by John Ringo
“Yes… Mayor Talbot.”
“That requires riding. Did you use a horse?”
“Yes, Mayor Talbot.”
“Specifically, that requires some pretty God-damned tricky riding for a paladin character.”
Herzer had a sudden clear flashback of falling into an endless chasm, as he went right and his wildly flailing, and neighing, mount went left off of a narrow foot bridge.
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“And you used your mount throughout the quest?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“Just Edmund. Did you complete the quest?”
“Yes… Mayor Talbot, I did.”
“With your mount?”
“Yes.”
“And how many tries did it take for you to get across the ‘who is the son of a bitch who put this bridge here’ bridge?”
“I didn’t know it had a name, sir,” Herzer said with a laugh.
“Yeah, I know,” Edmund replied. “How many times.”
“Four.”
“How did you get your mount across?”
“Made a sling out of the ropes. Winched it across the chasm, kicking and squealing.”
Edmund thought about it for a moment and then chuckled. “Jesus. What did you do, bring pack mules in with gear?”
“More or less, sir.”
“Have you ever ridden a real horse? Or a mule for that matter.”
“Well, those were real horses, sir.”
“I mean one that wasn’t kenned. One that was born and raised and broken to the saddle.”
“Once, sir.”
“Any problems?”
“Not particularly, sir. Can I ask why you’re asking?”
“Okay,” Edmund replied. “That will do it for me. We’re doing the big hunt next week. Monday morning you need to report to Kane, the horse master, at the big corrals by the bridge while everyone else is spreading out to start the drive.”
“Oh, Lord,” Herzer said. “I’m afraid that means I’m not going to be mucking out.”
“Oh, I’m sure there will be some of that. But we need horsemen to help control the animals and run messages. And you’re on that detail!”
“Yes, sir,” was all Herzer could say.
Herzer was muttering something under his breath as Edmund walked away.
“Hey,” said Courtney, kicking him on the ankle. “What are you saying?”
“ ‘Shit, shit, shit I’m gonna die.’ ”
Rachel looked up from her stew as her mother came into the kitchen. “Stew’s on.”
“Thank you, Rachel,” Daneh said, picking up a bowl and ladling some out.
“How are you doing?” Rachel asked.
“I’ve started throwing up in the morning,” Daneh replied, sitting down. “But not all day, thank goodness.”
“Are you sick?” Rachel asked, alarmed. She couldn’t imagine a worse situation for the town to be in than for their only trained doctor to have something incurable.
“No,” Daneh said, directly. “I’m pregnant.”
Okay, that’s worse.
“How? When?” Rachel asked then clapped her mouth shut. “Oh, Mother.”
“It’s not the end of the world,” Daneh said, taking a bite of the stew and nodding. “Not too shabby.”
“Mother!”
Daneh sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “Bad things happen. Bad things happened to me and they are still happening in a way.”
“What are you going to do?” Rachel asked, finally moderating her tone. She suddenly realized that she was in a real, honest-to-God “adult” conversation. And it seemed she needed to start acting like one. She suddenly wished her father was a girl. He would know what to say. “Am I going to have a little sibling? Or are you going to… do something about it?”
“What?” Daneh snapped. “Do you know how to do an abortion? I certainly don’t! And how, exactly, am I supposed to do it on myself? There’s tansy, but from the sound of it it can kill you. So what am I supposed to do about this… thing that is growing inside of me?”
“I don’t know, Mother,” Rachel said, quietly. “But from what I’ve been reading, childbirth is not a given thing. I mean, we’ve both got the… hips for it, unlike some. But… I mean, you’re the doctor. If something goes wrong with you, what can I do?”
“What can I do?” Daneh asked in exasperation. “I don’t have any proper tools! I’ve never attended a body birth! There hasn’t been one in a thousand years! What in the hell do I know about it? Why do you expect miracles from me?!”
