Spot joined him as Kip picked his way through Garal’s cornfield along the path Dunnett’s White Demon was supposed to have taken. If nothing else, the greasewood and thorn choking the arroyo to the west of the village would provide more than enough dry twigs to fill his sack. The cat seemed to simply melt out from between the cornstalks between one breath and the next. After all these years, Kip was so inured to its sudden appearances that he didn’t even jump. “I suppose it’s useless to ask you where you came from or where you’ve been.”
“Mrow,” said Spot, as usual.
“You should have been born a dog, Spot. Sunlord knows you follow me everywhere like one. And I should have been born . . . well, just about anything else.”
Kip wondered what he would do with a White Demon if he found one. Maybe it would eat him for its supper and put an end to his troubles.
Kip, with Spot sauntering along in his wake, was halfway down the slippery gravel-strewn track that led to the stream at the bottom of the arroyo when he heard it: the sound of something big—as big as a White Demon, maybe—crashing around in the thorn thicket on the far side of the stream. Kip froze and turned to run, but then the crashing was followed by a horse’s whinny, high and desperate and terrified.
He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, feeling shaky with relief. Surely no Demon would ever sound so frightened. It was just someone’s horse that had gotten loose and blundered into the arroyo in a panic, the way the gelding that pulled Thuril’s plow had last spring. Whoever owned the horse would undoubtedly be grateful to have their wayward animal back, perhaps grateful enough to speak well of Kip to the smith. And if the beast had broken its legs, well, at least Kip could go back to the village and bring someone with a bow to end its suffering.
“You stay here,” he said to Spot, who gave him a withering look. “Horses are stupid when they’re scared, and I don’t want you getting kicked.” He spared a moment to wonder why he felt the need to explain himself to a cat, and then he slid the rest of the way down the path and plunged into the thorn thicket with a faint pang of regret for what was about to happen to his only tunic. At least he’d have a good excuse when he came back to the smith’s house with his clothes in tatters.
By the time he found the horse, tangled in a great mass of green thorn branches and desert mistletoe, Kip was bleeding from dozens of stinging scratches, and it was raining in earnest. He blinked the cold droplets from his eyes and regarded her.
From what he could tell, the mare was a fine little animal, gray underneath the patches of mud and bleeding thorn scratches and green stains, and powerfully but gracefully built. She wore what looked like the tattered remnants of a very fine bridle, though the bit was apparently long gone. He could only hope it hadn’t done too much damage to her mouth when it ripped free of the bridle. He walked forward carefully, afraid of startling her into trying to bolt, but she just stood there as he approached, head low and flanks heaving.
Hesitantly, Kip put a hand on her neck. The little mare flinched a bit but didn’t try to run. “Well, clearly you belong to someone,” he said softly, soothing her. “I wonder who. You’re way too nice for anyone around here, and the Voices don’t like grays. You don’t really look like a Sunsguard horse, neither. Guess it doesn’t really matter. We need to get you out of here regardless. There’s a stream a little way away where you can drink, and there’s some grass to eat. ’Fraid it isn’t very good grass, but it’s better than an empty belly.” Kip knew something about empty bellies.
It took what must have been the better part of a candlemark to extract the little mare from the thorn thicket and coax her into the open, while the wind howled and the rain turned into an icy drizzle that beaded on his skin and ran in rivulets under his collar and down his back. Scared as the horse must have been, not once did she try to fight him or to turn and run.
“You’re a rock-solid little thing, you are,” he told her. “Whatever it was that made you bolt must’ve been something pretty bad. Is there a White Demon around here somewhere after all? I sure hope your rider’s okay.”
Kip would have called the noise the horse made a sob if she’d been a human. He’d never heard its like from an equine throat, and he hoped to never hear it again. It raised all the hair on the back of his neck. But perhaps it had only been a grunt of pain. As soon as the mare stepped onto level ground, Kip could see she was terribly lame.
