Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) (16 page)

Then the shandy spoke, shattering the image of a wild beast. “Lance, it’s good to see you! I thought you were still in the Republic.” The shandy’s pink, lolling tongue sent spittle flying as he spoke, but he cocked his head in a friendly way.

This must be Dyl, Sara realized, as the two of them exchanged news.

Julen pulled her back out of earshot.

“Bas’s Miracles,” he whispered. “Now that’s powerful magic. But why waste it on making animals talk?”

“No,” Sara said softly. “I think you have it backward.” Lance had said ‘people who’ve transformed into animals.’ “The question is why would a man want to become a beast?”

Julen snorted. “Look at its teeth. It could tear out a man’s throat. What Nir wouldn’t give for an army of men who could transform into wolves at will!”

The thought chilled her, but… “I don’t think he can change shape at will.” She remembered the straw on the floor of Shandy House. If Dyl could return to human form whenever he wanted, he would live in a regular house with regular doors. “We need to learn more.” She drifted forward.

“…unlikely to help,” Dyl was saying, “but Rhiain’s around here somewhere. She likes to hunt rats, says they’re more of a challenge.”

Sara looked around. The grass didn’t look tall enough to conceal another huge wolf, but that could be deceptive. The Grasslanders made an art of ambushing any of the Republic’s Legions that ventured into their territory.

Once she was paying attention, she heard droning insects and small rustling sounds. She focused on one and saw a familiar reddish-brown rodent appear on the edges of a flattened section of meadow twenty feet away. “Refetti!” she exclaimed.

Its head lifted as if it heard her. It disappeared back into the grass, but she tracked small zig-zag patterns in the bending of the leaves.

She’d just crouched down and stretched out her hand toward it when there was a sudden disturbance in the grass. A huge, maned cat bounded forth.

Squealing in fright, the refetti swarmed up her arm and twined around her neck. Sara fell back on her rear as the cat skidded to a stop in front of them. “No fairrr!”

Apparently, not all shandies were wolves.

Staring into the beast’s tawny eyes from a distance of only inches, Sara felt faint. The shandy resembled a racha only—Loma’s Mercy—horse-size. Dappled brown and gold fur covered its immense back, and its body rippled with muscle. Its heavy paws could no doubt disembowel a man with one blow.

Lance extended a hand to her; without taking her eyes off the cat shandy, Sara got back to her feet. She stroked the refetti, trying to calm its wildly beating heart even though her own pulse was still thundering. “Shh, you’re safe now.”

“Too bad.” The cat shandy flashed its teeth. “Anotherrr step and I’d have had it.”

“Enough, Rhiain,” Dyl said indulgently. “It’s not big enough to fill your belly in any case. Lance, this is Rhiain. Rhiain, this is Lance, who wears the Brown. He has a proposal for us.”

While Dyl explained to Rhiain, Sara kept petting the refetti. She frowned when he flinched under her touch.

“Lance, can you take a look at him? He’s hurt. I think the assassin must have stepped on him.” Or the cat shandy had hurt him, but saying so seemed undiplomatic.

Julen rolled his eyes, but Lance held out a hand for the refetti to sniff while he looked him over. “His back leg is broken, and there’s some dried blood on his head.”

“Can you heal him? If it won’t offend your god?”

“Goddess,” Lance corrected absently.

Sara’s eyes widened in surprise. In the Republic Goddesses had priestesses and gods had priests to serve them, though a dedicant could be of either sex.

“I’ve healed a few goats and cows in my time. Though never anything as small as this critter.” Smiling wryly, Lance placed his left hand on the refetti. Sara instantly became aware that she was holding her pet scooped against her breasts. “Goddess have mercy,” he prayed.

Sara smelled springtime again, but this time the vision of ghostly hands overtop Lance’s own was fleeting. Within moments the refetti’s leg straightened. He blinked beady eyes at her.

She held her pet firmly as the cat shandy sauntered forward, eyes laughing. “So you’rrre the Child of Peace?” Its voice was deep and full of growls.

“Yes.”

“And the other one?” The cat shandy prowled around Julen, who kept turning so that he could face it. “He’s prrretty. He can rrride with me.” It bared dagger teeth, warning off Dyl.

No, not
it. She
. The shandy was female and, like most females, admired Julen.

Back on familiar ground, Sara’s perception shifted; the cat shandy no longer seemed monstrous. “That’s my companion, Julen. He’ll be happy to ride with you,” Sara said sweetly, ignoring Julen’s glare. If they’d hired guards, Julen would have diced and caroused with them; now he would have to cultivate Rhiain for information instead.

