Heyla!
So, this is my first Valdemar fic, and I'm hoping that it's a good read. The idea bit me one day and I just had to get it out. I know the title is lame, and the first part doesn't actually have anything to do with THIS particular story, but it should with the next which is currently a WIP.

He hurt. That was all he was aware of – the pain. It sunk into his bones, became such a deep part of him that he knew it would never go away.

A light touch on his arm made him lift his head.

"Kev?" Sonya asked uncertainly. "Are you going to be all right?"

He nodded a confirmation; no use in explaining that his body was just about through with being beaten to a pulp. It wouldn't change anything, and – technically speaking – Sonya shouldn't care. And since she did, that opened up a whole other bag of worms he really didn't want to face.

"Ready to go again?" she asked him, smiling a bit.

No, he wanted to reply, but instead, he nodded mutely, not trusting his voice not to waver in speech. Bad enough that his whole body was resonating like a string on a badly tuned gittern.

"Then you're up," Sonya urged, pulling him partly forward, then giving a friendly shove to his mid-back.

He refrained from groaning in pain. Barely.

He did grunt a little, but she didn't say anything, so he entered into the too bright arena, lifting his faithful dirk high as he did so.

"Whether ye win or lose, alus give 'em a spectacle," he remembered the old weapon's trainer saying.

"Keep yer head high an' stare 'em down like they was dogs, 'stead people. Works nine times outta ten."

And so it had, Keighven reflected, staring across the arena at his battlefield opponent. But, unluckily for him, this one seemed to be one of those one-in-tens who wasn't at all intimidated. In fact, he bared what was left of his teeth in a feral growl, lifting his own knives and the crowd roared its approval.

So it's to the death, then, Keighven thought cynically. Although, maybe it's better that way.

The life of a gladiator was difficult. Good, fair masters were hard to come by. Kev felt he had been reasonably lucky in that regard. Lord Vernos wasn't a kind man, per se, but he was strictly fair even to his fighters. No sense in letting an investment go to waste, after all.

Keighven studied his opponent from within the confines of his helmet. The other fighter was about the same age as he, but much more powerfully built. Corded muscles snapped and flexed as easily as rippling water under the bronze gladiator's skin.

Then the drums sounded and Kev went into a low crouch, his dirk and dagger held at the ready point.

The crier called out the time. One…Two…Three!

Then it was a match.

From the first, Keighven knew regular combat would be hopeless. He was much too small to make any effective damage on his burly, well-muscled opponent. So instead, he stuck to the hit-and-run tactics the old trainer, Dominik, had been attempting to pound into him for the last few sennights.

Forward, back. Snake strikes.

The other fighter lunged forward, his twin weapons missing Kev by inches. He could hear the crowd roaring up in the stands and his heart was pounding. A tentative strike at the other gladiator had proved earlier that, despite his bulk, they were evenly matched in terms of speed.

That was a problem. No one was supposed to be as fast as Kev in the ring. It was his own real way of defending himself – by getting his opponent exhausted enough so he could overpower him before closing in for the win. Or the kill.

A knife came down into his view from out of nowhere and he stumbled back, distracted by the weapon.

Then he was fighting for his life, using every trick Dominik had ever taught him, just to stay alive.

His opponent had him in a corner and was wearing on him. The crowd knew it and their buzzing steadily grew louder.

He felt a rushing in his ears and thought furious, Damn if you're going to take this away from me! Then he lunged forward, knowing with dead certainty that this was the move that would end the fight one way or another, and also knowing – without knowing how he knew – that the other gladiator was not expecting it.

He stopped short of a killing blow, his weapons' blades resting casually on either side of the gladiator's neck.

Then the whistle sounded, and he pulled back, grateful that this one's master didn't think a loss warranted a death. He hated killing like that.

Just as he was pulling away, he felt the familiar touch of mage power on him, stealing his ability to make himself move and his body spun of its own accord to plunge both dirk and dagger in the downed man's body. Then his body was his own again, and he pulled out his weapons, struggling to cover his revulsion at what he'd just been forced to do. It had happened many times before, but repeating something so terrible never made it any easier.

Slowly, aware of all the aches in his muscles, Kev retired back under the arch, pausing momentarily on his way out to raise the black-handled dirk that was his signature weapon up to the bellowing crowd.

They were screaming and chanting something – whether it was his name or if they were calling for more blood, he wasn't sure. He didn't want to know.

Sonya was waiting for him when he came back in. She handed him a soft towel wordlessly. He accepted it with a nod of gratitude and wiped his face off. Ordinarily, a bout like that wouldn't have given him cause to sweat, no matter how large or fast his opponent. But this was nearly ten exchanges in, and in an earlier one, he'd been hit rather hard.