The cause was immediately apparent: a wicked gash on her right hind leg that had just barely missed the tendon. The edges of the wound were too clean to have been the product of an accident, and the leg, when Kip ran his hands gently down it, was hot and swollen.
“Someone did this to you on purpose. No wonder you bolted.” In that first rush of terror, she probably hadn’t even felt the pain of the wound. She was lucky she hadn’t injured herself further when she’d stumbled into the ravine. Kip sat back on his heels. The gash looked as though it might have been made by a long knife or even a sword. If the mare had come from the hills as Old Man Dunnett had said, she might have come from up near Jainstown, where the Voices on circuit were supposed to be staying. But why would the Voices, or the men of the Sunsguard, who always accompanied them, hurt a horse?
As Kip sat pondering, the rain stopped and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds for just a moment. It was then that Kip realized that the little mare wasn’t gray at all but white: the clean pure white of Sunpriest Aram’s festival robes. And her hooves weren’t black like the hooves of a natural horse. They were silver.
Kip scrabbled back so fast that he caught his heel on a rock and sprawled backward into a patch of thistle. “Oh, no. No no no no no.” The words poured from his mouth without conscious volition. This was no horse that he had just helped.
This was Old Man Dunnett’s White Demon.
Kip could be sent to the Fires of Cleansing just for having touched her, even in ignorance.
The mare hobbled a few steps forward, lifted her head slowly, and looked at him. Her eyes were the clear deep blue of a midsummer sky. And overlaid on the figure of the Demon-mare, as if he’d hit his head and was having some strange sort of double vision, Kip could see the image of the veiled woman from his dream. He sat up gingerly.
Just that morning he’d prayed for Vkandis Sunlord to show him the meaning of his dream. But this couldn’t be the Sunlord’s answer, could it?
“I don’t understand,” he whispered. “Oh, Sunlord, I don’t understand.”
The mare met his gaze. Her look was filled with a grief so profound that it brought tears to Kip’s own eyes. And then . . . there was something like an instant of startled recognition, and he felt as though he were tumbling into the blue depths of her eyes.
Right up until the moment that Spot, who had apparently been waiting among the rocks in the rain just as Kip had instructed him to, leaped down to land between the boy and the Demon-mare and yowled authoritatively.
The spell was broken.
The mare dropped her head, nuzzled the cat with an air of something like apology, and whickered. Spot quirked his tail in a funny little ‘S’ shape and rubbed against her legs, purring so loudly Kip could hear it from where he sat among the thistles.
It was the strangest thing he’d ever seen, but in that moment he was as certain of one thing as he was of his own name: that the white mare with the blue eyes was no more a Demon than he was himself.
So he got to his feet, coaxed the mare into the chilly waters of the stream, and washed out her wound. She flinched and grunted when he touched her leg, but she stood as still as if she were rooted.
Kip whistled softly. “Even the best-trained horse I know would’ve tried to kick me for that. But you’re not really a horse, are you? I’m sorry it hurts. The cold water will help with the swelling.”
She nuzzled his shoulder, and he reached up automatically to stroke her muzzle. It was soft and warm and velve
ty, and she smelled like warm horse and fresh hay and sunlight. Unaccountably, he felt as safe and loved as he had when his ma had used to hold him and sing to him, and he swallowed hard against tears. That had been a very, very long time ago. The mare’s breath was warm against his ear.
There was a patch of heal-all growing on the near bank of the stream. Kip chewed a few of the leaves, grimacing at the bitter, astringent taste, and packed the wound with the mess. “This is the best I can do for now. The smith has horse medicines, though. I’ll come back tomorrow with some of them and a proper bandage, I promise. Just . . . stay here and hide and try not to let any real demons eat you, okay?”
The mare studied him as gravely as any human patient listening to her Healer and nodded her head vigorously up and down.
• • •
Kip went without supper that night and endured a beating from the smith’s wife on account of his half-empty bag of kindling and the wet, ragged mess he’d made of his tunic. He’d muttered a half-truth about having tripped and fallen into the thorn thicket while gathering wood and promised himself that he’d ask Vkandis’s forgiveness for lying in his morning prayers. The smith also lectured him on the sin of ingratitude.
