Honor's Paradox-ARC (36 page)

The noise spread, thunderous, and Death’s-head brandished his horns at it. His defiant scream soared about the tumult, cutting it short.

In the startled silence that followed, Gorbel began to clap, slowly, in the heavy, measured way with which he had greeted her win at the Senethar so many months ago. The crowd picked up the beat.

The colt shook his head and moved forward along the rail. His hooves struck hard earth in time to the clapping. It picked up and he began to prance. The riders turned with him, their horses’ eyes rolling white as they caught the rathorn’s scent. Cadets fell back from the rail as he passed in a shimmer of white silk and ivory.

“Show-off,” Jame muttered at him.

They regained their original position in front of the hall door and swung about to face their opponents.

Silence fell again, except for Death’s-head pawing the ground.

“Have you words for me?” Jame asked Gorbel, following the formal pattern.

“I challenge you as the Knorth Lordan to prove your worthiness of that title.”

“I accept your challenge.”

Death’s-head snorted.
Enough
. He laid back his ears and charged, nearly leaving Jame astride thin air.

One of the horses, a piebald, turned and bolted with a squeal, the rathorn roaring on his heels. Confronted with the rail, he vaulted over it into the packed ranks of cadets, there shedding his rider. Then, confused, he plunged through the front door into the Caineron barracks. Cadets who had lined the windows to watch jumped out of them. Crashes and shouts came from within.

The colt was already swerving away. Jame swayed perilously off balance in the saddle, nearly over the rail herself with all her weight on the outer stirrup, before regaining her seat.

They were charging back toward the riders still clustered in the middle of the square. This time three broke ranks and ran, screaming, before them. Death’s-head thundered in pursuit. The Caineron cadets sawed on their reins, turning their mounts’ foaming muzzles to the sky, but nothing would stop them. So many would smash the entire rail flat, never mind the cadets who lined it.

“Hall, there. Hall!” Jame shouted, echoed by Gorbel.

The door opened. Two horses bolted through, carrying their hapless riders with them, but the third was shouldered aside and crashed through the barrier near the Brandan quarters, into the passageway that led to the southern door. His rider, scraped off against he wall, lay blinking at his departure.

It had taken the rathorn less than two minutes to clear the square of his most skittish opponents. That left Gorbel himself, his five-commander Obidin, Higbert, and Fash.

At a hoarse cry from their leader, the four charged. Death’s-head leaped to meet them, swerving at the last moment to pass between Fash and Higbert. On her left, Fash dealt Jame’s buckler a blow that drove it back to her shoulder. On her right, Higbert hacked at her sword and sent it flying. Simultaneously, the colt slashed at Higbert’s girth. Then they were past. Higbert slowly toppled over, saddle and all. Fash screened him as he dashed to the rail and dived over it. His horse plunged out of the square through the hall door.

That ended the second round, Jame thought, as the rathorn trotted around the perimeter, seeking his next prey. So far, their sheer number had prevented Gorbel or Obidin from striking a blow. Nonetheless, the loss of her sword was almost a relief as it allowed her to grip the colt’s roached-up mane for balance. She had already grasped that her only chance for survival was to stay on the rathorn, and that she could do precious little to direct him now that his blood was up.

They would try to catch her between them again—or would they?

Here came Fash, gashing his mount’s sides with his spurs, riding high in the saddle with sword upraised. The raw hate in his face struck her like a physical blow. She didn’t like the man, but neither did she loathe him as much as he apparently did her.

Vant’s features flashed before her, just before the Dark Judge had ripped off his head. He too had seen her as an abomination and as a personal insult. What about her inspired such malice? Everything she did seemed to slap someone in the face.

Philosophize later,
she thought, gripping the colt’s mane.

Fash’s sword rang on her buckler, numbing her arm to the shoulder. Their mounts wheeled, head to tail, as he battered down her defense. Just before it fell, the rathorn rammed his nasal tusk into the horse’s belly and wrenched up, disemboweling him. The animal squealed, stumbled over the descending loops of his own intestines, and went down. Fash sprang clear. Death’s-head knocked him off his feet, then went after him as he rolled on the ground as if after a snake, pounce and strike, pounce and strike.

