"G'night, Senethari."
He paused in the doorway, gave her an enigmatic look, and went out, carefully holding his lethal charge.
IV
Several more times Jame half-woke during the night, thinking she had heard some disturbance. More likely, though, it was the echo of a dream.
Shouts, battle-cries, and then sergeants bellowing, "Run, run, run!" to the thunder of feet on the boards of the arcade . . . obviously her drug-befuddled brain had drifted back to that first day at Tentir and the punishment run.
Oddly, each time she surfaced a different member of her ten-command was in the room, on guard. This puzzled her, but not enough to ask why they were there. When she at last fully woke in the early morning, Brier Iron-thorn sat on the window-ledge.
Jame regarded that hard, strong profile, that distant, proud expression. How little she truly knew about this woman. She remembered a bloody Brier on the Ardeth stair, blocking her way to the room above where Tori fought for his soul if not for his life:
"He saved me from the Caineron. Bound me. I am his, although I trust no Highborn fool enough to trust me. I don't trust you. You will only hurt him."
Such a bitter insight, and so tangled even in the Southron's own mind.
"You haven't yet taught me how they fight in the streets of Kothifir," she said.
Brier glanced at her. "There hasn't been time, lady. Do you still want to learn?" She turned back to contemplate the empty square, across which dawn was edging. She looked tired, and her clothes were dull with dust. "The randon would hardly thank me for corrupting your classic style."
"It's only classic because it's all I know—that, and some knife tricks."
When she pushed back the blanket of woven moss, it slid to the floor and crumbled to dust. Spiders scurried off in all directions. She stood up and swayed, suddenly light-headed. When her sight cleared, she found that Brier had moved swiftly to support her.
"Thank you. Now, where did Kindrie hide my clothes?"
Jame was nearly dressed when the healer arrived.
"I'm not sure about this," he said, watching her wobble on one foot as she tried to pull on a boot, then sit down abruptly on the bed. "I hear you didn't have a restful night, which is hardly surprising under the circumstances."
"Damn. Who else knows?"
"Everyone," said Brier briefly. "The Commandant sent me word late last night about your uninvited bed-mate, and Vant overheard. He's already tackled the Randir about it."
"Trinity. Have there been fights?"
"A few. Then the sergeants stepped in and ran us all ragged. They're still keeping a thumb on the pot, hoping it won't come to a boil before the general exodus later this morning."
A sudden commotion erupted outside the infirmary door.
"No!" Rue was saying loudly. "Stay away from my lady, you . . . you . . ."
A scuffle, a yelp, and the door burst open. Rue tumbled into the room and rolled to her feet between Jame and the intruder. Brier instantly joined her. Peering between them, Jame saw a Randir cadet framed in the doorway.
"I did not put Addy in your bed," the Randir said.
By now, Jame had recognized her as the Shanir cadet from the Falconer's class, and had noted the rising bruise under one eye. Vant's work, probably.
"Who is Addy? Oh, I see."
Around the other's neck hung a thick, living, golden loop, which she half-steadied and half-caressed with one hand.
Slipping between the two Knorth, Jame offered her hand to the Randir's snake. Behind her, Rue yelped in alarm, but she had already welcomed the serpent as it slid, glittering, over her fingers.
"No," she said, having by now had time to think. "I don't believe you would risk Addy that way. It . . . that is, she . . . might have been killed, and you would certainly have been blamed. Besides, Highborn are almost impossible to poison, so as an assassination attempt it wasn't very bright." She didn't add that a shot of venom to the throat, in someone already weakened, might not have been all that easily shrugged off, but the Commandant wanted this incident played down, and so did she. "When did you miss her?"
"Around dinner time." The Randir regarded her with sharp mistrust. "You believe me?"
"I know what it means to be bound to a creature—human, animal, or reptile. Someone has tried to play a nasty trick on both our houses, and to take advantage of our differences. That offends me. If you find out who it is, will you let me know?"
"Agreed, if you will do the same for me."
Below in the square, the rally sounded and the barracks woke with a surly roar.
The Randir turned to leave, but Jame stopped her.
"If you'll wait a minute, I'll go down with you."
"Why?"
On her second attempt, with Rue's help, Jame managed to pull on her boot. She rose and stomped to settle the heel. "Brier tells me that there were clashes overnight. If we're seen together, that's one step toward calming things down, at least over this business. Another time, it may be different."
The Randir considered this, then gave a curt nod. "My name is Shade," she said, as if to seal this temporary truce.
"And mine is Jame."
When they entered the square, all nine houses had assembled. A ripple went through the waiting ranks and a murmur that the sergeant on duty instantly quelled. Shade joined the Randir. Jame, walking on to the Knorth, felt eyes follow her and saw marks on a dozen faces of the previous night's unrest. The Commandant stood on his balcony watching. When Jame met his hooded gaze, he gave her a slight nod: Well done.
After breakfast, Jame ran down Vant.
"It wasn't the Randir," she told him bluntly, "or at least not the snake's owner."
