A/N: Standard disclaimer--I own nothing except a few characters. Maul is Brandon's imaginary friend; No is Dave's.
Trader Rudi scratched his head as he surveyed the tracks that had appeared overnight around the campsite.
"I dunno," he said wonderingly. "Looks like some sort o'…giant chicken."
The little clearing beside the high road was often used for camping during the warm months, with traders, bards, and other travelers pitching tents or wrapping up in bedrolls near the ring of scorched black stones that had served as a fire ring for years uncounted. It was safe enough; this close to civilization, there was far more danger from one's fellow man than from wild beasts. And surely, no one on this road had ever seen anything that could have made such tracks as the ones that appeared in the dust of the road, wandered aimlessly about the edge of the camp, and led off into the hedges toward the river nearby.
"Griffon, mebbe?" someone wondered.
"Nah. Ev'ryone knows griffons got cat feet behind."
Maul cleared his throat, and the little group turned to where the merc leaned against one of the small trees that provided a windbreak. "If it will make you feel better," he said in his careful Valdemaran, "my partner and I will track it down and make sure it has left the area."
A broad smile crossed Rudi's weathered face. "Well, an' that's right kind of you, sir. The critter don' seem to have done any harm, but it sure would set some folks' minds at ease. Shall I wait the wagons for you, then?"
Maul shook his head. "We're in no hurry," he said. "Consider this thanks for the ride and company yesterday."
There was a curious, strangled sound from the little yellow man next to Maul. Rudi raised his eyebrows in surprise as No exclaimed, "I go look for chicken!" and sprinted off into the field.
Maul stretched, and nodded to the trader. "Good trade to you, sir", he said, and followed his partner through the hedge into the field.
Breathless howls and a series of strangled gasps led Maul to the river's edge, where he found his partner collapsed on the muddy bank, helpless with laughter. Tears streamed from No's slanted eyes as he howled with mirth.
"'Giant chicken', huh?" Maul said dryly.
Still spluttering, No reached into his pack and pulled out a curious bundles of sticks. Strapped to his feet, they had created a convincing imitation of chicken tracks while the other travelers had slept. As his laughter finally abated somewhat, No stood and hurled the sticks far out into the river, where they were quickly carried downstream.
Maul shook his head and settled onto a tree stump. "I guess I should be grateful you're not putting charcoal on my waterskin," he said, referring to No's previous practical jokes.
"But you look good with moustache," No said with mock innocence. "And I never do same trick twice."
Maul chuckled softly and slid off of the stump. "I guess I should be grateful for small favors," he muttered. Out loud he said, "Well, grab your pack and let's get going. We've still got a lot of ground to cover."
They made good time that day. Maul had served with the Black Company for nearly three years before Juniper, when the Tears of Blood had formed in wake of the Lady's betrayal, and his body had been hardened by forced marches across the breadth of the vast continent. No had never known the Black Company, only the Tears—but he had quickly adapted, and the trek they made now was not nearly as punishing as that last frantic run across the southern desert to where the Plain of Glittering Stone had waited for them.
Instead, the two men quickly fell into a steady, ground-eating lope. Maul found the late spring sunshine pleasantly warm, and pushed back the hood of his cloak to better feel the gentle radiance on his face. His mask rested in the bottom of his pack; he would not don it until the Tears were a company again.
No had no problem keeping up, though he took nearly two steps for every one of Maul's. He found the weather too cool and dry after the tropical humidity of the Nyueng Bao swamps, but the hertasi had offered him clothing of tightly woven silk and soft downy fur that could be worn or removed in layers. No himself had woven the broad straw hat that shaded his face from the sun and shed the rain, and was as comfortable as possible in this alien place.
They had no animals with them; Maul could ride, but No had trouble staying on a horse's back, and both men were used to carrying what they needed on their backs. In these civilized lands, they could buy what they needed as they went, and were confident that their silver would hold out until they found paying work.