I'm still not sure how I avoided being killed by the bastard, Keighven thought tiredly as he settled himself down on a wooden bench. I have unholy luck, I guess.

"You were really lucky," Sonya whispered from the doorway, an unconscious echo of Kev's own thoughts.

Keighven looked up in surprise. "I thought you'd left," he blurted out, then blushed a bit. Yes, fantastic. First get injured, second make a fool of yourself. What will be your third brilliant move of the day?

Sonya didn't look upset by his outburst though. On the contrary, she seemed nearly amused by it. She moved from leaning on the door to standing just within the room. Part of Keighven wished she'd just go away, but another part desperately wanted her to stay.

"You were really lucky," she repeated, shaking fiery locks out of her eyes. "Nathaniel's boy's knife could have taken out an eye—"

As if I need a reminder of how dangerous this life is, Kev thought to himself. When more than half of us don't live to see our twenty-fifth year…

There was a general commotion in the stands outside and he heard someone yell something. A moment later, another gladiator, a young fighter, came bursting in, screaming fit to burst.

"It's a bleedin' 'Erald!"

Nanotak swept into the room and roughly pulled Kev to his feet. The burly man ran the gladiator matches, let people bet on them, and traded in slaves as well.

Keighven wasn't positive, but he thought that those things – some of those things, anyway – might be bending the laws a bit. Or maybe even blatantly flaunting them.

And, even without technically residing in Valdemar, the Gladiator's Coliseum – as well as its training center – was on the disputed/neutral lands, which meant that Heralds held some jurisdiction.

And if Nanotak wanted them out, then the swarthy man would have his way.

Sonya followed after him, and he could feel the concern radiating off of her. Why she would be concerned, he had no idea. Unless it happened to be that she was afraid for someone.

Maybe that was it.

The general commotion hadn't died down any, but it was a bit more organized with Nanotak barking orders like the ex-officer he was, and everyone immediately trying – and for the most part succeeding – to comply.

He was rushed out of the building half-changed. His leather jerkin was still sweat soaked and in the slight, pre-winter chill, it became a cold article indeed, very quickly.

Everywhere he could feel people panicking as they ran back and forth and the word Herald echoed ominously among them.

Keighven had gotten separated from Sonya a time ago, and he stood out in the cold, not walking but simply staring in numb shock as events unfolded.

A white clad rider on a huge horse jumped the gate. The panic that had taken the mob of people doubled.

Keighven felt the anger coming from the rider, but had no time to wonder why as his own jerkin was snatched and he was dragged out of range by one of the trainers.

"Get outta here, lad," the old man wheezed. "It'll go hard if that 'un catches ye."

Keighven thought about protesting, but then he was swept up in another fleeing mob, this one with purpose and a destination, so instead of fighting, he bowed to the inevitable and let himself be carried off by the flood of bodies.

The last he saw of the white clad rider – the Herald – was him leaping off that great white horse of his, sword drawn and screaming something.

Then he was out of eyeshot and hearing range, packed with a motley bunch composed mostly of small prizefighters, not gladiator. There was no one in the group Kev recognized, and he allowed himself to marginally relax after he had assured himself of that fact. If he'd never fought any of these men personally before, it was highly unlikely any of them would have a personal grudge against him, making it safer. Not safe, but safer.

Once their panicked flight like a bunch of wild horses spooking at the scent of blood had carried itself to an end, they all gathered together. No one spoke. The empty terrain looked the same in all directions. Kev wondered how many of them spoke Trader tongue. He got his answer a moment later when one of them said, to no one in particular, "Well, now what?"

There were a few ideas, all of them implausible at best, suicidal at worst. Then someone chimed in, "Why don't we just go to Valdemar?"

That set off a chorus of bellowing laughter. One of the older fighters – the rare breed that had lived past twenty-five – clapped the younger man who had spoken on the back.

"Lad," he said in a voice heavily accented by some foreign tongue, "No one goes t' Valdemar. Ye saw th' panic when th' 'Erald showed. Nah – that place's best left 'lone. 'Eralds don't take nicely t'our kind."

There were a few nods and general mutterings of agreement.

"M'lord Bonden said –" the lad continued stubbornly.

"Tcha," the elder fighter interrupted. "'S that where ye be getting' yer misplaced notions? Bonden?"

There was subdued laughter. It wasn't wise to ridicule a master, and even here, presumably miles away from anyone, it still seemed safer to stick to code than to violate it.

"Bonden alus threatened t' pack 'is things an' hie off t' Valdemar," one of the braver (or perhaps more foolhardy) ones commented.