Lance started to laugh, then turned the sound into a cough, but he and Sara shared a look of amusement.

“The Child of Peace can ride with me, then,” Dyl said.

“Not so fast,” a third voice rasped from the shadows of the willow trees, making Sara startle. “There’s a third choice.” The words were both a challenge and a taunt.

“Olwydd,” Dyl said, sounding not entirely happy. “I didn’t think you’d be interested in escorting them. You just arrived yesterday.”

“There are three humans and three of us,” the third shandy said as it stepped out into the daylight. Sara froze. Dyl was essentially a large wolf, and Rhiain a large cat, but the third shandy was a nightmare.

Lance casually moved so that his shoulder pressed hers, but Sara didn’t need the silent command to keep still. Instinct warned:
If you run, it will catch you and savage you.

Sara steeled herself to meet the shandy’s red eyes. There was something bear-like about the brutal strength of its body and its fanged muzzle, but it had the tusks of a wild boar and gray bristles instead of soft fur. Nor were those the only animals patched together like a crazy quilt in its flesh. It had the horns of a goat and a spiked tail. Its front paws had a bear’s long claws, but the back legs ended in horse’s hooves—for kicking?

Had an evil priest forced this form on him, or had he chosen it himself? Sickened, Sara couldn’t decide which would be worse.

“Well, girl?” Its red eyes smoldered with hatred. “Choose. The wolf or me.”

Sara’s spine stiffened. “Which of you is faster?” she asked coolly.

“I am,” they both said at once.

“I’ll ride with Olwydd,” Lance said firmly.

Sara felt both relieved and angry at Lance’s interference. To cover her annoyance, she turned to the wolf. “I’m Lady Sarathena. My thanks for your kind offer, Dyl.”

“You’re welcome.” The wolf shandy’s tongue flopped as he laughed. “I
am
the fastest. You will see.”

Rhiain would have left on the spot, but Dyl insisted on returning to Shandy House to pick up some foodstuffs, obtain harnesses and say warm farewells to the woman and her child. The boy avoided Olwydd but gave first Rhiain and then Dyl hugs. “Bye, Grandda.”

Sara blinked. Had she heard right? Before she could think of a tactful way to inquire, Dyl turned to Sara and said, “What are you waiting for? Climb on.”

Sara hooked one hand into the leather shoulder harness and swung herself up onto his back, giving brief thanks for her split skirts. The shandy was the size of a pony with thick coarse fur. She resisted the urge to pet him and watched Julen and Lance mount up.

Rhiain, purring, told Julen to put his hands in her mane. Olwydd didn’t want a harness either, but liked it even less when Lance grabbed his horns. He eventually acceded to a chest strap.

As soon as Lance mounted, Rhiain lashed herself with her tail and sprang forward. “I’m the fastest!” Julen let out a startled curse, but managed not to fall.

“Not fair!” Dyl howled happily and threw himself forward into a headlong chase.

Exhiliration poured into Sara as they hurtled down the street and into the pasture. She had spent hundreds of hours on horseback as an impetuous girl. Part of the reason she’d found the endless horse races Claude and his mother attended so unbearable was out of envy for the racers. She hadn’t been allowed to ride, much less gallop, since leaving the Remillus estate in northern Elysinia and she’d missed it fiercely. Watching was not the same thing at all.

But, as much as she loved riding horses, this was better. Dyl didn’t have the syrup-smooth gait of her Grassland-bred mare, but he was much faster.

The wind from their passage reddened Sara’s cheeks. Strands of hair came loose from her clumsy braid and flew out behind her. The long pasture grass cut at her ankles, but Sara didn’t care. She wanted to ride this fast forever.

Wild joy filled her. This time she didn’t fight it. Maybe if she let herself enjoy this, the passion simmering between her and Lance would be less tempting.

Dyl leaped the crude log fence at the pasture’s far end and raced up the weedy strip dividing two fields. Sara noticed that the green wheat on the left was only half the height of the fields around Temborium and seemed sown with rocks. Worse, the land sloped up at such an angle, the farmers would be lucky their mules didn’t fall over during plowing. Poor soil, indeed.

At the top of the hill, Sara glanced back over her shoulder and saw that this side of the Red Mountains had a much gentler slope. Since the mountains ringed Kandrith, the effect was like being inside a large bowl. A bumpy bowl.