They camped alone that night, laying their bedrolls out beneath the stars. The moon was only a sliver of white; the unfamiliar constellations were clearly visible. As No busied himself cleaning up the remains of their dinner, Maul entered a light trance and laid the thin threads of spell-energy that would ward the sleepers. They radiated a disturbing field that would warn off most animals and humans—and any who ignored that warning would be subject to intense pain. Maul's magic skills were rusty; spell-energy had been thin and hard to come by in the world he had left. But it was plentiful here, running in trickles and streams and collecting in great rivers that joined at powerful nodes. Maul had not dared touch those yet; even trying to sense them was akin to staring into the sun. But he could easily handle the smaller trickles of power, and their presence was awakening half-memories of his life in yet another place.
Those glimpses frustrated him; he could never be sure how much was true, and how much just his brain playing tricks on him. It seemed sometimes that he'd been dropped full-grown onto the streets of Roses, a golem given life by some capricious god. Yet he was a man; his blood was as red as any. Enough had been spilled to prove it.
The mind-magic of the Kalad'a'in hadn't bothered him. Rather it had felt familiar, much as the magics he used now. Was this world his home? He wondered silently as he completed the circle of shining power and drew it up, a shimmering net of cobwebs, to form a dome over their beds.
But no, he hadn't come from here. His native tongue, the one that he thought in, was as unfamiliar to the scholars of this world as that of the Jewel Cities or Roses or Juniper. This wasn't his home.
But I will find it, he swore to himself, letting the spell settle into place.
It was not the breaking of his wards that woke Maul, but the distant sound of bells. Maul rolled over in his blankets and listened intently. Yes, it sounded like bells, but ringing in a peculiar cadence. Like a galloping horse—but that horse would have to be traveling insanely fast…As he realized this, he heard the thunder of true hoof beats, and felt the tremor of the earth beneath him.
Quickly, Maul reached over and woke No with a touch on the shoulder. "Up," he whispered, and immediately No popped upright, his hand closing around the hilt of Slender Reed.
"Who comes?" he asked in Nyueng Bao.
"Riders, a lot of them. Coming fast."
As No scrambled to his feet, Maul recalled the energies of the wards and melted into the shadows of the night. A lone rider was most likely harmless—a courier or perhaps a Healer on a midnight mission of mercy. More than one, at this late hour, carried darker implications. Paranoid? Perhaps. But Maul had lived for a long time under the mantra, "It doesn't matter if you're paranoid. What matters is being paranoid enough."
His vigil was rewarded within moments. Looming along the road, illuminated only by starlight but seeming to glow even in that faint light, was a white horse. It was coming so fast that Maul felt the hair on the back of his neck rise as every ghost story he'd ever heard flashed through his imagination. Yet it was solid; its hooves rang against the road in the bell-like tones that had woken him, and foam dripped from its hide and the corners of its jaws.
It was only as the ghostly beast flashed past that Maul realized it carried a rider. Bundled in clothes as white as the beast's hide, and huddled against its neck, the rider was almost invisible. But Maul caught the barest glimpse of his ashen face and tight-closed eyes—and of a dark stain on his back, a stream that gleamed wetly in the faint starlight.
Their pursuers were many lengths behind, not even visible yet. But even as the horse and rider passed Maul's position, the rider began to slip from his perch. Though his steed seemed to check its speed slightly—even seemed to try to twist to stay beneath him—the rider fell bonelessly to the surface of the road.
There was no conscious thought involved when Maul stepped out of his hiding place. Later, he would reason it out something like this: He had heard a story or two about the king's men of Valdemar, the Heralds. If this was a Herald, it was likely that his mission was an important one. And it never hurts a foreign merc to render what aid he can to the monarch of the country he happens to be in. Especially since such aid often pays well in the long run.
But for now all Maul knew was that there was a lone, injured man, pursued by many. His innate sense of fair play led him to sprint to the injured man's side and turn him over—and then roll out of the way as the white horse screamed in rage and lashed out with its hooves.
:Leave him alone! The voice ripped through his head, nearly incoherent with rage, panic, and grief. :Bastards! Leave—him—alone!
