The stallion snapped his teeth together, ears still pinned. Yar twitched, but he was proud he hadn't jerked away. Why wouldn't the horse from his vision recognize him? But he lifted his hand, palm up and flat, for the stallion to sniff. The horse eyed Yar for a long moment, then lowered his head until his muzzle tickled Yar's palm. Just as Yar's lips broke into a smile, the horse seized his hand between its teeth. Yar yelped.
"Narda, tell the boy no," the woman said. "Can't you see he'd eat the lad alive?" Her voice was nearer. As Yar fought to remain still, gaze locked on the horse's, a slim, brown hand entered his vision and flicked the stallion on the nose. The stallion released Yar's hand and backed up a step, shaking his head. Yar backed up a step, too, pressing his mistreated fingers to his chest.
"I like the look of this one," he told the woman without looking at her.
"I like the look of him myself," she agreed. "Just not his behavior. You couldn't even ride him. Hells, I'm not sure I could." She took the lead rope from Yar's fingers. "Trust me. Narda's just in it for the profit. He won't care if the horse kills you tomorrow, as long as he gets his gold."
He frowned, pursing his lips. The vision was clear, he was certain. He must have this horse. Or had it just been that One, wanting a handsome horse to eat? Before he had formed an argument, the stallion reared.
It didn't get very high, but the woman was short. The stallion dragged her off her feet. As she swore and fought to regain her balance, her hood slipped down, uncovering wavy black hair that didn't even touch her shoulders.
"Damn it, help me, horse trader!" she snapped.
Yar moved before the trader could. He didn't know why the Voices wanted him to bring a horse that didn't like him, but he wouldn't disobey. He helped the woman calm the horse enough that he could unsnap the lead rope from his halter. The stallion trotted off, shaking his head and snorting.
Yar sighed as he watched him go. "I want that horse," he said. "You just made him uncomfortable." He turned to face the woman, who grinned wryly at him and shook her head.
"You're crazy, boy. He'll have that hand off next time."
"Your pardon, mistress," Narda broke in, "but you already said you aren't interested in buying the bay yourself, so—"
"He could have broken it this time and didn't," Yar said. "He just wanted to get my attention." The woman's smile faded and she studied him, her gaze sharpening. Finding himself the focus of an uncomfortable amount of attention, Yar made himself stare back at her. What he saw made him feel as if he'd been struck by lightning.
She had tawny golden eyes and brown skin. A hairswidth line of white kissed her left cheekbone. She was a head shorter than he, and fine-boned with a muscular build. A sword and dagger rode on her hips. Not just her hips, he realized, as his vision grayed out for a moment. The swordswoman also wore at least half a dozen daggers.
First the bay stallion and then the swordswoman! Was the stallion her horse, then? But no, she'd said she wasn't sure she could ride him.
"Are you my guide?" he blurted.
Her tawny eyes widened, the focus of her regard relaxing. She laughed. "Well, you seem to need one, especially when it comes to horseflesh." She put her hands on her hips, which only emphasized the blades. "Can you even ride at all?"
Yar hunched his shoulders. "A little." He'd gone riding with Orya from time to time. She didn't care about horses, but she was required to know how to ride, and she'd wanted to see if they would help him.
They hadn't, but it hadn't been awful, either. He liked the smell of horses, and the warm satin of their skin. It was why he'd decided to buy a horse instead of traveling on foot.
"Hmm." The woman strode into the herd, ignoring the horse trader's complaints. Did she work for him? Maybe she was his guard? But he'd said something about her not wanting to buy the bay. Maybe she was just a nosy customer.
"Come on!" the woman called to Yar. "This lad might do. Let's see you on him."
She'd selected a smallish dun gelding, which turned its head to watch Yar pick his way between the herd.
"Here, put your foot in my hands," she said, but he ignored her. Yar put a hand on the dun's withers, winding his fingers in his mane, and swung himself up onto its back. He collected himself, squinting down at her.
