The Virgin of Valkarion Reheld
by Poula Anderson
Copyright 2010 Poula Anderson
The rock slope was empty. On either hand, the harsh gullied hills strteched away to the dusky horizon, wind whispering in gray scrub and low twisted trees. Here and there, evening fires glimmered red from peasants' huts, or the broken columns of temples in ruins these many thousand years loomed against the darkening greenish-blue. Behind her, the land faded toward the raw naked desert from which she had come. A falkh hovered on silent wings far above her, watching for a movement that might mean prey—otherwise she was alone.
Still—she felt uneasy. A prickling not due to the gathering cold tingled along her spine, and she had spent too much of her life in the nearness of death to ignore such warnings.
She looked ahead, down the great road. It twisted and swooped between the fantasticajly wind-carven crags, a dim white ribbon in the deepening twilight. The smooth stone blocks were cracked apart by ages so long that the thought made her head reel, and in places the harsh wiry vegetation had grown through and over it, but still the old Imperial Way was there. The ancients had built mightily.
Halfway down the huge slope of hillside, the road ran into Valkarion city. Below that level, the cliffs dropped sharply, white with old salt-streaks, to the dead sea-bottoms—a vast depression, sand and salt and thin bitter plant-growth, reaching out to the sunset horizon.
Lights were winking on in the city. It was not far, and Alfrid had no wish to sleep in the open or under some peasant's stinking roof. So—why not go ahead? The city, her goal, was there, and naught to hold her from it save
The hengist whickered and stamped its broad cloven hoofs. Its eyes rolled uneasily, and Alfrid's hand slid to her sword hilt. If the beast also sensed a watchfulness
She caught the stir in the thick brush-clump out of the corner of one eye. Only a hunter would have noticed it; only a rover at once, without stopping to think, would have struck spurs into her mount. The hengist leaped, and the dart whispered past Alfrid's face.
One scratch from the poisoned missile of the southern blowguns was enough to kill a woman. Alfrid yelled, and flung her hengist at the brush. The sword whined from its scabbard, flamed in her hand.
Two women slipped from the thicket as she crashed into it. They were of a race foreign even to these southlands, small and lithe and amber-skinned. They wore only loincloths; all hair had been shaved from their heads and bodies, and the iron slave-collars were about their necks. Vaguely, Alfrid was aware of the brands on their foreheads, but at the moment she was only concerned with their weapons.
One skipped aside, raising the blowgun to her lips. Alfrid yanked the javelin from its holster by her saddle and launched it left-handed—through the slave's belly and out her back.
Steel hissed beside her as the other swung with a scimitar. The hengist screamed as the blade cut its sleek gray hide. The forehoofs lashed out, the great hooked beak snapped, and the slave lay a bloody ruin on the Imperial Way.
Alfrid reined in her prancing mount and looked around, breathing hard. An ambush —by the bear of Ruho, they'd meant to kill her!
But—why?
A poor solitary wanderer was no worthwhile quarry for footpads—anyway, these weren't outlaws but slaves; they must have been set here with orders to destroy some specific person. But no one in Valkarion knew Alfrid—he was a stranger without friend or enemy.
Had they mistaken her for someone else? That would be hard to do even in this dim light; she was too plainly a barbarian outlander. It made no sense. By I.uigur, it made no sense!
She leaned over, studying the dead women. They were secretive even in the sprawled puppet-like helplessness of death ; she could learn nothing. Except—hold, what was that owner's brand
A double crescent.
The double crescent!
The knowledge shocked home like a spear-thrust, and Alfrid sat silent for a long moment with the wind ruffling her night-black hair. The double crescent—the sign of the Two Moons—that meant the slaves were Temple property. They'd been under orders of the priesthood of the Moons, which was the old Imperial faith and still the state religion of Valkarion. But if the Temple sent out assassins.
Alfrid's eyes traveled up to Amaris, the farther moon, high in the darkening heavens. The nearer one, Dannos, had not yet risen—out of the west, as was its strange wont—but its rocket-like speed would carry it up to and beyond the farther before dawn.
