The Mountain's Call

The mare shook her head and stamped. Her impatience was obvious. Batu let go of his uncertainty just long enough to obey her.

The mare would look after him. Valeria turned back to her own testing. She was the last to choose. The others were already busy with brushes and curries and hoof picks.

She would do well to take her own advice. One horse on the end, another mare, looked as if she had been waiting patiently for the silly child to notice her. She was a bay with a star, stocky and cobby. If she had been grey, Valeria would have taken her for one of the white gods.

We are not all greys. The voice was as clear as if it had spoken aloud. There was a depth to it, a resonance, that shivered in Valeria’s bones.

Horses never stooped to words if they could avoid it. The fact that the mare had done so was significant. Valeria bowed to her in apology and deep respect. She could feel Petra’s approval on her back like a ray of sun. This was his mother, and she had chosen to be included with the common horses. It was unheard of for the Ladies to do such a thing, but they did as it best pleased them.

The mares had distinct preferences in grooming and deportment. Valeria knew better than to argue with them. When the mare’s coat was gleaming and her mane and tail were brushed to silk, the groom who had held her brought a saddle and a bridle. She was even more particular about those.

If this had not been a test and therefore deadly serious, Valeria would have been enjoying herself. She even had time while grooming and saddling to watch the drama at the other end of the line, where Paulus was discovering that he really, truly was not an imperial duke here.

He had stood for some time, holding the golden horse’s lead, until he realized that none of the grooms would respond to his glances, his lifts of the chin, or even his snaps of the fingers. The one assigned to his horse had brought a grooming box and left it. Eventually it dawned on him that he was expected to groom his horse himself.

He drew himself up in high dudgeon. Before the words could burst out of him, he caught Kerrec’s pale cold eye. Something there punctured his bladder to wonderful effect.

Valeria was dangerously close to approving of Kerrec just then. Paulus struggled almost as badly as Batu, but he struggled in silence. Batu, she noticed, was listening to his mare, and while he was awkward and often fumbled, he did not do badly at all. Paulus paid no attention to his horse’s commentary, such as it was. The horse truly was not very bright.

At last they were all done. The horses were groomed and saddled, with the would-be riders waiting beside them. Kerrec walked down the line, pausing to tighten a girth here and tuck in a strap there. When he came to Paulus, he arched a brow at the groom. The man came in visible relief and, deftly and with dispatch, untacked and then retacked the horse.

Paulus’ face went red and then white. When the groom handed the reins back to him with the bridle now properly adjusted and the saddle placed where it belonged, he held them in fingers that shook with spasms of pure rage.

Batu did not have to suffer a similar ignominy. Apart from a slight adjustment of the girth, Kerrec found nothing to question. The dun mare flicked a noncommittal ear. She was a good teacher and she knew it.

Valeria was the last to be inspected. She held her breath. Her stomach was tight.

Kerrec slid his finger under the girth and along the panel of the saddle. He tugged lightly at the crupper, which won him a warning slide of the ear from the mare. When he reached for the bridle, she showed him a judicious gleam of teeth.

He bowed to her and stepped back. Valeria found that gratifying, though it would have been more so if he had shown any sign of temper.

He seemed already to have forgotten her. “Now of course we will ride,” he said. “One by one and on my order, you will do exactly as I say. Is that understood?”

Several had been ready to leap into the saddle and gallop off. They subsided somewhat sheepishly.

“Valens,” said Kerrec. “Mount and stand.”

Valeria started. She had been expecting to be called last as before. Naturally he had seen how she relaxed for what she expected to be a long wait, and had done what any self-respecting drill sergeant would do.

She scrambled herself together. He was tapping his foot, marking the moments of the delay. Even so, she took another half-dozen foot-taps to take a deep breath, center herself, and get in position to mount properly. The bay mare stood immobile except for the flick of an ear at some sound too faint for Valeria to hear.

Valeria mounted with as little fuss as possible, settled herself in the saddle, and waited. As usual Kerrec gave no sign of what he was thinking. “Walk,” he said.

The test was simple to the level of insult. Walk, trot and canter around the grassy square in both directions. Turn and halt, proceed, turn and halt again. Dismount, stand, bow to the First Rider. Return to the line and watch each of the others undergo the same stupefyingly simple test.

Iliya, who was third to ride, was already bored with watching Valeria and Marcus. When he was asked to canter on, he accelerated to a gallop and then, just as his horse would have crashed into the wall, sat her down hard, pivoted her around the corner, and sent her off again in a sedate canter. His grin was wide and full of delighted mischief.

“Halt,” said Kerrec. He did not raise his voice, but the small hairs rose on Valeria’s neck.

The hammerheaded mare stopped as if she had struck the wall after all. Iliya nearly catapulted over her head.

“Dismount,” said that cool, dispassionate voice. Iliya slid down with none of his usual grace. His knees nearly buckled. He caught at the saddle to steady himself.

“Return to your place,” Kerrec said.

Iliya’s face had gone green. He slunk back to his place in the line.

After that no one tried to brighten up the drab test with a display of horsemanship. Even Paulus followed instructions to the letter.

He was the last. When he had gone back to his place, Kerrec sent them to the stables to unsaddle, stall, and feed their horses. They were all on their guard now, knowing that every move was watched. It made them clumsy, which made them stumble. To add to the confusion, the horses responded to the riders’ tension with tension of their own.

Marcus tripped over a handcart full of hay that Cullen had left in the stable aisle, and fell sprawling. Cullen burst out laughing. Marcus went for his throat.

Cullen reeled backwards. His hands flailed.

Almost too late, Valeria recognized the gesture. She flung herself flat.

Embry was not so fortunate. He had paused in forking hay into his horse’s stall to watch the fight. The bolt of mage-fire caught him in the chest.

Valeria tried from the floor to turn it aside. So did Iliya from the stall across from Embry. They were both too slow.

Embry burned from the inside out. He was dead before his charred corpse struck the floor.

Marcus rolled away from Cullen. Cullen stood up slowly. His face, which had seemed so open and friendly, was stark white. The freckles stood out in it like flecks of ash.

“Someone fetch the First Rider,” Paulus said. His voice was shaking. “Quickly!”

Valeria was ready to go, though she did not know if her legs would hold her up. The backlash of the mage-killing had left her with a blinding headache. When she tried to get up, she promptly doubled over in a fit of the dry heaves.

Someone held her up. She knew it was Batu, although she was too blind and sick to see him.

Kerrec’s voice was like a cool cloth on her forehead. That was strange, because his words were peremptory. “All of you. Out.”

Batu heaved her over his shoulder and carried her out. She lacked the energy to fight. By the time she came into the open air, she could see again, although the edges of things had an odd, blurred luminescence.

Batu set her down on the grass of the court. Dacius was doing the same for a thoroughly wilted Iliya. Paulus stood somewhat apart from them, as if they carried a contagion.

It was a long while before Kerrec came out of the stable. Two burly grooms followed. One led Cullen, the other Marcus. Their hands were bound, and there were horses’ halters around their necks.

Dacius’ breath hissed. Iliya and Batu did not know what the collars meant. Paulus obviously did. So did Valeria.

She watched with the same sick fascination as when Kerrec executed justice on the man who tried to rape her. Just as she had then, she was powerless to move or say a word.

Master Nikos rode into the court through one of the side gates. A pair of riders followed him. Their stallions were snow-white with age and heavy with muscle. They walked like wrestlers into a ring, light and poised but massively powerful.

The Master halted. The riders flanked him.

There was no trial. There were no defenses spoken. Only the Master spoke, and his speech was brief.