“Well, I had intended to collect supplies before we left Trasdaak, but you put a stop to that this morning, didn’t you?”
Krea started to plead her case, but Sorin just raised his hand to silence her. “No matter,” he said. “We have enough to get us to the next village. Perhaps you won’t have such a cluster of devoted followers there?”
She didn’t comment. She wanted to, but she didn’t know what to say, so she kept quiet and moved to climb onto Drindoc’s back. She needed to mount the horse before Sorin tried to help and discovered the money pouch still lashed to her back. His hand on her arm sent her scrambling backward.
“I'm not going to hurt you,” Sorin said. “My hand won't hurt you.”
“It killed those proth.”
“No. I killed those proth. I just had to take my gloves off to do it.”
Krea watched him for a long moment and tried to decide what to do. She knew he was her only safe way out of the village. She had to go with him, but he scared her. Finally, she gave her hands a hard shake to fight back the fear and walked back over to the big bay horse.
Sorin stopped her again. “No. Drindoc can’t carry us both for this journey. I brought Caldir for you.”
Krea followed Sorin’s gaze over to a copper-brown horse with a dark stripe that ran the length of his back and an impossibly black mane and tail. She blinked, swallowed, and then looked back at Sorin, sure he had lost his mind. “You want me to ride a horse by myself? Are you joking? I don’t know how to ride a horse.”
“Well, you had better learn in a hurry. Caldir is strong and fast, but he isn’t a patient teacher.” When Krea continued to stare at him, horrified, Sorin finally thawed and smiled. “Come. I will introduce you.”
Only after a gentle shove did Krea finally venture toward the horse that seemed just as reluctant to meet her as she was to meet him. Caldir watched her approach with his ears pinned to his head, and when she was nearly to him, the horse snorted and tried to shy away. Krea stepped back two steps and watched in awe as Sorin laid his hand on the frightened animal’s neck and started chanting so quietly she couldn’t make out the words. Within seconds, the horse was calm again.
“Now come here,” Sorin instructed, holding his hand out to Krea. She noted with some relief that it wasn't the wooden hand that he offered.
She could think of ten things she would rather be doing than standing in front of a horse who, like all horses, hated her, but she didn’t want to walk to the next village, either. Slowly, Krea stepped up beside Sorin and allowed him to place her hand on the horse’s muscular neck. His coat felt smooth and damp. The silky black mane covered the width of his neck and seemed to reflect the sun like a pool at midnight. The scent of dust and cut grass rolled off the animal, and Krea had to admit that the smell was somehow comforting.
As Krea stood stroking the animal’s neck, she suddenly felt a presence in her mind. At first she tried to shove it away, but the presence pressed closer and whispered to her reassuringly. She listened to it for a moment and then turned to Sorin, confused. He nodded toward the horse.
“Reach out and introduce yourself.”
Krea turned back to Caldir and started to speak, crazy as that was, but Sorin stopped her.
“No. Reach out with your Essence. Caldir can’t understand your words, but he can understand your heart. Introduce yourself.”
Her Essence? What was Essence? The presence continued to press on her mind, so she pushed back. With thoughts of peace, she pushed her mind out to the horse—or tried to, at least—but nothing happened.
“Feel him,” Sorin said.
Running her fingers through the horse’s mane, Krea tried again. She focused on Caldir’s musky smell, his energy, his frightened eyes. Then it happened. All at once, Caldir was in her mind. He was sweating because of her. He was afraid of her, afraid she would hurt him, kill him. Krea blinked in shock, and then closed her eyes. She projected a feeling of friendship to the horse—told him that she wouldn’t hurt him, that he was safe. Caldir dropped his head. When Krea opened her eyes, Caldir was as calm as a farmer’s workhorse.
“Wow! What was that all about? I could see inside his head. Well, not inside his head, exactly, but sort of. I mean…” Krea turned to Sorin. “What just happened?”
“You melded. Get on, and let’s go.”
