Title: For Valdemar

Disclaimer: I don't own any of Mercedes Lackey's characters. And…you probably know who they are already, if you're here reading this. If you don't, well…they're all the characters that will be used in this one-shot story. Heh. Oh, except for the random assassin guys (those evil cheeses) but they don't count.

Summary: What if Tedrel assassins did survive the Final Battle? A one-shot tragic story about Alberich's divided loyalties and his ultimate decision. (AU)

Notes: This is one-shot, sad and alternate universe. It's set during the end of Exile's Honor, so if you haven't read that far…stop. Actually, go ahead, read on. This is an alternate universe, so the following story has nothing to do with the actual story whatsoever. It is a character death fic. This is my first Mercedes Lackey fanfiction, although by no means my first ever…so this should be interesting.

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It was an unusually quiet night for one meant to be held in celebration. It might have been that the men of the Queen's army were mourning and rejoicing in their own hearts, much like Alberich found himself doing not three nights after battle was over. It was an odd mixture of feelings. Grief, over the loss of the obvious. Joy, over the blooming of their new Queen. Selenay.

Their new Queen. His? Was she the queen of the country he lived in with his flesh? Or the enemy ruler of the country he remained inside of with his heart?

No, just Selenay. Perhaps she was a queen of a nation, too old beyond her physical years and tragically so. Yet somehow, she would never cease to be the kind, righteous girl that had bested him in fishing and complained under the tough exercises of her bodyguards.

:Chosen,said Kantor in his mind. :Myste just bothered me to say that you have an appointment with her tonight.:

:Is that true?: he said with an aimlessly tossed thought. :Does it bother you to ask why?:

:Bah, you would never bother me, not intentionally. I really don't delve into details of my beloved Chosen's personal life. Anyway, why not meet her at her tent? If you won't sleep, the least you should be doing is interacting with another insomniac.:

:And you?: inquired the Weaponsmaster's Second. :Where will you be going?:

:To sleep,: was the curt reply. :I'll sleep enough for the both of us. I am the one who carries all the weight, after all. Good night, Chosen.:

:Good night.: Alberich could not help but put a little pressure on those last few words. Kantor dealt with tragedy in the most strangest and mysterious ways, none of which pleased him. But then again, sadness was a different perspective for everyone. That included Companions.

Nonetheless, Alberich took his Companion's advice and left his rather cold and empty tent. He set a firm pace towards what he remembered to be Myste's site, remembering without any disdain the promise he'd made to listen. When she had a problem, he would do the honorable thing and hear her out. It bothered him not at all.

There was a faint glow from inside her tent, he noticed. Just in case, however, he remained quiet as he placed a hand on the flap and half-stepped through the door.

Myste was sitting on one of two spindly-looking wire chairs, sipping on a cup of herbal tea that flooded the room with a spicy, rather pleasant aroma. A similar cup sat on her table invention just in front of her. She looked up at him through her thick lenses and smiled, although only slightly.

"Alberich," she greeted with a forcibly controlled voice. "Come inside. I didn't disturb you, having Kantor wake you?"

"Actually, I can't sleep," said Alberich. Despite his fatigue, it felt slightly better to revert to speaking Karsite. It required much less effort than it took stumbling over the syntax of language of Valdemar.

Myste nodded her head grimly. "Most of us can't," she agreed. "Sit down, Alberich. You looming over me isn't going to help matters. I'm shaken up as it is."

Alberich sat, taking the cup she offered him courteously. He was particularly thirsty, but her distraught state coaxed a sip or two to help her relax. He said nothing, but instead waited for the middle-aged woman to begin to explain her worries -- which were, he noted subtly, much more serious than he'd first assumed.

"I'm worried," said Myste. "These strange feelings I've been having ever since this morning, they're on my mind every moment of every hour. I'm no Empath, nor ForeSeer, but I am getting old and these bones feel something, Alberich."

True, he had been feeling similar pangs of dread for a short while now. There was not much alarm behind them, he'd merely assumed they were part of the lingering sorrow for their recent loss. But the way in which she told him sparked that familiar bit of wariness that normally, though invisibly, preceded some bad turn of events.

"Could it be that your feelings about the battle, and its results--" he did not spare the pained look on his face, "--are causing your discomfort? There is no shame in protecting the Heir, even against direct orders."

