Mercedes Lackey: Under The Vale And Other Tales Of Valdemar

I was still fully dressed, of course, so I got up slowly and carefully and felt in my pack for my silk rope. Yes, silk rope. It’s something I have with me in case the lady—never mind. Let’s just say it comes in useful when ladies want something to . . . ah . . . keep me from going anywhere. It fell right into my hand. I could hardly believe my luck.

The horse stared at me. I made soothing sounds at it and straightened up, rope held behind my back. It didn’t move. I walked toward it, slowly and casually. Behind my back, I got the rope into a loop to throw around its neck. The closer I could get to it, the better.

It let me just walk up to it and drop the loop around its neck.

And that was when it suddenly snaked out its neck, grabbed the back of my tunic in strong, white teeth, and shook me like a dog shakes a rag.

:What the hell do you think you’re doing?: said a voice in my head.

Something else came crunching through the underbrush, and as the horse dropped me at its feet and, with a contemptuous toss of its head, shook off the rope, another big white horse emerged from between two bushes.

I looked wildly around for the owner of the voice.

:He’s all we’ve got, Destin,: said another voice. :We missed the wagon train, we can’t get her to them, and they can’t backtrack. He’ll have to do. I just wanted to make sure he knew we were nothing to fool about with.:

The new horse snorted with contempt and stamped a foot. :He looks about as useful as teats on a boar.:

I suddenly realized that there was no one else around but the two horses, I knew I wasn’t asleep or hallucinating, so the voices had to be coming—from them—

:Of course the voices are coming from us, you moron,: said the second voice, as the second horse put his face down to mine and let those blue eyes burn contempt at me. :We’re Companions, and unfortunately we don’t have hands, but you do, so you’re going to help us.:

“I’m—wait, what now?” I was beginning to think I’d fallen and hit my head, that I’d been poisoned by something that had bitten me in the night or had come down with a fever, and I was hallucinating. I vaguely recalled something about white horses in Valdemar, but I hadn’t paid much attention at the time. I never expected to be here, after all. It didn’t make any sense to come here, where I didn’t know the language or the laws, or, well, anything else. What was it about white horses?

:You. Up. On your feet. You’re coming with us.: That was the second voice in my head, the one belonging to the horse whose face was right in mine. :What we’re doing is Mindspeaking. We’re Companions. We are the equivalent of Constables. Or City Guards, except we can enforce law in the entire country.:

All I could do was blink. “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Who’d obey a horse?”

One huge silver hoof stamped the earth right between my knees. The threat was, well, obvious. : You will, if you know what’s good for you,: the horse said ominously . :Now get your pack and get on one of us. You’re coming with us.:

Several thoughts flitted through my mind, but—look, I was in the middle of nowhere, with limited food, limited water, and no idea what to do with myself out here. It just did not make sense to argue with the creature. Hopefully, wherever they were taking me was going to at least have shelter. With more luck it would have a nice lady I could wrap around my finger and convince her to get me away from these . . . things. Companions. Whatever those were.

So I did what I was told. At first I had a sort of death grip on the thing’s mane, but within a few paces I realized that not only was I in no danger of falling off, this was probably the best ride I’d ever had in my life. I’d have really enjoyed it, except, of course, that I was being carried off into the woods by a couple of possibly-demonic creatures disguised as horses that could talk in my head. Tends to make a man a little nervous.

I was hoping at least they’d take me toward something like civilization. But no. They left the road for a trail. They left the trail for a path. They left the path for something that might have been a thready little track. Wherever we were headed, it was obviously not civilization.

“Uh—” I said, finally, “I should point out that I’m a city sort of fellow.”

: You’ve got two working arms, two working legs, and something akin to a brain. Not much of one, but we don’t need much of one.: That was the second voice, which was coming from the thing that I wasn’t riding.

Great. Just great. By implication, that meant they were heading even deeper into the wilderness.

: Yes, we are heading even deeper into the wilderness,: the voice said, somehow conveying both sarcasm and a great deal of glee at my discomfort. : There are bears.:

I knew there would be bears! The thought flitted through my mind again that I could jump off . . . but I couldn’t outrun these beasts, and the thick . . . stuff . . . on either side of this pitiful excuse for a trail was going to trip me up as much as it would impede them. Assuming it did, they had tough horsehide, not tender human skin.

And that was when they shouldered through some branches that slapped me in the face (of course), and we came out into a clearing. A lovely little clearing, a meadow, really, with a pond, and a little cottage, and a well—

A cottage! I brightened immediately. At least I wouldn’t be sleeping with ants tonight.

Even as I thought that, the second beast grabbed me by the belt and unceremoniously pulled me off the first one. I yelled, and something white stirred in the long grass next to the cottage door.

The beast didn’t let me go; gods, it was strong. It carried me by the belt over to whatever was there and then dumped me, and I could see that the “something” was a rather pretty girl in white. She was younger than my usual sort, probably younger than me, red-haired and green-eyed, round-faced without looking dollish, and clearly in a lot of pain.

I’m no Healer, but her left leg and arm did not look at all right. She looked up at me and grimaced.

:He’s the best we could do, Millissa,: said the first horse, apologetically. :I know you need a Healer, but there isn’t one close, and if you don’t get things straightened up soon—:

“I know,” she said out loud. “Believe me, I know.” She looked as hard at me as she could, through the pain. “All right, fancy-man. I’m Herald Millissa.”

“The ladies all call me—” I stopped myself. “My name’s Donnat Stains. Call me Don.”

“All right, Don. What do you know about dislocations and bone setting?”

“Nothing,” I said, honestly. “How bad is this?”

“Things haven’t seized up yet, so—“ She bit her lip. “Just do what they show you. I think we can manage.”

What they—

A very clear image came into my mind. First, I needed to deal with her leg. The horses were pretty certain it was broken but that it was a clean break. Working very, very slowly, I straightened the leg under their direction, pulling on it to align the broken bone, feeling it to make sure it was aligned. That poor girl was as white as her clothing, and her hair was soaked with sweat before I was done, but she never once cried out.

The horses showed me how to bind up the leg to keep the bone in place. Then it was time to deal with her shoulder. They had me go inside the cottage and wrestle out a table. I put her on the table with her arm dangling over the edge, then held her wrist in one hand and slowly began pulling her arm downward, increasing the pull a little at a time. I gently rocked her arm at the wrist, while keeping her shoulder pushed against the table. And slowly, very slowly, I felt the shoulder slip back into the socket, until at last she gave a little cry, the first yet, that was full of pained relief, if there can be such a thing.