Warrior (62 page)

It wasn’t just that you had to clear the gorge, Damin realised. You then had to avoid hitting the trees on the other side when you landed.

“Eighteen, maybe twenty feet,” Almodavar told him with a shrug. “Or thereabouts.”

“And if I’m terrified by the idea of jumping this thing on a borrowed horse, that just means I’m sane, right?”

“Better a borrowed horse who’s done it before than that show pony you rode here from Greenharbour, lad.”

Raek nodded in agreement. “If you’re going to ride with the Raiders, Damin, we’re going to have to find you a better horse.”

Seeing Damin was still not convinced about the likelihood of surviving this mad leap across the gorge, Almodavar smiled encouragingly. “All Krakandar Raiders have to be able to clear the Bardarlen Gorge before they can truly call themselves a Raider.”

“And the ones that miss? They’re all down the bottom of the gorge, I suppose?”

Raek Harlen laughed. “We train the horses for it, Damin. And the riders.”

“You’ve been training for this your whole life,” Almodavar agreed. “From the first time you were put in a saddle.”

Damin shook his head. “My first riding lesson was on Elezaar’s back, playing ‘horsey’ around the nursery. I might have only been two or three at the time, but I don’t believe we covered death-defying leaps that first day.”

“What would that damned dwarf know?” Raek shrugged. “Besides, I’ve seen you jump this distance in the training yards plenty of times.”

Damin looked down again, unconvinced. “There’s quite a difference between six inches of water below you and a six-hundred-foot drop, Raek.”

“Actually, there’s not,” the captain disagreed. “The technique is the same, no matter what’s beneath you. Anyway,
you
won’t be jumping it, Damin, the horse will. Let the beast have his head and he’ll decide on his own how much strength he needs to clear it. He’s done it before. Just don’t fall off.”

“And don’t exaggerate, boy,” Almodavar scolded. “It’s no more than two hundred and fifty feet down there. Three hundred, tops.”

“Oh, well, that makes
all
the difference.”

“You’re not scared, are you, Damin?”

He shook his head. “
Scared
seems far too inadequate a word, Raek.”

“Don’t worry,” the younger captain assured him optimistically. “We all felt like that the first time.”

“You’ll be fine,” Almodavar added, clapping Damin on the shoulder. “Mahkas would never have let you come if he didn’t think you couldn’t make it over the gorge.”

“As I recall, Captain, you told my uncle we were going to stay near the Border Stream. The Bardarlen Gorge didn’t actually rate a mention.”

“We are at the Border Stream,” Almodavar replied, looking down at the thin silver ribbon of water tumbling over the rocks far below. “Sort of.”

“Didn’t we promise Lord Damaran we’d keep you safe?” Raek reminded him. “We’ve got twice the men we need, twice the officers we’d normally take on a raid like this—”

“None of which will matter one iota, if I miss that damned jump.” Damin looked up suddenly and grinned at the two officers. “Mahkas is going to kill both of you when he finds out you brought me here.”

“Only if you don’t make it,” Raek pointed out reasonably.

He glanced down at the terrifying drop one last time and then turned away from it and gathered up the reins of his borrowed gelding. “Guess I’d better not miss then, eh?”

The captains looked at each other and nodded with satisfaction. “He’s his father’s son, all right,”

Raek declared.

Damin appreciated the compliment, but wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve it. “What do you mean?”

“It was Laran Krakenshield who first stood here, and looked across that gorge and decided it was the quickest way into Medalon,” Almodavar explained.

There was a hint of pride, and perhaps loss, in the captain’s voice. He and Laran had been friends, Damin knew that, but it had never really occurred to him that the captain might still miss the Warlord of Krakandar after all this time. Damin had no memory of his father. He wasn’t even two years old when Laran was killed in a border raid much the same as this one. To Damin, Laran was a legend. To Almodavar, he had obviously been a close friend.

“The best part about this crossing,” Raek remarked as he swung into the saddle of his own mount, “is that to this day, they’re so convinced it isn’t possible to breach Bardarlen Gorge that it still hasn’t occurred to those thickheaded Defenders how we manage to get across the border when they watch the known passes so closely.”

