Lady of Horses (30 page)

“But they didn’t.”

“Winter came,” the old shaman said, “and come spring they
were too busy fighting one another to trouble this side of the river. Not that
they failed to come back, but by then our tribes were wary. It was harder for
them to slaughter and pillage and ride away.”

“And your people learned to ride horses, too?”

The shaman laughed, not the dry cackle one would expect, but
a warm ripple of sound. “My child, we’ve been riding horses since the dawn
time. We just never made a great rite of it, and we certainly never used it to
make war. Horse Goddess is pleased to carry us where feet are too slow or tire
too soon.”

“I don’t believe you,” Sparrow said from the other side of
the fire. “We were given the gift first. No one else had it before us.”

“No one on your side of the river,” said the shaman. “This
is a different world, child. Is that why you’re so angry? Because it won’t
shape itself exactly as you want it?”

“I am not angry,” Sparrow snapped.

“Of course you’re not. You’ve done a terrible thing and
expect to die for it, and you don’t know what to do about it. Except run—but
running is wearing. Eventually you have to stop.”

“How do you know what I’ve done?”

“How does a shaman know anything?” The old woman bent toward
the stewpot and dipped a fingerful—without flinching, either, though the stew
was bubbling heartily. She tasted, frowned, added a handful of herbs and
stirred the pot.

When she sat back, they were both watching her, and neither
was inclined to speak. She laughed at them. “Children! You look so guilty. Yes,
I know what you did, or think you did. I’m sure your people think so, too.
They’ve twisted the world so completely, seeing it all through men’s eyes. But
in the end they’ll understand. It’s not the stallion who matters, however
pretty he may be. It’s the mare.”

“They’ll kill us first,” Sparrow said.

“Not if you’re wise,” said the shaman. “You’ll stay here a
while and learn what I have to teach you. Then I’ll send you elsewhere.”

“And if I won’t go?”

“You’ll go,” the old woman said, “because the mare will go
in spite of you, and you’re bound to her. You think you know what that is, but
you’ve barely begun to understand. That’s what I’ll teach you.”

“I don’t want to be taught.”

“So you think,” the old woman said.

Alone in that strange country, riding his dun and leading
Spearhead’s bay, Wolfcub knew that he had lost the trail. The storm had swept
it away. He could only continue in the direction in which he had been going
before, somewhat slowly, much delayed by storms and their aftermath: flooded
rivers, falls of mud or stone, lightning that seemed aimed at him like spears
in battle.

Maybe it was doing exactly that. Maybe the gods had had
enough of his hunt and were determined to drive him back. They had killed his
companion. He did not intend to be killed likewise; but he had to go on. His
king had bound him to it.

His mother, and Sparrow certainly, would have observed that
he was being bullheaded. He supposed he was. A day or two after Spearhead died,
he acknowledged to himself what had been evident for a while: the wounds of the
lion’s claws were not healing as they should.

The effort of digging Spearhead’s grave and heaping the
cairn had burst Spearhead’s careful stitching. The deeper wounds had opened and
bled anew, bled clean as he had thought, but now they had begun to fester.

He did what he could. It was not much, alone, with the worst
of them raking round to his back where he could not reach without opening the
wounds further. If he had had kumiss he could have made a poultice with it, but
the last of that was long gone.

Down by one of the myriad little rivers he found willows,
stripped their bark and steeped it for a gaggingly bitter tea, which helped
somewhat. But he had no wherewithal to brew a stronger potion.

He had to go on. The women had been riding south. He had no
reason to suppose that they would turn aside from that course, unless something
turned them—and he had found no sign of them in the wrack of storm or tumbling
in the swollen rivers.

As best he could in pain and fever, he continued his hunt.
By now it might be a hunt for the edge of the world, unless he had the great
good fortune to pick up their trail. But so many storms, so close and so
evidently directed at him, scoured the land clean day by day.

oOo

He lost the horses in one even more terrible than that
which had slain Spearhead. They had been struggling along the bank of yet
another river—this country was one great tangle of them—when the storm struck.