To her credit, she didn't mind his showing off. She laughed. "You look all right with him. Walk him around a bit. Oh, shut up, Narda," she added to the protesting trader. "If he can ruin the dun right in your pen, the dun isn't much to begin on." She turned back to Yar, tilting her head back to give him a conspiratorial grin. "And if you can ride the dun, we'll let you have another crack at the bay."
Yar shuttered his gaze and turned the dun, riding him in circles around the pen. After two circuits, at a walk and then a trot, he pulled up in front of the swordswoman and slid off the horse's back. Handing her the lead rope, he went back to the trader.
"I want to see the bay." Without waiting for a response, Yar went across the pen to where the bay stallion stood watching him. He'd been watching the whole time Yar was on the dun. Maybe he'd recognized Yar after all.
Yar fished in his pocket. He'd bought a twist of candied nuts before lunch, and there were one or two left. He shook one out onto his palm and offered it to the bay. "My name's Yarro," he whispered. "I think you know me, even if you don't want to admit it."
The bay snuffled the nut, lipped at it, and then took it. His teeth grazed Yar's palm, but didn't actually bite. That was progress, wasn't it? Yar smiled at him.
"There you are. Shall I take that halter off? You're a proud fellow, aren't you? You don't like the halter, I can see that. It's rubbing your ears, isn't it?" While he murmured to the horse, Yar worked his fingers up around the stallion's ears and loosened the halter, then slipped it off the horse's head.
"What are you doing, idiot boy?" the swordswoman called. Yar ignored her. He put his hand through the halter and pushed it up on his shoulder.
The stallion pressed its head against Yar's chest as he stroked carefully around its ears. The right one was raw. "Do you mind if I ride you?" Yar whispered. "Just a couple of times around the ring?"
The stallion didn't answer. He didn't really expect him to. Horses couldn't talk or anything, could they? Then again, just because the horses he'd known in the past didn't talk, that didn't mean none of them ever could. This horse seemed very intelligent. And after all, Yar had Voices in his head. Maybe horses could talk, and just chose not to most of the time.
Yar couldn't mount this horse like he had the dun. He coaxed the bay over to the fence, where he was able to clamber up and get a leg over. The bay snorted, his head coming up. His legs locked in place, his muscles rigid. One ear swiveled around towards Yar, who crooned nonsense sounds at him.
Yar wasn't sure how long he sang-talked to the bay, but he felt him gradually relaxing the longer he did. Yar wasn't really a patient man, but he'd lived his life without any sense of time passing. What was an hour if you lost it to listening to the Voices, after all? So what was an hour spent singing to a horse? Still, he relaxed himself when he felt the stallion's legs unlock.
"Come on," Yar murmured. "Just twice around the pen?" He tightened his legs and the stallion moved forward instantly, too fast. Yar rocked backwards, but kept his seat. He let the stallion do it his way, though. They went around the pen at a fast trot, every step jouncing Yar's backside. When the stallion was resigned to the fact Yar wasn't going to fall off, he slowed to a more comfortable, rambly trot. Two more circles later, he was walking. Yar guided him with leg nudges and shifting weight, and when they came to a stop in front of the horse trader and the swordswoman, both of them were watching, mouths hanging open.
The woman whistled. "I'd never have thought you could get him to go without reins or even a halter."
Yar shrugged and slid down, his boots raising puffs of dust when he landed. The stallion whuffled and rested its nose against his hair. Yar suspected he would find horse slobbers there later, but he did his best to ignore i
t for the moment.
"You're bossy," he told the woman. "What's your name?"
She propped her hands on her hips again. She dressed like a boy, in wide, unbleached linen trousers tucked into her boots and a silk blouse under a brown vest. "Aevver," she said. "What's yours?"
He swallowed. He didn't want the trader to know, but he wasn't going to lie to the swordswoman from his vision. "I'm Yar," he said. "And this is Firefoot. He's my horse now." He gave the trader a hard look. The trader shut his mouth with an audible click. Firefoot—where had that come from? But it felt right.
Aevver smiled. "Well met, Yar. Narda, I think you've got a bargain to seal."