"That's cause 'e was born there," the leader stubbornly argued. "'Course, it 'ardly matters," he added with a harsh laugh, "'cause even if 'e wanted t' go back, they'd ne'er let 'im in again."

Keighven listened with interest.

"Whyfore?" one of the men called out.

"Well, ye see, 'e gotsed 'isself inter some licks o' trouble back when 'e was in Valdemar. 'S'why 'e ended up here, innit?" In nervous excitement, his voice was becoming even more heavily laden with accent so Kev couldn't quite discern exactly what "M'lord Bonden" – not a name he knew – had done to warrant apparent banishment from Valdemar.

The talking continued but the group started moving again, mostly to keep warm, not because they had any particular destination in mind.

Eventually talk wandered away from Valdemar, though the subject had occupied the group for a few candlemarks at least.

Snow began to fall again, and a few of the younger fighters – boys as young as eight and ten – were shivering with cold. One really tiny lad was turning purple. Kev pulled him aside and wordlessly stripped off his own tunic for the boy.

After a moment's hesitation, the wide-eyed child took it, but then blurted, "What about you?"

Kev shrugged. "What about me?" he replied, but instead of letting the child reply to that, he settled himself on the opposite side of the group, alternately flexing his muscles and running in short spurts to keep warm.

Without any shirt on, he was cold.

They stopped at what looked to be an abandoned house. It had been many candlemarks since they'd fled. Keighven stared at the place. Here in the middle of nowhere – it was like a godsend.

The self-appointed leader of the group – and the one who had declared Lord Bonden to be an idiot, several times – looked at the place with a careful eye.

"Waystation," he grunted eventually.

It seemed to be an explanation of sorts for about a quarter of the group.

The rest still looked confused; like Keighven, "Waystation" meant nothing to them.

"Uh, Garth?" one of the youngest fighters ventured timidly. "What is a Waystation?"

Keighven mentally cataloged the name, storing it alongside the man's face. He never forgot a face, or a name once the two were attached. From listening in on the conversations, he'd learned the names of about half the group and quite a few of their masters' names as well.

Garth gave the youngster an appraising look before answering. "Waystation's one o' them things 'Eralds use," he said.

At the sudden looks of apprehension that shot around, he added, in a slightly louder voice, "They sleeps in 'em when they's on duty, like. Usually they's got foodstuffs in 'em as well."

Well, well. Another interesting bit Kev added to his steadily increasing repertoire of knowledge. Assuming Garth was correct, of course, and not just spinning tales. Though, Keighven had reasoned, he really didn't need to come up with these exotic tales. Heralds were just about exotic enough by themselves.

They all fit in the Waystation, but just barely. Kev found himself plastered against the wall, lying literally back-to-back with another fighter. There had been food of a sort in the station – a kind of oat that was very filling.

There had been a whole chest full of the stuff, but between them, all twelve of the fighters had eaten up every last grain.

At least the place was warm when packed with bodies. There was a fireplace, but no wood to start a fire with.

Keighven lay awake for a long while, just listening as the talking died down and then the simple breathing patterns created a gentle hum.

He began to drift off into sleep and only fought it half-heartedly. He was exhausted, mind and body, from the strange events of the day. Finally he slept.

The low sound of voices woke him. He came awake all at once, instead of slowly, but refrained from making any changes to show he was conscious.

"What's a Waystation doin' way out in the middle o' nowhere?" a low voice asked. Kev recognized the speaker as being Jet, one of the smaller prizefighters – not a gladiator – belonging to Lord Raedlin.

"Damn if I know," Garth's voice replied. "Valdemar's boundaries started changin' a few decades ago, so that might account fer it. Coulda been that this usta be an 'Erald's circuit at one point."

"Are we near Valdemar then?" Jet inquired.

He sounded like he wasn't sure what he wanted the answer to be.

"We're nearer than I'd like," Garth admitted after a moment. "It's hard t' judge by the terrain, like, 'cause it nearly all looks the same, but I'd say we're near th' end o' th' disputed territory by th'old 'Olderkin lands."

"Holders?" Jet sounded surprised. "I thought we were further west than that!"

"Nah," Garth said. "This is near 'Olderkin land, I'm sure o' it. If we were too much further west, we'd be in th' Comb, 'steada being on big 'ills."

Keighven closed his ears after that. He had a lot to think about now, and he let his mind mull recent events – and discoveries – over.

Ages later, he heard the rest of the fighters rising, and what had been a near dead silent room minutes before quickly became as noisy as the innards of a tavern.

