The Heart of the Sands, Book 3 of The Gods Within (15 page)

Wylow said, “This ain’t good.”

The armsmen surrounded them quickly, though, as yet, no
weapons had been drawn.

Perrinsall stepped forward and said to the armsmen, “You
should think carefully before taking this any further.”

Perrinsall was a rather minor Penda lord, so his warning
didn’t carry the weight it would have if it had come from someone
like ErrinCastle. Brandon held his hands up, palms out, empty. “We
apologize for disturbing your pleasure, and merely want to return to our beds.”

One of the drunks staggered forward. “You can
go to your beds, but only after we teach you a lesson or two.”

They all stood there for a long, tense moment of silence,
and Brandon knew that when the moment ended there would be violence. Then the
night filled with the sound of hooves thundering on the road. The armsmen
backed away momentarily as Brandon glanced over his shoulder.

ErrinCastle, leading a twelve of mounted Penda armsmen,
charged down the road toward them. Brandon’s first thought was
that they’d stumbled into treachery, and would be murdered on the
road. But ErrinCastle and his armsmen quickly surrounded them all and leveled
their pikes at the drunken Penda armsmen.

ErrinCastle nudged his horse toward their leader, stopped
the animal only inches from the fellow, who stood there swaying unsteadily. He
leaned over the man and growled, “What in the netherhell do you
think you’re doing?”

The drunk lowered his eyes and said meekly, “Was
just going to teach the Elhiynes some manners.”

ErrinCastle lifted his boot out of a stirrup and kicked
the man in the face. The drunk stumbled and fell to his knees as ErrinCastle
said, “You idiot. These men are under Penda guestright.”

He looked at the captain of his mounted armsmen. “Put
all of these men in the dungeon for the night. Maybe they’ll learn
some manners.”

The mounted armsmen hustled the drunken armsmen away. ErrinCastle
remained and said, “Think I’ll accompany you back to
the castle.” He nudged his horse toward the castle at a slow walk,
and they walked beside him.

JohnEngine asked, “How did you know we were
in trouble?”

Brandon answered him. “That’s
why he had Perrinsall accompany us.”

“Why do you care?” JohnEngine
asked ErrinCastle. “We’re almost enemies at this
point.”