“Pity we can’t come back this way,” Damin said, thinking no steer would attempt to jump the gorge. But it was a quick and (relatively) easy way into Medalon that allowed the Krakandar Raiders the chance to miss the Defender patrols and steal the cattle they wanted, and left them fresh and ready to fight their way back into Hythria at the ford which crossed the Border Stream some eighteen miles to the west.
And where the Defenders are undoubtedly lying in wait
, Damin feared,
if Almodavar’s
prediction about them guarding their towns and cities against the plague proves incorrect
.

Flanked by the two captains, Damin rode back to where the rest of the troop was waiting. There were sixty men in this raiding party, far more than was normally required for a simple cattle raid. But this was the young Prince of Krakandar’s first official raid. Even if the men hadn’t been going a little stir-crazy cooped up in a sealed city, this was a historic occasion they all wanted to be a part of.

“I’ll send Axton and Helling across first,” Almodavar told him. “Then Raek and his scouts. Then you.”

Damin nodded, knowing that Almodavar was letting the others go first to reassure him that it could be done. Deep down, Damin had no doubt that he could make it across the gorge. There was just that awkward veneer of reason and sanity that kept getting in the way.

“Whatever you do, don’t hesitate,” Raek advised. “Trust the horse. Windracer’s done this before. He knows how to space his strides, how wide the jump is, and how to carry you over and stay balanced. Just keep focused on something in the distance roughly level with your eyes and make sure that when he jumps you grab the mane and don’t pull on his mouth. It doesn’t take many times jerking on a horse’s mouth—”

“Before he starts to associate jumping with pain,” Damin finished, a little impatiently. “And thinks he’s being punished for something. I have jumped a horse before, Captain Harlen.”

“Just checking,” Raek said, obviously pleased that Damin seemed to know what he was about.

He trotted up the slope a little further and then turned and waited for Almodavar to give the signal. The older captain scanned the slope on the other side of the gorge once again and then nodded.

They took the jump one at a time, the trooper Axton in the lead. The young man was a fearless horseman, no doubt the reason he’d been chosen to go first. He gave the mare her head and Damin held his breath as they galloped down the long slope and neared the edge of the gorge. At the very last minute, Axton leaned forward in the saddle and the horse launched herself over the log at the edge of the cliff and sailed across the gorge, stretching out to land on the other side without missing her stride, the momentum carrying both horse and rider into the trees.

Damin let out his breath and grinned. “
That
was impressive.”

“Wait until it’s your turn,” Raek laughed. “Watching it is nothing compared to doing it.”

Helling was already headed down towards the gorge at a gallop, as Raek and his scouts rode a little further up the slope to get as long a run-up as possible. Damin followed them, his heart pounding.

He watched Helling land safely and then Raek Harlen and the two scouts, who would spread out as soon as they reached the other side, making sure the area was clear of Defenders.

And then, before he realised what was happening, it was his turn and Damin was thundering down the slope towards the Bardarlen Gorge and certain death if he misjudged the jump by so much as a single step.

Trust the horse
, Raek had told him. There wasn’t much else he could do. The gorge appeared in front of them far too soon, and he felt Windracer gathering beneath him for the leap. His heart in his mouth, the blood rushing through his veins so loudly it was all he could hear, Damin fixed his eyes on a thin sapling directly in front of them on the other side of the gorge, leaned forward and grabbed a handful of mane, letting the reins go loose. The horse leaped without faltering, and suddenly they were airborne. Damin had barely time to register that remarkable fact before the ground came rushing up to meet them and Windracer grunted, almost tossing him from the saddle, as they landed on the other side.

A faint cheer greeted his successful landing, but Damin had no time to savour his achievement, too intent on keeping his seat and avoiding the scattered trees that were suddenly in front of them.

They plunged into the woodlands beyond the gorge. Whooping with glee, he let Windracer have his head for a few moments longer, and then gradually brought the beast under control.

With the blood singing through his veins so fast he was shaking from it, Damin turned the horse around and headed back towards the gorge.

By the time he got back to the others, Almodavar and several more Raiders had made the jump successfully, but they’d done this more often and were able to pull up their mounts long before they got lost in the trees as Damin had.

“Well done,” Almodavar told him with a grin when he saw Damin trotting up the slope through the trees.