Eventually Kip slunk up to his hayloft and fell onto his pallet without bothering to remove his boots. He was asleep almost before he managed to drag the thin coverlet up over his shoulders, drifting in and out of uneasy dreams in which he sat in the darkened Temple, listening as a deep-voiced man and a woman with a soft contralto conversed in low voices. The speakers were in the shadows somewhere just beyond Kip’s line of sight, and their conversation made no sense.
:So, he’s the one?: The woman sounded resigned.
:One of them, yes. So I’m very much afraid that you can’t have him, Portia. I’m sorry.: The man’s voice was at once apologetic and amused.
:Well, if I’m to agree to leave him here with you, you’re going to have to promise me you won’t let THEM get him. I know perfectly well how THEY feel about Gifts, and that’s without them knowing he’s had a hand in helping me. Even leaving aside the other thing, I owe him now.:
:It would mean a lot of wasted effort on my part if I let the bastards take him at this point, now wouldn’t it?:
The woman sighed heavily. :I suppose. I still don’t have to like any of this.:
:I’ll look after him, Portia. You have my solemn word. When all has been set right in Sunhame, you may even be able to see him again.:
:If you let anything happen to that boy, mark my words, I will personally make sure that beautiful fur of yours gets made into a cloak for some pretty noblewoman in Haven. You see if I don’t.:
• • •
It was Kip’s job to tidy the smithy and the barn, so the next afternoon it was easy enough for him to slip a mostly empty bottle of arnica, a little pot containing the last remnants of a batch of wound-heal ointment, and one of the most ragged standing bandages underneath his tunic. If anyone missed the items, he could simply say they were beyond their usefulness and he’d tossed them into the garbage midden.
He told the smith’s wife that he’d do without his midday meal to gather sage to burn in the Sun Shrine. Kip left her with the impression that he was trying to do penance for his behavior of the day before, so she was willing enough—even eager—to let him go.
With the rest of the household at table, Kip shoved the medicines into an empty kindling sack, slipped into the barn so that he could add a small bag of grain to his inventory, and headed back to the arroyo with Spot trotting along at his side.
The Demon-mare’s leg was a bit better, though she still couldn’t bear much weight on it. Still, Kip thought it probably wouldn’t be much more than a sevenday before she was well enough to make her way home. The border was close by to the north, and Sunsguard patrols in this poor, rocky, sparsely populated bit of the countryside were usually small and uninterested.
Kip washed the mare’s wound again and dried it, then rubbed the leg with arnica and wound-heal and wrapped it tidily with the standing bandage before spreading the grain on the ground before her. “Now don’t you go chewing on that bandage or trying to rub it off or anything,” he scolded, just as if she were any other horse. “It’s for your own good.”
She snuffled his hair with what he could only imagine was amusement.
Kip stuffed his bag with as many sage branches as he could find and climbed back out of the arroyo.
• • •
After another three days, Kip was almost willing to let himself breathe again. The Demon-mare’s leg was healing steadily, and it had proven simple to find excuses to slip away with Spot while everyone else was at their midday meal. Firewood to be gathered. Hopelessly broken tools to be taken to the garbage midden at the edge of the village. A patch of heal-all he’d seen growing near Old Man Dunnett’s cow pasture. While the smith had lectured Kip and Sen about being more sparing with the costly horse medicines, threatening beatings for both if they continued being so wasteful, it hadn’t seemed to occur to him that anyone might be stealing the medicines. In another three or four days, the Demon-mare would be safely on her own side of the border, and no one would ever be the wiser.
• • •
Just before dawn on the fourth day, Kip woke sweating from uneasy dreams of flickering torchlight, red-robes, and the jangle of men in armor marching. He told himself it was just a nightmare born of his worst fears and the strain of hiding the Demon-mare, but even in his own mind the words rang false.