ErrinCastle stopped his horse and looked at JohnEngine
pointedly. “This hostility between our clans; I agree with my
father, about as much as you agree with your grandmother.”

~~~

The morning after the pyre Baldrak awakened Morgin early.
“We’re going to see to the horses and chakarras,”
he said. “Should take most of the day.”

They ate a breakfast of journeycake, jerky and hot tea,
then crossed the camp to the corrals, Morgin hoping he’d get a
chance to see Mortiss again. The smiths maintained a small forge near the
corrals, along with tongs, nippers, files and the other tools of a farrier. Jack
the Greater and his men had already cut a couple dozen animals from the herds—those
that needed attention from the smiths—but they hadn’t
touched the smith’s tools. To do so when not under direct
supervision of one of the smiths would be a serious breach of propriety and
custom. But when Morgin and Baldrak began unpacking the tools and setting up
the forge, Jack’s men stopped working and stared at Morgin, and
Jack raised a questioning eyebrow to Baldrak.

Baldrak paused and looked at them carefully for a long
moment. Then he said, “He’s close to the steel,
closer than most.”

That seemed to ease their concern only a little. They
returned to their work, but kept throwing surreptitious glances Morgin’s
way as he and Baldrak mounted the anvil.

When the forge was ready Baldrak walked back to the Forge
Hall, then returned with a hot ember gripped in a pair of tongs. He lit the
small forge and he and Morgin went to work on the animals.

At noon a couple of young girls showed up carrying baskets
of food. Baldrak, Morgin and Jack and his men all broke from their work and sat
down at various places around the forge and the corral. The girls served them
steaming bowls of stew and Morgin ate in silence while he listened to the
banter of Jack’s men. They spoke of their work and their women and
families, and Morgin realized these strange whitefaces shared the same joys and
sorrows as any clansman or commoner or peasant. But then he recalled the March,
and its few joys and many sorrows, experiences no one shared with the Benesh’ere,
though it occurred to Morgin he might be the only exception to that rule.

He wondered about Val, wasn’t surprised he
hadn’t seen him. The
twoname
, like
Morgin, was a prisoner, and probably closely watched, and Jerst had made it
clear he didn’t want the two of them interacting.

When he finished his meal he stood to stretch his legs. He
walked over and leaned on the corral to look at the herds while Baldrak and
Jack discussed horseflesh. The corral enclosed a rather large meadow in the
foothills of the Worshipers. In the distance Morgin saw Mortiss, unmistakable
because of her coal-black coat. She broke away from the other horses, trotted
his way and stopped just within reach. Morgin reached over the corral and
scratched her behind one ear.

“Look at that!” Jack said. He
and his men and Baldrak had turned Morgin’s way. “That
demon of an animal lets him coddle her like a pet dog.”

Mortiss snorted angrily, as if to say,
Don’t compare me to some mutt.

Morgin looked over his shoulder and said, “Be
careful. She doesn’t like being compared to dog flesh.”

That brought a roar from Jack and his men, though Baldrak
remained silent. Jack said, “So she understands what I say?”

“More than you know,” Morgin
said. He had a thought, and he said it before he really considered it. “Can
I ride her?”

Jack gave him a sour look. “No you can’t,
because no one can ride her. She won’t let anyone ride her. What
makes you think you can?”

“I’ve ridden her before.”

Jack shook his head. “Not possible. No one’s
ridden her.”

One of Jack’s men shouted, “Let
him try, Jack.” As he said it he nudged one of his fellows in the
ribs, clearly expecting to have some entertainment at Morgin’s
expense.

“All right,” Jack said. “If
you want to try . . .” He glanced at his men and
they shared a grin. “. . . but don’t
blame me when she dumps you on your ass with a broken leg.”

Mortiss neighed and reared, affronted that these men
thought she would allow a rider to be harmed. Morgin could almost hear her
thinking: if she allowed a rider on her back, that rider would come to no harm.
Of course, today she might choose not to allow Morgin on her back, and in that
case Jack and his men would get their show.

Morgin asked, “Do you have a bridle and
saddle I can use?”

That brought open laughter from Jack’s men,
who gathered around to watch what they clearly thought would be an entertaining
spectacle. Jack just shook his head, ducked into the stable, returned with a
saddle and bridle and handed them to Morgin. “She won’t
let you saddle her, but you can try.”

Morgin had learned long ago that Mortiss allowed what
Mortiss chose to allow, and today he’d learn quickly if she’d
allow him to saddle and ride her. As Morgin approached her with the bridle, she
turned her head and looked his way. Jack’s men saw something in
her look and roared with laughter.

Morgin cautiously slipped the bridle over her head, and
she didn’t react in the slightest. Jack’s men
responded with murmurs and whispers.

Morgin set the bit, then hoisted the saddle. The Benesh’ere
preferred a light cavalry saddle, to which they might add saddlebags and other
means of carrying weapons and supplies. But Morgin wasn’t going
anywhere soon.

Again, Mortiss turned her head and gave him an
unfathomable look, and again Jack’s men laughed. Morgin tensed as
he threw the saddle over her back, but she didn’t react and Jack’s
men responded with a wary silence.

Morgin quickly cinched the saddle in place, checked the