Okay, Krea thought. I just melded. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. She didn’t feel overly reassured as she gave Caldir one last pat and stepped over to climb on. Unsure how to proceed, she flipped the floppy stirrup around and tried to hold it still long enough to slide her foot in, but Caldir stepped to the side and she landed hard on her rear.
The saddle was little more than a mushroom-shaped piece of leather mysteriously secured to the horse’s back. The little molding it offered to create a more comfortable ride didn’t appear to provide any assistance with the actual mounting process. Krea scowled up at Sorin, who was leaning against his horse, laughing.
“Goddess help us!” Sorin said, finally reaching down to help. “This is going to be a long trip.”
Once Krea was back on her feet, Sorin took her left hand and placed it above the horse’s withers. “Grab hold,” he told her, taking her other hand and pushing it toward the stirrup. When the glove of his wood hand brushed her arm, she forced herself not to pull away. “You put your foot in the stirrup, but your weight should be on his neck and back as you get on. Otherwise, the saddle will slip.”
“What good is a saddle if it won’t even stay on?” she complained, while guiding her foot into the stirrup once again.
This time she pulled herself up with Caldir’s mane instead of climbing with her foot, and managed to get all the way on with only a small boost from her critic.
Sorin turned to his horse and mounted with ease. “You’ll know exactly what the saddle is for in about four hours when you have saddle burns instead of raw flesh. Just do what I do, and if you get in trouble, you can always meld.”
He didn’t sound at all encouraging. With her mind reeling through the many combinations of disaster this man could be calling trouble, she steered her horse away from the wall and fell in beside Drindoc. As they rode out of Trasdaak, the villagers scurried out of the way and glared at the riders. Krea ignored them and glanced around at the place she had called home for so many years. She knew in her heart that she would never return.
Chapter 3 - Truth
As predicted, by the time the sun was directly overhead, Krea fully understood what the saddle was for. Her inner thighs burned, and she was certain that if she ever managed to separate her pants from the skin on the insides of her knees she would get a glimpse of her own bones. She checked repeatedly for the blood she knew had to be staining her breeches by now, but it wasn’t there.
Every now and again, Sorin looked over at her and shook his head before returning to his silent vigil. Since leaving the village, except to offer occasional riding instruction, Sorin hadn’t spoken. Krea shifted in the saddle once again. A valiant, if pointless, effort to ease the aching muscles in her back and legs.
“You’ll be more comfortable if you untie the money bag you have strapped to your back,” Sorin said, without turning to look at her.
Krea sucked in a breath and held it while she tried to think of something to say. How did he know? Maybe he felt it when he pushed her onto the horse, but she had been so careful to keep it hidden. Her mind bounced from one possible lie to another, but found nothing suitably believable. Finally, she just let her breath out and resigned herself to the inevitable.
“How did you know?” she asked, keeping her focus straight ahead.
“Unlike the captain back there, I know what to look for. You came very close to meeting a slow, brutal death in prison. Going back for that purse was foolish.”
“I just…,” Krea stopped in mid-sentence. What could she say? He was right. Oblivious to the reality of her life, but right. “You don’t understand,” she whispered mostly to herself.
Krea snapped her head around and glared at the nobleman riding so regally on his bay stallion. His deep brown breeches and matching tunic probably cost as much as two weeks’ worth of food. The money he paid to have his boots made would likely feed the craftsman for a month. What did he know? He lived in his huge house with servants and serfs to do his bidding. He had no place to judge her.
“Being a thief is the only thing that has kept me alive. I could have stayed with the trader and lived a life of slavery and prostitution, but I made other choices. Forgive me, your greatness, for not being in a position to make the same choices you made.” Krea gave Sorin a mocking bow, then faced forward again, staring a hole in her horse’s head.
The horse grew more and more agitated the longer Krea glared, until she finally had to stroke his neck to settle him down. She could see that Sorin was watching her, but she kept her eyes averted. Let him stare. She would leave him as soon as they got to the next village anyway, so what did it matter what he thought?
