Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3) (56 page)

He had to admit he missed the grey mare he’d left with Venepe; while this beast was definitely the equal of any King’s Rider’s mount, it lacked the mare’s sassy attitude. Tank couldn’t imagine this proud horse ever biting its rider or groom; that would be far too undignified.

He laughed at himself. “Now I’m putting personalities on horses,” he muttered. “Next I’ll be hearing them talk.”

He wondered if he ought to give the horse a name. It hadn’t seemed important up to that point, but with a long road ahead, it was a usefully trivial thing to think about, with endlessly amusing possibilities. By the time he reached Kybeach, he was trying to decide between Snake and Sin.

He’d also ridden through a sharp rainstorm that appeared out of nowhere and left as quickly, leaving him sodden and cursing. His temper hadn’t eased by the time he dismounted in the shabby stableyard, and the horse seemed as irritable; it jerked its head and stomped a hoof perilously near Tank’s foot.

“Knock it off,” he muttered, swatting it on the side of the neck. “I’m not happy either.” It snorted and stamped a back hoof this time.

A skinny blond boy peered at them from the open stable door, apparently unwilling to emerge into the cloud-weakened sunlight. Tank stared back, scowling, and waved, beckoning the boy out into the open.

The boy sidled out a step, another, his narrow-eyed gaze fixed on the horse; then, abruptly, scuttled back into the stable.

Tank swore under his breath and led his horse forward. It balked, tossing its head, a few steps before the threshold; Tank’s efforts to persuade it forward only made it back up.

“Come on,” he said aloud, half to the horse and half to the rapidly clouding sky. “Come
on!”
The horse only backed up another step, lashing its tail.

The temperature dropped, fast enough to prickle Tank’s skin with foreboding: he glanced up at the darkening clouds and redoubled his efforts to wrestle the horse forward into shelter. It snorted and reared; he ducked aside as a heavy hoof swept past his right ear.

“All right, damnit,” he said aloud as the beast thudded back to earth, “that’s enough of that!”

His breath plumed in the air as he spoke. He stared at that, horrified and realizing that the horse’s breath was coming out in heavy clouds now; his skin was burning from frost, not fear. The horse danced sideways, dipping its head and tossing it high as though trying to fix on the source of its own unease.

Something small and sharp smacked against the top of Tank’s head, hard enough to make him yelp. Tilting his face to look up, he caught a dozen frozen missiles full on against his cheeks and forehead before he managed to duck into a protective hunch.

The horse let out a rumbling neigh of complaint and bolted for the barn. Tank held onto the reins for the first three steps, then gave up and did his best to at least flip them over the saddle before they were completely torn from his hand.

Ice rattled down in thickening sheets as he followed the horse into shelter. Someone shouted incoherent protest. Tank caught up with the restlessly turning horse in a few swift strides and grabbed the trailing reins, thankful it hadn’t stepped on them during its flight.

“Easy,” he said, slapping it on the shoulder. “Easy, easy.”

It slowly quieted, glaring at one of the stalls, its ears pricking forward, then slanting back sharply. Tank grinned and led the horse forward; yanked the unlatched half-door open fast and said, in false surprise, “Oh, hey, sorry about that, didn’t know you were in there.”

The blond boy, nearly plastered into the back corner of the stall, glared at him sullenly. “Keep that devil-beast away from me,” he said. “Get it away!”

Tank looked at his horse, back to the stable boy. “You know this horse, or you don’t like black horses in general?” he asked.

“It
bites,”
the boy said; a heartbeat later, the horse lowered its head and extended its neck, snakelike, teeth bared.

“Whoa,” Tank said, pulling the horse’s head sharply sideways. “None of that! So much for dignified,” he added under his breath as he turned the horse around and aimed it toward another empty stall two doors down.

The stable was empty, no question; he hadn’t had much hope that Kybeach would offer anything by way of a remount to begin with, but it seemed that there weren’t even any travelers passing through who might be willing to loan their horse out for a price.