tightness of the straps and asked Mortiss, “Are they comfortable? Are
you ok?”

She turned and gave him that look again; she was clearly
planning something.

No sense in delaying the inevitable, so he gripped the
reins and the saddle horn, stuck his foot in the stirrup, and climbed quickly
into the saddle. He sat there for a moment, waiting for her to surprise him in
some way, but she just stood there complacently, while Jack’s men’s
murmurs grew to exclamations of surprise and wonder. Mortiss spluttered,
They need to know who’s in charge.

Morgin had no spurs, so he lightly nudged her flanks with
his heels, delicately pulled the reins to one side and she trotted out toward
the center of the corral. As he’d long ago learned, Morgin didn’t
command Mortiss, he nudged with his heels, or tugged lightly with the reins,
more suggestions what to do, never commands. She broke into a canter and he
rode her in a wide circle, almost as if she had chosen to show him off, to show
Jack’s men a thing or two. Morgin was just beginning to feel a bit
triumphant that he had successfully mounted the demon horse, that she hadn’t
chosen to humiliate him by throwing him on his ass. They were well out into the
middle of the corral, a good hundred paces from the corral fence and moving at
an easy canter back toward Jack and his men, and it was then, without warning,
that she broke into a full gallop, charging directly at the high fence and the
cluster of men. Morgin could do little more than hold on for the ride as she
closed the distance between them quickly, the whitefaces all gaping with eyes
wide and mouths open.

When she reached the edge of the corral she leapt, and
Morgin found himself flying with her over their heads as they all dropped to
the ground beneath him. She landed cleanly on the other side, and didn’t
slow down as she raced through the Benesh’ere camp, leaving a
trail of amazed whitefaces behind them. She cleared the edge of the camp and
broke out onto the open road, charged down it several hundred paces, and only
then did she allow him to pull her to a stop. He reined her in, and turned her
about to look back at the whiteface camp in the distance.

You’re free now,
she spluttered.
They cannot catch me unless I allow them
to.

Morgin looked down the road. There’d been no
visible reaction yet from the Benesh’ere, no posse of angry
whitefaces riding out to catch the Elhiyne. He could turn, ride on, and there
was no doubt Mortiss was right. He could easily reach the Gods Road, and cross
the Ulbb going north, or the Augis going south, and no whiteface could follow. And
then he’d finally be free to throw off the debt collar, free to
find the Unnamed King and his true name, though he still had no idea how he
would do that. But he had obligations back in that camp, debts that must be
paid, responsibilities that must be met before he might go on.

“No,” he said, “I’m
not free.”

He turned her toward the Benesh’ere camp and
nudged her forward.

She neighed,
You have grown, I see,
and learned a thing or two.

He rode back to the Benesh’ere camp at an
easy trot. One of the sentries at the perimeter of the camp waved at him and
called, “Eh, Elhiyne, you decided to return.”

Morgin called back to him, “Of course,”
though there had been no
of course
about it. It
had been a conscious decision, carefully thought out, though he couldn’t
be certain it had been the right decision.

A commotion in the middle of the camp drew his attention
as he rode toward it. Blesset sat astride a mount, snapping orders at other
riders to hurry, organizing a posse to come after him. The horses sensed her
anger, making them skittish and difficult to control, difficult to mount. But
as Mortiss trotted toward them casually, the frantic activity about Blesset
slowly came to a stop as they all gaped at Morgin. Blesset, her back to Morgin,
didn’t notice him until he was almost upon her. But as the silence
among them grew and the frantic activity came to a standstill, she looked over
her shoulder, saw Morgin, and that seemed to calm her. She grinned, not a nice
grin.

She reined her horse about slowly until she could face him
squarely. “For a bit there I thought you might deprive me of my
justice. At least you have some honor, though it’s not much, and
quite hard to find.”

~~~

Valso sat upon his throne indifferently, his little demon
flying snake on a perch on his left, while Carsaris, standing at his right hand,
watched the Kull lieutenant march the length of the throne room, his heavy
black cloak fluttering behind him, his helmet tucked under one arm. The halfman
stopped the required twelve paces short of the throne’s dais,
dropped to one knee and bowed his head. Valso waved a hand in a bored gesture
of acknowledgement. “You said you had important information for
me.”

The halfman grumbled, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Then rise and speak.”

The halfman stood, lifted his head, and seeing his face
for the first time Carsaris realized he was seething with anger. Valso saw it
too.

“Six twelves of us rode south for the spring
sport, Your Majesty.”

“Ah, yes!” Valso said. “I
believe the whitefaces call it the March. Was the hunting good?”

The Kull shook his head. “No, Your Majesty. We
lost more than forty, while we killed just over twenty of the whitefaces, and
gutted only four.”

“Why such poor results? Was it just a bad
year?”

“No, Your Majesty. It was as if . . .
the whitefaces . . . sometimes they seemed to know we were going to
attack before we attacked; only a dozen heartbeats, but enough to give them a
slight advantage, enough to save a life or two.”