To Ride a Rathorn

by P. C. Hodgell

  The parcel of wolver pups spilled yipping onto the grass of the inner ward. Torisen could hear their joyful tussle, punctuated by yelps and mock growls. Then they began to keen in unison. Their shrill voices rose and fell, first together, then in counterpoint in imitation of their elders who could shape mist with their song and bring back the ghosts of winter.

  Torisen smiled. They were serenading him.

  He groped in the darkness, found an old boot, and tossed it overhand out the window. The chorus broke into yipping laughter. Claws scrabbled up the stone steps of the old keep. Moments later, a half dozen pups burst into the tower room and pounced on the Highlord as if they meant to tear him apart. He fended them off with his good hand, laughing, until they collapsed panting around him and began to snore. Lying under a blanket of small, furry bodies, he drifted off into blessedly dreamless sleep.

  IV

  In the morning, the wolver pack left with its escort, the pups yipping goodbye and trotting off, eager to be home.

  Grimly lingered. "Take care of yourself," he said. "This is a cold place. It doesn't love you. Your friends do, when you let them."

  "And who are they?"

  "You know. Harn, Burr, Rowan, maybe even your sister."

  "Father always said, 'Destruction begins with love.' "

  The Wolver curled a lip back over sharp teeth. "When you talk like that, I smell the dead on you. Be yourself, Tori, not someone else. Especially not him. And give my love to your sister." He grinned, suddenly all wolf. "Tell her I enjoyed our time together under the bed."

  Then he dropped to all fours and sprinted after his pack.

  Only when all had left did Torisen realize that the ruddy-faced Kendar hadn't gone with them as part of their escort as ordered, and that he still couldn't remember the man's name.

  Chapter IV: Testing

  Summer 1-2

  I

  When Jame woke early the next morning, on the floor under a pile of musty blankets, she didn't at first know where she was. At Tentir, of course, but beyond that. . .

  She felt Jorin's warmth at her side and reached out to stroke his rich fur. He stretched full length, sighing, and snuggled his head into the crook of her arm. Eyes closed, she let her dwar-bemused memory drift over the previous evening.

  The Commandant had taken Torisen's announcement that she was staying with raised eyebrows, but had only said, dryly, "I see. Very well."

  Timmon, on the other hand, had gaped at her until she had snapped at him, "What are you staring at?"

  "I'm not sure, but I think I like it." Then he had given her such a dazzling smile that she in turn had blinked. Dammit, what was it about that boy?

  Tori had waited until Ardeth was resting quietly, one drug having counteracted the other, and then had called for his horse. Shadow Rock, the Danior keep, was a good twenty miles to the south. Neither he nor Storm would have much rest that night, but he was clearly anxious to be on his way before Ardeth woke.

  "For Trinity's sake," he had muttered to her on his way out, "don't make fools of us both."

  "No more than I can help," she had said, which was honest if hardly reassuring.

  Jame considered her situation.

  She hadn't known what to expect when she had rejoined her people the previous fall except to be reunited with her twin brother Tori. That he was now at least ten years her senior thanks to the slower passage of time in Perimal Darkling had come as an unpleasant surprise to them both, and would cause considerable complications if anyone found out.

  Ever since her sudden appearance at the Cataracts, Tori had been under intense pressure to contract her to either the Caineron or the Ardeth, the two most powerful houses in contention for mastery of the Kencyrath after the Knorth. What she had told Graykin was true: thanks to Jamethiel Dream-weaver's role in the Fall, most lords considered the Highborn women of their houses only good for breeding and political alliances. For Jame, that was apt to mean either one of Caldane's vicious sons or the Ardeth Dari, he with the breath of a rotten eel (according to his father) whom no woman contradicted twice.

  She hadn't spent most of her life trying to rejoin her people for that.

  Moreover, if either she or Tori had a son by someone from another house, that boy would become the first highlord in Kencyr history not of pure Knorth blood. The balance of power would shift irreparably, perhaps disastrously.

  The Kencyrath was already perilously close to losing its identity. Some, like Lord Caineron, professed not even to believe the old stories. Singers' lies, he called them, and it was true that song and history, fiction and fact, had become intertwined over time. Only Kencyr on the Barrier with Perimal Darkling—the Min-drear of High Keep, for example, or Jame and Tori's own people in exile in the Haunted Lands—had no doubt whatsoever that their ancient enemy only bided its time.

  Presumably, the Merikit hillmen also understood the danger since they lived closer to the Barrier than any Riverland Kencyr except the Min-drear.

  Jame's thoughts drifted back to Summer Eve in the ruins of Kithorn—had it only been the night before last?—when she had found herself thrown into a Merikit rite to placate the vast River Snake whose waking had brought on the earthquakes and the weirdingstrom. Somehow, she had emerged as the Earth Wife's Favorite. So far so good, and no stranger than a dozen other things that had happened in her short but not uneventful life. She still carried Mother Ragga's "favor," the little clay face called the imu, in her pocket. However, the Favorite also played the Earth Wife's lover, to ensure the coming year's fertility. To save face, the Merikit chieftain had declared Jame his son and heir until the next ritual. Then, please God, she could pass on the role to someone better equipped to fulfill the Favorite's duties.