“Mom, I don’t,” Rachel said, choking a hot retort. “But you at least have some idea what is going on. I don’t even know that.”
“Well, in that case, it’s time you started learning,” Daneh said after a moment of controlling her temper. “That’s your new research project. Whether it’s me, if I can’t get rid of it somehow, or someone else. You’re going to be the expert on the theory of childbirth.”
“Mom, I’m a virgin,” she shouted, suddenly out of temper. “You want me to be a childbirth expert?”
“Who better,” Daneh replied with an evil chuckle. “At least we don’t have to worry about you being out of commission. For the time being. I notice you’ve been spending a lot of time around Herzer.”
“Oh, Herzer,” Rachel said, averting her eyes and picking up her spoon. “He’s just a friend.”
“Right,” Daneh snorted. “So was Edmund. And look what resulted from that.”
* * *
Everyone was calling it the “Big Roundup” and the familiarization groups had been co-opted, along with just about everyone else in Raven’s Mill, to participate. The reason for it was simple; hunters had confirmed that there was quite a bit of feral stock in the woods and much of it would be useable for the planned farms. The stocks of food were also dwindling faster than anticipated. The intent of the “roundup” was to push animals out of the forest and onto some of the open areas. There domestic animals that were useable would be separated and pushed into pens. “Wild” animals would mostly be either pushed on or killed in the area and preserved.
To do this required a massive organization. The area that Herzer and Mike had worked on clearing, with the buildings that they had constructed, was intended as a giant slaughtering yard. Fences were being built, and more would be. When the time came groups of beaters would move through the forests pushing the game ahead of them. It was hoped that in this way sufficient farm animals could be gathered for all the farms that were planned. And since the protofarmers themselves would participate in the drive, there would be less of a stink about them getting the animals for “free.”
Two reenactors, a husband and wife from down the valley, had moved most of their herd of horses up the valley to Raven’s Mill. The reason was simple. Shortly after the Net dropped, all the controls on wild beasts had been released. Besides attacks on humans this had resulted in even more attacks on domestic herds. After losing a foal to what was probably a panther and having a horse badly clawed by a tiger, they had decided to relocate.
Horses were material and cost intensive. They needed either fodder or fairly large areas to graze. Although there had been nearly sufficient grazing at their home, it still would have been overgrazed by their large herds in the winter. But Edmund had agreed to cede a large pasture to them in return for using their horses as a base for the still nascent Raven’s Mill cavalry. After thinking about it for quite some time — use as cavalry would mean some of their babies probably would not be coming home — they had agreed.
Before that, though, the horses would play an important part in the roundup. Although they would not be able to move in the trees, the area that the game was going to be pushed into was a recently cleared area across the river from Raven’s Mill. It was hoped that between the horsemen and various half-trained reenactors it would be possible to sort the different species and then hold them in herds for further disposition.
The problem with that was there were not
nearly enough trained horsemen.
And thus Herzer’s detailing by Edmund.
As Herzer walked towards the corrals he looked the herd over. There were two distinct “types” of horses and he didn’t know enough about them to know what breeds they were. One type was small and light-boned. When these trotted or reacted to the other horses they tended to trot with their legs held high, their necks and tails up. The trot looked like Bast dancing as the horses seemed to float across the ground.
The other breed was much larger and heavier bodied but it had some of the same grace as the smaller. When these trotted it wasn’t quite as showy, but Herzer noticed that the trot itself looked… smoother. It wasn’t as dancing as the first ones. And these were definitely fast. He saw one of the younger horses, a beautiful red one that he knew was called “chestnut” for some reason, dash from one side of the pasture to the other, apparently from sheer high spirits, and he was very glad he wasn’t on its back.
There were two women and about ten men gathered by the fence to the pasture, looking at the herd and talking in low tones when Herzer walked up. The tallest of the men looked over at him and nodded. The man was wearing an outlandish period costume. From the feathered hat, topping graying brown hair that dropped halfway down his back, through the pointed mustache, and open, lace-front shirt to the thigh-high boots he was clearly a reenactor, but he also seemed to be in charge.