“We should be coming to a stream soon,” the man said, still watching. “We’ll stop there to rest the horses and eat.”
Krea didn’t even acknowledge that she had heard him speak.
###
The stream Sorin spoke of wasn’t far away. She waited until her escort settled back into his silent brood and then gratefully untied the belt strap that kept the money bag anchored to her back. The soft leather pouch was wet with sweat, and a dark spot marked what Krea knew to be blood. A blister must have broken and bled from the constant rubbing of her belt. It was worth it, though. As long as Sorin didn’t turn her in at the next village or take the bag from her, that leather pouch was worth almost any price.
Sorin’s mood visibly lightened as he slipped off his horse and loosened Drindoc’s saddle. Krea tried to mimic his graceful dismount, but she met decidedly different results. Instead of dropping to the ground with dignity and style, the instant her feet touched the grass, her leg muscles revolted. She fell forward, catching her mount for support. Sorin's soft chuckle did nothing to improve her mood as she tried to stretch her sore legs. When she looked down, she was sure they would have a permanent bow. They didn’t, but they didn’t exactly look normal, either.
“Walk it out,” Sorin said. “It will hurt less each day.”
“Thank Nordu for that,” Krea said, shaking one leg, then the other. “I don’t think I can walk it out. I may never walk again.”
He waved her off and flipped her stirrup over the saddle seat. While Krea tried to reacquaint her legs with the old method of travel, Sorin unsaddled both horses, removed their bridles, and untied his food stores. He was sitting against a tree, grinning at her, when she finally hobbled back to the waterfront.
“Well, I’m so glad I can provide you with today’s entertainment,” Krea snapped.
Sorin laughed and nodded at the ground beside him. “Come eat,” he said. “You’ll feel better after you do.”
Krea joined him by the tree and slowly lowered herself to the ground. He had rolled out some bread and dried meat for lunch and wasn’t waiting on her to begin his meal. She did notice that he was keeping his gloves on again. The horses grazed nearby, unfettered, a state that didn’t seem to concern the caller in the least.
“Aren’t you worried they’ll run away?” Krea asked, grabbing a roll and piece of meat. After riding in near silence for the entire morning, she was looking for anything to make conversation.
“No. If they wander too far, I’ll just call them back. They need to eat, just like we do.” He was still being curt, but at least it was something. She tried again.
“Why was Caldir so afraid I was going to hurt him?”
“He knows what you are.”
That didn’t help. “What do you mean? I’m not going to hurt him. I couldn’t hurt him if I wanted to.”
Sorin looked over at her. “You are a kyrni, Krea. You may as well settle in on that fact. Animals will fear you because they know what you are.”
He still wasn’t making sense, and Krea had held her questions as long as she could. “What about the snakes? They bit the guard, but they just slid right past me. If they feared me, why didn’t the chey in that hole bite me?”
“That’s different. A snake is a predator, like you; or should I say, like your counter. The snakes saw fit to leave you alone because they recognized you as a fellow predator. They did fear you, in a sense, just not the same way prey animals will fear you.” Apparently Krea’s expression didn’t encourage him. “Look, let’s say your counter is a dragon. Dragons eat horses. Dragons don’t usually eat snakes. Caldir sees you as your counter, not as a human. He doesn’t want to be dinner. The snakes see you as your counter as well, and they don’t want to provoke that animal. Does that make sense?”
Krea chewed her bite and then took a long drink from the flask. “Sort of. But why don’t I see me as my counter? When I imagine myself, I don’t see a dragon; I just see me. How can you be so sure I’m a kyrni? Do you see me as my counter?”
Sorin stared out over the water and grew somber again. “You won’t ever see your counter, because when you become that animal, you lose your human self. You become your counter in every sense of that animal, mind and body. If you shift without someone to call you back, you will not have the presence of mind as your counter to shift back.”
“But you can see my counter, right? You can see a dragon in me?”
