Mistress of Animals

by Myers, Karen

  She was afraid to check her wings to see if they were damaged. They were flesh, after a fashion—they could bleed and feel injury—but she couldn’t sense them unless she invoked them. If they were badly hurt, the additional pain might be enough to stop her altogether. And then what would I do? Leave well enough alone.

  I’ll die before the wings do. Despite her situation, she cocked her head and considered. What’ll happen then? Do the wings come out when I’m dead or remain… wherever they are when I’m not using them?

  She visualized someone someday stumbling across a few bones, an ugly chain, and a pair of crumpled wings. Maybe they’d be bones by then, too, or a pile of whatever’s inside them. She mused over the possibilities until her head tilted and she forced herself upright again.

  Stop that!

  Too many tasks to consider, and she had to focus or she’d paralyze herself.

  All right. No girl and no wolves. Good. Horses in range. Good. Seems simple enough. Maybe forty miles to camp. No problem—do it in a day.

  She thought about trotting bareback, with that leg, and shuddered, and then she glanced at the sky. Two days? How long have I been out? It’s afternoon, but it’s not the same day.

  Her bladder hadn’t held. She’d cleaned up with snow, but the evidence was clear that it was more than a day.

  She remembered the girl’s voice—she’d wanted to fight for her herds. Maybe she’d missed Penrys when she fell out of the sky and knocked herself out, and was still around, or maybe she’d gone north to get her flock of people back. And I’ve lost at least a day. If I make it back to the camp, what will I find?

  She savagely dismissed the vision of torn kazrab and dead bodies, and began calling with her mind for horses.

  CHAPTER 44

  The little herd of five horses was just what she wanted. They looked at home in the snow, shaggy and alert, visibly thinner with the loss of some of their autumn fat. Best of all, they were short, though still too short for Penrys to mount easily.

  She liked the look of a leopard-spotted mare—the brown dapples on the cream coat matched the bold temperament she sensed from her.

  Penrys had never tried using her mind on animals directly, until the experiments she’d done recently—it had never been necessary—and she disliked the compulsions that the girl had used. Was there a better way?

  *Come, Leopard-cat. Come help me.* It was a continuation of the call that had brought them here out of curiosity.

  The summoned mare took a few shuffling steps forward in the snow while the rest hung back. Penrys held out her bare hand for the mare to sniff, then pulled it back gradually to bring her nearer after it, until the long mane near the shoulder was within reach.

  “There, there,” she crooned to keep the mare calm. “Come on, lie down here.” She tugged on the mane to encourage her.

  This was much more alarming to the horse, so she continued to speak soothingly while trying to show the horse mental pictures of lying down, secure in her herd, just to the right of Penrys.

  Eventually the mare folded her knees next to Penrys, while the other four horses looked on. “That’s a girl, everything’s fine. You just stay right there.”

  She rolled left and swung her right leg over the horse’s back, and almost blacked out as it touched the ground on the other side. Her hands gripped the mane above the shoulder, and the mare lurched upright with her, and then spun and shook her off onto her bad leg.

  Warm breath and tickling whiskers on her neck woke Penrys.

  She clenched her teeth and held back a scream as the red-hot pain in her leg reminded her of what had happened. Her breath came short and quick until she could suppress her reaction a little.

  The horses had stayed, and the little leopard-spotted mare was nuzzling Penrys curiously.

  Let’s try again.

  She rolled over on her left side and, when she’d recovered from the movement, she repeated her invitation to lie down, and the mare cooperated.

  One more time.

  She swung the bad leg over more cautiously and took a good grip on the mane. This time, when the mare pushed herself up, she seemed less alarmed by the peculiar method the rider had chosen for mounting, and didn’t try to toss her off.

  Penrys contented herself with sitting still, her head bowed until her right leg had reached some point of relative equilibrium of pain. When that was over, she felt weakened but elated.

  I’ve got a horse. I can move.

  She used her knees and weight to guide the horse, and turned her toward her little herd.

