Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar (20 page)

Remounting her mare, Laeka turned to look into the
kyree’s
eyes. “Where?”

Laeka nodded and tightened her knees. The mare headed out at an easy jog, and the other two horses followed into the deeper forest.

For a long time, they rode in silence through the twisting deer paths, alternating periods of walking with a loping run. It would never match the ground-eating pace of purebred Shin’a’in horses, but she had bred the best of the mares she had acquired from Liha’irden to the strongest stallions she could find to replicate that trait. She noted landmarks as the horses moved deeper into the Pelagiris Forest, marking them in her mind just in case.

Each time the
kyree
Mindspoke to her to change their direction, her Mind-voice seemed stronger, but still tinged with anger and pain. Laeka ate waybread in the saddle, bringing the gelding up next to her mare to place some on the saddlepad for the
kyree
, who gulped it down whole.

Early in the afternoon, they came upon a small clearing where traces of recent occupation remained. New scorch marks blackened a long-disused fire-circle, and the grass was freshly cropped. Laeka dismounted to examine the area more closely, stretching her leg as her knee protested the long candlemarks in the saddle.

:The smell is still fresh.:
The
kyree’s
nose wrinkled as she sifted the air.
:My cubs were here, and not long since.:

“Perhaps they stopped for nooning.” She walked the perimeter of the clearing, her eyes following the patterns of crushed grass. Bending, she pushed some branches aside and found several clear hoofprints. “They’re heading almost due east, now. Definitely going toward Ruvan.”

She swung into the saddle on the other mare, a dark gray, absently rubbing her knee as she settled herself and turned the horses east. The
kyree
kept her head up, her nostrils flared in the breeze, seeking the scent of her cubs or the men who had taken them. As the afternoon wore on, traces of both became more frequent, and Laeka kept the pace slow, not wanting to either lose the trail or alert the bandits.

:Stop.:
Laeka pulled up the gray and turned to her companion.
:They are very close. I smell smoke, too.:

“They must be making camp for the night. We will wait until they are settled, then move in. We could not take them all, so we must be sure to act when few of them are able to respond. We need only a few moments to get to the cubs and then flee.” The
kyree
bared her teeth in a silent snarl, clearly unwilling to be so cautious, but Laeka held up her hand. “My abilities with the sword will not stand a true test, and you are still injured. Full revenge will gain us nothing, and could lose us much.”

She dismounted and flipped the reins of the gray mare over her ears, so they hung down to the ground. The mare stood for a moment, then bent her head and cropped at the rich grass. Leaving her, Laeka moved over to the gelding, gesturing for him to kneel as he had before. This time, the
kyree
required no aid to jump off the saddlepad, only holding up her left foreleg as she landed. Again, Laeka pulled out some meat for the
kyree
, who settled to feed while she tended to the horses. She loosened the saddle girths, reaching underneath the tack to test for swelling or heat, running her hands down each of the horses’ legs, checking their hooves. When the horses were as comfortable as she could make them, Laeka retrieved the jar of salve, returning to the
kyree
and reapplying the ointment. The wounds seemed to have improved after the day of travel, not worsened as she would have guessed. Laeka raised her eyebrows but kept her silence. The
kyree
had Healers of their own, after all.

:I will scout their camp,:
the
kyree
said.
:Even wounded, I can move more quietly and in smaller places than you. And I will know their thoughts.:
Laeka nodded, and the
kyree
stood, shaking herself and stretching, then trotting into the underbrush with only a little stiffness in her stride.

Dusk was beginning to settle when the
kyree
slipped back into the clearing, sitting on her haunches in the bracken.

:They are confident. Only one guard sits to the south edge, looking toward where they will meet their buyer at the main road tomorrow. There is a tent, where most of them sleep. My cubs are in a woven cage to the east, just on the other side of the fire. One bandit sleeps on each side of the cage.:
The
kyree
paused, then bared her teeth in a fiercely lupine grin.
:They are mine.:

“Their horses?”

Laeka smiled. “We’ll take care of them first.”

Laeka went back to her horses, tightening the saddle girths and fastening the stirrups securely up underneath the saddles. She untied the lead lines from the two mares, flipping their reins back and tying them to the pommels so that they would neither constrict the horses’ movements nor drag and catch in the brush. She pulled the rigged saddlepad off the gelding’s saddle, stowing it in one of the saddlebags that she had filled with meat for the
kyree
, and mounted. She held out her hand, and the two mares followed the gelding into the trees as surely as if she still held lead lines.

She kept the pace slow, letting the horses choose their way carefully, guiding them where the grass was still soft and avoiding brush and deadfall that would give away their approach. The
kyree
moved noiseless through the trees, a shadow in the twilight.

Laeka dismounted, ground-tying the gelding with his reins as she had earlier, then slipped into the trees behind the
kyree
, moving toward the bandits’ horses with steps as quiet as she could make them. While the
kyree
stayed downwind in the trees, she walked into the clearing, speaking to the horses in the soft whistling words she had learned from the Shin’a’in. A few of the animals chuffed nervously, but she soothed them with gentle hands on their necks. Working quickly, always keeping the bodies of the animals between herself and the camp, she used her boot knife to slit the hobbles. When all the horses were untied, she backed out of the clearing.

Mounting the gelding again, Laeka loosened the sword in its scabbard and looked down at her strange partner.

“Well,” she whispered, “we’ll never have a better chance,
hai
?” She shook out the reins and gestured to the two mares, then kneed the gelding into a run, over the crest and straight through the center of the bandit camp. With an eerie howl, the
kyree
followed her.