Aye—aye, now she remembered that tonight the moons would mate. On such nights the Temple no doubt had great ceremonies afoot; perhaps this matter of the assassination was involved in some religious proceeding.
Whispered legend and the moldering history books alike agreed that the turning points of the old Empire's fate had come on nights when the moons mated. No doubt that still held good for the withered remnant of territory which Valkarion still ruled.
The moons were not important in the religion of the Aslakan barbarians, whose chief gods were the wind and the stars and nameless powers of winter and death. But a tingle of fear ran along Alf ric's spine at the thought of what might be abroad that night.
To Luigur with it! Her lean face twisted in a snarl, and she snapped sword and javelin back in place and rode trotting on toward Valkarion. Come ambush or priesthood or the Moons themselves, she meant to sleep in the city tonight.
Behind her, the hovering falkh wheeled down toward the two still forms sprawled on the highway.
The sun slipped into the dead sea-bottom, and night came with a silent rush. Amaris rode high in a froth of stars, painting the hills with a dim eerie silver in which monstrous shadows lurked. The wind blew stronger, colder, with a faint smell of salt like the ghost of the long-dried ocean. Alfrid wrapped her worn cloak tighter about her against`its searching chill Save for the vast echoing howlof the wind, the hiss of sand and rustle of leaves, she was alone in the dark. She heard the creak and jingle of her harness, the rapid clop clop of the hengist's hoofs, against a background of hooting night.
The crumbling city walls loomed darkly before her, rearing enormously against the myraid brilliant, unwinking stars. She had half expected to find the gates closed, but instead a fire blazed in the tunnel which the gateway made through the walls. A dozen city guards stood about it.
They sprang to alertness as she rode up, a sudden wall of spears leaning forth in front of her. Behind that shining steel, the light picked out helmets and corselets and faces drawn tight with strain.
'Who goes?' called one. Her voice shook a little.
'A stranger, but a friend,' said Alfrid in her north-accented Valkariona.
She rode into the circle of firelight and sat in a watchful quiet as their eyes raked her. Plainly she was an outland barbarian ---taller by a head than most of the southerners, her hard-thewed body clad in the plain leather and ring-mail of a northern warrior, her sword a double-edged claymore rather than the scimitar or short-sword of the south. Her skin was a sunburned leathery brown where theirs was tawny, her long slant eyes a brilliant green -where theirs were dark, and there were jeweled rings in her pointed ears. Her hair was cut in accordance with southern custom, but the high cheekbones, thin straight nose, and long jaw were not theirs.
'Who are you, stranger,' demanded the guard captain, 'and what is your errand?'
'I am Alfrid, Beodan's daughter, of Aslak,' she answered truthfully enough, 'and am simply wandering about in search of employment. Perhaps Valkarion could use another sword-arm, or some merchant may want a good warrior to help guard her caravan, or—' she spread her calloused hands in a general gesture. No need to add that perhaps some highwayman was in town recruiting or some would-be rebel was in sea
rch of an experienced war-captain who would help for the loot. In her years of adventuring, Alfrid had held most jobs, lawful or otherwise.
The guards seemed more taut and wary than the occasion warranted. Surely they had passed stranger and more dubious visitors than a single barbarian. Perhaps they wanted a bribe to let her by, or...
The captain nodded stiffly. 'You may enter, since you are alone,' she said; and then, with a friendliness not quite natural: 'If you wish good cheap lodging, and a place where women come who might want to hire a fighter, try the Falkh and Firedrake. First turn to your right, three streets down, one to your left. Goold luck, stranger.'
Alfrid scowled. For a moment she paused, tensing. There was something here—To Luigur with it. Her nerves were still on edge from the fight. If something was supposed to happen, let it.
'Thanks,' she said, and rode into the city.
It was like most of the old Imperial towns—somewhat larger and busier than the rest, no more. On either side of the broad paved street rose the ancient, columned facades of the Empire, proud building even now when their treasures were long gone and their corners worn smooth by the winds of millennia There were lamps lighting the main ways, their yellow glow splashing on a milling throng of folk.
Most were native Valkarionas—merchants in their flowing cloaks and fur-trimmed silken