  Maybe the girl couldn’t find me, unconscious, but that’s changed. Maybe I should become a horse, instead.

  She sampled the minds of her new companions and built herself a persona. Not a boss mare, no, just an ordinary horse, not worthy of a second glance. One with the herd.

  She kept them headed north at a brisk walk, the fastest pace she could handle. They wanted to graze as they went, but she pushed them.

  Whenever she dozed, she found them stopped when she woke, pawing through the snow for grass. She started singing to them, to keep herself awake and entertained—simple songs out of Ellech, which were all she knew. She made up new ones, with nonsense words and silly choruses, anything to keep her going.

  She ate half the food she had with her, a few bits of not-yet-dried shabz. When she ran out of the water in the skin slung over her neck, she had to dismount by pulling her right leg over and dropping onto her left to balance, leaning against the horse, while she scooped snow into the skin to melt, and took advantage of the support to relieve her bladder. The mare lay down for her to ease the remount, as if she’d done it all her life, and Penrys rubbed a handful of snow on her face to stay awake as they ambled forward.

  The cloudless night, when it came, changed nothing. It was colder, but she steered the herd north by the stars.

  When she woke up, on horseback, for the last time, the false-dawn was just beginning to show in the east. The horses were stopped and drowsing, standing.

  She swung her bad leg over one more time and once she’d gotten her balance, she lowered herself all the way down, in the trampled snow, and wrapped her coat around herself to sleep.

  “Get ’em mounted, Ilzay. Hurry up.”

  Najud tried to hasten the survivors out of the camp. Only two kazrab remained in the early morning light, his own and Jiqlaraz’s. Twenty horses were left for riding and pack-string, and all the rest were lined up on the trail with sixty people and more than ninety horses.

  Jirkat trotted back along the whole length of the mounted survivors to Najud who was overseeing the last string, and he brought Haraq with him.

  Najud ignored Haraq and addressed himself to Jirkat. “Get going. You can tidy it up later. I can feel her, I tell you. Don’t stop for anything except night camps.”

  Ever since dawn he had sensed that same thunderstorm on the horizon feeling that had so spooked him two days ago. If they moved out in a hurry, they ought to be able to stay out of reach, but they had to get started.

  Ilzay called over to him. “That’s the last one. We’re done.” He trotted over to join Jirkat and looked curiously at Haraq.

  “We’re ready, zarawinnaj,” Jirkat said. “Ilzay’s going to take the lead, and I’ve come back to steady the rear. But Haraq here…”

  “I’m staying,” Haraq interrupted. “I’ve already told my sister.”

  Ilzay just shook his head, patently leaving it for Najud to sort out, and trotted up the line. Jirkat took up his position at the back of the column.

  “You can’t stay,” Najud told Haraq. “We’re all bikrajab.”

  “And you don’t think that’s going to make any difference, do you?” Haraq said.

  Najud grimaced at the bald truth.

  “Besides, you’re going to need another good archer,” Haraq said.

  “A lot of good that’ll do if you can’t lift a hand against her,” Najud muttered. “This is madness—go with them.”

&nbs
p; “No, lij. I would dishonor my lud.”

  That stopped Najud. He understood it. Haraq felt he needed to live up to the perception that helped him break free of the qahulajti. And it was also partly for Penrys.

  “But she’s… dead.” Probably.

  “Doesn’t matter, bikraj.” Haraq dismounted and began stripping the simplified tack from his horse.

  Khizuwi had observed the conversation from a distance, and he shrugged when Najud caught his eye.

  Najud turned without further comment and watched the cavalcade leave. All the Kurighdunaq had been freed of their compulsions, and survival now was a matter of luck and sufficient time. If they ran short of food, well, there were horses to spare.

  The last of the grain they took with them would be handed out tonight when they stopped, to hearten the beasts for the remainder of the journey. Jirkat understood how to switch the lead horses out frequently while breaking through the virgin snow to give them each a rest.

  The forward impulse of the column finally traveled to the rear where Jirkat waited, and then they jerked into motion, too.