"Always your honor," she said with a twang of humor amidst her defeated tone. "This is a discomfort of a different breed, my friend. I feel restless. I feel as if there is no hope in the world left for Valdemar, as if I should be somewhere else, protecting her from her enemies…"

This surprised Alberich. "The battle is won," he said cautiously. "You are not a strong fighter, Myste. Your protection comes with the order of the Chronicles. At any distance, you can protect that."

"But not that," she insisted, setting down her cup forcibly. "No matter how I've been trained, I want to protect Selenay just as badly as the rest of us. Something is going to happen to her, someone will nip her in the bud before her petals see the sunshine. But, I also fear, someone else…"

The change in her tone preceded the inevitable. This time, his gift was not only instantaneous and overpowering, it was painful.

A flash of blue, like hot knives in his eyes--

Not only a flash of blue light, but a swirl of blue robes. Dancing figures, two of them. No, not dancing. Fighting. They were uniforms of two city guards, Haydee and Casti. They dashed in and out, trying to outsmart their opponents.

There was no sound, but the clang of metal blades was just as easily felt as if the blow had been struck to him. Three masked figures challenged the bodyguards. A yell, a cry, the swing of a blade. This time, a flash of red-

Outside. Dead guards. It was quiet, he knew this even though it would have been silent otherwise. Blood was everywhere, red staining his vision.

Inside. More blood, less people. Haydee, staring into space as her life fled her lips. Casti was already tossed aside, skewered, discarded. Three well-trained men, grinning triumphantly. Enemies, advancing towards the Queen. Selenay gasped -- she had no weapons. Fear in her eyes. One man lurches forward, drawing back his blade. One slash, blood, death…

"Alberich! What is it?" Myste cried abruptly. The visions had released him already, thankfully. He was leaning over, unaware that he was hardly breathing. Then she was shaking him, her firm hands gripping his shoulders.

"Selenay-" he grunted, forcing the single word into existence. His breath began once more, allowing him more control over his voice. "Tedrel survivors. It is tonight-"

She released him as if he were suddenly poisonous to touch. The shock and dismay in her face told him enough that there was room for fear. Suddenly, everything around him ceased to matter. Selenay was in grave danger, perhaps not yet, but soon. His well thought-out plan was going to fail.

Kantor's voice suddenly flooded his mind. :Chosen!: It was so filled with panic and devoid of its usual sarcasm that there was no mistaking the concern. Alberich knew, without really knowing, that his Companion was waiting for him outside.

He was through the tent flap and onto the stallion's back without a farewell to his host. She called after him and he heard it, but Kantor took off swifter than the flight of a dove in an arrow's path. For long -- very long -- moments, all that was true was the feeling of weightlessness and the fear that he may be too late.

The stones and grass were flooded with the crimson of the guards. Each dead, most eyes wide with shock, some eyes slashed upon and left open and bloody. There was no one around. What was wrong? Half the posted guards had vanished. The smaller tents around him stood like barren teeth, empty and hollow, filled with nothing but the poison of betrayal. This had been planned.

Inside Selenay's tent were cries, both of men and women. Both were angry, and some were painful. Alberich had dismounted before Kantor danced to a halt, but only in time to plant both feet in the pit of silence. Then a man's laugh, low, hoarse and triumphant. Selenay's gasp.

Alberich threw himself into the large tent, sword drawn and eager to take any life that dared threaten the Heir -- the Queen. With that same fell movement he twisted the blade around and thrust it into the nearest exposed back.

One man's scream of pain and surprise did not stop him. Rage once again befriended him, and he trusted it mutually to make every blow, swing of the blade deadly. Draw blood, and kill. It brought every moment of satisfaction, enjoyment to do so. These were the lowest of his enemies, enemies of Valdemar.

There were now two, both as shocked as the assassin that now painted the ground in blood. Each faced him, swords flashing in the glow of the lanterns placed around the spacious room. They were cautious. He was angry. Only hard training prevented him from breaking eye contact and charging the nearest 'enemy'.

That was his shock. Eye on eye, a sudden flare of recognition overtook him. No Tedrel assassins were these, nor the highly Sunpriests he despised just as much. These were Karsite men, fathers of Karsite children, husbands of Karsite children. Not only was he facing the assassins of Valdemar, he was facing brethren of his country.

And he had already killed one of them.

Alive, these men would murder the young ruler of Valdemar, destroy the balance in his new and beloved home. Dead, these men would bring him dishonor and a broken vow more precious to him than anything, save Kantor. These rough, evil-intending stragglers of the army he'd partaken to eliminate were of his country.