The earth gave way beneath them. They tumbled and slid,
buffeted by wind and rain. Wolfcub caught at a trailing root as the bay
disappeared from beneath him, and held on for grim life, though it made his
torn back and sides scream with pain. Even in the storm’s darkness, in the
pouring rain, he could watch the river take the horses: the bay limp and broken
even as the water took him, the dun alive, struggling, but overwhelmed in the
turbulent water.

As always, the storm ended in peace, soft light and kiss of
rain that washed the mud from Wolfcub’s face and body. He longed to let go, to
let the river take him, but he was a coward. He could not simply die.

He made his halting way to firmer ground, then followed the
river till he found the dun’s body. The bay he never found. The river must have
kept him.

Maybe, with the sacrifice of a good hunter and two strong
stallions, the gods at last were appeased. Or else they reckoned that Wolfcub
would never find his quarry now, alone as he was, afoot, and stripped of all
his weapons but a flint knife. The rest had been with the bay.

The dun had been carrying a waterskin, and the skin of the
lion that Wolfcub had slain. He would have left that, but it was a blanket and
a cloak as well as an empty brag. He would need it if he survived till winter.

Strange to think of that in this hot still weather. But
leaves were turning in the copses, little by little. The days were shorter, the
air very slightly different. Summer was passing.

With only a knife he could not hunt larger game, but he
could set snares for rabbits and squirrels. And the wild grains were ripening.
He had little strength and no tools to grind them into flour, but he could eat
the sweet kernels, as he could harvest fruits from trees and brambles. He could
keep himself alive while he must, if the fever would only let him be, and the
wounds finish draining and begin again to heal.

They were hot to the touch and more painful than he would
ever have admitted if he had not been alone, but they had not shown yet the red
streaks that warned of death’s coming. As long as he did not see those, he told
himself, he could go on. He could hope to see the end of the hunt.

oOo

It was a strong storm season—the strongest that anyone
could remember, even the Grandfather, who was so old he could remember when
most of the horses had been duns and bays. Now of course they were nearly all
greys, Horse Goddess’ children as people called them, because like her they
were the color of the moon.

Storm had been born in such a season. It was her time of
greatest power, and she was deeply attuned to it. Before the first storm came,
she had taken the people from their summer camp to one better protected,
farther south, close to a river but not so close that its flooding would harm
men or beasts. The rise of a hill sheltered it, and there was good grazing
along the slopes. When the strongest storms struck, they struck the far side of
the hill; the people’s tents and shelters were safe, and set up high enough
that if the hard rain fell, it ran down away from them into the river.

It was a good camp, even with the storms. The river was rich
in fish, and the hunting was much better than it had been round about the
summer camp. There were apple trees near the river, and a stand of beeches,
with nuts just coming ripe.

There was no need to hunt far afield. Deer came to the
beech-wood, and there was a boar with a harem of wives. They were shy as pigs
went, and not inclined to challenge passersby, as long as they were left to
their rooting and feeding, and as long as no one ventured too near the boar’s
lair. Some of the more headstrong boys wanted to try their hand at pig-killing,
but while there was ample and less dangerous game, Storm forbade them to touch
the boar or his tribe.

oOo

Cloud was thinking of this as he made his way through the
beech-wood. He had heard the pigs not long before, feeding on the rich mast. He
was hunting deer, but today, for whatever reason, he had found no sign less
than a day old. There had been no storm the day before to drive them off;
indeed it had been some days since the wild winds blew. Nor was there any other
tribe within reach, or any party of hunters that he knew of. The nearest, the
Stag, waited out storm season three days’ ride from the Grey Horse camp.
Sometimes men or women of the Stag came to visit kin or lovers, but none of
them would be inclined to drive the deer away.

Close to the wood’s edge he found wolfsign, tracks and dung
and the half-buried carcass of a fawn. A pack had come through this morning,
brought down the fawn and eaten it, then set off in pursuit of the doe and her
twin yearlings. He sighed and shrugged. So: the rest of the deer had gone into
hiding. Wise deer.

