The Horsemasters

by Joan Wolf

  “Back,” the black-haired girl said firmly, gesturing with her free hand to illustrate her command.

  He grinned. “I like here,” he said in their language.

  “Back,” the girl said again, and when still he did not move, she began to come forward. He crossed his arms casually, his right shoulder still leaned against the archway, his eyes on the spear. If she came close enough, he would grab it…

  “Aieeh!” He clapped his hand to his upper left arm and stared at the girl. The spear had moved so quickly he had not had time to react.

  “Back,” she said once again. He could feel the warm blood welling beneath his fingers. Slowly, his eyes on the girl’s perfectly calm face, Vili backed into the cave.

  Scowling furiously, he pulled his shirt over his head and stared at his arm. It was not a serious wound, he saw. But it hurt! He set his jaw and glared at the cave opening. She’ll pay for this, he vowed. He had nothing else to use to stop the bleeding, so he balled up his shirt and used that.

  A short time later, Siguna entered the cave carrying more water and some deerskin cloths. “How is your arm, Vili?” she asked.

  He was bare to the waist, as his bloody shirt was now unwearable. “It hurts,” he answered furiously. “And I am cold.”

  “I’ll find you another shirt once I have taken care of the wound,” Siguna promised. She put her small pot of water down on a rock. “Come over here, into the light from the door.”

  Vili did not want the black-haired girl to see how effectively she had hurt him, but he knew the wound needed attention or it might go sour. He stalked over to where his sister stood and let her look at his arm.

  “It’s not that bad,” Siguna said. “I’ll wash it out and pack it with the herbs Nel gave me and it should heal very well.”

  “What kind of women are those girls?” Vili demanded. “She attacked me! I was standing there perfectly quietly, and she attacked me.”

  “Lara said she told you to get back into the cave and you wouldn’t go,” Siguna said. Her head was bent as she worked on the wound, and he gritted his teeth so he wouldn’t give that girl…Lara…the satisfaction of seeing him wince. “I told you about the girls of the Red Deer, Vili. They can handle their weapons. They hunt like men. Do not underestimate them, or you will get hurt again.” She had finished washing the wound, and now she began to press herbs into it.

  Vili was silent until she had finished; then he said haughtily, “She caught me off guard.”

  Siguna wrapped a piece of deerskin around his upper arm and began to fasten it with two thongs.

  “Siguna,” Vili said, and now his voice was low and urgent. “What is happening?”

  Siguna finished knotting the last thong. “I can’t tell you, Vili,” she said.

  “These mountainmen did not run away. They were preparing for a fight; I could see that very well.”

  Siguna looked up, sighed, then nodded her head. Vili scowled at her. “He will not catch my father in another trap like that gorge. Bragi and I scouted all the land along the river.”

  “I know.”

  “Siguna.” He dropped his voice even further. “You must help me to get away.”

  Her gray eyes were unhappy. “I can’t.”

  “Why not? There is nothing I can tell my father that Bragi has not already told him,” Vili said reasonably.

  “There is always the chance that Bragi has not made it back to Father.”

  Vili snorted. “He was riding Firewind. Of course he will make it back.”

  “He could have an accident,” Siguna argued.

  “Don’t talk like a fool,” he said impatiently.

  The sound of girls’ laughter came from without the cave’s opening, and both Vili and Siguna fell silent, listening.

  “I can’t, Vili,” Siguna said regretfully. “You know too much. You know that the tribes have left this campsite. You know they are in the mood to fight. I cannot set you free to bring that news to my father.”

  There was a white line around his mouth. “That black-haired chief must be a stallion indeed, to have brought you to such a state of submission,” he said brutally.

  Instinctively, Siguna swung her arm, and her hand smashed against Vili’s cheek. A loud resounding crack echoed through the cave. “You know nothing about him!” she said through her teeth. Her breath was coming fast, and her hands were balled into fists at her sides.