“No, I don’t know that your counter is a dragon. Thanks to the torbadyn, most of the kyrni that are left shift into dragons, but it wasn’t always that way. There used to be rukhs and gryphons and even felsphynx. I’ve heard legends of other animals, but I doubt they were true.”
“Then how do you know I’m a kyrni?” Krea asked again.
When Sorin finally looked back at her, he seemed older than before, tired. His birch eyes were ancient and filled with pain. “I can feel a kyrni like you can feel the wind or the warmth of the sun on your face. When you are trained, you will know a caller the same way.”
Krea paused. He seemed so sad; she didn’t know what to say. “I felt you in the alleyway that first time. I couldn’t move. You were inside my head. It was as if I were breathing you.”
He smiled softly. “Sorry about that. I have no doubt that the whole experience seemed a little overwhelming. It isn’t always like that, but by the time I got there you were already shifting, so there wasn’t time to coach you down.”
“I was changing into an animal? Did you see what it was? Was it a dragon?”
“No, you weren’t that far into the shift, thank Nordu. You were just blurring.”
Krea mouthed the word blurring as if saying it would somehow give it meaning. Sorin must have noticed, because he patted her reassuringly and pointed to the small creek with his piece of dried meat. “Imagine what that water would look like if it rose up in a column about three times bigger than you are and held perfectly still.”
“That is what I looked like?” She tried to envision the water rising in a vertical wall, smooth and still, both liquid and solid at the same time.
“No.” Sorin tore off a bite of his lunch. “But it is the closest thing to it I can think of.” When Krea turned her most chilling glare on the caller, he only laughed. “When we get to the Royal City, you will understand.”
She started to tell him that she wasn’t going to the city, but that would only make him that much more guarded. Better to let him think she was one of his obedient servants, willing to follow whatever orders he gave.
###
After a wonderfully relaxing break that lasted only half as long as it should have, Sorin showed her how to saddle her horse and they headed out again. The fields rolled around them in endless hills of grassy meadows dotted with summer flowers. Birds dropped in and out of the trees scattered across th
e countryside, their songs singing the praises of the monstrous elms that ruled over the lands.
Krea tried to imagine what it would be like to soar over the countryside on dragon wings, every living creature yielding to her massive power. The idea was too much of a stretch, so she settled back into the monotonous silence that once again defined Sorin’s foul mood.
She attempted to start several different conversations, but the man wasn’t a willing participant. Other than the brief jesting he had done on her behalf over lunch, he seemed content to ride the entire way to Shaylith in silence. As the day waned, heat and boredom finally got the best of her.
“What is your problem?” she demanded, kicking her horse up to join Sorin’s. “You are the one who insisted that I travel with you, and now you act like I’m a curse. If you hate me, why are you dragging me to the Royal City?”
Sorin didn’t even look at her. She may as well have been talking to a boulder. Icy rage bubbled up inside as she stared at the side of Sorin's head. The longer he ignored her, the angrier she became. Who did he think he was? Nobleman or not, he had no right to act so superior. She was just as human as he was. Well, maybe not, but she certainly wasn’t deserving of so much scorn.
Soft ringing filled her ears, and her chest tightened until it became difficult to breathe. She knew the signs well, but she ignored them. Instead, she continued to glare at the caller, trying to burn a hole in the side of his self-inflated head. Her horse broke into a skittish trot, but Krea paid him no mind as the ringing grew louder and the backdrop of the field faded away. All she could see was Sorin when he finally turned in his saddle to face her.
“Get yourself under control,” he demanded, casting a concerned glance at Caldir. The horse danced to the side and arched his neck as he strained against Krea’s controlling hold on his reins.
Krea reluctantly turned her attention to her mount, but only long enough to keep the animal from bolting. She had been judged before. Why it suddenly bothered her now, she didn’t know, but it did. When she faced Sorin again, she was still seething. “I don’t need this! I’ve never done anything to you except take a few things out of your house that you probably didn’t even know you had. I’ll pay you for them, if that will make you feel better.”
Hand and Talon (World of Kyrni Book 1) Page 6