Each word was punctuated by a blow from those deadly hooves, and Maul found himself very busy avoiding the maddened creature. A glancing blow to his shoulder sent him spinning to the surface of the road, and the horse reared, ready to pulp his head with her hooves—and Maul tried one desperate tactic.
:Wait! He put all the force he could manage into the mind-call, trying to reach past the creature's anguish. :I just want to help!
Those silver hooves smashed down with force of a smith's hammer—right next to Maul's ear.
:Then get up, the words echoed viciously, :and defend my Chosen!
Maul scrambled to his feet and drew his paired short swords as the other riders came into view. They were visible mainly by the faint gleam of chain and tack, much harder to see than the white horse and rider. Nor were they stupid. They pulled up as soon as they saw Maul standing in the road between them and their quarry. There was a twang of bowstrings, and a volley of arrows came arching toward them.
Too easy. Maul felt his lips curve in a grim smile and summoned the dark current of power that lay just beneath the surface of his regular awareness. He didn't know where it came from; its origins were part of the past he was missing. But it was there, and it surfaced now as he flicked his swords at the deadly missiles that threatened him.
The arrows disintegrated in flight, falling into splinters on the road.
The bandits—or soldiers, or assassins—hesitated for a stunned moment. Then there was the ring of metal as weapons were drawn, and they surged forward, trying to cut him down en masse.
Had they been dealing with an ordinary fighter, it would have worked. Had Maul been alone, they might have stood a chance. But Maul was not ordinary. He could not make them shatter as the arrows had, but his small magics could affect them in subtler ways. So he stood his ground and summoned power again, letting it wash out in a wave imperceptible to ordinary senses. It would not cause them any great trouble—but it would encourage small inconveniences. Like loose armor ties, or a slick patch underfoot. And then he brought his swords up to hook the first rider out of the saddle.
The white horse fought beside him, with sharp hooves and teeth, and the bandits in the rear died when No popped out of the shadows wielding Slender Reed. The great sword—nearly as long as No was tall—cut cleanly through bone and flesh, and horses and men both screamed in pain and fear. Maul had no more time for spells, as such—but each time he swung his blades, he let power course down his arms through the steel, and left his attackers helpless with agonizing pain.
And then there were no more left. The night was quiet, the silence broken only by the harsh breathing of Maul and No and the horse and the rider. Cleaning his blades on the cloak of his last opponent, Maul sheathed them and went to check the wounded man.
The man was dying, Maul could tell. An arrow had pierced his lung, and there was probably internal bleeding from the wound and the fall. He did not open his eyes as Maul and No moved him as gently as they could to their bedrolls.
Maul turned to the horse. "I'm sorry," he said. "I—there's nothing we can do. I, I'm not a healer."
:I know. Her voice—it was a mare, Maul realized—was sorrowful, but it had lost the rage that had colored it earlier. :I—I am sorry, too. But I thought you were with them—and my Chosen—we must get to Haven!
"I don't think your, er, Chosen, is going anywhere else," Maul pointed out.
The mare's voice was becoming increasingly frantic. :But the King must have this information! She said.
"Can't you go by yourself?" Maul pointed out reasonably.
:I—If a horse could weep, that's what Maul was seeing now. :I could, yes—but Varren's my Chosen—how can I leave him alone?
No spoke up. "We'll stay with him," he said in Nyueng Bao. "We can give him proper rites."
The mare shook her mane, and seemed to come to a decision. :You helped us already—will you help me again? Valdemar will pay you well for your trouble. One of you can take the packet, and the other can stay with Varren—until—
Maul thought for only a moment. This was an opportunity too good to pass up. "I'll have to go," he said. "No can't ride. Do you need rest or food first?"
:Some of the grain in my saddlebags, she told him. As he laid it out for her, she directed him to the sealed packet of papers inside the Herald's jacket. Maul quickly pulled it out and tucked it into his own shirt. The horse—:Companion, she corrected him, :And my name is Sasha.—finished her grain and waited impatiently for him to mount. Maul had barely settled himself into the saddle when Sasha took off, flying headlong down the starlit road.