  He reacted instinctively, his arm shooting out to grab her shoulder, his fist coming up to retaliate.

  There was the rush of feet in the doorway and a warning shout. Vili’s head jerked around toward the cave opening.

  “Do not touch her.” The girl spoke the words slowly and clearly enough for Vili to understand. Her spear was pointing at him steadily.

  For a moment, Vili hesitated. He could use Siguna to cover himself, he thought. He might even get away. But even before the thought had finished, his fingers were relaxing on her shoulder. What would his father say if he learned Vili had bought his freedom at the price of his sister’s life? He stepped back and let Siguna go.

  She backed away from him a few steps, but then she stopped and raised her head. He kept his face impassive. She said, surprisingly, “I am sorry, Vili.”

  The girl with the spear kept watch until Siguna was safely out of the cave. It was the black-haired girl again. Vili stood still, waiting for her to leave as well. Instead she stood there, her eyes going over his naked torso as boldly as his had gone over her body earlier.

  Vili’s arm was throbbing. He was more worried than he wanted to admit about his father and his tribe. He had just been wounded by one girl and struck by another. He had had enough.

  “You want sex?” he said, using the word for mating he had learned from the Kindred women he had bedded. He gestured crudely, “Come. I give it you.”

  To his astonishment, the girl did not stalk away. Instead she smiled and made some reply, using words he did not understand. He scowled and shook his head. Her smile deepened. She was amazingly pretty. She said slowly, “Are you good?”

  His jaw dropped.

  “You look good,” she said, her eyes going unashamedly over his chest and his shoulders before they dropped to his waist and below.

  What kind of women were these?

  She laughed delightedly at the look on his face, flicked her tongue enticingly around her lips, and departed. Slowly.

  A few minutes later, another girl came to the cave door and tossed in a shirt. Vili put it on and lay down, determined to sleep.

  * * * *

  One day went by, and then another and another. It was almost suppertime on the fourth day when Kasar and Dai came riding into the Red Deer camp with news of the fight.

  “We won” were Kasar’s first words as he jumped off his horse only to have Beki immediately cast herself into his arms.

  Eken was back at the Great Cave, so Dai had less distraction and was able to impart to Nel and the other women who had come running a more detailed story of what had happened on the plain by the River of Gold two nights before.

  There were loud exclamations of relief from everyone as he concluded his tale.

  It was Nel who finally asked, “Whom did we lose, Dai?”

  A tense silence fell as all the women stared at Dai, willing him not to say the name of their man.

  Dai began first with the tribes other than his own, “From the tribe of the Leopard,” he said gravely, and began to name names.

  After the list from the other tribes had been concluded, and one wailing woman had been borne away, Nel said again steadily, “And the Tribe of the Wolf?”

  Dai’s face was very stern as he looked around the small circle of women who were left. “We are a small tribe,” he said, “and so we are bound to feel each death more deeply.”

  “Who?” Nel asked again, a little less steadily than before.

  “Cree and Mitlik are dead,” Dai said. “Okal and Heno were wounded, but the shamans think they will recover.” He looked
at one young face in particular and said gently, “I am so sorry, Yoli.”

  Her hand went to her mouth, “Not Lemo?”

  Very, very gently, he said, “Sa.”

  “Not dead? Dai, tell me he is not dead!”

  “I wish I could tell you that,” Dai said wretchedly. “Dhu, how I wish I could tell you that!”

  Yoli made a small animal-like sound, and seemed to sag. Beki rushed to put an arm around her waist to support her. “Not Lemo,” Yoli said piteously. “It can’t be true. Not Lemo.”

  “Beki,” Nel said quietly, “take Yoli back to her hut and get her some tea.”

  Beki nodded. “Come along, Yoli,” she murmured coaxingly. “Come along with me and let me take care of you.” As if in a daze, Yoli let herself be led away.

  “There is more,” Kasar said grimly when the two women were out of hearing. He looked now at Siguna. “We have lost Thorn also.”

