Centauriad 1 - Daughter of the Centaurs (34 page)

In the cave, the horses have fallen silent. The mare, her chest and stomach heaving, wheezes. Malora wheezes a little herself, from the closeness of her brush with annihilation and from the dust. As the dust begins to settle, they are breathing more calmly and breathing together. Malora experiments and takes a big breath, letting it out through her fluttering lips. The horse, seconds later, does the same. Malora stomps her feet, and the mare does the same, beginning to throw off the burden of madness. After a moment, the horse starts smacking her lips.

Malora waits a beat. “Shadow,” she whispers. “Look at you.”

The mare’s ears twitch and swivel toward her.

“Why did you want to go and scare everybody like that? Look at me. You even scared me.” Slowly, Malora raises her hand. The horse’s ears flick backward, then forward again. But Malora doesn’t dare touch the horse for fear of setting her off again. Instead, she smooths the air
around
the horse. “I wish you’d let me take all this gear off you. These fools don’t understand that this rig is like a predator chasing after you. You’re running to get away from it, aren’t you? But it just keeps chasing you. Well, I’m here now. You don’t have to run anymore, because I’m going to help you. Do you hear me?”

The mare grunts as if, at last, here is someone who understands her. “I can take this harness and tack off you, if you’ll let me. Will you let me?” Malora asks. For a long time, she continues to stroke the air around the horse, getting an idea of where the buckles and ties are. When she has finished patiently stroking the whole horse in this way several times over, she returns to Shadow’s head and says, “There, now. What do you think, girl? Can we figure out how to get this harness and rig off you?”

Shadow lets out a high whinny. Inside the stables, the other horses whinny. Back and forth, they confer. At last, the mare lowers her head and bobs it.

“You heard them, didn’t you? They all think you should let me take this harness off you. You’ve dragged it around behind you for so long. You must be very tired of being chased by it. I promise, when I get it off you, no one’s ever going to strap you into it again.”

Shadow shakes out her mane with relief, and Malora sees in this gesture the permission she has been seeking. Slowly,
she reaches up to the buckle beneath Shadow’s chin and unfastens it. Keeping her breath even and her hands steady, she sets to work, and it doesn’t take her very long to unfasten the elaborate series of buckles and straps that attaches Shadow to the rig. As she works, Malora discovers where the straps have chafed, across Shadow’s chest and along her sides. Seeing these marks makes Malora simmer with anger, but she works to breathe that anger away because Shadow doesn’t need to feel it right now. Shadow needs to feel relief from all stress, and nothing else.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Gift approaching with a lead halter and rope. “Get away from us!” Malora hisses.

“She’ll only take off and run away again.”

“And why shouldn’t she? You and your crew have given her little reason to stay.”

Shadow’s ears go back at the sight of Gift. Her forelegs lift in a half rear, and she whirls around and runs off toward the city wall.

“Thanks, Gift,” Malora says bitterly.

“That’s all right. I should be able to catch her now without the rig,” Gift says, going toward Shadow.

“You thickheaded pussemboo!” Malora says. “Haven’t you had enough chasing around for one day? Let the horse be. She needs to relax and decide whether she wants to come back.”

Gift throws up his hands in disgust, spooking the horse yet again. He wheels around and stalks off.

Malora returns to petting Shadow and does so for a long time, until she senses that the mare’s nervousness has given
way to exhaustion. Then Malora steps back and waits. Finally, Shadow folds her front legs, goes down onto the ground, and rolls on her back in the dust.

Once she is satisfied that the mare is recovering, Malora looks for Gift. She finds him mending a smashed fence rail. “Tell me what’s been going on,” she says in a voice of deadly calm.

“We’ve made some good progress. We’ve broken four of them to harness so far, Cloud, Raven, Ember, and Coal. But they won’t run. They just stand there in the rig and don’t move forward on the track. Sometimes they even move backward. But never forward, no matter how hard we whip them.”

Malora grinds her teeth. “Did the Apex authorize you to whip my horses?”

Gift rubs his face. “Look, miss. They’ve killed two of my best wranglers and crippled a third! The Apex wants results, and the race is two months away. Then last week, we had an accident.”

“What kind of an accident?”

“Fancy broke her back.”

She speaks over the sudden roaring in her ears. “How did Fancy break her back?”