"She told you that, I suppose," he said, baring his teeth. Two of them had been knocked out. "Did she also happen to mention that she's the Witch's grand-daughter?"
Whoa.
"Lord Randir is her father? I didn't know that he had any children."
"Only one, begat by way of experiment before his tastes settled. Anyway, did you think that the Caineron are the only house whose Highborn make sport with their Kendar?"
He spoke with such unusual, throttled rage that Jame blinked. She hadn't realized that he felt so strongly on the subject. It also occurred to her that she knew nothing of Vant's background, except that he was presumably descended from Those-Who-Returned, Knorth Kendar driven back by her father as he had stormed into exile and forced to serve as yondri in other houses until her brother had reclaimed both power and as many of his scattered people as he could hold, perhaps overreaching in the process.
But Vant's past was a puzzle for another day.
"Shade may be half darkling changer for all I know or care. On this, I believe her. So lay off."
As Vant departed, sour-faced, to organize the cadets' departure, Jame found Rue at her elbow.
"I assume that we're all under house rather than college discipline once we leave Tentir. True? Good. Saddle me a horse, a nice, quiet one, and wait for me with it outside the north gate. No, I'm not going with you. If my brother asks, tell him that I have unfinished business in the hills."
Brier had come up to hear this last. "Is it wise to go off on your own, lady? The land is treacherous. Besides, someone has just tried to kill you."
"I suspect that he . . . or she . . . will be marching out with the others. I'll take my chances with Rathillien." She paused and gave a snort of laughter. "Besides, I'll probably have company soon enough."
Chapter XVII: Into the Wilds
Summer 60-65
I
Jame stared. "You have got to be joking."
Rue gave a self-conscious wriggle. "All the others are going home for the harvest, but Chumley here pulled up lame. Myself, I think he faked it for the inspection. He's perfectly sound now. Anyway, you asked for a quiet horse."
"I should hope so. If he gets frisky, the earth is going to shake."
They regarded the animal in question, a placid chestnut gelding with blon
de mane and tail, built along the lines of an equine mountain range. He dropped his huge head to scratch a heavily feathered fetlock. Somewhere under all that hair must be a hoof the size of a buckler.
"Oh well," said Jame. "As long as you can find me a ladder."
Some time later, horse and rider ambled out of Tentir by a lesser gate—the fewer spectators the better, thought Jame, not to mention what people would make of her departure in the wrong direction.
Chumley might have grown bored pulling a cart, but he didn't object to a rider if, indeed, he even noticed her most of the time. He seemed quite happy to shamble along, head down, eyes half-closed under a heavy thatch of mane, finding the easiest way as if by accident.
Jame could have made faster time on foot.
However, then she would have had to carry the bulging saddle-bags that Rue had stuffed with as much food as she could lay her hands on in a hurry. Left to herself, Jame would have forgotten about provisions altogether. As Tirandys had once remarked, she never could remember to pack a lunch. Only by resolutely thinking about something else had she managed to choke down some breakfast.
On top of bags was strapped a bed-roll; and on top of that, Jame's knapsack, containing several things that would have made Rue stare if she had known about them.
They were following roughly the same route as the rathorn hunt, northward, across the toes of the Snowthorns. Sometimes the Silver glinted below as it wound down the valley floor. Sometimes voices floated up from the New Road as Jaran and Caineron cadets rode north to their home keeps of Valantir and Restormir, outpacing the slower travelers on the upper slopes. Mount Alban also lay in that direction, as did the ruins of Tagmeth and Kithorn, all three on the opposite bank. Beyond that were the hills claimed by the Merikit, then the Barrier that separated Rathillien from Perimal Darkling. However, Jame had no intention of going that far.
Actually, she didn't know where she was going or particularly care. The rathorn colt was out here somewhere, probably more aware of her than she was of him. She sensed that she could draw him to her by force if necessary, but that might break him and would surely defeat her purpose in seeking him out. They had to come to some understanding before he starved himself to death and either took her with him or left her unable to face a meal without nausea for the rest of her life. Besides, she felt responsible for him.
My stupid, stupid blood.
Meanwhile, it was a beautiful midsummer's day, warm in the sun, cool in the shade, with the tang of the evergreen ironwood in the breeze blowing off the heights. Clouds sailed southward down the valley against a sky as blue as a kitten's eye, their shadows drifting after them as if leisurely grazing on the upland meadows. Lavender true-love and pink shooting stars spangled grass that dipped and swayed in the wind. Among the trees, wood rose and blue bell lit the dappled shadows. Then the land plunged down into fern-laced ravines and up into stands of fluttering aspen which had at last achieved their summer arborage. Here a creek gurgled in its bed. There a jumble of boulders loomed as if tossed by some petulant giant at play. Above loomed the gray, misty heights of the Snowthorns, capped with white. Below, birds stilled at the clop of the travelers' approach, then burst into song when they had passed.
Jorin trotted ahead, occasionally dashing after butterflies when they caught Jame's eye. Mostly, however, she dozed, swaying on her mount's broad back, lulled by his placid, steady gait.
