very thin man led the way.
'Comrades, I give you Severian of Nessus!
'Severian,' my benefactor continued, 'I'm your condot-tiere. Call me Guasacht.
This fishing pole here, taller even than you are, is my second, Erblon. The rest will introduce themselves, I'm sure.
'Erblon, I want to talk to you. There'll be patrols tomorrow.' He took the tall man by the arm and led him into the tent, leaving me with the crowd of troopers who had by now surrounded me.
One of the largest, an ursine man almost my height and at least twice my weight, gestured toward the falchion. 'Don't you have a scabbard for that? Let's see it.'
I surrendered it without argument; whatever might happen next, I felt certain it would not be an occasion for killing.
'So, you're a rider, are you?'
'No,' I said. 'I've ridden a bit, but I don't consider myself an expert.'
'But you know how to manage them?'
'I know men and women better.'
Everyone laughed at that, and the big man said, 'Well, that's just fine, because you probably won't do much riding, but a good understanding of women and destriers will be a help to you.'
As he spoke, I heard the sound of hoofs. Two men were leading up a piebald, muscular and wild-eyed. His reins had been divided and lengthened, permitting the men to stand at either side of his head, about three paces away. A trollop with fox-colored hair and a laughing face sat the saddle with ease, and in lieu of the reins held a riding whip in each hand. The troopers and their women cheered and clapped, and at the sound the piebald reared like a whirlwind and pawed the air, showing the three horny growths on each forefoot that we call hoofs for what they were talons adapted almost as well to combat as to gripping turf. Their feints outsped my eyes.
The big man slapped me on the back. 'He's not the best I ever had, but he's good enough, and I trained him myself. Mesrop and Lactari there are going to pass you those reins, and all you have to do is get up on him. If you can do it without knocking Daria off, you can have her until we run you down.' He raised his voice: 'All right, let him go!'
I had expected the two men to give me the reins. Instead they threw them at my face, and in snatching for them I missed them both. Someone goaded the piebald from behind, and the big man gave a peculiar, piercing whistle. The piebald had been taught to fight, like the destriers in the Bear Tower, and though his long teeth had not been augmented with metal, they had been left as nature made them and stood out from his mouth like knives.
I dodged a flashing forefoot and tried to grasp his halter; a blow from one of the whips caught me full across the face, and the piebald's rush knocked me sprawling.
The troopers must have held him back or I would have been trampled. Perhaps they also helped me to my feet I cannot be sure. My throat was full of dust, and blood from my forehead trickled into my eyes.
I went for him again, circling to the right to keep clear of his hoofs, but he turned more quickly than I, and the girl called Daria snapped both lashes before my face to throw me off. More from anger than any plan I seized one. The thong of the whipstock was around her wrist; when I jerked the lash she came with it, falling into my arms. She bit my ear, but I got her by the back of the neck, spun her around, dug fingers into one firm buttock and lifted her. Kicking the air, her legs seemed to startle the piebald. I backed him through the crowd until one of his tormentors goaded him toward me, then stepped on his reins.
After that, it was easy. I dropped the girl, caught his halter, twisted his head, and kicked his forefeet from under him as we were taught to do with unruly clients. With a high-pitched, animal scream he came crashing down. I was in the saddle before he could get his legs beneath him, and from there I lashed his flanks with the long reins and sent him bolting through the crowd, then turned him and charged them again.
All my life I had heard of the excitement of this kind of fighting, though I had never experienced it. Now I found everything more than true. The troopers and their women were yelling and running, and a few flourished swords. They might have threatened a thunderstorm with more effect I rode over half a dozen at a sweep. The girl's red hair flew like a banner as she fled, but no human legs could have outdistanced that steed. We flashed past her, and I caught her by that flaming banner and threw her over the arcione before me.
A twisting trail led to a dark ravine, and that ravine to another. Deer scattered ahead of us; in three bounds we overtook a buck in velvet and shouldered him out of the way. While I had been Lictor of Thrax, I had heard that the eclectics often raced game and leaped from their mounts to stab it. I believed those stories now I could have cut the buck's throat with a butcher knife.
We left him behind, crested a new hill and dashed down into a silent, wooded valley. When the piebald had run himself out, I let him find his own path among the trees, which were the largest I had seen since leaving Saltus; and when he stopped to crop the sparse, tender grass that grew between their roots, I halted and threw the reins on the ground as I had seen Guasacht do, then dismounted and helped the red-haired girl off.
'Thanks,' she said. And then, 'You did it. I didn't think you could.'
'Or you wouldn't have agreed to this? I had supposed they made you.'
'I wouldn't have given you that cut with the whip. You'll want to repay me now, won't you? With the reins, I suppose.'
'What makes you think that?' I was tired and sat down. Yellow flowers, each blossom no bigger than a drop of water, grew in the grass; I picked a few and found they smelled of calambac.
'You look the type. Besides, you carried me bottom up, and men who do that always want to hit it.'
'I never knew that. It's an interesting thought.'
'I have a lot of them that kind.' Quickly and gracefully she seated herself beside me and put a hand on my knee. 'Listen, it was the initiation, that's all.
We take turns, and it was my turn and I was supposed to hit you. Now it's over.'