  There was a sharp cry of anguish, but it came from Nel. Siguna had bowed her head, but she said nothing. She had been prepared to hear such words, had known she was saying farewell to Thorn when she had kissed him by the river after seeing his death shadowed upon his face, Now she stared dry-eyed at the earth and listened as Kasar told them how it had happened.

  A heavy silence fell upon the small group, the happy news of victory effectively overshadowed by the grim toll of the dead.

  “We have lost more men than any other tribe,” Berta said.

  “The Tribe of the Wolf was in the center, and the center was where there were the most deaths,” Dai replied.

  One of the tired horses began to toss his head up and down, and Nel reached up to catch his halter and rub his nose.

  Siguna’s voice spoke tentatively into the silence. “My father?” she asked. “Do you know what happened to my father?”

  They looked at her with hostile eyes.

  “He is alive,” Dai said. “Hurt, but alive, Ronan made us collect the Horsemasters wounded this time, and he was among them.” Clearly, this was not a decision with which Dai agreed.

  Siguna bent her head.

  “Evidently you got some of the horses back,” Nel said to the two men, her hand still upon Dai’s horse’s nose.

  “Sa. We had Mait’s horse, of course, and Ronan had kept back three others. We spent a whole day searching for our stallions and the scattered mares. Ronan sent Kasar and me on after we had collected the first batch. The men were still out searching for more of the horses when we left to bring the news to you.”

  “You have been riding long and hard,” Nel said quietly. “Come and we will get you some food.”

  * * * *

  Siguna remained where she was while the rest of the group moved off toward the huts; then she herself began to walk quickly toward the cave where Vili was being held. The girls of the Red Deer were congregated outside in a group, talking together in low tones, and she walked past them without a word and went directly into the cave.

  Vili was sitting cross-legged on the floor, idly throwing small stones into a circle he had scratched in the dirt. His head jerked up as Siguna came in.

  “We lost,” she said. “But Father is still alive.”

  A shifting array of expressions passed over her brother’s face. Then he said, “I don’t believe it. We outnumber them two to one. It isn’t possible for us to have lost.”

  Siguna went to sit beside him on the floor. “This is how it happened,” she said, and she related the story she had heard from Dai.

  “Name of the Thunderer,” Vili said when she had finished. “Is Father one of those who got away?”

  Siguna shook her head. “Dai said he was one of the injured they carried from the field.”

  Vili’s eyes strayed toward the circle in the dirt and the stones with which he had been amusing himself. His lips set hard. “They have him, then.”

  “Yes.”

  “How badly is he hurt?”

  “I don’t know, Dai did not say. He had just given out the names of their dead and was in no mood to answer questions about Father.”

  Neither of them appeared to notice how Siguna’s allegiance had shifted with the news of the battle’s outcome.

  “How many of our men died?”

  “More than two hundred, they said.”

  “That is more than half of us!” Vili said incredulously.

  “Yes.”

  Vili, true child of his tribe, asked next, “What will happen to our horses?”

  “I do not know. Dai and Kasar said Ronan was trying to collect as many of them as he could.”

  Silence fell as the two of them stared, unseeing, at the stones within the circle.

  “He killed all the wounded we left in the gorge,” Vili said next. “Why didn’t he do that this time?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Vili’s breath was coming hard. “I cannot bear to think of Father in the hands of his enemies!” he said fiercely, smashing his right fist into the palm of his left hand over and over.

  “Ronan won’t hurt him,” Siguna said.

  Vili flashed her a scornful look.

  “See how you have been treated,” she pointed out. “These are not people of violence.”

  Vili’s scorn for her ignorance increased. “Two hundred dead, and you say these are not people of violence?”

  “We forced the fight on them,” Siguna said stubbornly. “You know that is true, Vili.”

  Vili’s jaw was jutting out, making the dent in his chin very noticeable. He frowned and began to finger the cleft, an unconscious imitation of Fenris’s own gesture when he was worried, and tears suddenly welled up in Siguna’s eyes. “I cannot bear to think of Father lying hurt and helpless either,” she whispered brokenly. She began to sob harshly, in the manner of one who is not accustomed to tears.

