. Died, if he didn’t reach them in time. Nor was that the worst. The worst was what they might do to others.
    He wrenched his mind determinedly from the well of memory and quickened his pace up the hill.

    “Healer, thank goodness you’ve come!”
    “I came as soon as your message reached me,” Hedion answered. “You’re Captain Dallivant?”
    The garrison commander hung back, looking wary. The man who had greeted Hedion was a captain, to judge by his uniform. His face bore the characteristic bruises of one whose helm had deflected a sword-blow. The bruises were faint now. Perhaps a sennight old. Karse had tried the border here around that time.
    “Yes, sir. Is it true what they say, you can—”
    “You don’t have to call him ‘sir,’ Dallivant, he isn’t in the army.” The new speaker was the garrison commander. A veteran, from his scars. A good man, but a hard one. “You’re Healer Hedion? The Mindhealer?”
    “Yes.” Hedion waited. He couldn’t do his work if people meant to get in his way. There was a trick—simple but effective—that usually gained him the cooperation he sought. He listened intently. Yes. There. “Tell me, Commander Felmar—did Brion hurt anyone before you captured him?”
    Felmar grimaced, refusing to acknowledge—aloud at least—that Hedion had impressed him. “Had to put down three of the horses after he got at them. Broke Maret’s arm before we got him down. Don’t know why I bothered letting Dallivant talk me into waiting on you, except I thought he might like to say a few words before we hanged him.”
    “Sir! You can’t!” Dallivant burst out. “Brion would never—”
    Hedion held up his hand for silence. He’d had this conversation, or a variant of it, more times than he could remember. But it was necessary every time.
    “You don’t strike me as the sort who’d hang an innocent man, Commander.”
    “Innocent!” Felmar snorted. “He had blood all over him—and Maret saw him!”
    “Maret saw a Karsite weapon. A demon,” Hedion answered.
    “Pull the other one, Healer.