Riders of the Realm #2

by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez

  Lilliam called for the Fifth Clan Borla. He was not only the clan’s healer, but also Lilliam’s most trusted adviser. He oversaw the sacrifices to the clan mascot, read omens, and made predictions. When he emerged from his shade tent, she scolded him. “Your vision came true, except you said the giants would capture our trained Fliers. You didn’t mention the wild Kihlari.”

  His body jolted; his mouth gaped open. “I—I saw winged steeds. I didn’t—”

  “If I’d known our Fliers were safe, I would have attacked the hordes and prevented the raid that destroyed our hay barn.” Lilliam’s blue eyes flickered dangerously. The Borla stared at his sandals, his face blazing red.

  Disgusted, Lilliam turned back to Rahkki. “Did my daughter observe the captured steeds?”

  “She did, my queen.”

  Lilliam paused, thinking. “I want to hear more.” She glared at Sula. “Tomorrow, after you’re Paired with that wilding, you will come to my command chamber and give a full report. This is your first assignment as a Sky Guard Rider. Do you understand?”

  Rahkki nodded. “I understand, my queen.”

  She curled her lip. “And when you approach me, make certain you are clean.”

  Rahkki nodded again, acutely aware of his filthy, vomit-soaked clothing.

  Lilliam, the clan Borla, and the Land Guard army left to feed the clan guardian, Granak, the Father of Dragons. Each clan claimed a different mascot, and the queens fed their respective beasts live animals to keep them content, then stared at the gnawed bones as if their futures were written in them. A well-fed guardian brought good tidings and abundant harvests. A hungry or angry beast brought destruction, and Rahkki couldn’t imagine how Queen Lilliam would handle an omen that adverse.

  He turned to Sula. His mare whinnied, still anxious, and now Rahkki knew why. She was worried about her friends. “I want to free them too,” he whispered as he led her to the Kihlari stable where the Sandwen winged Fliers lived. Tomorrow they would be Paired, and Rahkki’s very short, and very boring, term as a rice farmer’s apprentice would officially be over.

  3

  Echofrost

  ECHOFROST TROTTED BEHIND RAHKKI AS HE LED her from the horse arena to the Kihlari stable. The Landwalkers gawked, giving them a wide berth. The boy walked unsteadily, and she slowed so as not to crowd him.

  They passed the low hillside where most of Rahkki’s people had built their stone huts. White smoke puffed from chimneys that jutted from thatched roofs, and the scent of cooked meat filled the air, mixing with the tang of sea brine that wafted from the ocean in the north. Goats, pigs, chickens, and rabbits lived in small enclosures attached to the huts; and freshly scraped animal hides dried in the sun.

  At the hillside’s peak loomed Fort Prowl, the eight-sided fortress that housed the Fifth Clan queen, her three princess daughters, the Borla, wealthy merchants, soldiers, and the elite Sky Guard Riders. Steps descended from the fortress toward the Kihlari stable and training yard. That’s where Echofrost had lived for the last moon, and where Rahkki was taking her now.

  Pastures, more animal pens, and the farmlands that the Fifth Clan and the Gorlan hordes had been battling over for a thousand years spread across the tree-cleared valley below the hill.

  Echofrost drew a hard breath at the sight of it all. Living with Landwalkers was terrifying. They were weak, hairless, thin, and slow, so they harnessed beasts to become their muscles, legs, teeth, claws, and wings. Their ingenuity made them the most powerful creatures in the jungle, even giving them advantages over the Gorlan giants, who outstripped them in size and strength. But would their cleverness be enough to free Storm Herd? Echofrost hoped so.

  They entered the Kihlari stable, where scores of tame pegasi lived in individual stalls. Several steeds nickered greetings to Echofrost. The rest ignored her.

  Koko Dale, the head groom of the stable, ambled toward them. “Sun an’ stars, Rahkki, yur a Rider now,” she said, shaking her chin-length blond hair.

  “Almost,” he answered. “The Pairing is tomorrow.”

  A young groom caught Koko’s attention. “No! That ain’ ’ow yuh tie a knot.” She plowed toward the girl without a backward glance at Rahkki and Echofrost.

  He continued on toward Echofrost’s stall, and when Rahkki opened the door, Echofrost entered automatically, out of the habit instilled in her over the last moon of her captivity.