  But all of this had given the Jaran Kirien an idea.

  " 'Lordan' is an ancient title applied to either the male or female heir of a lord," she had told Lords Ardeth and Caineron, breaking into their interminable wrangle over which house should have the newly discovered Knorth, Jameth. "Nothing in the law forbids a female heir."

  Well, she should know. Hers was a house of scholars and she herself was its lordan, no one else having wanted to leave his studies to take on the job. Torisen knew that she was female. The other lords assumed otherwise, not that Kirien had ever deliberately set out to fool them. There would be hell to pay when she came of age and claimed power.

  In the meantime, "By ancient custom, the heir always has the status of a man, and 'he' doesn't form any contracts before coming of age at twenty-seven."

  Jame could see her brother's mind working; that would get them both out of the fire for several years at least.

  "There is this, too," the haunt singer Ashe had added in her harsh, halting voice. "Traditionally . . . the Knorth Lordan trains . . . at Tentir to become . . . a randon."

  So here she was, against all odds, against everyone's will but her brother's, and he was already beginning to have doubts.

  "For Trinity's sake, don't make fools of us both. . . ."

  Easier said than done.

  At last, Jame opened her eyes.

  Over her loomed the dawn-tipped peaks of the western Snowthorns, seen through a ragged hole in the roof where the weirdingstrom had carried off both slates and rafters. Birds flitted in and out. The air was crisp enough to turn her breath into puffs of mist. She was in the attic of the Knorth barracks.

  First they had tried to put her back in the Knorth guest quarters in Old Tentir, only to find them charred beyond use. Luckily, the fire hadn't spread. Unluckily, it had also consumed all evidence of the wyrm. Then there had been the third floor apartment in the Knorth barracks, where she had had such bad dreams. Finally, she had come up here, to the top of the world, it had seemed, with only the mountains and star-frosted sky wheeling through the night above her.

  In a corner, Graykin stirred fitfully in a nest of moth-eaten blankets. Even his snores resounded with discontent.

  Jame, however, felt a surge of excitement. She might be ade
pt at falling on her face, but then just as often she landed on her feet. Either way, nothing had ever stopped her from jumping. She stretched luxuriously, and Jorin stretched with her down the length of her body. The old, defiant chant rose in her mind:

  If I want, I will learn.

  If I want, I will fight.

  If I want, I will live.

  And I want.

  And I will.

  This was going to be fun.

  Outside, a horn blared, and birds fled out the hole in the roof. Jame scrambled to her feet, tossing the blankets over a protesting ounce. Across the dusty floor, the windows of a dormer faced eastward towards Old Tentir. As she leaned out to look, in the training square below a sergeant again raised his ram's horn and sounded its raucous note.

  "All right, you slug-a-beds," he roared. "It's morning. Up, up, UP!"

  In the second story dormitories below, bare feet hit the floor in a garble of dwar-slurred voices. The whole college must have been out cold last night, small wonder after the previous day's events.

  Turning, Jame saw that Graykin was awake. He gave her one look, then hastily averted his eyes and began to search for his clothes. He at least had slept in his underwear—a Southron custom, perhaps. She didn't know if all naked bodies upset him or only hers, but that was his problem. Ancestors knew, the rigors of the past two weeks had left hardly enough flesh on her bones to offend anyone.

  Suddenly, Jame was ravenous. Nobody had eaten the night before. When had been her own last meal? She couldn't remember.

  Think of something else.

  Rubbing her sore buttocks, she twisted around as far as she could to look. Yes, those shadows were bruises. Damn all horses anyway.

  But Graykin had the right idea: she needed clothes.

  Her pants, boots, cap, and gloves were all right, but the jacket would never do. Why could she never arrive anywhere appropriately dressed? The last time it had been a voluminous dress "borrowed" from a Hurlen prostitute. This time, it was a Tastigon flash-blade's d'hen. Sweet Trinity, what if someone last night had recognized it for what it was?

  That apartment below—hadn't it been strewn with neglected garments?

  A central, square stairwell reached from the attic to the second floor landing. Jame ran down the steps, the chill mountain air raising goose bumps on her bare skin. The third floor was divided between a long common room overlooking the square and the lordan's private suite facing outward and west toward the mountains. Only two rooms of the latter were accessible—a dusty reception chamber and the inner room beyond. Presumably the suite continued to the north and south, but walls of chests, layers thick, blocked it off in both directions.

  Jame paused in the second room beside the cold fireplace on its raised hearth, where she had tried to sleep the night before. In her dream, the floor had been covered with rich, soiled clothing, left where a careless hand had dropped them. She remembered fur and silk, velvet and golden thread, all sunk in a miasma of stale sweat, but that hadn't concerned her then. She had been sitting beside a roaring fire, drinking and laughing so hard that wine spurted out her nose like blood onto her white shirt and richly embroidered coat. That had seemed hysterically funny at the time. Sitting opposite her, her companion had also laughed but more softly. She knew he was less drunk than she and in a fuzzy way resented his self control. Damn, superior Randir. She would impress him yet.