  Vili turned to her, his face twisted with pain. Then, abruptly, he reached his right arm out and drew her close against his side. Siguna turned her head, buried her face in her brother’s shoulder, and cried. After a minute, Vili rested his forehead on the top of her head and let his own tears slip slowly into her soft and silvery hair.

  * * * *

  Brother and sister were sitting together in somber silence half an hour later, their shoulders touching, their heads bent, when Arika entered the cave.

  Both blond heads lifted at the same time, and the relationship that could not be perceived in their features was immediately evident in the identical movement of those heads.

  “Mistress!” Siguna said with surprise. She did not move away from her brother.

  Arika saw immediately that she was in danger of losing Siguna. She let her eyes linger only briefly on the handsome boy who was staring at her out of narrowed gray eyes, and then she said to Siguna what she had come to say. “I have spoken to Dai, and he tells me that Fenris was not badly hurt. He has a shoulder wound, but evidently what felled him was a blow to the head. One of your men was found lying across your father’s unconscious body, quite evidently protecting him.”

  “Surtur,” Siguna said immediately. “It must have been Surtur.” She turned and relayed Arika’s message to Vili.

  Even in the dimness of the unlit cave, Arika could see the flush of color that came into the boy’s downy gold cheeks. He said something, and Siguna nodded.

  “Was Surtur…the man who protected my father…was he alive?”

  Arika shook her head.

  Brother and sister looked at each other. It was Vili who spoke next. “What you do now?”

  “I don’t know.” Arika looked at Siguna. “I don’t know what Ronan’s plans are, and I am thinking it would be wise of me to discover them. I am going to join the men at the River of Gold. Would you and your brother like to come with me?”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  In the end, Siguna and Vili left camp the following day escorted by Nel and Kasar. All four of them were riding the mares Nel had used so short a time ago to transport the shields. Arika had decided to follow after them on foot, with
the Red Deer girls who had been guarding Vili as her escort.

  “I have hopes of Siguna,” Arika had said to Nel after her brief session in the cave with Siguna and Vili. “It is necessary, however, that she see her father.”

  Nel had not pushed the Mistress for a more extensive explanation, as Arika’s wishes in this case echoed Nel’s own. Instead, Nel had ridden out of the Red Deer camp with Kasar and her two charges at the first light of dawn the following day.

  Vili was impressed by the riding ability of the two women who accompanied him. He had known Siguna could ride, of course, but he had never quite admitted to himself just how well she could manage a horse. And the other one, the one named Nel…

  “You ride good,” he said to her grudgingly after he had followed her in a swift gallop across an open pasture.

  She gave him a friendly smile. “Your mares feel different from our horses,” she said. “It takes some getting used to.”

  Vili understood only some of her words, and he glanced to Siguna for help. She translated.

  He immediately looked interested. Nothing could catch Vili’s attention like a discussion of horses. “How different?” he demanded.

  “Your horses’ shapes are different,” Nel said. “Here”—and she pointed to the line of her mare’s shoulder—”and here”—she pointed to the legs. “Legs are short.”

  “Short?” He did not like what he was hearing.

  “Compared to ours”—this Nel returned tranquilly. “You will see. I will show you our stallions when we reach my husband’s camp.”

  Siguna translated.

  Vili nodded. “I see,” he said. He curled his lip. “Short. Huh.”

  Nel smiled.

  The sun was sinking toward the rim of the world when Nel and her party arrived at the edge of the valley and gazed out at the broad meadow through which the River of Gold flowed peacefully on its long journey to the sea. There was a large camp spread out upon the river’s bank, and farther up the valley a herd of horses grazed in the light of the westering sun.

  “Our horses,” Vili said involuntarily.

  “Where are our men?” Siguna asked Kasar urgently.