  Najud looked around at what remained—three strange bikrajab and himself, and one foolhardy Kurighdunaq survivor, too stubborn to dissuade—and he shook his head. They should all be leaving with the others, if it weren’t necessary to keep the qahulajti from following. The problem was, you could keep ahead of her on a horse, but you couldn’t rearrange all the rest of the people in the area just to avoid her. She had to be stopped.

  Jiqlaraz strolled over with Munraz. “When do you think the attack will come?”

  “I think she’s probably in range now, or almost,” Najud said. “But that doesn’t mean she’ll strike from there. If that’s twenty-five miles, and she prefers to wait until she gets here, why she’s still fifteen miles from the gap and we won’t see her until tomorrow. If not,” he shrugged, “she could start now.”

  “You mean we’ll have to wait on guard all day?” Munraz said.

  “And night, too, nal-jarghal,” Khizuwi said, as he walked up. “A man could lose his balance, waiting like that.

  Haraq joined them. “Then let’s take the time to see if we can better our defenses. Maybe you can’t hold her off of us,” he nodded at the rest of them, “but if you can, I want to choose the ground we attack from.”

  Najud shrugged. “Might as well. Not a lot else we can do.”

  CHAPTER 45

  By mid-morning, Penrys was blearily awake again, and the herd was still keeping her company. Once again, the leopard-spotted mare cooperated to let her mount from the ground, and Penrys pushed the whole herd forward at a brisk walk.

  Whenever her head nodded, she started talking to the horses again, telling them everything that came into her head. Sometimes she startled herself awake, hearing words from her mouth that made no sense to her, babbling silly little songs.

  When she bobbed awake around mid-day, she thought her horse felt tired. “Leopard cat, kitty-cat, I’m sorry. I’ll find someone else to ride, one of your friends.”

  She slipped off the mare and called a dun over, his back stripe prominent and echoed in the thinner stripes on his rear legs. She got the idea across to him easily, now that she was practiced in it, and he lurched up with her on top.

  “That’s a good boy, my Dundun, Dunsiedun. You just keep right on going north there.”

  When she blinked again, it was mid-afternoon and everyone had their head down, looking for grass. “No, no, that won’t do. Tell you what, I’ll eat the rest of my food and then we’ll both go without. How’s that?”

  She demonstrated and let the empty pouch fall behind her, and they all moved on. After a while, her first horse sidled over, curious about her non-stop talking. When the mare bumped the right side of her mount, Penrys caught the bad leg between them and screamed herself lucid.

  The horses bolted a few steps in surprise but she managed to hold on, and gradually the herd reassembled.

  Penrys trembled on top of the dun, bathed in sweat. She was alarmed to find her coat was off, held to the horse only by her seat, but she wasn’t cold. She must have taken it off, but the snow wasn’t melting, it wasn’t actually warm.

  What if she’d lost the coat? She’d need it later, after the fever receded. There was nothing to tie it on with, so she shrugged her arms back into the sleeves. Then she leaned to the right and touched her leg below the knee. Dull fire came back.

  This is… not good. I’m getting worse, not better. Easy pickings if the girl finds me.

  She pushed her mount to the fore in an effort to get them all moving persistently. There were lines in the snow ahead of her. Tracks! The snow was too deep to actually see a print, but one looked like it might be human, and there were several others, all the same. Wolves?

  It’s her! How long ago? Am I too late?

  What’s happened at the camp?

  Thoughts of catching up occupied her, and when she crossed a broad trail of many horses, she thought they must be part of Najud’s rescue, and she cheered.

  “Hooray for us. He got them!”

  She might not be very far away. Don’t forget—you’re just another horse.

  She managed to pin that thought in her wandering mind. Every time she woke up, the whole long afternoon, she explained to her horse.

  “Dunsiedun, now remember, I’m just one of your mares. Just a boring old bay. Well, no, why can’t I be a blue roan? Somethin’ interesting?” She swayed with her horse as he walked, and the stars overhead bobbed with her.