Maybe his mother’s tent would be content to dine on fish and
waterfowl, since the wolves had laid claim to venison. He was not even slightly
tempted to try for roast pig—not against his mother’s prohibition.

The sky was clear as he left the wood. No storm today,
either; and that was well enough. He preferred not to be hunting and fishing
along the river when the storm-gods walked.

He trotted easily through the tall grass, bow in hand,
quiver bouncing comfortably between his shoulderblades. It was warm, but a
light breeze blew, cooling the sweat on his breast and cheeks. Maybe, after he
had done his fishing, he would swim in the river. That would be pleasant.

oOo

He saw the body somewhat before he came to the water,
lying on the bank as if it had been cast there in a flood. But it was not wet,
and the river ran quiet. It lay on its face, a long lean man’s body in
much-worn leggings and boots worn through in the soles. Cloud could see what
had likely killed him: great oozing wounds in back and sides, buzzing with
flies. They rose in a furious swarm as he turned the stranger onto his back.

This was no tribesman of this country. The long face with
its sharp curve of nose, the hair dark with oil and dirt but still ruddy brown,
and the sparse beard, were unmistakably foreign. He wore as armlets the tusks
of a boar who must have been divinely huge, and on a string about his neck hung
the claws of a lion—maybe the same lion that had killed him.

If that was the lion, it had died for its sins. The man was
lying on a lionskin.

He did not, for all of that, look terribly warlike. His only
weapon was a knife of flint with a bone haft carved in the shape of a leaping
wolf. His wounds circled round his ribs. Cloud saw what might be the white of
bone.

The man stirred. Cloud jumped like a deer.

The stranger stirred again, feebly, murmuring something in a
language Cloud did not know. His eyes opened. They were clear grey, like rain.
They had a remarkable effect on his face. Without them it was rather plain,
long-jawed and thin-lipped. With them, it had an odd and striking beauty.

He did not seem to see Cloud, or to recognize him as human.
Though his shoulder had been cool when Cloud touched it, his forehead burned
with fever. He spoke again, more loudly this time, to someone who appeared to
be standing behind Cloud.

“Stranger,” Cloud said in the language that traders used,
“you are welcome to Grey Horse lands. Can you stand? Or shall I carry you?”

The stranger blinked. He peered at Cloud. He did not, as
Cloud had half feared, turn hostile and spring on him with the knife. That
would have been hardly surprising if he was what Cloud thought he was; but he
was too ill or too sensible to do such a thing. He spoke in traders’ patois,
slowly, with a thick burring accent, but Cloud could understand him. “Grey
Horse? Are you—am I dead?”

“Not quite yet,” Cloud said. “I can’t tend you here—I’ve
nothing to tend you with. I’ll have to take you back to camp. Can you walk?”

The stranger nodded. It seemed to make him dizzy. His eyes
closed; his face tightened. With an effort he sat up. With a greater effort,
and with Cloud’s aid, he pulled himself to his feet. He stood easily a head
taller than Cloud, even doubled over with the pain of his wounds.

He walked four steps. The fifth would have flung him flat on
his face again, if Cloud had not caught him.

With a faint sigh, Cloud heaved him over his shoulders. He
was light for his size, at least, and Cloud was strong. And he did not
struggle, which was fortunate. He was still alive: his breath hissed in Cloud’s
ear, fast and shallow.

Just as he would have done to bring back the body of a stag,
Cloud steadied himself under the long limp weight, and made his way home.

oOo

Storm was waiting for him. She had not spoken to him this
morning or sent him on that particular hunt, but she greeted him calmly and
regarded his burden without surprise. It was Rain, happening past, who said
what Cloud had braced himself for: “Fool of a man. What use have we for
manflesh?”

Cloud glowered at her. She had the grace to look down,
though she refused to blush.

Storm sent her in haste to fetch certain things from the
stores. People had gathered, curious, to see what Cloud had brought back from
his hunt. Storm sent some of them on errands, too, and scattered the rest with
a word.