Keighven slipped outside to relieve himself. There wasn't any real private place, but a set of bushes provided a convenient location. His skin burned with the cold, and by the time he got back in, he was rubbing away goose bumps that had collected on his arms. No one seemed to be in a particularly foul mood that morning, probably on account of there having been no sign of masters showing up. They wouldn't dare to hope for freedom quite yet, but another day without having to battle was something to celebrate.

Keighven wondered if they would stay here another night or not. None of the other looked all that eager to be moving on. No one seemed to have thought of food either, which was much higher on Kev's personal list of priorities. He hadn't seen anything in all of yesterday's forced march, and he doubted that he would have had luck even if he had seen something. He was a warrior – a gladiator – not a hunter. The tools were all wrong.

Unless an elk or deer stood to fight instead of fleeing, he couldn't see any way of taking down prey.

Swords were more useful in destroying people than anything else.

Once again, he made a journey outside, but this time it was for an invigorating run that left his muscles warm and kept all but his hands from feeling frozen. Running in snow was hard work, and it had snowed quite a bit during the night. Keighven easily worked up a sweat. By the time he returned to the Waystaion, everyone else was gathered inside. Training like he'd become accustomed to was not required in the lower level fighters. It was a pity – even if the place would have reeked of sweaty bodies after thy all ran, it still would have provided a constructive outlet for excessive energy.

Garth and a few of the others gave him strange looks when he came inside, still breathing a bit hard and sweat quickly cooling on his body. He began to chill and realized that working up a sweat probably hadn't been the brightest idea.

"When are we leaving?" he asked, the first he'd spoken since yesterday when he'd given his shirt to one of the children.

Garth shook his head. "We aren't," the elder fighter replied, his eyes glinting dangerously when Keighven opened his mouth to make an argument. "We don't got nowhere else t' go, first," the man said, running roughshod over Kev's attempt to speak. "An' second," he added, holding up a hand to forestall argument, "even if we did have somewhere t' be haring off t', we're waiting fer a sign."

"A sign." Keighven couldn't believe his ears. He knew most gladiators – and prizefighters in general – were superstitious rats, but he'd never encountered something like this before.

"A sign," Garth reiterated, his eyes glowing with some mad light.

Keighven winced and looked away. "Like what?" he asked, not at all interested, but knowing that the question was expected.

"Thas jest it, see?" Garth crowed. "Thasa beauty of it, innit? We don't know what, 'xactly it's gonna be, but we know thery'll be a sign and it'll tell us where t' go."

Kev shook his head to himself. Superstitious bullocks. He needed to use a more roundabout approach. "What are we going to do for food?"

"Boys'll hunt," Garth said dismissively, shaking his hand. "They'll get sommat."

Keighven shook his head again. "You're mad," he accused.

Garth eyed him. "I'm not th'one runnin' 'isself dead sweatin' midwinter," he pointed out.

Kev didn't justify that with a reply. Instead, he slipped out the door, figuring that he could keep running somewhere and maybe find another Waystation and then they'd have to move. There was no more food…

Later on he'd wonder how much his head had affected him. For now though, he took off at a steady, ground-eating lope, soon leaving the Waystation behind. He couldn't say how long he ran. The adrenaline rush that came from self-imposed muscle pain kept him going far longer than he remembered it working before. Still he saw no sign of another Waystation or a village or inn – nothing. It could have been formless, changeless wilderness that he was circling through. If he hadn't known that the trail behind him led back, he would have become terribly afraid.

Had it been summer he never would have had the courage to trust the path behind him to hold his mark. It began to snow and he wondered why he had trusted the snow to hold his trail. He hadn't realized how tired he really was until he stopped. Then exhaustion really hit him and he couldn't convince his body to take another step forward, much less retrace his steps back. The sky was slowly darkening.

Great good gods, he thought tiredly, his body shaking like a foundering racehorse. How long was I running?

Unless time was different here, he must have run for candlemarks! No wonder he felt so exhausted – coming on top of the overload of bouts yesterday, his "little run" had exhausted the last of his physical reserves.

Slowly he sank into the snow, too tired to shiver and felt the comforting arms of numbness open to embrace him. He was so tired… Maybe if he slept for a small while, he'd feel better for the return journey.

To his exhaustion-clouded mind, the pan seemed a good one and he let his eyes drift shut, let the cold embrace take him…

Author's Note: I didn't put in a disclaimer yet... So - just so's ya'll know - I don't own Valdemar or any of its inhabitants aside from the ones I've plunked down.
Another little sidewinder that asks to be presented is the knowledge that if you've read the whole series, you're going to find a whole lot of familiar names in this one. And if not... Pick up the Valdemar Companion and it'll see you through. Until next time, Z'hai'helluva!