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Their calling stopped: they’d heard a human and run. It was against their own better judgment to approach human dwellings in the first place.
Daine returned to Onua, glad that the night hid the sparkle of tears on her cheeks. “I’m too tired for this—I’m sorry. It hit me all of a sudden.”
Onua spoke into the red fire on her hand, then closed her fingers on it. The globe vanished. “Go to bed, then. Numair will let Cloud back into the meadow. I’ll get someone to come watch the herds, in case the wolves return.”
Daine watched her go. “I’m sorry,” she whispered though only the ponies could hear. They crowded around, needing reassurance after hearing wolves. She couldn’t leave them scared. It took her several minutes to pat and soothe them into calmness once more. It wasn’t their fault the wolves thought they’d heard a wolf-sister in the night.
She was climbing the fence out of the meadow when Numair and Cloud arrived. Cloud came right up to her, sniffing Daine all over for wolf smell.
“Are you all right?” the man asked, panting as he rested a hand on Daine’s shoulder. “I should have remembered you might be tired after this morning. I get carried away sometimes. I forget that not everyone has my academic enthusiasm.”
She stared at him, patting Cloud. He was a sorcerer. He’d cut his eyeteeth on the impossible. He’d understand if anyone did, she thought, and opened her mouth to tell him.
“’Evenin’, sir, miss.” A burly man climbed over the fence, holding a crossbow out of harm’s way. Two big dogs wriggled through the rails and came over, tails wagging, to sniff Daine. “Mistress Onua tells me wolves are near the forest rim tonight. Must be a new pack. Most of ’em know t’ stay clear of the palace. Me’n my lads’ll keep watch for a bit, to discourage ’em, like.”
Daine scratched the ears of both “lads,” dogs almost as big as Tahoi. Run, pack-brothers! she called to the wolves, under her breath, hoping they’d somehow hear her. Run and keep running—there are hunters here!
She and Numair said good night to the man, and Numair walked her to her new room in the barracks. She let herself in, waving to him as he climbed the hill to the palace. The chance to tell him the truth had gone.
Just as well, she told herself as she changed into her nightshirt. What he don’t know won’t hurt him—or me.
As she was crawling under the covers, three palace cats entered through the partly open door and climbed in with her. Daine smiled as they made themselves comfortable. It would have been nice, talking with Miri after lights-out, but this was better. Miri didn’t know how to purr.
She didn’t realize her new room was beneath the boys’ dorm until thunder the next morning crashed through the ceiling overhead: “Trainees, turn out!” She sat up, tumbling cats right and left and scaring an owl out the door. That thunder had been Sarge’s voice. It must have had an equally powerful effect on the male trainees. They were dressed and stumbling blindly on their way to the stable by the time Daine had pulled on her breeches. Neither Onua nor Buri, who slept in the girls’ dorm, could roar, but whatever they did seemed just as effective. The female trainees were just as quick down the stairs.
Once the stabled ponies were groomed and fed, the humans performed the same chores for themselves. “You’ll work afoot,” Onua told Daine as they ate. “Keep an eye on what’s low, hooves to hocks, but if you see a trainee misusing an animal or a problem with the tack, don’t be afraid to sing out. The rest of us will be mounted, so you’ll see things we miss.” She clapped Daine on the shoulder with a grin as she got up. “We’ll have some fun.”
Going to the meadow while everyone else saddled up, Daine was startled to find the queen already there, patting a savage-looking yellow dun mare. Soon the trainees, Onua, and Buri arrived on ponies, and Sarge joined them on a horse, a strongly built liver chestnut gelding. The four mounted officers put the trainees through a morning’s hard work, trying the ponies at different gaits—walk, trot, canter, gallop—with and without saddles. After lunch, everyone switched to his spare mount and went through it all over again.
Daine soon learned a polite “excuse me” went unheard. She also learned she wasn’t shy if she thought a pony had picked up a stone or had strained a muscle. By morning’s end she had developed a bellow—not as shattering as Sarge’s, perhaps, but loud enough for her purposes.
Numair found her after lunch. “How’s it going?” he asked, leaning on the meadow fence next to her.