  “I know why you let me win you, Sula,” Rahkki said. “You need my help to save your friends. And I will help you!”

  The boy’s skin was pale, and he shivered like an over-shocked foal. The fall off my back really affected him, she thought, and her heart beat faster remembering it: his pleading eyes, his grasping hands and kicking legs. The desire to save him had surprised her. This cub she’d once vowed to kill—how had he wormed his way into her heart? She stamped her hoof, frustrated but glad, because now she needed him.

  “I was going to free you, you know, if I won the contest.” His eyes shifted to her open stall door, and her standing obediently inside it. “But I see you’re here to stay, at least for a while.”

  He removed her halter, exhaling softly, and his sweat-tinged scent wafted toward her. She flared her nostrils, drinking in his essence and memorizing it, as if he were her own foal. This cub had battled giants for her, stood up to the queen, and flown her into the sky despite his obvious fear of heights. She didn’t know why he did these things (nor did he do them very well), but she trusted him as much as she could trust any Landwalker.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said, his golden eyes beaming. “The Pairing ceremony will be scary, Sula, but don’t be afraid. I’ll be with you.”

  She flicked her ears as he limped out of the stable and then glared at the four walls surrounding her. Old, dry hay lay at her hooves, and a bucket of stale water gathered mosquitoes in the corner. The stable ceiling blocked her view of the sky, and its walls blocked fresh wind from flowing through her mane and tail. Familiar repulsion filled Echofrost. She’d rather graze in the dangerous jungle than eat hay in the safety of a stall, but she was Sula of the Fifth Clan now. She had to accept that.

  A mare nickered from the stall to her right. “Echofrost!”

  “Shysong?” Echofrost flipped over her water bucket and stepped onto it with her front hooves. She spied her roan friend over the wall that divided them. “I thought you lived with the princess now.”

  Shysong angled her head to better see Echofrost. “I’Lenna brought me here so that Koko could treat my scratches.”

  “Were you badly hurt?” The two mares had led the Sky Guard on a fast chase through the woods after they took off with Rahkki and the princess, and scores of tree branches had ripped at their hides.

  “Just a few scrapes,” Shysong answered.

  “Our friends are in worse shape,” Echofrost nickered. “Graystone was bleeding, and Redfire lost a chunk of mane—but I only got a quick glimpse of them.”

  “It’s Dewberry I’m worried about.” Shysong batted at hungry mosquitoes with her tail. “She looks so tired and thin.”

  Echofrost’s heart thumped. “Dewberry is strong. Bumblewind’s foal could not have a better dam.” Her twin brother had died in their homeland during the rebellion against Nightwing the Destroyer—the supernatural black pegasus stallion who had woken from sleep to enslave the five herds of Anok. And Bumblewind’s unborn foal deserved the future he had fought to protect—a future where pegasi lived free.

  A rustling noise disturbed their conversation, and then Kol, the shiny Kihlara stallion who lived in the stall next to Echofrost’s, forced his head over the wall that divided them. “What are you doing here, Sula?” His eyes were swollen, his jaw hung slack. “Who won you?”

  Echofrost recoiled. She’d severely injured Kol’s Rider, Brauk Stormrunner, at the winged-horse auction, and Kol had hoped Echofrost would be sold to another clan, but that had not happened. “Rahkki won me,” she answered.

  The chestnut stamped his hoof. “One brother isn�
�t enough. You have to kill the other too?”

  “I didn’t kill Brauk,” she whinnied. But Echofrost had heard Brauk’s spine crack and seen the pallor of his sun-tanned skin when she’d accidentally kicked him. Brauk could still die of his injuries or perhaps never fully recover from them, and Kol was furious. No, he was devastated. If Brauk failed to heal, Kol’s life as a Kihlara Flier was over. He would be sent to the Ruk to sire foals. He would become a Half.

  But she faced Kol because it had been an accident. Headwind Harak Nightseer had been striking her with a whip. He’d deserved the kick. It wasn’t her fault Brauk had saved the man by intercepting the blow. “You know I didn’t hurt Brauk on purpose,” she nickered to the chestnut. “My target was Harak.”

  Kol flared his yellow wings and reared. “You don’t kick people in the Fifth Clan, Sula. Not ever! For any reason!”