His legs, back, and shoulders ached as though he’d been dipped in fire. He needed a rest before going on, and his horse’s slowing pace and irritability on the road told him the gelding felt the same way.

“Gods, I hate this place,” he muttered as he began unhooking saddlebags. “Be happy never to stop here again.” Raising his voice, he called out, “Feed and water, please!”

“Gold round up front,” the boy retorted, appearing at the stall door and glaring in at them. The horse, head toward the far end of the stall, kicked out at the sound of the boy’s voice; a heavy back hoof thudded into the stall door, cracking one of the boards. The boy yelped and dove aside; Tank swatted the gelding’s shoulder hard.

“What the hells did you do to this horse to make it hate you like that?” Tank said. “And a gold round is absurd. Half a silver and you’re lucky at that.” He dropped the saddlebags near the stall door, then began on the bridle.

The boy said, from considerably farther away now, “Didn’ do nuthin’. It’s evil, that beast. Come through here once afore, under the hand of a couple outsiders as thought themselves better’n everyone local here. It’s a gold round because it’s the last good feed we got left. Witch came through and took up all the rest, sayin’ it was hers by right.”

“A
witch?”
Tank said. He leaned over the stall door to hang the bridle on the outside peg; the boy was squatting across the aisle. Tank squinted at him. “There’s no such thing as witches.”

“That’s all you know,” the boy retorted. “We’ve a witch not a half-day’s walk from us, I’ll have you know. We usedta run supplies up to her—well, Kera did, anyways. But now Kera’s dead, and nobody else dares go out to the witch, and so the witch sent a servant out to collect her due. And part of that due was all the winter feed we had. Don’t have no money to buy more, not with no travelers stopping of late; and without feed we don’t
get
travelers, if you see. So I want a gold round, or you can use your own stores, or go hungry for all I care.”

Tank shook his head and started on the saddle.

“Give him the feed, Baylor,” someone else said: a world-weary child’s voice.

The boy yelped again; there was a scrambling noise, then he said, panting, “Stop sneakin’ up on me, witch-brat!”

Tank moved to the stall door and looked out. The boy was facing off with a familiar young girl: the street thief Tank had picked up in Bright Bay. She was considerably cleaner now, and with her hair tightly shorn, her eyes seemed unusually large under a widow’s peak hairline. Her dress, while worn and patched, was respectably fitted and clean: so she’d found someone to take care of her.

She flicked an amused glance at Tank, then returned her attention to the boy. “There’s more feed left than you’re saying, Baylor. I watched what she took, an’ it wasn’t all your stores. Besides, this ain’t
your
stables. You don’t get to set the price. You just work here, for as long as the village master lets you stay.”

“Bitch,” the boy snarled.
“You
ain’t got no say here neither, so get out afore I put a pitchfork up your skinny arse.”

“Be the first time you did anything with a pitchfork,” she taunted.

“Stop it,” Tank said mildly. “Go get me the feed. Half silver. Or I’ll show you what
I
can do with a pitchfork.”

The boy glared at him and sulked off. The girl laughed and came over to the stall door, peering in at the horse.

“He rid that beast out to Sandsplit once,” she said conversationally. “Doesn’t know how to ride worth a damn, and the horse knew it was bein’ stolen, is my guess. It remembers. Horses is smarter than people think.”

Tank went back to unbuckling the saddle and didn’t say anything, but his stomach sank at the confirmation that he was riding stolen property.

“I was wrong,” she said, sounding not in the least embarrassed about it.

He heaved the saddle up and over, brought it to the stall door, and balanced it on the rim of the door, staring down at her. “About what?”

She wouldn’t quite meet his gaze. “About—the demon. I didn’t realize until I got to Kybeach—that she was already on the road, with Lifty
—ahead
of you. I woulda warned you, if you’d kept me along with you.” She cocked her head and shot him a fast glance, unsmiling. “I can see you’ve already run into her. I—I’m sorry for getting it wrong.”