The crowd roared.

There was blood in the rathorn’s mouth. Jame could taste it and the savagery that it unleashed in his veins, in her own. Ah, the intoxication of one’s strength, of one’s ability to kill and kill and kill . . .

Beast of madness, here is your heart.

In that jolting ride, Jame had bitten her own tongue, her blood mixing with the phantom taste of his. She fought to free her mind of that red haze, of that raging blood lust.

Obidin unintentionally aided her by riding up behind. Death’s-head kicked the five-commander’s mount in the face, dropping him. Fash used the momentary distraction to gather himself and leap, trying to pull her out of the saddle. She dealt him a stunning blow with her buckler, He fell away and rolled under the rail to safety.

That left only Gorbel.

Forewarned, the Caineron had chosen a steady gray charger well used to combat, but the smell of blood had roused him too. Both stallions reared up, striking out with their fore hooves. The gray’s iron-shod foot opened a gash on the rathorn’s unarmored shoulder. Gorbel clouted his mount on the head to bring him down. The beasts circled each other, ears back, snapping, while Gorbel smashed at Jame shield to shield. He got the edge of his buckler hooked under hers and wrenched it away. For a moment she stared into his glowering, sweat-streaked face, seeing his raised sword out of the corner of her eye.

In the audience, Damson leaned forward over the rail.

“Damson,
no!
”

The gray horse shied away from the power in Jame’s voice, throwing Gorbel off balance.

The colt’s head snaked out and he sank his fangs into the gray’s throat. The gray squealed and tried to tear free, but he was caught as in a lion’s grip and his blood poured out. The rathorn jammed his shoulder into the horse, driving him first to his knees, then to the ground. Gorbel went down with him and was pinned.

The horse rolled frantically, as if trying to escape its own death. Gorbel gave a grunt that, for anyone else, would have been a scream. His leg audibly snapped. The dying horse continued to thrash.

Jame swung down from Death’s-head and darted to the Caineron’s side.

“Help me!” she called over her shoulder as she tried to pull him free.

“I think not,” said Fash, putting his knife to her throat. Then he stiffened and crumpled as a sword’s pommel clipped him over the ear.

“I think so,” said Obidin, sheathing his blade.

Between them, they dragged Gorbel clear, trailing his mangled leg. Ragged bone had ripped through his trousers at the thigh. Blood spurted. Obidin wrenched off his scarf to use as a tourniquet. It was too short. Jame gave him her own.

“Here, now.”

The college surgeon pushed them aside and applied pressure to the torn femoral artery.

Death’s-head was watching them curiously, his blood lust forgotten. The horse-master gripped his bridle and tugged him away. They left by the hall door, the rathorn still craning to look back over his shoulder.

Gorbel was carried out and so was the still-unconscious Fash.

Jame turned to find herself looking up into the Commandant’s dark face.

“I lost my weapon, Ran,” she said, stupidly.

He smiled. “No, you didn’t, although one can hardly say that you kept it very well under control.”

He looked around at the dead horses and at Obidin’s, which was staggering to its feet with what appeared to be a broken jaw, at the shattered rail and at the Caineron quarters which still rang with shouts and frantic hooves. The piebald had apparently achieved the second floor and was refusing to come down.

“The college reduced to rubble . . .” murmured the Commandant.

“And me standing in the middle of it, looking apologetic. I know. Sorry, Ran.”

He brushed this off. “It could be worse. At least the buildings are intact. Mostly. Ah, quite a day it’s been. I have something for you, Lordan.”

He dipped long fingers into a leather sack and drew out a white pebble.

“This is for Bear.”

And another. “This is for the Winter War.”

And another. “This is for not utterly destroying Tentir, although you did try your best.”

Jame stared at the three white stones in her cupped hands. That made it five to four. She had passed the college.

“Commandant, senethari, are you sure?”

“If you mean, how will my lord like it, let me worry about that. Now, wave to your friends like a good child.”