The innocent, wide-eyed girl watching in open-mouthed stupor as the fight around her life unfolded. She didn't move. Her life and the future of her country, she now entrusted on her Queen's Own, the Weaponsmaster that was her friend and protector.

The scales were set and the objects weighed. What was the honor in life of a single man, compared to the lives of countless thousands? Even though these thousands were not his country to heart, they were still lives. All it took, was the thought of the children now cradled in the arms of their camp.

Some of those children were not here. Those children that were supposed to be here, yet not. Taken from the strewn bedding on the floor, no doubt. Kidnapped. By these men.

These men, however Karsite, were not his brethren.

He discovered their attack by watching their hands. When they tightened, his defenses shot up and he brought his own blade high to parry the arc of the first blow. He swept it to one side again to ward off the blow from the second man. Metal rang sharply against metal. Before the first assassin prepared another swing, his comrade foolishly aimed his sword low and charged.

Alberich neatly dodged the lunge and brought his sword down on the base of his opponent's blade. Before the weapon clanged to the floor, the Weaponsmaster had cut the assassin clear across the front. The Karsite man howled and stumbled back, nearly colliding with his teammate.

The cut was shallow, and as the other man hesitated, the one wounded scrambled to recover his sword. Alberich was not surprised to find that the man's other hand now weld a dagger as well. This did not waver him even momentarily. He would have blinked more if a mouse had joined the battle of a lion.

They attacked together, this time using their own brains as well as brawn to coordinate their swings, pulling back once more as they discovered nether one hit their mark. There was no more hesitation. An explosion of furious cries, movements, gliding blade and fresh cuts took to the air. Two men, experienced beyond their already injured bodies, against one exhausted and determined.

Yet Alberich was not just fighting blindly. He was moving them, pushing them in the direction he desired, and somehow managing to turn them toward the tent flap. Neither seemed to be tiring easily and with every thrust, lunge or jab they took at him, their purpose became frenzied. A wildfire grew behind each stepping motion in the promising duel. They're entire mission was being endangered by this man, a barrier between themselves and their quarry.

Alberich was hardly sweating himself. These men were good, in fact, far better than he had expected them to be. This is why they had accomplished in killing both of Selenay's hard-trained bodyguards without so much as gaining a scratch. Alone, one of these men would have proven to be a difficult opponent in a match. Together, they were nearly undefeatable.

Nearly.

In a few moments, he had them placed where he thought his strategy would work best. With the manor of a stealthy cat no longer interested in its prey, he lowered his sword and stepped back. To his expectation, both assassins faltered momentarily in their volley of assaults.

:Now!: Alberich told his Companion.

Like a Ghost-Horse from children's fables, Kantor stuck out from behind his tricky veil. Silver hooves, pure white forelegs and a terrible, wild-eyed face appeared from the flap of the tent, flailing out at the man nearest him. It was a silent blow as it was true, pounding the man from behind and sending him sprawling forward.

It was a moment of utmost confusion, and Alberich harvested the advantage. As the assassin stumbled towards him, he stepped forward and brandished his sword with a sharp flick of the wrist. The stunned man barely, out of lucky, drew his weapon up for a weak parry. The force of Alberich's blow sent his opponent's sword flying harmlessly into the leg of a table. His next move impaled the man through the ribs.

Alberich withdrew his sword, unaware of the slick blood that coated it twice. The man's body, shocked face and all, slumped to the floor beside his feet. The Weaponsmaster immediately moved to defend himself from the assault of the last surviving intruder.

Only it did not come. The remaining man was pale, not with fear or sickness, but with a suppressed rage that did not begin to compare to the battle lust Alberich was feeling. For a long while, the assassin stared seemingly mindlessly at the corpse of his fallen comrade, a word barely forming at his lips and never uttering a sound. A name perhaps, of disbelief and surprise, that this friend of his was really dead.

What was yet to come was an event even ForeSight could not have prepared Alberich for. The wild fury that erupted from his opponent's raw throat and his blind charge towards him caught him off guard completely. A scream of unmatched rage, of loss and pain, of finality, that this man knew that his own life mattered nothing so long as his revenge took rein.

The shock of the man's first swing half-numbed Alberich's arm, telling him there was more than adrenaline flowing through the man's veins. Three more strikes, too swift to follow with any human eye followed, but Alberich's attempts to parry them almost seemed clumsy compared to their valor. One, two, three, and his arm was too stiff to move again.

His sword slipped in his grip. It slid for a moment, and then loosed in his fingers for a moment until eternity. He barely clung to it. It was all that, this power that faded and the sudden knowledge that shook him.