  Echofrost pinned her ears. The Kihlari steeds adored the Landwalkers, and she didn’t understand it. The clan kept the flying horses locked in barns and rode on their backs. Only Rahkki Stormrunner understood that she, Echofrost, did not want to be tamed.

  As if reading her mind, Kol ruffled his feathers and said, “You don’t deserve that boy.”

  Rizah, the golden pinto who belonged to Tuni Hightower, whinnied to Echofrost from across the barn aisle. “Is it true that the giants caught your friends?”

  “Yes,” Echofrost answered, welcoming the interruption. “They used those little dragons, the burners, to drive them into a trap. What’s going to happen to them?”

  “How many steeds are in your herd?” she asked.

  “Over a hundred,” Shysong answered.

  Rizah considered this. “The giants can’t eat that many Kihlari at once. It’s possible they took your herd to bargain for the lowland valleys that our clan stole from them years ago.”

  “If that’s true, then they won’t hurt them,” Echofrost said, hope blossoming.

  Rizah snorted. “They’re giants. Don’t expect mercy.”

  Echofrost’s heart tumbled. “The queen will send us to save them, right?”

  “Ah, I see,” Kol snapped. “You’re using that boy to save your friends.” He leaned against the wall. “Do you really think Rahkki Stormrunner is a fighter? Or a good pilot?” Kol tossed his sun-streaked red mane. “He’s ridden on my back with his brother, so I know his secret. I can smell it. Rahkki’s afraid of heights. And he can’t fight. He won’t survive a battle with giants. You might as well Pair with a monkey.”

  “I—”

  “Don’t say it,” Kol rasped. “I already know that you haven’t considered any of this. You think about yourself and your friends, that’s it. The rest of us don’t matter to you.”

  She closed her mouth and stared down at the straw. Kol was right. She hadn’t given much thought to Rahkki. Not once. He’d risked his life to get her to fresh water and grass, fought giants, stood up to the queen, and tried to free her—but she hadn’t considered the fact that he was safer without her.

  Kol turned away, revolted.

  Echofrost whinnied to Rizah. “What will happen at the Pairing?”

  “It’s best you just experience it,” Rizah nickered back. “It . . . it’s just easier that way.”

  Echofrost stomped her hoof. These Kihlari steeds lacked the straightforward speech of the pegasi in Anok.

  “But after the ceremony, you’ll be one of us, Sula—a Flier in the Sky Guard,” Rizah continued. “When we’re out there, fighting or flying, we watch out for one another. We’re an army, a team—a herd if you like. You’ll do whatever your Rider commands you to do, understand? And you will follow the Headwind of your patrol.” Rizah flared her wings. “I know you think we’re soft. You’re wrong.”

  Echofrost watched Rizah’s vein pulse down her throat. The way she pranced and rattled her feathers, she could have been a lead mare in Anok. “I hear you,” Echofrost affirmed. But the ceremony meant nothing to her. The bond was a Sandwen commitment, and she only had to honor it until her friends were free, and then she’d break it.

  But breaking it would leave Rahkki a Half.

  The silver mare clamped down her tail. What happened to Rahkki after she left wasn’t her problem.

  Echofrost glanced around the stable. The Kihlari steeds glittered in their stalls, glossed, polished, and brushed to gleaming perfection. Their manes and tails hung straight, free of burrs and as fine as spider silk, but these tame steeds put too much stock in looks. It was heart that made a pegasus shine—not hair and bones and pretty adornments.

  The Kihlari didn’t believe it yet, but Echofrost was sure they were the descendants of the lost Lake Herd pegasi. That herd had fled Anok during the first reign of Nightwing four hundred years earlier; but they hadn’t passed down their legends, and most of their history had been lost. So their descendants, the tame Kihlari, did not know about Nightwing the Destroyer, and they couldn’t remember what it felt like to live free.

  Their culture had been absorbed and diluted by the Sandwen clans until it was gone. And worst of all, the Kihlari didn’t care. They didn’t miss being wild. Echofrost tossed her head. She had to free Storm Herd and get them off this blasted continent, and she’d take as many of these lost steeds with her as she could convince to come.

  4

  I’Lenna

  UPON EXITING THE BARN, THE HOT SUN BLINDED Rahkki and scorched his bare skin. He needed to fetch a new tunic for himself, but first he stopped by Brim Carver’s shed to visit his brother. When Rahkki arrived, the animal healer informed him Brauk was sleeping. “I can’t risk moving him, not yet, so I’m giving him medicine to keep him asleep,” Brim said. “Come back tomorrow.”