***
Azmei watched from the paddock as Yarro Perslyn and Narda dickered over the price of the bay hellion. She wouldn't have thought the boy could ride anything as strong and spirited as the bay, but then she had based her impression of Yarro mostly on what Orya had said of him. There was probably a lesson in that—perhaps it was a bad idea to believe anything you were told by a woman who was trying to kill you.
She glanced back at the horses milling about in the paddock. She had liked Firefoot herself, when she first spotted him. Then she'd seen him flatten his ears at another horse that was a little too close for his liking. And then she'd tried to reach for his halter, with Narda smiling and urging her on. The bay had bared his teeth, and if Azmei hadn't been quicker than the horse, she might be an eight-fingered ex-princess right now.
Narda had been all apologies and oozed compliments about how he'd thought she would like his spirit and he'd been just sure she could handle him, but Azmei had given him a few sharp words about warning a person next time they got within ten paces of that horse, and he'd subsided.
But Yarro had done something that got the horse's attention, and even when the boy had been trying out the dun gelding, that bay horse had watched him like a hen with its first chick. Magic, Azmei would have said if she were more superstitious. Whatever it was, Yarro had set his heart on that bay horse, and the bay horse had, apparently, set his heart on the tall, skinny boy.
"Firefoot," she muttered, and shook her head. She had once been as fanciful as this boy. Not so long ago, some might say, but to Azmei it felt like a lifetime. When was the last time she'd had time to read an adventure story? Then again, she'd lived an adventure herself, and found it a bit less to her liking than she'd always expected.
She wondered if she could ever live up to the Amethirian name she'd chosen for herself when she left her life as Princess Azmei Corrone behind. Aevver had been one of the Four Daughters of the Storm, she and her sisters among the most famous and powerful women in all of Amethir's history. The stories Azmei had read about Aevver while studying her betrothed's culture had been moving and exhilarating. The stories she read after her life was turned upside down in Ranarr had been equally moving, but somehow less exhilarating.
It was hard to be thrilled about a powerful woman defeating and humiliating her enemies when you were having a difficult time doing that same thing yourself.
Behind her, hooves thumped gently against the packed dirt of the corral. Azmei turned and watched the dun gelding approach. When he got close enough, he dipped his head for a scratch, which Azmei obligingly provided. "We've both been forgotten, I think," she told him, rubbing the soft edges of his ears and pressing the palm of her hand against his huge, flat cheek. The gelding shoved his nose against her chest and Azmei laughed and looked back at the horsetrader's shelter.
Yarro was handing over some coin, though from this distance Azmei couldn't see how much. They'd agreed on a price, and after that he might have no business left in Meekin. Would he leave right away or wait until morning? The sun was low in the western sky. The Dry Gate would still be open, but would Yarro want to travel in the dark? Azmei wouldn't, in this unfamiliar territory. Yarro, though, probably had little or no experience with traveling. He could hardly help but make a few stupid mistakes while he was running away from home.
Did he know his grandfather was dead? But then, how could he? There might be turmoil inside the Perslyn house, but none of it was yet showing from the outside. He would probably wish to get as far from Meekin as quickly as he could, fearing the Patriarch would be after him. Or did he think the Patriarch wouldn't miss him? But if Azmei could find him, Kesh could find him.
Azmei ran a frustrated hand through her chin-length hair. There were just too many unknowns! Where was Yarro running to? Why had he chosen to run now? Would he leave town immediately? What sort of supplies had he put in that pack of his?
And, she wondered, how long would he be coherent?
"Still here? I hope you aren't angry about my selling the bay to the lad. He was so keen on him, and you didn't seem to be interested." Narda's voice turned self-deprecating at that last.
Azmei laughed against her will. He was a merchant first and foremost, no arguing that, but he had a sense of humor that invited others to laugh with him, and that made her like him despite his motivation to earn coin. "He hurt my pride by scorning my suggestion," she said, "and I think he hurt the dun's feelings as well. I'd like to give this fellow a try myself."
The dun gelding really was a beauty. He followed her knee signals and picked up on her slightest cues. She liked his coloring for traveling unnoticed, and he was big enough to earn her some respect without being too large for her to ride comfortably. She was not a tall woman. Her instinct as a child had been to gravitate immediately to the tallest horse in sight, but she had learned how much better it was to have a comfortable one.