Kandrith’s interior was very hilly and, beyond the immediate area around Gatetown, only sparsely farmed. A rough forest took them in its green embrace.

Sara ducked her head down as Dyl charged up a wooded hill, threading through mountain laurel bushes, pines and sycamore trees, and dashed down the other side. They gained on Rhiain and, after startling a covey of game birds, caught the huge cat at the bottom. Rhiain had a tremendously fast start, but not as much staying power. Dyl’s strides were still easy, as if he could run all day.

Rhiain put on a brief burst of speed, clearing a stream with one leap, as Dyl and Sara came even with her. Side by side, the wolf and cat broke free of the pine trees into a high meadow. Six deer bounded away, startled. Rhiain veered left to chase them, but soon fell back. Then it was just Dyl and Sara running through a field of purple flowers beneath a huge blue sky.

After he’d clearly won, Dyl slowed. “I suppose we should let the others catch up.”

Sara stifled a protest, shading her eyes and looking back.

Olwydd lagged behind the farthest, though perhaps that was simply because Lance was the heaviest of the three riders. And the worst. He made no effort to move with Olwydd. Sara winced. The ride must be bone-jarring.

Julen’s mouth was pursed, but his body flowed up and down with his usual effortless grace. His father, Sara remembered, had been in the cavalry. He and Rhiain caught up within moments.

Lance waved, but Olwydd didn’t stop when he drew even, charging past as if they didn’t exist.

Dyl good-naturedly fell in behind.

“Olwydd seems angry,” Sara ventured.

“Olwydd is always angry.”

“Why didn’t you want me to ride with him?”

Dyl kept silent for three strides. “Olwydd fashioned himself out of hate. His blood yearns for battle. A part of him wants war so there will be an enemy he can rend and tear. Having you on his back would be too much temptation.”

Sara shivered. Yes, it would be all too easy for Olwydd to throw her and then claim she fell and broke her neck.

Dyl didn’t pursue the subject. He snatched a mouthful of purple flowers as they ran and ate them. “Want some?” he asked Sara.

The sight of a wolf with flowers sticking out of his mouth charmed Sara. “Can people eat them?”

“Of course. They’re amarasave.”

Sara bent and snatched up several blossoms. She couldn’t recall ever seeing such a flower in Temboria: four violet petals formed a star shape. “I’ve never had amarasave before. Do I eat the flowers or the stems?”

Dyl paused to swallow. “The whole plant is edible— flowers, leaves, stem, and I’ve even eaten the root boiled up in winter—but the flowers taste the best. Well, what can you expect? Amara was a girl.”

It took Sara several moments to make the connection—Amara, amarasave—and then she quietly dropped the flowers she’d picked, uneaten. “You mean someone transformed themselves into a flower, the same way you changed into a wolf?” she asked cautiously.

Dyl turned his head, his black eyes curious. “I suppose you wouldn’t know the story. You don’t even have Grandfather trees in the Republic. Yes, Amara was a girl, many, many years ago. Before even the Red Saints, I think.”

Before the mountains? That didn’t make sense. Sara frowned, but didn’t interrupt.

“Kandrith wasn’t a country then,” Dyl continued, “just a hideout for escaped slaves. Her family was trying to scratch out a living farming, but the soil here is rocky. Well, otherwise some lordling would have claimed it, wouldn’t he, and the escaped slaves would have had to go elsewhere. Anyway, their first year the crops failed, and the winter saw two of her family dead. The next year, Amara decided she wasn’t going to let her little brother starve too. She made her sacrifice and became a crop that could grow in Kandrith’s soil and be eaten in winter. She saved her family, and in the years that followed, the plant spread until Amara had saved everyone else.”

Sacrifice.
Blood stained the very word. Before Primus Tembor founded the Republic, some priests had practiced human sacrifice. Did Kandrith tolerate such dark rituals?

She wanted to ask more questions, hundreds of them, about Amara and Grandfather trees and the shandies, but Lance’s warning—
it isn’t polite to talk about it
—and Dyl’s large teeth made her cautious.

Instead of asking directly how Dyl had come to be a wolf, she asked him if she should worry about Rhiain’s interest in Julen.

He snorted in amusement. “I think it’s harmless. Rhiain transformed as a child. She’s only about sixteen now and in the throes of her first crush. All she wants is his attention. She’s not looking for a mate,” Dyl had assured her. “She doesn’t have that scent.”