Damin’s pulse was pounding, his heart still banging against his ribs as if it wanted to burst clean out of his chest, but he was grinning so hard his face was aching. He leaned forward and patted Windracer’s neck fondly. “Windracer deserves most of the credit, not me, but by the gods, that was unbelievable!”

“You’re a proper Raider now,” Raek assured him, as another man and horse sailed across the gap and landed safely.

“Does that mean we can do it again?” he asked, afraid he sounded like an excited child asking for a special treat. He was still exhilarated from his death-defying leap and doubted he’d be over it for some time yet.

“Provided your uncle doesn’t find out about it,” Almodavar agreed, waving the next rider across.

Damin laughed. “You’re not even going to tell him we came this way, are you?”

“Actually, it’s your mother I’m concerned about, more than your uncle,” Almodavar said.

Raek nodded in agreement. “There’s an old Harshini saying, Damin.
What the eye doesn’t see,
the heart doesn’t grieve
.”

Almodavar looked at him, shaking his head. “Mahkas could probably cope with the idea that you’ve jumped the Bardarlen Gorge—he jumped it himself more than once when he was younger—but your mother . . . Well, she has enough to worry about. If Mahkas doesn’t know, then the Princess Marla isn’t likely to learn of it, either. Not unless you tell her.”

“Are you kidding? She’d kill me herself.”

“Then it’ll just be our little secret, won’t it?”

“It’s hardly a secret, Almodavar,” he laughed. “Every man here just saw me do it.”

“But they’re Krakandar Raiders, Damin,” Raek told him. “And you’re one of us now. They’d never tell.”

Another Raider landed safely and plunged into the trees, carried forward by the momentum of the jump. Damin watched the soldiers crossing the gorge one by one, filled with a deep sense of contentment at Raek’s words; it was an even more intense feeling of homecoming, sneaking into Medalon on a cattle raid, than when he rode into Krakandar city and was greeted by a cheering mob.

This is what it is to be alive
, he decided. This was more fun than anything he did in Greenharbour, more thrilling than the political games his mother played so expertly and insisted he master as well. Damin might have a natural gift for politics, but this was his legacy and his birthright. For all that he was Marla Wolfblade’s son, he was Laran Krakenshield’s son, too, and that part of him which hankered for action over rhetoric seemed suddenly fulfilled.

Damin had lived in Greenharbour for six years now; long enough to be under no illusions about his uncle, the High Prince. He saw how Lernen Wolfblade lived, he knew how confined his uncle was by his rank, and while he didn’t agree with the way Lernen chose to keep himself amused, he could see how successive generations of High Princes had degenerated into overgrown children with nothing but their own pleasure to keep them occupied.

But this was real. This was dangerous, and exhilarating, and made him more aware than he had ever been that he was truly alive. The Krakandar Raiders were his to command some day and being Krakandar’s Warlord when he came of age, six years from now, seemed more real to him, at that moment, than the idea that he would ever be Hythria’s High Prince.

When the busy, raucous docks at Bordertown came into view, jutting haphazardly into the Glass River, Luciena wasn’t sure if she should be relieved their hurried flight from Fardohnya was at an end or worried about what trouble they might have stepped into. Although their arrival in Medalon was not accompanied by the same intuitive feeling she’d had of something being badly amiss as in Talabar, Bordertown didn’t particularly thrill her, either. It was foreign, strange, unfriendly and far, far from her home in Greenharbour.

“You look worried,” Xanda remarked, coming to stand beside his wife as Captain Drendik eased his shallow-draughted river barge into the chaotic wharves, looking for an empty berth. The
Melissa
was a trading boat; one Luciena’s shipping company owned (although not according to its papers). It regularly plied the trade routes between Talabar in Fardohnya all the way to Brodenvale near the Citadel in northern Medalon. The
Melissa
’s captain was a big, brusque man, with good reason to help Luciena and her family escape the Fardohnyan capital in the dead of night. He was Rory’s father and Luciena’s cousin.

“Escaping one unfriendly foreign country simply to land in another . . .” Luciena sighed, shivering as a chill breeze whipped the hair around her face. Bordertown was more east than north of Talabar, but here, where the Sanctuary Mountains tinted the northern horizon blue, the wind tumbling off their tall peaks had the smell of distant snow upon it. “It isn’t necessarily the best solution to our problem.”