“Good day, sir,” Herzer said, looking out at the horses. “I’m looking for the horse master.”
The man grinned at that and laughed. “Well, I’m the owner of the horses,” he replied. “And for my sins Talbot’s put me in charge of rounding up whatever comes out of the woods. Now, I don’t know if Edmund is aware of this but pigs don’t herd worth a damn. Nor do deer. And I’ve only this dozen riders, none of whom has ever tried to herd with horses. But if you’re looking for the ‘horse master’ I guess that’s me. Kane,” he said, sticking out his hand.
“Herzer Herrick,” Herzer replied, sticking out his.
“This is Alyssa my wife,” he said, touching the shoulder of the blond woman next to him. She was thin and wiry with a friendly, sun-weathered face. She too stuck out her hand.
“What can we do for you?” she asked in a furry voice.
“I’ve ridden before,” Herzer replied. “I was training in reenactor combat before this happened,” he added waving his arm around.
“Virtual reality?” Kane asked dubiously.
“Enhanced,” Herzer corrected.
“Oh, so you know how to ride a horse,” the man laughed broadly. “Not just think you do.”
“Well, I’ve ridden,” Herzer corrected. “A bit.”
“Did you fight on horseback?” the horseman asked. “Or just ride a bit?”
“I was starting training in cavalry combat,” Herzer admitted. “But it was… tough.”
“Yeah, that it is,” Alyssa said. “Everybody thinks it’s easy until they try.”
“Well, what’s say we try you out on one of the boys,” Kane said looking at his wife. “One of mine I think?”
“Oh, yes,” the woman replied. “Mine could take him, but he’s more suited to yours.”
“What’s this ‘yours and mine’ thing?” Herzer asked as Kane led him to a nearby shed.
“We brought both our herds down,” the man explained. “Mine are Hanarahs and hers are Arabs. Do you know the difference?”
“I’ve seen them,” Herzer said, gesturing at the herd.
“The Arabs are the little ones and the Hanarahs are the big ones,” Kane said with a nod. “Do you want to know the rest?”
“How much?” Herzer said with a chuckle. “Lately I feel like my brain is getting overloaded!”
“Been in the familiarization program?” Kane asked, opening the door to the shed. Inside, saddles were hanging on boards that thrust out from the walls, and on the back wall was a series of pegs from which hung bridles and reins. Under the reins was a pile of blankets. The room had an odd, musty odor composed of old leather and horse sweat that was not unpleasant but definitely strong.
“Yes,” Herzer said simply, taking the saddle that was thrust at him. He noticed that it had a high back and a low front. He had used similar saddles in his training, but with a higher front. He had no clue what the different parts were named except for the stirrups.
“Well Arabs are a very old breed. They’ve never been genegineered,” Kane explained. “Nobody knows exactly where they came from but they were distinguished by being light of body, very human oriented, extremely fast and with great endurance. They also are missing one vertebrae which gives them less of a tendency to get ‘swaybacked.’ ”
He grabbed a blanket and piled it and reins on Herzer’s arms. “There, all set.”
“Okay.”
“There were originally basically two strains of horses, hotbloods and coldbloods, with me so far?”
“Yep.”
“Hotbloods come down to Arabs. Coldbloods were found in Ropasa and were heavier bodied, relatively slow horses. They got bred up for size in the preindustrial period and worked well as cart horses and the like. But for a good cavalry horse you have to have speed and agility. So at some point, they started breeding Arabs into them and came up with a third strain called ‘warmbloods.’ ”
“Hanarahs?” Herzer guessed as Kane led the way back outside.
“Hanarahs are warmbloods of a sort. But no matter how they worked, some of the qualities of Arabs just never took in warmbloods, notably the lack of that one vertebra. And they’d tend to get horses that were fast or had good stamina. Or if they were fast with good stamina, they were very delicate, had to have the right foods, that sort of thing.”