Jame gave a whoop of laughter and brandished the pebbles in her fist over her head. The Knorth cadets realized first what they were and what they meant. In the front row, Rue bounced up and down cheering. Timmon started off the Ardeth, Obidin the Caineron, followed by the other houses one by one including even a weak chorus from the Randir until the square rang with jubilant cries.

II

While the square was being cleared, cleaned, and prepared for the evening’s feast, the Commandant visited the infirmary to make sure that his lord’s heir would recover.

“Yes,” the surgeon reported, “although only thanks to the quick action of bystanders.”

Then he retired to his quarters.

Someone stood in the shadows by the balcony of the Map Room, looking down. A white shape at his feet raised its head and greeted the Commandant with the brief wave of a tail.

“You saw, my lord?”

“The whole bloody shambles.”

“Granted, it got messy, but at eight to one the lordan needed an edge.”

The other gave a sharp laugh. “How many edges does a rathorn have? Where did she get that creature and why wasn’t I told about it?”

“No one knew, or perhaps only a few. I see that I must speak to my horse-master. Gorbel also didn’t seem surprised.”

“She would tell a Caineron but not me?”

“They have the Tentir bond, which is not a bad thing. I am pleased with most of my cadets this season. You should be too.”

The Highlord moved out of the shadows. “I still mean to do it, Sheth. For my own peace of mind. Do you advise me not to?”

“I would say that it is unnecessary for her, but perhaps vital for you. She is your heir. You must learn to trust her.”

“This, from a Caineron?”

“This, from the Commandant of Tentir.”

He watched Torisen pace restlessly. Truly, he had the dark, Knorth glamour that made him a presence even in the room’s growing dusk. Sometimes it was hard to remember that, despite the white in his hair, he was still a very young man—for the long-lived Highborn, not much older than the cadets setting up tables in the square below. Ah, if only Tentir had had his training, not that the randon of the Southern Host had done badly with him. But there was no bond.

“As far as the randon are concerned, she has proved herself. If you challenge her again, openly, it will seem that you trust neither her nor us.”

Torisen ran a scarred hand through his hair. “It isn’t that, exactly. Before today, I had only seen her fight once, at the High Council presentation, and that was as odd a combat in its way as this one. Kothifir is dangerous, especially now. Should I risk half of my surviving blood-kin there?”

The Commandant frowned. Half?

“Very well,” he said, after a pause. “Test her you shall. Before dinner. Give her at least until then to enjoy her victory.”

III

The Knorth barracks were chaos. Only now did Jame realize how much her absence the previous day had disconcerted everyone. Some really must have thought that her nerve had failed and that she had run away.

“You see?” crowed Dar. “You
see?
”

Jame met Brier Iron-thorn’s jade green eyes over the throng. The Kendar gave her a small, stiff nod. Perhaps, finally, she had proved herself to the critic whose opinion she valued the most, short of the Commandant’s.

Short even of Torisen’s?

How would her brother react to this success for which he had never planned?

Ah, but it was sweet to accept the congratulations of her peers, to know that they accepted her at last. She had never before had a real home. Now they were welcoming her into one bound not by walls but by fellowship. However, it was still hers to lose. Next came Kothifir the Cruel, an unknown entity, but she shoved aside this doubt. Whatever happened, they would face it together, united in their strength as much as in their ignorance.

She saw Damson standing quietly nearby with a little smirk on her round face.

“You were going to make the gray stumble,” Jame said, in sudden enlightenment.

Damson shrugged. “I couldn’t get into the Caineron’s mind for some reason, but his horse . . . Was that wrong?”

How could Jame say “No” when that moment off balance had probably saved her life? Still, “In the hills, the Dark Judge mentioned you by name. He knows what you did to Vant and will be watching you now. Be careful.”

“Oh,” said Damson, for the first time looking alarmed.

“I should hope so,” said Jame.

Rue pushed through the crowd carrying something. White cloth shimmered in her arms, every inch of it patterned with swirls of cream-colored embroidery. It was a coat, a beautiful coat.

“See?” said Rue. “Treasure from the Wastes it may be, but I figured that enough stitches would anchor it in this world. Everyone added their own with silk thread unraveled from one of your uncle’s shirts. Trust me: we washed it half to pieces first. It’s like our house banner, but special to our class.”