When she opened her mouth, a croak emerged. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Fine. It’s all fine.”
“I was wondering—about that range-finding experiment”—he squinted up at the sky—“you’re too busy to try it now, I suppose.”
Cloud trotted over to them. Tell the stork-man I will go with him.
Numair looked oddly at Daine as the girl laughed at the pony’s name for him. When she caught her breath, she said, “No, don’t ask me. You really don’t want to know!” To the pony she said, “But there’s no hearing spell for me to talk to him with. I can’t ask Onua, not now. I shouldn’t even really try it myself, not if I’m to earn my pay with these people.”
The pony stamped impatiently. You act as if you’re the only clever one. I will tell the stork-man when I can no longer hear you.
Daine relayed the pony’s offer to Numair.
“You mean she’ll undertake the test situation without dealing through you? Can she do that?” he asked, fascinated.
“She says she can. I know she always finds me if one of us wanders off.”
“All right, then.” He bowed to the pony. “Lead on.” As they walked off, Daine heard Numair say, “And no biting.”
The trainees left the stable with their spare ponies, followed by the queen and the other officers. Soon Daine was busy: she forgot about Cloud and Numair. The afternoon followed the morning’s pattern, with one difference: the officers were still fresh, but the pace had begun to tell on the trainees.
“Come on, Evin!” yelled the queen, circling the Player at a gallop. “Raiders won’t give you a break for lunch, laddy!”
“I don’t want to see air between butt and saddle, trainee!” Sarge roared at Miri’s heels. “You ride that gelding like he’s a separate creature! He ain’t! He’s part of you, so connect the parts again!”
Onua swooped down on a brunette, Selda, and scooped the bow out of her hand. Circling back, she told the girl, “An enemy might do that with an ax. Every time you have to concentrate on your mount you give a foe a chance.”
“Your stirrup’s too long!” Daine yelled at one of the men. “Stop and fix it!” He didn’t seem to hear. Within seconds Buri, slung low on her pony’s side, came up unwatched to grab the stirrup in question. The trainee’s pony wheeled away from the K’mir; her rider, Tarrus, slipped off and down. r />
Buri righted herself on her pony’s back and looked at Tarrus. “Your stirrup was too long, trainee. Fix it.” She rode off calmly.
“I’m sorry,” Daine said as the young man struggled out of the mud. She gave him a hand. “I tried to warn you—”
He grinned at her, his small, pointed nose quivering like a rabbit’s. “I figured I’d fix it the next break. Next time I’ll do it right off.” He looked at his behind and the backs of his legs, where he sported a coat of mud. “It’s an ill wind that blows no good. With a mudpack like this, my skin will be lily soft.” He fixed the stirrup and mounted up again.
Daine was tired when it came time to stable the trainees’ mounts at day’s end, but she knew she couldn’t be as tired as the others. They moved stiffly as they groomed and fed their ponies, without joking or arguing as the officers and Daine corrected them. Only when each pony had been tended and the trainees had retreated to the baths did the queen say farewell and trudge up the long slope to the palace. She had groomed her mounts while the trainees groomed theirs, still finishing with enough time to criticize their work.
“She does this every day?” Daine asked Buri as she followed the Rider officers to the barracks.
The stocky K’mir nodded. “In the fall and winter she can’t be out in the field. That’s the social season. She has to travel around being queen. She works with the trainees to make up for when she can’t be with the groups.”
“But there’s times she’ll leave a ball or dinner to go to a Rider group in trouble,” Onua remarked. “Remember the pink tissue dress?”
Buri rolled her eyes. “Three hundred gold nobles that thing cost, just for cloth and sewing. That’s not counting pearls in the collar and cuffs—gray ones, almost perfectly matched in size.”
Daine whistled in awe. She couldn’t imagine a garment that cost so much. She couldn’t even imagine what such a dress would look like. “What happened?”
“Two years ago,” Buri said, “the Fifth Rider Group chased outlaws into a swamp and got bogged down. Thayet was visiting some earl nearby.”
Daine winced. “And the dress?”
