Terricel pulled the sorrel gelding to a halt at the crossroads. Behind him, the broad dirt road led back to the city. The sun had not yet cleared the ridge of hills along the eastern horizon, and the night’s chill clung like a lingering mist. He drew the wool-lined cloak more tightly around his shoulders and pulled the hood over his head.
Tantalizing odors arose from the shack that stood, flanked by a few worn benches, to one side of the crossroads. A man in a knitted cap leaned over the counter, hawking sweet buns and coffee. Several people had already stopped to sample his wares, cupping their hands around the steaming mugs. One such customer was a man in a cloak of military red-and-bronze, who politely asked Terricel his destination and warned him against going too far north. Although he did not say so explicitly, the man hinted that a boy as young and inexperienced as Terricel couldn’t get far on his own.
Beyond the shack, the road split into two narrower branches, heading northeast and due east through rolling farmland. Most of the traffic at this hour was inward bound, elk-drawn carts heaped with fruits and vegetables, hay and grain, tanned hides, woolens and other trade goods, some of them from as far away as Darmaforge.
Kardith couldn’t have come this far already, could she?
As the sky grew brighter with every passing moment, Terricel tried to ignore the feeling he’d made a terrible mistake. He didn’t want to think what he’d do if she never showed up.
He was truly on his own now, with a good chance of facing trouble way over his head. Out there, there would be no Etch to save him from his own folly. He shivered, remembering the brawl at The Elk Pass. He could easily have been maimed or killed. At the time, he’d had no idea what he was getting himself into. Nor did he now, but he’d better learn fast.
Terricel recognized Kardith’s short, coppery hair and Ranger’s vest under her riding cloak, even before her features became clear. Now he understood why Etch had commented on her horse. It was a small, delicately built mare with a coat like pewter-flecked silver. Instead of the usual bridle and metal bit, she wore a halter with a heavy noseband, the reins swinging loose on her neck.
Kardith sat straight but relaxed in the saddle, her body moving as if it were an extension of the horse’s. She stared at Terricel with a mixture of annoyance and puzzlement. The gray mare moved at same steady pace, taking the northeast road.
Terricel kicked his horse into a trot beside Kardith.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Kardith said.
“I told you I’d get help.”
“I didn’t think you’d be crazy enough to mean yourself.”
“Who else is there?”
Each pounding stride of the gelding’s trot jolted Terricel from his teeth to his heels. For a panic-filled moment he wondered how long he could keep this up before he either fell off or became one continuous bruise. With a concentrated effort, he was able to relax with the horse’s gait and shift his weight deeper into the saddle. It took more than a few jarring minutes to catch the rhythm of it, but the gelding kept pace with the gray mare as if they were hitched together as a team.
Kardith turned her head to look at him. Her mouth was tight and narrow, her eyes the color of molten honey.
“I came for real help for Avi,” she said. “Help from somebody big enough to stand up to those war orders so we could search for her. Not to get saddled with some green kid off to play hero.”
The road wound through patchwork plots of vegetables, neatly planted rows edged with the bright orange pestifuge commonly called bug-weed. A few farmers finished loading their carts with the day’s harvest, leeks, cabbages, red-roots and salad greens. Calling and waving to them, a barefoot boy ran alongside the road. Terricel grinned and lifted his hand in greeting.
“You knew what to expect, didn’t you?” he said, turning back to Kardith. “You were pissed at Esme’s answer but not surprised. You came last night because you had no other choice. Well, now you’ve got it — I mean, me.”
“Pretty speeches win no battles, boy,” Kardith said. “Assuming you don’t break down and go running home before we even reach the Ridge, who’s going to take care of you? You’d be eaten alive your first night out. Even if you could make it on your own, what makes you think you could find Avi? What gives you the right to go against the orders?”
“I’m her brother, that’s what gives me the right! I don’t have to answer to Montborne like you do. I’m free to go wherever I want.”
In answer, Kardith clucked to the gray mare, who quickened her pace and pulled ahead. Terricel urged the gelding forward. He started bouncing again with the faster, more jarring trot. He grabbed the pommel of the saddle to keep his balance. The gelding snorted and tossed his head, ears laid partway back. Terricel realized his fingers were clenched around the braided reins. He relaxed his grip and took a deep breath.
The vegetable plots turned to fields of golden-green barley, rippling in the morning breeze. The barley smelled sweet, like new-cut grass. The sun felt warm and reassuring on Terricel’s shoulders.
“There’s no one else, you said so yourself.” He pushed back the hood of his cloak. “You and your precious Rangers are so hamstrung by Montborne’s orders, you can’t risk a search.”
“You’d be worse than useless. You don’t know a damned thing.”
“Then teach me what I need to know.”
“Teach you? Teach you ten years of woodscraft in two weeks? What kind of nitbrain are you?”
Terricel felt too angry and desperate to risk an answer. The situation had gone beyond reasoning. He clapped his heels to the gelding’s sides. The horse lunged forward, past Kardith’s gray mare.