He was gathering stray horseshoe nails from the barn aisle when he knew for certain his luck, and the Demon-mare’s, had run out. At the unmistakable sound of a horse pelting into the packed-earth courtyard at a full gallop, Kip started violently, dropping his handful of nails so that they scattered across the barn floor like a shower of sparks. An instant later, a man’s unfamiliar voice shouted for the smith. Heart pounding, Kip left his work and went to see what was the matter, even though in the depths of his soul he already knew.
In the courtyard, he found a messenger, tall and stern, in the livery of the Hierophant’s household, astride a dark bay gelding foamy with sweat.
“You,” the messenger said. “Boy. Go and tell your master to prepare for the arrival of the Voices of Vkandis and a contingent of the Sunsguard. For your safety, no one is to leave the boundaries of Sunswatch until they arrive. The Voices have tracked a White Demon here. It is hiding somewhere in the countryside. Do you understand?”
Kip must have managed something that looked like a credible nod, because the messenger wheeled his poor sweating horse around and galloped off the way he’d come. Kip prayed that his horror didn’t show on his face when he repeated the messenger’s words to the smith.
The little mare! He had to get away and warn her!
• • •
Kip didn’t get his chance until after evening prayer. By then the sun was setting, and the little packed-earth courtyard that lay between the smith’s house and the barn and the smithy was so crowded with men and horses that surely no one would notice a skinny boy and a cat slipping away in the chaos. In addition to the usual two black-robed circuit riders, another Voice had come as well. This one wore red robes and carried himself with terrifying authority. The Sunsguard men accompanying them all wore full armor.
Kip had stuffed an entire pot of numbweed in his tunic. He’d think of a lie to cover the missing pot later, assuming he survived this.
At the edge of the village, he hesitated. No sane Karsite ventured abroad after sunset for fear of the Demons roaming the countryside. Sunpriest Aram said Vkandis had made the Demons on the eighth day to punish the disobedient. But then Kip thought of what the Voices would do to the Demon-mare if they found her.
He remembered his ma screaming as the Voices gave her to the Fires of Cleansing.
Spot pressed himself tightly against Kip’s leg. Kip wasn’t sure what help
a scrawny, filthy, notch-eared barn cat would be against the horrors that roamed the night, but Spot’s presence was somehow comforting.
Clutching the pot of numbweed against his chest, the boy broke into an awkward run.
The journey to the arroyo in the swiftly gathering twilight was like something out of a nightmare, even with Spot loping alongside him. Kip ran as fast as he dared, trying not to look over his shoulder. In the gloom, he caught his toe on the root of a scrub oak and went sprawling. The pot of numbweed bounced out of his tunic, fetched up against a stone, and cracked.
Somewhere in the distance, something terrible howled, and he felt his insides grow cold as he gathered up the pot. Just cracked, not broken, but he didn’t dare drop it again. He wasn’t sure if he heard hoofbeats behind him in the distance or if it was merely his heart thundering in his ears. His chest felt as though it might burst. He went on.
A rustling at the edge of Garal’s cornfield made him freeze with terror, but it was nothing more than a half-starved rabbit looking for a meal. Spot bit him insistently on the ankle as Kip stood for a moment longer, trying to catch his breath, and all Kip could do was shove the pot back inside his tunic and force his tired body back into a shambling run. By now he was certain those were really hoofbeats he heard nearby.
When he finally slid down the gravel path to the floor of the arroyo with Spot behind him, he almost wept with relief. He didn’t have breath enough to whistle for the little mare, but somehow she came to him anyway, slipping out of the deep purple shadows like a sliver of moonlight come to life.
Kip didn’t bother to explain. There wasn’t time. It was almost completely dark, and the hoofbeats were getting closer. Much closer.
He tore the bandage from her injured leg, being as gentle as he could in his haste, and started smearing the leg with numbweed. It should stop her from hurting long enough to run across the border into Valdemar. If she went up the far side of the ravine, it shouldn’t take her more than half a candlemark at a gallop. It was said the White Demons could outrun any mortal horse. Kip offered up a prayer to the Sunlord that the stories were true.
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