“She was trying to get out of this practice ring here,” he says, indicating the rail he is mending. “She leapt high, tangled her forelegs, and fell backward onto the seat of a rig. You’d have thought the entire herd had broken its back from the way they all carried on. In the hubbub, Stormy, Ivory, and Thunder ran off. There’s a low point in the wall farther along toward the north. Someone from the Fairmane Stable
around the bend saw them leaping over it. That’s the last we saw of them.”

Tears sting Malora’s eyes. She has been living the Highlander life up on the Mane Way, and down here her horses have been suffering at the hands of this incompetent bully.

“After we put Fancy down, the herd wouldn’t do anything for us. They just screamed and battered the sides of their stalls. For three days, all we did was listen to them carry on. Last night, they finally settled down, and today was the first day we dared to pick up the training.”

Malora nods slowly, absorbing this information, as painful as it is to hear. She feels herself reaching a decision. “That’s it, then,” she says, more to herself than to him. She looks around. Neal is nowhere in sight. She wonders where he has gone but doesn’t give it more than a moment’s thought. She turns and marches toward the cave.

Gift scrambles after her. “What are you going to do?” he asks nervously.

“I’m taking my horses out of this place.” Malora has a good mind to take all the horses, even the ones that aren’t hers, but decides against it. It will take her weeks to calm the Furies, and they will need her full attention.

She stands in the entrance to the cave and calls out, “Lightning!”

A loud whinny pierces the charged silence. Lightning lifts her head above the stalls. The rest of the horses, hearing Malora’s voice, start snorting and whinnying and calling out to her. They make a racket, all speaking at once, as if to say:

“What about me?”

“Where have you been?”

“Have you missed me most of all?”

“You have some nerve!”

“I know, I know, I know all about it!” Malora says as she makes her way down the aisle to Lightning’s box. She unfastens the latch and steps inside. Lightning stands with her nose buried in the back corner, her back to Malora, tail switching.

“I don’t blame you for being mad at me,” Malora says in a soft, low voice. “I’m furious with myself.” She moves farther into the stall, positioning herself so that Lightning can, if she wishes, bash in her skull with one swift strike of her hoof.

“I know you’re mad at me, and if you want to kick me simple like Aron, go ahead. I deserve it. I trusted these fools, and they betrayed me. Give me your best kick, but if you do, know that you’re on your own. Spare me, and I’ll help you.”

Lightning swings her head around and rolls her eyes at Malora, as if to say, “Really? Do you really mean it? Or is this just another one of your two-legged tricks?”

“I know I left you here, but now I’m getting you out. This place isn’t worth the fancy fresh oats and molasses, is it, girl? Give us bush grass and freedom any day, right?”

Lightning grunts and turns all the way around. Malora holds out her arms, and Lightning walks over and buries her head in Malora’s embrace. Malora strokes her head and neck and mane. Lightning blows out gustily. Malora examines Lightning’s hide and is relieved to see no outward signs of abuse. “They haven’t put you in harness, have they, girl?”

Lightning snorts as if to say, “The cowardly fools didn’t even try.”

“Okay, girl, let’s go and free the others.” Malora turns
around, and Lightning follows her as they go to the other stalls. One by one, Max, Star, Coal, Raven, Cloud, Charcoal, and Ember come out of their stalls and follow Malora as she looks for the others. In the tradition of her clever sire, Lightning unfastens the remaining stalls with her teeth. Out come Butte, Light Rain, Posy, Flame, and Beast. She leads them out of the cave. Outside, she steps onto the rim of a stone trough, and Lightning comes trotting up alongside her. Malora swings her leg over Lightning’s back and settles in.

This is what she has been missing. All this time, she has been working with only half a heart. The Breath of the Bush dreams may have tided her over, but they haven’t made her complete. Now Malora is whole again. She takes a deep breath, grabs a fistful of wiry mane, and urges Lightning forward with a squeeze of her thighs. Shadow lifts her head from the grass she has been cropping and merges with the herd as it comes abreast of her. Malora leads the horses down the mountain path toward the gates of Mount Kheiron.