  “Is he any better?” Rahkki asked. “Will he walk again?”

  Brim clasped her wrinkled hands. “It’s much too early to know. If you want to help him, he could use some fresh clothing.” Her kind blue eyes, bright as water, soothed Rahkki. The Stormrunner family trusted Brim, which was why they’d asked her to help Brauk. They did not trust Queen Lilliam’s healer, the Borla. He’d once refused to treat Rahkki after Lilliam’s guards had beaten him.

  Pondering this, Rahkki promised Brim he’d return after the Pairing ceremony the following day. She packed him a calming tea and several packets of salve for his injured hands.

  “I can’t pay you,” Rahkki said, flushing.

  Brim hugged him and quickly let go. “I don’t take payment for humans, remember?” Then she turned around and began dicing roots and herbs on her countertop, gently dismissing him.

  Rahkki headed to the fortress to gather the extra clothes for Brauk. Picking up his pace, he passed the Ruk. Inside lived the Kihlari breeding stock, and he could hear the mares nickering to their new crop of foals. He longed to see the colts and fillies, but they were only allowed out once per day until they were weaned. Next, Rahkki came upon the Kihlari training yard.

  On any given day, the yard was a thunderous hive of activity. Fliers crisscrossed the sky and trotted overland with their grooms. Riders filled the shade tables, betting on their fighting beetles, playing stones, or snacking on figs and dried meat. But today silence fell on the Riders as he strode past, and only the steady whirring of insect wings filled Rahkki’s ears.

  While the clan had loved Rahkki’s mother, Reyella Stormrunner, the late queen of the Fifth Clan, no one knew how to treat her bloodborn sons. Their presence fanned the clan’s guilt at failing to protect Reyella, their frustration with the new queen, and their fury that Clan Law had forced them to accept her. Over time, the orphan boys had become akin to Halves. Folks avoided them as if their bad luck were contagious, especially Rahkki, who was quiet and less outgoing than Brauk. And now he was to become a Rider, and he imagined that worried the warriors.

  Rahkki bent his head and hurried toward the steps cut into the hillside that led to Fort Prowl. Upon reaching the top, he spoke his credentials to the guards. “Rahkki Stormrunner, here on behalf of Headwind Brauk Stormrunner.”

  The guard
s nodded and allowed him through the small gate. Rahkki traipsed across the courtyard to the northwest tower and climbed the circular staircase to the twelfth room, Brauk’s quarters. He entered, locked the door, and fell onto his brother’s cot. The small stone-carved room also held a dresser, a table, a window overlooking the courtyard, a larder for storing food, and a small hearth. Rahkki pulled on one of Brauk’s old tunics, shut his eyes, and quickly fell asleep.

  What seemed only a moment later, a scuffling noise awoke him. Rahkki jolted upright. “Hey!” He recognized Princess I’Lenna, standing near his hearth, a dagger strapped to her hip. “How did you get in here?”

  I’Lenna’s mother had assassinated Rahkki’s mother in order to become the Queen of the Fifth, and Rahkki had avoided the Whitehall family for most of his life. But since their clan had captured the wild Kihlari steeds, he and the eldest princess had formed a fragile bond over their mutual love for the foreign brayas. Still, her sudden and unexpected appearance at his bedside worried him.

  I’Lenna settled her wide dark-brown eyes on Rahkki, grinned, and flopped onto a chair. “Hello to you too, Stormrunner.”

  Rahkki relaxed his guard. He’d last spoken to I’Lenna this morning, during their flight on the wild mares. She’d been sweat-soaked and rumpled, her dress torn, one sandal lost. Now her long hair was coiled and shining, her scratches gleamed with a dressing of salve, her fine silk dress appeared brand-new, and she’d strapped gilded sandals around her neatly oiled feet. “Are you in trouble?” Rahkki asked her. “Tuni told me your mom isn’t pleased.”

  The princess scoffed and waved her hand. “I’m always in trouble.” She pointed at Brauk’s supply of pineapples and bananas. “That fruit’s rotten, you know.” Before Rahkki could comment, she added. “Are you all right? You landed hard on Sula’s back.”