She tried a brown mare and another gelding, but she quickly settled on the dun. He was the best behaved, and after all, her pride was hurt. She'd picked him for the boy and he'd scorned her choice. Now she had to prove to herself that the dun was a good horse.
"Will you take him with you tonight?" Narda asked after they had settled on a price that was lower than he'd wished and higher than she had wished.
"It's late in the day for that. Are there inns that might take him? I know the inn I've been staying at by the university isn't equipped for horses."
Narda laughed. "Good luck even getting him there. Horses don't like the walkways much."
"I had noticed you don't see many of them deeper in the city."
"We're happiest out here where the air is a bit better and the hills a bit closer," Narda said. "And where there are inns with stables." He smiled at her. "I just sent your new friend down towards the street with his best chance of finding one. You might follow him there."
Azmei made a show of considering it, then shrugged and shook her head. "Perhaps you would keep the dun one night for me? I'd consider it a concession to the fact that you grossly overcharged me." Her grumbling was just for show, but it seemed to please Narda.
"I'll be happy to keep him one more night. You'll be back first thing in the morning? I'd hate to get confused and sell him to someone else." He winked.
"Ah, but then you'd have to replace him with another of your stock," she pointed out, "and I might choose that big black next time." She pointed at a horse that was clearly too big for her, and clearly of better stock than her pleasant but undistinguished new horse.
Narda laughed and waved her out of his stall. Azmei went on her way pleased with the day's work. She had found Yarro and purchased a horse, and she now knew he would be one more day in the city, since he'd asked Narda about an inn. She was reasonably confident that Yarro wasn't sophisticated enough at subterfuge to realize he should only ask about an inn if he didn't mean to stay there.
She would come back early tomorrow and keep an eye on the gate. For tonight, she had a job to finish.
Chapter 13
The first two inns Yar tried had no stables for horses. Finally he found the One-Eyed Pony. The inn was on a side street almost to the gate. From the side street an alley ran east, dead-ending against the city wall. Yar wasn't sure about it; there were weeds growing up between the paving stones of the alley, and one of the shutters on the inn
hung cockeyed. But there was a stable, and two noses stuck out of the horse pen.
He led Firefoot to the flagged stable yard and paused. He looked around, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He didn't have to wait long, though. At the first sight of Firefoot, one of the inn's ponies whinnied a greeting. A skinny child about ten years old came out of the inn. She took one look at Yar and Firefoot and darted back inside, yelling for her Ma.
The woman who came out wore a patch on one eye. She dusted flour from her hands.
"A real horse, indeed. Effa's not big enough to groom that brute."
"He doesn't need it. We'll only be here one night." Yar tried on a smile, though it pulled his lips too tight.
"Well, you can stable 'im yourself, once you've paid for yer room. I'm the landlady, Sertis. We've black soup for supper and bread and dark ale. Laundry's extra. We send it out."
"No laundry," he said. "I'll eat in my rooms."
Her eyebrows flew upwards. "Only if you pay for an unshared room. They're three sovs."
"That's a lot of silver for one night."
She shrugged. "You don't have to stay here. There's the Dancing Rat close, if you'd rather, and they're a sight cheaper, but you don't get hot supper."
"I didn't mean that," Yar protested. "I have the coin. I just expected it to be more—affordable." He glanced at the cockeyed shutter.
"My hired man's gone to be with his wife and their new baby." Sertis crossed her arms. "Will you stay or will you go?"
The sun would set soon, and Yar didn't relish the thought of wandering the alleys of Meekin after dark. He had always been safe when he was with Orya, but he knew there was a harder side to the city. He might as well spend the money. He had no idea how far he would have to travel to find the Voices, but he would just have to trust that they would guide him there, money or no money.
Yar fished through his coin purse until he had the exact coins. As he handed them over, her good eye narrowed. He wondered if he'd made a mistake. Had she seen how much money he had? Maybe he should have paid in copper instead of silver.
Stormseer (Storms in Amethir Book 3) Page 14