Malora almost doesn’t recognize the Apex, standing before the Gate of Kheiron. It isn’t that he looks any smaller or less formidable, for the sheer bulk of his body virtually blocks her exit. It is his expression that has changed. If Malora didn’t know better, she would swear that he looked sheepish. Flanking the Apex and also looking somewhat abashed are Orion and Neal.

Malora calls down to them, “I’m taking the boys and girls and leaving, and you can’t stop us.”

“True enough,” the Apex says, stepping forward. “We cannot stop you from leaving. But I was hoping that you
might first hear me out. After you have done so, if you still want to leave, then you and the Furies may go. I will not stand in your way.”

Malora sets her jaw. What can he possibly have to say to her? Four horses are gone—one dead from a broken back, and the other three, without the protection of a herd, will surely perish in the bush. Who else but the Apex is responsible?

“Give him a chance,” Orion says. “Please, Malora, for my sake, if not for his.”

“Come on, Pet …,” Neal Featherhoof says coaxingly.

Malora feels her resolve faltering. “Very well,” she says, drawing a leg across Lightning’s withers. “I’m listening.”

The Apex smiles. “I would be much obliged if you would alight from that splendid animal long enough to speak to me face to face and in private.”

Malora considers his request. For all she knows, this is a ruse to separate her from the herd. But Orion and Neal would never participate in such a trick, and she continues to read the Apex’s air as being humble. “Very well,” she says. She slips off Lightning’s back and, lifting one finger, says, “Stay here, girl. Don’t worry. I’ll be right back.”

Lightning snorts as if she thinks Malora a fool for tempting fate. Nevertheless, the mare stays put, like the rest of the herd.

The Apex draws Malora off to the side. “First of all,” he says, and even in an undertone his voice bores into her, “I apologize for the appalling behavior of my wrangler in chief, Gift.”

“He doesn’t deserve the title,” Malora says.

“He doesn’t,” the Apex agrees. “You must believe that his daily reports to me indicated nothing of the difficulties he was encountering with the Furies.”

“You mean he lied to
you
?” Malora says, laughing shortly. “Couldn’t you see that? What sort of leader are you if you can’t even tell when one of your subjects is lying to you?”

The Apex smiles sadly. “Imperfect, at best. I chose to believe Gift, and in this respect, I am as guilty as he is. I was so intent on winning the Golden Horse—”

“That you didn’t care how many of my horses you killed, maimed, or drove off to the bush in the process?” Malora finishes for him, her face burning.

The Apex pounds his breast with a clenched fist and bellows, “
Never!
Had I known what was really going on down here, I would have called you in long ago!”

“And we still would have wound up where we are right now, with me on my way out of here,” Malora says defiantly.

“And so,” says the Apex in a quiet voice, turning up both hands, “I am asking you to stay and help me remedy my mistake.”

Malora eyes him suspiciously. “How?”

“I ask you, Malora Ironbound, leader of this herd, to train your best Fury to win the Golden Horse for the House of Silvermane.”

“What?”
Malora says so sharply that the horses call out to her. She hushes them with an absent wave of her arm. “Explain this plan of yours to me,” she says.

“I’d like
you
to take over as wrangler in chief. Who better to fill the position?”

“You mean,” she says slowly, “that I would be able to see the horses and work with them every day?”

“You would have to. With less than two months until Founders’ Day, there is no time to lose,” he says.

Wildly hopeful thoughts stampede through Malora’s brain. She allows the dust to settle before she dares speak. “And what would I get in return, if I were to help you win this Golden Horse?”

The Apex nods, reading her easily. “You would be granted the Hand of your choosing, for a start.”

“Ironwork?” Malora asks, her heart quickening.

“Certainly not
needlework
,” the Apex says with a pleased chuckle.

“Blacksmithing!” Malora exclaims. “And what else? What else would I get if I were to help you?”

“For what it is worth, you would have my everlasting gratitude.”

Malora suspects that to be in the Apex’s debt is worth a pretty nub in the state of Kheiron. But as far as she is concerned, the other benefits far outweigh even this: to see her horses every day, to learn her Hand as a blacksmith, and to have, in addition to these privileges, the pleasure of the company of her friends. To be able to go on living here amid the comforting hubbub of horses
and
interesting, articulate, funny friends—surely, this was a favorable deal for her. Thora’s voice says in her ear, “You didn’t really want to return to the bush, did you?”