The next three days were a blur of motion, broken only by Sasha's infrequent need to eat and drink. They did not sleep; Maul wondered briefly where she got her incredible endurance, but invoking his wizard's senses told him. She was channeling huge amounts of raw spell energy, replacing the natural processes of a living body with magic. Maul had heard of this trick before, had pulled it once or twice himself when standing a long vigil—but it didn't pay to do it too often, as it tended to leave the wizard who tried a burned-out husk.
It was a long and lonely ride as well; except for her demands for food, Sasha did not speak to him. The one time he tried to speak to her, Maul sensed, not a wall, but a focused concentration that did not allow interruption. And beneath that, a void of terrible anger and grief. After that, he did not try to speak to her again.
Villages flashed by in mere moments; towns took only slightly longer. No one attempted to bar their way, and there were no more attacks upon the Companion. Maul's hands became locked upon the reins, and his legs cramped where they gripped the Companion's sides. He fell into a sort of daze, where nothing mattered but staying on the Companion's back. He could not even estimate the distance they traveled; he had no energy to spare to wonder about No or the dying Herald.
Although when Sasha stumbled and nearly fell to her knees with a mental cry of deepest anguish, Maul was fairly certain of what had happened…
Still they ran, although now the maelstrom of the Companion's grief threatened to sweep Maul into its void. He grit his teeth, resisted the void's pull, and somehow hung on…
Until they passed through the gates of a city. Sasha did not slow down, her ragged hoofbeats still ringing like bells. The crowded streets became abruptly less crowded as she sent a current of mental energy ahead of them. Get away, it seemed to say. Get away, stay out of our path. It worked, and Maul was glad, not really wanting to see what would happen to anyone unfortunate enough to remain between the Companion and her goal.
Then they passed through yet another gate, and Sasha's ears pricked up. :Rolan! She called. :Please, quickly—
Response came faster than Maul would have believed possible. Suddenly, white-clad figures came boiling out of the complex of buildings ahead of them, surrounding Sasha as she came stumbling to a halt. As the Companion fell to her knees, worried hands supported Maul, easing him out of the saddle. His legs, still cramped from the ride, threatened to buckle beneath him, and blood dripped slowly from his gloves where the reins had cut through the leather.
"Gods, look at his hands!" "Someone see to Sasha." "Where's the Princess?"
Voices swirled about him; out of the corner of his eye he saw another Companion approaching. Riderless, it walked to where Sasha lay gasping for breath and lowered its nose to hers. Maul felt—something, a stir, but the communication was private, and Maul looked away feeling oddly voyeuristic.
"Sir."
There was another Herald standing before him, a man about his own age with a careless tangle of dark curls and weary brown eyes. "May I have the packet?" the Herald was saying.
Maul fumbled in his shirt, but his injured hands were clumsy. He finally managed to fish the sealed and rumpled papers from where they had rested near his halt just as a collective moan of sorrow sounded behind him. He turned to see Sasha laying on the pavement with her mane spread across the ground. The light in her sapphire eyes was gone. Beyond her, a line of Companions watched patiently, sadness written in every line of their bodies.
In his career, Maul had seen a lot of death, had been the cause of a great deal more. It was a fact of his existence, and he no longer mourned for individuals, unless they were one of the few he considered "friend." And so it was with a sense of wonder and curiosity that he observed the obvious grief of the Heralds and Companions.
"You are Maul?"
The woman's voice distracted Maul from the sight, and he blinked as he faced a regal woman with dark hair confined by a silver band, wearing a richer version of the Herald's white uniform.
"I-I am." He had to struggle to remember to speak Valdemaran.
"I am Herald Elspeth," she said. "Rolan told my Bendis that you helped Sasha and Varren complete their mission."
"I—yes," he admitted.
Elspeth nodded. "Come," she said. "You are tired, and you need food and likely a Healer. My father has the information—you deserve recompense for your trouble."
Maul merely nodded, and followed Elspeth into the Palace that loomed before him, wondering what could possibly have been so important that two people would give their lives to see it safe.
