Mary Herbert - Lightning's Daughter

When Gabria told the Hunnuli mare of her idea, Nara agreed. To see your home once more will give you strength, the mare told her. We will go.

They left the next morning in the cold, misty hour of dawn.

Nara cantered east beyond the foothills to the plains and gradually swung north to avoid the Khulinin scouts. By sunrise they were well to the north of Khulinin Held and following the Sweetwater River. Nara settled into an easy, flowing canter that would carry them for hours over the open leagues of grass.

Gabria relaxed on Nara’s broad back. It felt wonderful to be on the plains again, away from the temple, the hills, and the people who would not come near her. Here on the wide, treeless grasslands she could see from horizon to horizon, feel the wind that tugged at her hair, and rejoice in the eternal blue sky that arched over her head. She threw her arms wide and laughed happily at her freedom.

Nara neighed in reply. The black horse stretched out into a gallop, her muscles moving effortlessly as she raced the wind for the sheer joy of running. Her black mane whipped into Gabria’s face. Her hooves pounded the hard ground.

Gabria laughed again. She felt the power of the Hunnuli flow beneath her as quick and hot as the lightning that’ marked the horse’s right shoulder. All at once she was overwhelmed by love, gratitude, and wonder. As long as she had Nara, she knew she would never be alone. She would always have an empathetic companion who would stand by her no matter how often her own people rejected her. She flung her arms around Nara’s neck and pressed her cheek against the soft hair.

The mare slowed to an easy canter. Are you all right, Gabria?

The young woman sat up, smiling, and rubbed the horse’s shoulder. “Stay with me, Nara, and I will be.”

Always, the Hunnuli replied.

Silently they went on. There was no need to say more.

They traveled north for three days through the wide, grassy Valley of the Hornguard. To the east, the snowy peaks of the Darkhorn Mountains towered into the sky, their white mantled heads crowned with clouds and their gray ramparts hidden behind veils of wind and snow. To the west, the smaller range of the Himachal Mountains bordered the valley like an old, crumbled fortress wall. The valley was a fertile, green land where antelope, wild horses, and small game flourished. Both the Geldring and the Dangari hunted in the Hornguard, and, since Gabria had no desire to meet anyone from the clans, she and Nara stayed to the eastern side of the valley among the foothills of the Darkhorns.

To Gabria the journey felt strange, yet half familiar. They were traveling back the way they had come almost a year ago.

The mountains and hills looked much the same: barren, gray-brown with winter, and patched with snow. Only Gabria was different. She felt a lifetime older and wiser; she was no longer a simple, terrified, girl. The realities or war and magic had changed her.

Her problem was that her experiences had not erased her memories. The closer they came to Corin Treld, the more nervous Gabria became. Time and again she remembered that hideous day when she had stumbled into the ruins of her home and found her murdered family. She had thought that she would be calm and able to deal with the memories, but the feelings of terror, grief, and confusion boiled out of her mind like a turbulent flood.

As hard as she could, Gabria fought down the turmoil within her and pushed on, refusing Nara’s suggestion to stop and eat or rest. The Hunnuli was not bothered by the constant traveling, but she grew worried about her rider. Gabria was obviously lost in her own thoughts. She was no longer alert or attentive to her horse and their well being.

On the third day from Khulinin Treld, Nara cantered over a hill and down into a bowl-shaped gully. She paused at the edge of a half-frozen, muddy pool.

Do you remember this place?

Gabria stared down at the dark pool. “Very well. I still have the scars on my hands.” She ran her hand down Nara’s neck. “A small price to pay for the gift of a friend.”

In one motion, they both looked up to the top of a nearby hill where a small cairn of rocks could still be seen on the crest. It was there that Gabria had buried Nara’s first foal.

She had come across the wild Hunnuli trapped in the mud and fighting for her life against a pack of wolves. Gabria had driven off the marauders and spent two days digging out the pregnant mare with her bare hands. She had tried to save the foal, but it had died during birth. She had laid it to rest among the rocks.

Thinking of the foal, Gabria belatedly remembered Nara’s current condition. The mare was almost ten months into her pregnancy. Shamefaced, she ran her hand down Nara’s silken neck. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

Nara nickered. There is no reason to be so.

“Let’s camp here tonight,” the young woman suggested.

The mare tilted her head and looked at Gabria with her wise eye . There are still several hours of daylight left. We could be in Corin Treld by nightfall.

Gabria shook her head. “We need to rest. Besides, I want to face the treld in the light of day.” They found shelter in a shallow overhang in the side of one of the hills. Nara went to graze while Gabria built a small fire, ate her meal, and lay down on her blankets. Darkness came quickly, for the sky was overcast and the air was heavy with the threat of snow. Gabria closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

She was very tired, and she knew tomorrow would be a trying day, but her thoughts could find no rest. Her mind kept returning to the reality of the massacre and the dream-images of her clan’s grave mound. What would she find tomorrow?

Had her family been buried with honor or were the bodies still there, rotting into the grass? She tossed and turned as her imagination envisioned every possibility, then jumbled the imaginings together with the real memories of the carnage.

Phantoms drifted through her mind with half-remembered faces and voices silenced by death.

Outside Gabria’s meager shelter, Nara came to stand against the cliff wall. The horse’s eyes reflected the firelight, glowing like gems against the darkness.

Gabria remembered lying in the dark that night long ago, watching the eyes of the wild, trapped mare and wondering what would become of both herself and the horse. She never imagined the incredible events that were to follow. Now, she and Nara were going back to the place where the chain of events had begun.

Gabria sat up and leaned back against the rock. No, that’s not quite true, she thought. The chain of events led back to Medb and his greed, and even farther back to the generations of clanspeople who had zealously avoided magic. It went back to the destruction of the Sorcerers, to the blossoming of the magical city of Moy Tura, to Matrah who compiled his great tome, to the early magic-wielders who had experimented with magic, and as far back as Valorian, the hero-warrior who had first used magic to defeat the evil gorthlings of Sorh. Gabria was only a small part in a story that actually had begun centuries before and would continue long after she was dead.

The woman laughed. Seen in that perspective, her worries and inner turmoil were merely threads against a vast tapestry of clan history and human events. All of her frightened imaginings would change nothing about the treld or her dead clan. What was done, was done. She would simply have to wait until morning to settle her personal fears. She lay down again, pulled her cloak up to her chin, and let her thoughts relax. This time she drifted off into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

Snow was falling the next morning when Gabria awoke. It was a light, fitful shower that patterned Nara’s dark coat with tiny stars and dusted the ground with powder. The mountains were completely obscured behind a wall of cloud. Gabria shook the snow off her belongings, ate a quick meal, and mounted Nara. They left the gully without a backward glance and trotted slowly north through the swirling snow. Corin Treld was not far by horseback, but Gabria did not want to miss it in the billowing storm.