This time, at the sound of his rider’s name, each stallion raised his head and trumpeted. The sound was deafening, multiplied in that space, echoing and reechoing as voice joined voice in a long, shrilling peal.
In the moment that the blast of sound reached its peak, Valeria felt a drawing at the roots of her power. The stallions had seized it and made it a part of them. Then the fire came down.
Fire was divine, the priests said. This was the fire of the gods, and it seared the dead to ash, even as it restored and renewed the spark of life in the living.
All of it poured through Valeria. In a dim and distant way she knew that she needed to learn control. The power was using her. She should learn to use it.
Time would take care of that—if she had enough. If the war that was coming did not unmake them all.
Tonight she would be a rider among the riders. She would remember those who had died in the working of the Dance, and honor those who lived. In the morning they would ride, all of them together, the living bearing the ashes of the dead in urns that would be set in the houses of silence on the Mountain’s knees.
The Mountain was calling. It was a deeper, softer call than the one that had brought her from her mother’s house, but it was no less strong. This time there was no one to stop her. She would go where she belonged, where she had always belonged, even before she knew what or who she was.
Sabata had come up beside her, quiet as a cat, with Kerrec close behind. She laid her arm over the stallion’s broad back and rested against his shoulder. Kerrec, on the other side, did the same. Their arms linked, with the stallion warm and solid between them.
There was a deep rightness in it, a profound contentment. Sabata sighed. A moment later, Valeria echoed him, then Kerrec. It had been a long battle and a hard one, with a longer and harder one ahead. But for the moment, they all could rest.
THE MOUNTAIN’S CALL
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4896-4
Copyright © 2004 by Judith Tarr
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Worldwide Library, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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