  Nighttime already? Well that’s no reason to stop.

  The trail before her couldn’t be clearer, trampled in the snow.

  “Come on, Cat, let’s show them how to walk uphill.”

  She thought she’d been riding with these horses for years. Her mind had become adept at shying away from anything that might distract her, like the camp in ruins, or Najud dead, or the wrongness in her right leg.

  When the sun rose at last, she saw the gap a few miles ahead of her, at the top of the rise.

  And when she reached out, she found the girl was there, on the other side, and her shields snapped down.

  “Just a shaggy old bay horse, don’t pay me no attention. Me and m’mares, we’re just walking along.” She shivered, and held her coat tight around her.

  Gotta catch her before she reaches the camp. Her walking, and me walking, and her never looking back to see anything but horses.

  Najud rose from his sleepless bed, the narrow one he’d never shared. The bikrajab had divided the watch all day long among the three seniors. They’d all come to feel the foreboding that Najud did, the pressure from the west that was slowly approaching.

  We’re well within her reach, even if she’s not within mine. Why hasn’t she attacked?

  At least one bikraj had shielded the five of them all day and through the night. The practice was improving their skill at working together, and even the nal-jarghal was holding his own at it. Najud was glad, now, that Munraz had stayed—his young presence had made everyone else work harder at maintaining good cheer, to give him a model to follow.

  The wait was exhausting. They couldn’t keep a state of heightened tension all day long without cost. In the morning, when the survivors had made it past the limits of his ability to detect them, he’d settled down into acceptance of the fight ahead of him, one he hadn’t expected to survive. But then it didn’t come.

  They snatched a bite to eat at mid-day, and it didn’t come.

  In the long sunny afternoon they sharpened blades and arrow points. Only Haraq and Munraz had bows, but all the bikrajab had khashab, the curved swords of the Zannib-hubr, even Haraq—a gift from Winnajhubr. It wasn’t a physical fight they expected, though if the qahulajti brought her wolves or other animals, they had to be ready.

  So the rasping of stones on metal kept them company in the afternoon, but the attack didn’t come.

  They’d tried not to lower their guard when they ate their flavorless food at night, al
l their attention outward. At last they’d retired to their separate kazrab and traded off the shielding work for the night.

  Now Najud belted on his khash and made his stealthy way to the doorframe, trying not to wake Haraq, curled in his blankets on the rugs. No one slept in Penrys’s bed—it was never discussed. Najud had dropped the curtain on it, as if she were still there.

  As he reached the door, Haraq’s voice lifted quietly. “Is it time, bikraj?”

  “Not yet,” Najud muttered, and he stepped out into the false-dawn.

  He turned west and strained his senses. There it was, the gathered storm, stronger now. She was still coming.

  Behind him the tip of the sun cleared the horizon and his long shadow stretched before him. He heard Haraq open the door behind him.

  *Give them back. They’re mine.*

  The force of it in his mind drove him to his knees and he couldn’t speak. Haraq took one startled look at him and ran for the other kazr.

  I’ve been here before.

  It felt like an old, stale thought to Penrys, one she’d been chewing on for a while. She pushed her leopard-spotted mare back into her fast walk and checked that the other horses were still with her, before she hauled the thought out again and examined it.

  Then she lifted her head. The trampled trail was broad before her—many horses had passed. The slope of the ground was downhill. This must be the last stretch, before the camp.

  Her litany of “I’m just a horse” had been interrupted.

  Where is she?

  Her leg still hurt, not so harshly any more, but with an ominous dull feel that terrified her. She’d rather the sharp agony—at least that meant it was still alive, still part of her.

  She wiped the sweat off her face with a gloved hand and scanned toward the rising sun. There she is. No shield. What’s she doing?

  She reached out further and felt no one. Am I out of reach of the camp, still, or are they gone? Or…

  No. She would not contemplate the other alternative. She must still be out of range, with the girl between them. Be my anvil, Naj-sha, I’m tired of chasing her. I’ll be the hammer.