He had failed.

It took a second or less, to realize that.

The clang of metal seemed to deafen him as the assassin knocked the sword from his hand. An impressive force he hardly felt.

Then the man turned the blade in hand, and plunged it deep within his chest.

"Alberich!"

He could not see much of anything, but Alberich knew the cry was torn from Selenay. It was she who lurched, mouth agape, as if the final blow had been struck to her body. It was her voice that screamed, as it was anguished. It was not the Weaponsmaster who sank to his knees, not yet. It was she, with no rage to fuel towards this murder. Just denial.

It was the assassin who was surprised. He released the sword, as if the hilt now burned his skin at the touch. Outside, the bellow of a Companion could be heard, an agonized cry of pain for the wound and his Chosen. Alberich slowly knelt, barely breathing. The assassin stared on incredulously as he backed away. Why, however, was not known.

Until he buckled, and fell to the ground in cold death. A bolt, not much larger than a man's hand, protruded from the base of his skull.

Myste dropped the crossbow where she was. She did not need to be surprised by the sight of a grievously wounded Alberich, for she knew already by the painful throes of Kantor outside. Her bravery now robbed, fears confirmed, she stood motionlessly at the tent flap and released a shallow moan of despair.

Whatever invisible power had held Alberich upright failed him then. With no strength of his own, he collapsed forward and lay still.

Selenay somehow managed to reach his side without tripping over herself, and knelt there. Her hands were warm to him somehow as she his head and his shoulders, pulling him gently on his side. She carefully gripped the hilt of the killer sword, trembling as she did so. With immense care, she pulled. It did not move.

"Myste-" she choked, tightening her hold on Alberich's shoulder. "H-Help him lie on his side…it's the only way I can remove it. Please…"

The middle-aged Chronicler wasn't going to be told twice. She forced her stiff body to move until she was able to hold Alberich on his shoulder. Her hands and her body too, were trembling, as were the Queens'.

When Selenay pulled again, the blade grudgingly gave way, and slid out easily. She cast the horrible thing behind her, careless to what possessions were in its flight path.

The wound was thick, and bleeding profusely. It was located just beneath and to the right of his heart, barely scraping the vital organ and missing his lungs altogether. However, the blood itself was unstoppable. Although he could now breathe again, his life was draining away at an alarming rate. Even now that he lay properly, the pressure of the floor against his back staunching the wound slightly, there was no hope.

:Chosen……Chosen…: Kantor's broken Mindspeech tugged his consciousness back into reality. It was then he realized that he was dying, in the hands of a very frightened queen and an aging woman he'd ventured to call a friend.

Alberich parted his eyes slightly, allowing his expression to settle into a stone-like defense. "The Queen-"

"I'm just fine, Alberich. I'm right here," she answered quickly. "Caryo is getting a Healer. The closest-"

"Too far, they…will be," he implored. A cruel parody to his last living moments, his body began to feel numb. "Although glad am I, that…protected, you still are."

"Of course I am," she whispered fiercely. "You won't die, Herald Alberich. That is an order."

His face contorted something. "Then dishonored am I…unable a Queen's command to grant…"

"No," she snapped. "That is truly honorable. You are honorable. No one will ever say otherwise, because you are going to live through this. How could Dethor forgive me if I let his Second die?"

"Another…Second he will find easily," he said hoarsely.

"Another friend I will not," she retorted, her words short as her breaths. It was all she could do to not break into sobs.

"A friend you…will not lose," he told her. "A choice I made…too late, it may be. But a choice that…I did see…"

His was head still cradled carefully in her lap, the red of blood so outstanding on her Whites. "What choice, Alberich? I'm here, I'm listening…'

His eyes closed as he sighed. "To fight…for Valdemar…"

However firm her grip she held to him, there was no keeping him any longer. His last breath passed through his lips, his scarred and battle-worn face relaxed and his life at last escaped him.

A great cry of pain that was entirely inhuman followed shortly. For the great heart of a Companion, outside on his knees, was being torn apart. Kantor bugled again, pawed fruitlessly at the ground that seemed to scoff at his frustration and despair, and then rolled onto his side. All that was left was consciousness, emptiness, and solitude.

All those who arrived knew. Only the ones Selenay allowed herself to enter set foot inside the tent. But there was not three Karsite bodies upon the ground; there were four. Karsite blood soaked the ground, but not all of it was spilt by murderous assassins. The man that spilled that blood for his Queen now had spilled his own in the same cause.

For Valdemar.