“So much for
sight,”
he said a little sourly.

She shrugged, her gaze sliding aside again, and said, “I don’t
always
get it right, do I? Otherwise I’d be making a living at tellings, wouldn’t I? Pays better’n begging, for sure.”

“With more risk of your head in a noose for witching.”

She ignored that. “I see one thing clear and no mistake to it—you got ghosts trailing around you that need rest.” Her eyes searched the air around Tank’s head, and she gave an uneasy shudder.

“Ghosts,” he said, his voice flat with skepticism.

She shook her head. “Not dead spirits, not always,” she said a little impatiently. “Sometimes just—things you got to do, things you’re hanging on to that you can’t let go of—I ain’t got fancy words for it. But you’re
weighted
with ‘em, and some of ‘em are near burning you up. You ought to be on the road. Longer you wait, worse things’ll be.”

The pattering of ice turned to a thunderous downpour of rain; the already-dim light inside the stable darkened further. He brushed away the chill her words put along his spine and said, pragmatically, “Nobody’s going anywhere in that.”

She shut her eyes and cocked her head.

“It’ll clear by evening,” she said after a moment. “Get a rest, then. I’ll watch your beast for you.”

“You?” he said, unable to help a snort of laughter. “You’ll watch it right out the door.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “I can’t ride,” she said, “an’ I ain’t likely to put all that tack back on the beast of my own self, now, am I? Couldn’t lift that saddle, f’r one thing, an’ I
told
you—that horse ain’t stupid. It knows who its rider ought to be. It wouldn’t go nowheres with me. It only went with Baylor because he hit it hard enough to make it run.”

“Did not,” the boy said sullenly as he returned with a bucketful of grain. He set it down, lifted the saddle out of the way and onto the stall-side saddle tree with a grunt of effort, then handed the bucket up to Tank.

“That ain’t what the horse said,” the girl said.

Baylor rolled his eyes and said, “Half
silver,
if you
please.”

“So now you talk to animals?” Tank asked, amused, as he dumped the bucket into the feed trough.

“Not usually,” she said. “This one’s different. He’s got stories behind him.”

Tank shook his head, dug out a silver round, and flipped it at Baylor.

“Go on, then,” he said. “Thank you.”

Baylor slunk away without answering.

“The inn here ain’t worth the walk through the rain,” the girl said. “You already know that, I’m guessing. There’s a cot in the box stall two down, though—usedta be a pregnant mare there, an’ they had the stableboys watching her day an’ night.”

“What happened to the mare?” Tank took out the currying kit and set to work.

“Witch’s servant took her and the foal,” the girl said. “Probably better off with her, anyhow.”

“The owner didn’t argue that?”

“Owner’s dead. Gerho merchant, killed himself.”

Tank stood still, staring out at her with a vague feeling of disquiet in his stomach.

“Yeah,” he said. “I knew about that. Saw him dead, my first trip through here. That wasn’t but a few days ago.”

“She came through the same day as he died,” the girl said with relish. “Some around here are wondering if the man really killed himself or if she witched him into it, to get her own back. Working for a witch, after all, she’s bound to have picked up a few tricks. I heard as she was his wife, and she left to serve the witch; some are saying she came back to get her daughter, and found her daughter had died, and killed her husband as a punishment.”

Tank shook his head and resumed his work.

“Not my business,” he said. “Where’s that cot?”

“Funny thing,” she said, not moving. “The merchant’s daughter was killed, and some think it was another servant—the one as rode in on that same horse you’re brushing down now.”

Tank straightened and glared through the murky light at her.

“Stop it,” he said. “Now I
know
you’re trying to spook me.”

She laughed and went away. Tank stood still, listening to the rain thundering down, mixed with the occasional patter of ice chips, and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the drafty air of the stables.

He woke to a scuffling sound and a savage grunt; rolled from the cot to his feet and vaulted over the stall half-door in what seemed, to his sleep-blurred senses, like a single fluid movement.