Take me where you will, she thought, just this side of sleep, hardly knowing whom she meant. Dreamscape, soulscape, sacred space, over the hills or under them . . . wherever he waits for me.
Once or twice she thought she glimpsed a keep sprawling below, but surely that was a waking dream. Valantir was some twenty-five miles north of Tentir and Restormir, the Caineron stronghold, that much farther again. At this pace, given the rough terrain, she would be surprised if they had made ten miles by the time the sun dipped below the peaks.
At dusk they halted beside a stream. Above, it coiled out of sight around pine and tamarack with a muted roar beyond that suggested a waterfall. Below, it slowed to meander down through a rich, sloping meadow fringed at the bottom with trees. This would do nicely.
Jame slid down from Chumley, and fell over. Her feet were numb. Also, it was a long, long way to the ground. Recovering, she unloaded the gelding and set him loose to graze in the meadow. Then she pitched camp under the boughs of a mountain ash with the chuckling stream nearby. As she gathered kindling, Jorin slipped off to hunt his dinner. Night fell.
A huge shape loomed out of the darkness, making her start, but it was only Chumley come looking for company. The gelding sank ponderously to his knees, then eased over onto his side with a groan of pleasure, his back to her small fire. Presently he began to snore. Leaning against him, Jame watched glow-bugs trundle about over the grass with their tiny lights like so many lost search parties while crickets sang derisively up at them.
At length she settled down under her blanket, devoutly hoping that the horse didn't roll over on her in the night. Only at the edge of sleep did she remember that she had forgotten to eat any supper. Jorin returned some time later and curled up beside her with a contented belch of raw muskrat.
In the morning, the rathorn came.
II
Jame was kneeling on the pebbly margin of the stream, splashing cold water in her face, when a flash of white caught the corner of her eye. She rose, absently wiping her hands on her pants, and watched the rathorn colt canter toward her through the tall grass, the Whinno-hir Bel-tairi a pale shadow at his side.
Chumley was grazing by the river. His head jerked up as he caught their scents and he whickered uneasily. Bel swerved aside to reassure him, but the colt came straight on, gaining speed.
Hackles rose down his back, lifting his mane and the streaming flag of his tail. His head dropped to level the tips of his twin, curved horns. Jame watched his rapid approach, half terrified, half transfixed. He seemed to flow in a ripple of muscle and shifting ivory. If death were poetry, it would have scanned to the beat of those lethal hooves. And he wasn't slowing down.
I should climb a tree, thought Jame, just as Jorin did so behind her with a wild scrabble of claws and a shower of bark.
However, something told her to hold her ground and so she did, even as the rathorn hurtled down on her like an avalanche, filling the world with white thunder.
At the last moment he swerved aside in a stinging spray of gravel. Jame felt the wind of his passing and a sharp tug on her jacket where his nasal horn had plucked it open, drawing a bead of blood in the hollow of her throat. He skidded to a stop and wheeled on his hocks.
Here he came again.
This time just short of her the colt again slammed to a halt and reared, ivory hooves slashing the air on either side of her head. She noted almost with detachment that the light feathering concealed sharp dewclaw spurs, growing from the back of each fetlock joint. As his wild, musky smell filled her senses, she knew that he was trying to panic her into moving. Just a flinch either way and he would smash her skull, but he couldn't kill her outright.
Both realized this simultaneously. The rathorn dropped back to all fours and glared at her, nose to nose. Then he snorted, pivoted, and trotted away, tail arched, farting loudly.
"Hello to you too," said Jame, and abruptly sat down in the stream as her legs gave way under her.
The Whinno-hir had paused beside the gelding to snatch a few bites of grass. Against his looming bulk, she seemed no bigger than a foal, slender limbed, insubstantial. When Jame rose and wobbled toward her, she jerked up her head and froze in wide-eyed terror.
Suddenly the colt was between them. This time Jame couldn't help recoiling as his fangs snapped in her face, even though she was reasonably sure he didn't mean to bite it off. Before she could recover, both equines had galloped away.
Jame watched them out of sight, then went to coax Jorin down from his tree.
She spent the rest of the morning sorting out the supplies sent by Rue int
o what would keep, what wouldn't, and what was for her by definition inedible short of starvation, notably a wad of over-cooked sprouts mashed together in a bag like so many soggy, deformed little heads. Among the second group, snatched from ancestors knew what larder, was a whole roast chicken. After some thought, Jame shoved it and the other perishables back into a saddle bag, waded out into the stream, and wedged the lot in among stones so cold with mountain run-off that they numbed her hands.
Then she and Jorin went exploring.
To the west, hidden by trees, there was indeed a very respectable waterfall, tumbling into a deep pool, from there spilling into the swift stream that ran past her camp. Host trees overhung the water, their pale foliage fluttering upward in the misty draft. In the fall, the leaves would take flight for other hosts farther south. Some already seemed on the fret to go, as if sensing that the season was about to turn and the days to shorten.
To Ride a Rathorn Page 34