“You reckon the Bard’s onto something? We should go out there?”
Syke gave a short, humourless gaffaw. “You’re jesting. The Bard’s a basket case loony and I’m not washing Jade’s dirty linen for him, sonofoamare.”
Taure missed a swig and covered his dusty face in wine. He spluttered, wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
But Syke was thinking.
“So,” he said, “either the plains are being taken over by some politically motivated half stallion with a massive inferiority complex – or CityWarden Larred Jade’s deposited this boy as bait so we do a recce for him – or the boy’s brain got flash-fried by the open sun. I’m riding towards option three.”
Taure was still coughing. “Not being funny – but what if there is something out there? Even a loose bweao...”
“I’m not responsible for the open Grasslands, whatever the damned CityWardens may think –”
“That kid didn’t come from the CityWarden –”
In the rising brightness, the sky was clear and the horizon empty. Syke commented thoughtfully, “Old Roderick’s right about one thing, though. I don’t like anything about this.”
Taure said, “So – you believe in monsters. With longbows. This is loco.”
“Yep.” Syke picked up the leather mug that had been sitting beside him, tilted it to inspect its contents and set it down again. “Taure, old man, I trust my instincts. Something about this is giving me the fireblasted crawlies.”
“You want to move camp?”
“Not yet,” Syke told him. “I still don’t trust that CityWarden as far as I can spit an esphen.” A grin grew across his face. “I got a better idea.”
11: MONSTER
OUTSIDE ROVIARATH
The horsewoman leaned low over the neck of her mare, laughing like a daemon. Beneath her, the horse raced like an arrow shot from the sun, smooth and swift, her shoulders churning fluidly with her speed. Her heels kicked at the grass as she ran, she was as glad as her rider of the freedom of the Varchinde.
Triq was sitting astride the wind. The mare’s hooves barely seemed to touch the soil, her chest knifed through the grass and it rushed past them, swishing as they ran. The horse was sleek and strong, and her mane flew in the woman’s face, making her laugh even more. Sunlight bathed their skin, but they moved so fast the air felt cold as it thrilled past.
Triqueta’s yellow hair and the mare’s tail were bright as flags in the midst of the empty plain. Behind them, they left a ripple of wake.
She sat up. In one hand was a horseman’s bow, short limbed beneath the grip and long limbed above. She had several arrows in the same hand, resting against the wood and parallel with the bowstring.
The other hand nocked a loose shaft. Without missing breath or hoofbeat, she tracked the rustle in the long grasses, drew the string back to her ear, and let it go.
The arrow thunked into a squeak. The rustling stopped.
Grinning, she drew and nocked another – a reflex action. The mare, feeling the change in the pressure of the woman’s thighs, made a slowing, inward spiral and came at last to a halt.
Somewhere behind her, voices. Ress and Jayr, laughing at her. Jayr’s laughter was a rare sound and a joyous one – her past had scarred more than her flesh.
Triq hadn’t asked – life was too short. However Jayr had come by her fighter’s calluses and Kartian scarring, it didn’t matter. Why not celebrate?
Showing off, she jumped up to her feet on the mare’s back, balancing with no effort. She bowed like a theatre player, bow and arrows still in hands, then turned as if to do likewise to an audience behind her.
She stopped.
Against the bright eastern horizon, there was a black speck – no, two of them. They were too far away to see, they shimmered with heat-haze and pollen – but bweao ran alone, and they were far too fast for Range Patrol outriders.
They weren’t on the trade-road.
Controlling a flash of nervousness, she paused, squinting against the bright sky. They were a long way out of bow range, but whatever they were, they were coming across the open grass and they were... By the
Ress shouted, “What is it?”
“Don’t know!” She dropped back into the saddle without struggle or thought. “Why don’t you and Jayr keep moving – I’ll run scout!”
None of them glanced at the clumsy, wheeled cart upon which the injured Feren lay dying.
* * *
Jayr the Infamous was being torn in half.
She was scratchy eyed from the sun, sneezing from the pollen. Their progress was agonisingly slow and she eyed the horizon almost eagerly, just waiting for some kind of contact. She had been raised to fight, trained to win from before she could walk. She needed and craved the adrenaline and the release that came with combat.
But in her own blunt way, she was worried about the boy.
Feren was getting worse. He called aloud to the empty sky, nonsense words and phrases, jagged fragments that tore at her memories and shredded her heart. He clung to his life only by the determination that had walked him, critically wounded, to tumble and fall at the edges of the Banned’s awareness.
She knew that determination: only two returns ago, she had known it personally. How it felt to be young and alone, how it felt to fight through desperation and pain.
She needed to help him. As if reaching to her younger self, she listened to his fevered voice as it called out, a cascade of the broken pieces of his life and memory. Perhaps, if she helped him, she could purge herself of her own dark figments.
Yet she had no idea what to do.
As they prepared to move out, she watched Ress’s calm logic, his gentleness – and his growing sense of despair – and she rode her big, bay gelding in another tight, angry circle round them. Daring everything.
Let them come – bweao, horse monsters! She wanted – needed – something to fight. She was burning beneath her skin with the rage of her own frustration.
But they’d seen no predators, almost no wildlife other than winged.
Even the hunting had been scarce – while both Ress and Jayr knew the basics of tracking and ambush in the open grasses, they’d found themselves reliant upon Triqueta’s instincts and her lethal ranging eye.
With a tang of bitterness, Jayr nudged her animal with her heels.
Behind her, Feren cried wordless anguish and hope.
Jayr swung down from the gelding’s huge back, saw that their dinner was still alive. It quivered in fright, bright black eyes wide, blood matting its brown fur where the arrow had punctured its hindquarters. As she came close, it froze.
Neatly, she broke its neck.
Oddly, it made her feel better – a tiny taste of the adrenal rush she’d once been all too familiar with. Carefully removing the arrowhead from the pelvic bone, she drew a blade across the creature’s throat and held it up to drain it.