As she passed the lone guard, Laeka lashed out with her sword, catching him on the side of his head and neck. He slumped to the ground, and she tried not to notice the spray of blood that spattered her arm and the side of the horse. Somehow it was very different from the cow’s-blood-filled bags she and her trainers used when sword practicing with the horses that, like the gelding, would be sold to fighters.

While she moved through the bandit camp from south to north, followed by the galloping mares, the
kyree
darted off to the side. Laeka heard a cry of alarm cut off with a gurgle and knew that the
kyree
had dispatched one of the guards by the cubs.

She kept the horses moving through into the darkening trees on the other side of the camp, then turned to the west, repositioning herself for another pass through the bandits’ midst. Her angle brought her to the clearing where the thieves’ horses had been hobbled, but the startled horses fled at the noise of her charge. She smiled grimly to herself. If there were pursuit, it would be slow. She tightened her knees, and the gelding and mares headed back into the camp.

This time, two of the bandits, who had been sleeping on the ground near the fire, were standing and searching the trees surrounding the camp, swords drawn; but with most of their armor set to the side, she simply ran them down, using the horses’ bodies and hooves as weapons. On the other side of the fire, the
kyree
had set her back to the cubs’ cage, defending them with all the fury Laeka had heard in her Mind-voice. She could see a body on each side of the cage, but two more of the bandits approached the
kyree
, and she would not be able to account for both of them. Laeka guided the gelding to leap over the fire, pulling up behind one of the men with a swing of her sword at his exposed back. His companion glanced over at him, startled, as he fell, and that moment was all the
kyree
needed.

Laeka dismounted and ran to the cage. The men her horses had run down were struggling to their feet, one leaning over to aid the second. The noise had also roused the sleepers in the tent, and she heard shouts and thrashing inside the canvas. With surprise no longer on her side, she had no desire to test her rudimentary skills against more foes. Grabbing the cage, she hoisted it onto the copper mare’s saddle, using the lead line to lash it into place. Pulling herself back into the gelding’s saddle, she gestured to the mares. The
kyree
snarled at the men, but when Laeka and the horses moved out of the clearing, she followed.

“Are you able to skirt back, to see if they mount a pursuit?” Laeka tried to pitch her voice so only the
kyree
would hear.

For answer, the
kyree
melted into the underbrush.

Thankful for the near-full moon, Laeka pushed the horses in the darkening forest, putting distance between them, the remaining bandits, and the buyer. Finally, she pulled up in one of the clearings where they had rested late in the afternoon. A small creek ran along one edge, and she led the horses to drink while she cleaned her sword and refilled her waterskins.

:One stays with the injured. They found several of their horses, but we have a good lead,:
the
kyree
Mindspoke, coming into the clearing behind her.
:One is a passable tracker, so I took some time to muddle the trail. If we walk in the stream for a while, that should throw him enough that we can get a little rest tonight.:

Laeka swallowed her sigh, rubbing her knee a little bit before swinging up into the gray mare’s saddle. “Then we ride, as long as we have the moon to guide us. The creekbed does not seem too full of stones, so the horses should be safe enough if I let them choose their own pace.”

:I will go ahead a bit, to find a place to spend a night.:
The
kyree
stepped into the water and started to wade downstream, and Laeka nudged the horses to follow. She allowed the horses to pick their way carefully, to find the best footing, and it wasn’t long before the
kyree
had vanished ahead of them. Try though she might, Laeka could hear no sign of pursuit.
Not that I could hear much over our splashing in the stream, anyway,
she thought.

The moon’s light was waning when the
kyree
returned, pacing them along the farther bank of the creekbed.
:I have found a shelter. Follow me.:

The horses were clearly relieved to be out of the creek; the chestnut gelding almost seemed to shake the water from his hooves as he stepped onto the bank. Not too far into the forest, there was a thickening of undergrowth, but the
kyree
led her down a twisting path that avoided the worst thorns. They broke through into a tiny clearing, just large enough for the three horses. One edge was marked by a giant treefall, and the lower half of the tree had rotted away to form a natural half-cave.

Immediately after dismounting, she pulled the cage from the copper mare’s saddle, using her knife to work at the knots that held the cage together until the top came off. Silent until now, the cubs spilled out, swarming over their mother with excited yips and Mindspeech so enthusiastic they even broadcast it to Laeka.

Laeka smiled as she stripped the horses’ tack, then poured water from her waterskins into the clever folding leather trough she had acquired from the Shin’a’in and held it up to each thirsty muzzle. When they had drunk their fill, she readied them for the night, wiping them down, rubbing salve into cuts and scrapes, lavishly praising them in Shin’a’in while the ebullient cubs’ Mindspeech washed over her.

Most of the Mindspeech was in one bright voice, and Laeka looked to identify the speaker in time to see his mother put her paw over his small body, gently pinning him to the ground.

:Rris, that is enough. Now is not the time
.:

Still holding the pup down, the
kyree
raised her head and gave Laeka a long-suffering look, one so elementally maternal that the woman had to hide her laughter in the copper mare’s shoulder. When she had regained sobriety, she turned back to them.

“We should be ready to ride with the first light of dawn, little one, so you must rest. As must I, and your mother, and the horses.” The pup stared up at her with fascination.

Laeka resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I will tell you tomorrow, and I will even tell you how I once
met
your famous cousin Warrl, but I will
only
tell you if you sleep now.” If a creature with the face of a wolf could look awed, this one managed. He stared deep into her eyes, as though trying to either read her intent or impose his own, and she folded her arms and stared back at him.
I am a mother with a daughter long grown
, Laeka thought.
You, little one, don’t stand a chance.