3 Valdemar - Last Herald 1 - Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey

Author:Mercedes Lackey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 1989-01-11T07:00:00+00:00

Eight

Vanyel stared nervously at his own reflection in the window - a specter, pale and indistinct; ghostlike, with dark hollows for eyes. Beyond the glass, night blanketed the gardens; a moonless night, a night of wind and cloud and no light at all, not even starlight.

Sovvan-night; the night of celebration of the harvest, but also the night set apart for remembering the dead of the year past. The night when - so most traditions held - the Otherworld was closer than on any other night. A night of profound darkness, like the one a moon ago when Staven had been slain.

Savil was with the rest of the Heralds, mourning their dead of the year. Donni and Mardic, having no one in need of remembrance, were with some of the other trainees at a Palace fete, indulging in a certain amount of the superstitious foolery associated with Harvestfest that was also a Jpart of Sovvan-night, at least for the young.

Lord Evan Leshara had gone home to Westrel Keep. Presumably well satisfied with himself. There was no doubt in Vanyel's mind that Lord Evan had somehow extracted enough good information from what had been fed to him to deduce exactly what bait would serve best to lure Staven to his death. They had tried to use him - and had ended up being used by him.

And that was a blackly bitter thought.

Tylendel and Vanyel had been left alone in the suite -

Tylendel and Vanyel would not be mewed up in the suite much longer.

"Are you ready?" Tylendel asked from the door behind him.

Vanyel nodded, and pulled the hood of his dark blue cloak up over his head, trying not to shiver at his own reflection. With the hood shrouding his face, he looked like an image of Death itself. Then Tyiendel moved silently to his side, and there were two of the hooded figures reflected in the clouded glass; Death, and Death's Shadow.

He shook his head to free it of such ominous thoughts, as Tyiendel opened the door and they stepped out into the cold, blustering night.

This morning he had slipped out into Haven and bought a pair of nondescript horses from a down-at-the-heels beast-trader, using most of the coin he and Tyiendel had managed to scrape together over the past three weeks. He'd taken them off into the west end of the city and stabled them at an inn just outside the city wall.

Tylendel had told Vanyel that before he worked the spell to take them within striking distance of the Leshara holding, he wanted-to be out of the easy sensing range of the Herald-Mages. They needed transportation, but it didn't matter how broken-down the beasts were; their horses only needed to last long enough to get them an hour's ride out of the city. After that it wouldn't matter what became of them.

Obviously, riding Gala was totally out of the question. They weren't taking Star or "borrowing" any of the true horses from the Palace stables, because if their absence were noticed, Tyiendel didn't want any suspicions aroused until it was too late to stop them.

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