Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar Read Free

the circuit and to answer a call outside the Border.
    And much to Elyn’s disgust and their elation, the answer that came back was, “Yes.”
    Of course, this was ever so much more exciting than the endless round of petty disputes they had been called on to settle and the sad little band of pathetic “bandits” they’d chased down. Thus far, the circuit had been so entirely uneventful that the most they’d had to worry about had been the weather and the wild animals.
    But that’s what it’s supposed to be like, Elyn thought resentfully. Most of the time, anyway. Property disputes, and ugly domestic quarrels, and minor criminals. And that’s important. We can be the impartial outside voice that settles things so that they stay settled. We are the ones who go away, so people don’t have to be angry with the neighbor that made the decision that they don’t like. We ride in on our pure white Companions, in our pure white uniforms, and people know that they can trust us to be impartial, because we haven’t taken a bribe, we aren’t friends with anyone, and we owe no one there anything. And if we didn’t do that, there would be no justice. That ought to be exciting enough for anyone. We can’t all be Herald Vanyels.
    But of course, everyone wanted to be Herald Vanyel. Well, all but the part about dying horribly. Everyone wanted the happy noble bits, not the agony, or drudgework, or the dying. But the glorious heroic stuff? Sign them up!
    “We’ve got the shelter done, Elyn!” Rod called from the other side of the wagon. “We had to sort of improvise, though!”
    Kill me now, she thought again, steeling herself. Rod and his ‘’improvisations” were going to drive her not-so-quietly mad. Oh, they generally worked, but they looked so precarious she could never see how and never quite trust them.
    Ducking her head against the rain, which was coming down harder now, she made her way around the end of the wagon to where the four were supposed to have pitched the canvas half-tent.
    Well, it wasn’t a half-tent anymore, and it hadn’t been pitched. Instead, it was a sort of improvised slanted roof, tied up to various tree branches. To keep the branches from tossing in the wind, they had been anchored with the ropes and stakes that should have been used to pitch the tent. And instead of a straightforward flat or slanted surface, the canvas had been tied into a sort of sloping, flattish V-shape, so that all the rain that fell on it ran into a channel in the center and that in turn poured into the canvas water-trough they carried to serve the horses and Companions.
    “We already filled our water barrel,” Rod said, beaming with pride. “Rigging it like this gives twice the rain shelter too! If it gets any colder, we can put a fire at this end and the slanting roof will carry the smoke away instead of trapping it.”
    “Good work,” she said, torn between relief that he hadn’t tried anything more complicated and a kind of surprised pride that he’d come up with something so useful.
    The Companions ambled up and tucked themselves in under the ample shelter with clear relief. Alma turned up in another moment, leading the draft horses, then hobbled them. They hadn’t bothered to actually tether the horses this entire trip. It wasn’t as if the Companions would let them wander off or get into trouble.
    Laurel collected the now-empty feedbags and stowed them in the proper compartment. And now Elyn could go back under the awning to fire up the little cook-stove, since it was her turn to cook.
    “Where’s Arville?” she asked, suddenly realizing the fourth member of the inseparables was missing—and she was about to cook, which up until this moment had meant he was going to be at her elbow, waiting, with a look on his face like a starving puppy.
    “He said he heard something out in the—”
    “Look what I found!” Arville cried happily, bounding up to them, arms and legs flapping with happiness like a