A few minutes later, Terricel heard the clatter of hooves behind him and slowed the gelding to let Kardith catch up. He drew the first easy breath that day.
o0o
By the end of the first morning, they’d left the level farmland and begun to climb. Fields of grain gave way to orchards and then to rocky pasture. The undergrowth rustled with living things. A family of coneys flashed white-spotted rumps as they darted for shelter, and a pink-eyed lizard sunned itself across a slab of granite. An occasional raptor-bat wheeled silently overhead, riding the thermal currents.
When the hills became steep, Kardith slipped from her horse’s back, tied her cloak behind the saddle, and walked alongside, one hand laced through the mare’s mane. Terricel dismounted stiffly and did the same. Within a few minutes, he was sweating freely. He’d thought he was reasonably fit compared to his student friends, with all the walking he did in Laureal City, but nothing in his academic life had prepared him for this. Still, they were traveling about as fast as they would mounted, with considerably less strain on the horses.
When they reached the crest, Kardith mounted up without a word. Terricel followed, and they began a slow, steady descent. At first, he found it a welcome change, then an unwelcome one, then a torture devised specifically for the male anatomy, as his weight shifted forward against an unforgiving leather pommel. As soon as they began to climb again, they dismounted.
Uphill, walk. Downhill, ride. Each direction brought its own particular agony.
Once past the first ridge of hills, there was less and less traffic, once a caravan of pannier-laden mules, and a metal trader with two well-armed bodyguards. The caravan leader waved in greeting as Kardith and Terricel rode by, he and his drovers too busy keeping his animals in line to do more. The trader, headed toward the city, stopped for a few moments to exchange reports on road conditions. He’d heard about the assassination but not the funeral riot, and he glanced uneasily toward the north and said he’d be glad to get back.
Late in the afternoon, two men passed them without pausing. They were traveling separately, one on a spotted horse and one on a rusty black. Kardith commented that the black wasn’t trail-hardened enough for the pace his rider set. As the horse galloped out of sight, Terricel noticed the foam around its mouth, flecking its neck and flanks. He knew exactly how the laboring animal must feel.
o0o
By the end of the first day, Terricel’s thighs felt as if they were encased in molten chains. He had not known there were so many places capable of pain between one knee and the other. In the last few hours, he’d clung to the grim determination not to disgrace himself by falling off his horse at the first available opportunity. As it was, he could do no more than grunt in agreement when Kardith suggested stopping at the inn that had just come into view, rather than camping their first night out.
They walked their horses into the big central courtyard. The hooves clattered on the cobblestones, a contrast to the muffled sounds of the dirt trail.
On one side of the yard stood the stables, with a few tired-looking horses tied to a rail by a watering trough. The main building sat opposite; a bank of solar water-heating panels covered most of the roof. Terricel thought immediately of hot baths and cooked food, although just being able to bring his knees together and stand rather than sit would be sufficient luxury for the moment.
“Unh,” he said, seeing by the look in Kardith’s eyes that she knew exactly what his condition was.
“You stay here,” she said, swinging down from her saddle and handing him the mare’s reins. “Water the horses.”
After Kardith disappeared inside the main building, Terricel sat wondering how he was going to force himself to move. He didn’t want to be sitting on his horse in a stupor when she returned, not that it would lower her opinion of him significantly. At the moment, that didn’t seem possible.
This isn’t going to be easy, he told himself. But it is possible. And next time will be easier. It had better be.
His hip joints twinging in protest, Terricel dragged his right leg over the gelding’s rump and slid to the ground. He clung to the stirrup as the horse looked around and touched his shoulder with a soft, whiskery muzzle.
Nosey, that’s what I should call you. Terricel patted the horse.
Kardith’s mare threw her head back when he tried to lead her. Her eyes bulged, ringed with white, and her nostrils flared wide. The corners of her mouth were criss-crossed with fine, whitened scars.
Like her owner, Terricel reflected. Headstrong and...scarred. He spoke soothingly to her, called her Gray Lady and Battered-by-Life and several equally ridiculous names, but she would not move until his gelding, impatient to get to the water, began walking forward on his own.
When Kardith came back, he was standing at the trough between the two horses, attempting to scratch behind the gelding’s ears. A boy with an open, weather-reddened face and straw-flecked clothes followed at her heels.
“I spent some of your money on care for the horses. I thought you’d like not having to unsaddle and rub them down the first night on the trail,” She grinned as she untied her saddle bags and slipped them over her shoulder. “Maybe I was wrong.”
Terricel’s pride evaporated on the spot. “Not if it means I can be soaking in a hot tub any sooner.”
“That is the most sensible thing I’ve heard you say yet.”
The boy took the horses’ reins and led them off toward the stable, clucking encouragingly to them. Terricel picked up his travel pack and followed Kardith to the inn itself. He tried to walk with some approximation of normal movement.
“That’s a nice mare you have,” he said conversationally. “What’s her name?”
“Name? Who gives horses names?”
Nobody but me, apparently.
“By the way,” she asked, still not looking at him. “What’s yours?”
For a moment he was too surprised to answer. Avi hadn’t mentioned him, then. “Terr — Terricel.”
Kardith shook her head. “Terricel, he’s that pasty-faced book boy we left back in the city, clinging to his mother’s robes. Me, I’ll call you Terris.”