  "No, truly," she heard herself cry in a hoarse, slurred voice not her own. "Such games we used to play, my brother and I! The things I made him do!"

  "Did he enjoy them?"

  "Now, if he had, where would have been the fun? Once the poor little fool even tried to tell Father, who called him a liar to his face for his pains."

  She was leaning forward now, supporting herself with a thick hand studded with gold rings and coarse, black hair. Her voice dropped conspiratorially. "You don't believe me? Listen. This very minute, he sleeps below in his virtuous cot. Dear little Gangrene, all grown up and come to play soldier. Shall we have him up, eh? See if he remembers our old midnight game?"

  If there had been more to the dream, Jame didn't remember it. She spat into the fireplace to clear the foul taste of that voice from her mouth. What in Perimal's name had it all been about anyway? Who was "dear little Gangrene"? Surely Father had never called her brother Torisen a liar, the worst of all possible insults. As for midnight games. . . .

  Jame shrugged away the thought. It had only been a dream.

  Or perhaps not.

  Sprawling on the hearth like the flayed skin of a nightmare was the embroidered coat.

  She picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy, its entire surface covered with thread in many colors, couched with stitches of tarnished gold. Here and there were stains as if of wine, or of blood.

  It also stank.

  She remembered now how she had wrapped it about her for warmth the previous night and tried to sleep in its noisome folds. Ugh. No wonder she had had bad dreams.

  Jame dropped the coat and turned to the nearest wall of chests. When she dislodged and opened one, the smell was as she remembered it, with an added stale air of must and mold. Several layers down, she found a serviceable shirt and a belted jacket cut cadet style.

  "Oh, very stylish," said Graykin from the doorway. "What's that stench?"

  "History. Don't ask me whose."

  She put on the clothes. Both shirt and coat were much too large for her, but they would do.

  Below, the rumpus had subsided.

  Good, thought Jame, turning up her sleeves and clinching the belt. She would slip down and keep out of sight until she knew what was expected of her.

  "Try to stay out of trouble," she told Graykin as she passed him with Jorin at her heels. "Better yet, hide."

  From either side of the second floor landing, stairs led down to the front and to the back halves of the ground floor, which itself was divided by the internal corridor that run all around the three sides of the square, cutting through every house barracks.

  Jame bent down to peer below. To the front, nothing. That, as she vaguely remembered from the previous night, was a public area. From the back, however, came a stifled cough and a stealthy shifting of feet. Ten long tables had been set out and ten cadets lined each of them, five to a side, standing at attention. Bowls of porridge cooled before them. At the head table, one empty seat waited. Even as she realized that it was meant for her and that no one could eat until she sat in it, the horn sounded again and everyone bolted toward the square. Descending, Jame saw the Kendar pile through doors that opened onto the common corridor, cross that, stream through their own front hall, and so out into the morning light. She snatched up a hunk of bread, stuffed it into her mouth, and followed, with a wistful backward glance at the rest of the uneaten breakfast.

  Cadet candidates were forming up in tens. Jame took a position behind Brier's squad, but hands reached back to draw her forward. She found herself pushed out in front, level with the other ten-commanders, all too conscious of her reeking, over-sized tunic. Timmon, also front and center before his own house, sketched her salute in greeting. Brier stood behind her and Vant parallel, before another squad.

  She chewed hastily and swallowed. "What's going on?" she hissed at Rue, a pace behind her to her right, inadvertently spraying the cadet with crumbs.

  "Iron-thorn was demoted to Five. You're Ten now, lady."

  "The hell I am!" But she hardly needed Vant's sidelong smirk to know that Rue spoke the truth.

  "Hut!"

  Everyone stiffened. Several cadets, let go by supporting hands, fell over, still lost in dwar sleep.

  Flanked by his randon instructors, Commandant Sheth Sharp-tongue strolled into the yard from Old Tentir. He moved like an Arrin-ken, thought Jame, powerful, lithe, and subtly dangerous. Morning light caught the hawk lines of his face and cast his deep-set eyes into hooded shadow. He wore the white scarf of command as he did his authority, easily, as by birthright. Here were the makings of a lethal enemy. And h
e was a Caineron. She felt his eyes sweep over her and sensed Jorin cower at her side.

  "Cadet candidates, I bid you welcome to Tentir."

  His voice, light but resonant, carried easily to every corner of the square. No sound crossed it but the swish of his long coat and a breath of wind chasing last season's leaves across the tin roof of the arcade. Somewhere in a back row, a fallen cadet began to snore, grunted as a mate kicked him, and again fell silent.

  "You come to us in unusual times. Last fall, almost the entire student body marched south with the Host to the Cataracts. Many died there. We honor their memory and will not forget their names. For the most part, those who survived were promoted on the battlefield and now serve with the Southern Host at Kothifir. As a result, we have very few second year cadets and no third years except for those who have returned to assist as master tens in charge of their respective house barracks.