“Hanarahs are genegineered,” Herzer said definitely.
“Not quite from the ground up but pretty damned close,” Kane admitted. “Incredible stamina, better than Arabs really, very friendly, damned protective, fierce to enemies and gentle as a lamb to a child. They’re blindingly fast, can live on practically anything…”
“Superhorses,” Herzer said, putting his saddle on the top of the corral fence.
“Not quite, but as close as the designers could get,” Kane said. “I guess we’ll find out how well they did.”
“Are they sentient?” Herzer asked. They looked at least on the close order.
“Not hardly,” Kane snorted. “What a dumb idea. As if any sentient being is going to let someone ride on their back day in and day out. And if they don’t, and you coerce them, what’s that?”
“Slavery?” Herzer guessed.
“Got it in one,” Kane said. “Sentient horses. Give me a nice, not too dumb, nonsentient horse any day. So you can’t talk with it, big deal. It also doesn’t talk back. More than balances out, trust me.”
“They look like the kind that I rode in my training,” Herzer said.
“Probably were. Well written scenario if so.” Kane put his fingers to his lips and whistled a complex arpeggio. At the sound the young chestnut that Herzer had seen tearing around the pasture came running in a broad canter, dodging through the herd like a gymnast.
“Oh, goody,” Herzer said. “Now you’re going to give the newbie the unrideable horse.”
“Not at all,” Kane said seriously. “That’s a stupid trick; we can’t afford any more injuries than we’ve already had. Diablo is gentle as a lamb.”
“Diablo?”
“Look, we’ve got nearly sixty horses to name, you run out.”
He leaned forward and stroked the horse on the muzzle, then gave it a small treat.
“They like people,” Kane said. “But getting them to come to you requires some incentive. Especially since this one’s smart enough to see the saddle and know what’s coming.”
“He doesn’t like to be ridden?”
“Would you like a hundred kilos or so thrown on your back?” Kane said, expertly slipping in the bridle. “You could probably ride him with a hackamore, but we’ll start with the bridle.”
He brought the horse out of the pasture, having to slap back two others that tried to bolt for it, and led it around to where the saddle sat.
“Go ahead and saddle him up while we get ready,” Kane said. “There are a couple of other people who haven’t had much recent experience and we were all going out for a trail ride to get broken in again.”
“Uhmm…” Herzer temporized looking at the horse. It looked back at him with a decidedly intelligent expression that seemed to say “Oh, My God. I’ve got a Newbie.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know how to saddle one,” Herzer admitted.
“Let me guess,” Kane said with a laugh. “They always appeared fully saddled and with their barding on?”
“Yep.”
“Paladins. There ought to be a bounty on them. Okay, no problem. But watch so you’ll know the next time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Herzer returned to the corral tired and sore. The trail ride had turned out to be far more involved than simply riding along in a group chatting. They had started off that way and had taken the horses for a long tour of the area, including a ride through Raven’s Mill. Then, apparently with Myron’s permission, they had spent some time pushing his small herd of cattle around and attempting, with mostly laughable failure, something called “cutting out.” Using only the horses, they were supposed to pick one member out of the herd and move it away from the rest. Supposedly, in the really old days, this had been so regular and common as to be without notice. Not so here. The cattle would hardly break up when the horses approached and when they did start running they tended to stay together. Trying to get into the herd and push a single individual out turned out to be nearly impossible for most of the riders. The exceptions were Kane, Alyssa and, strangely, Herzer.
The Arabs, which two of the men and one of the women were riding, seemed to take a strange delight in herding the cows. But with the exception of Alyssa, none of the others could get a single individual cut out. Alyssa was able to control her mount well enough, using mostly knee control and shifting weight, to manage the feat at least once. Kane, likewise, was able to control his mount to do the work.