Patricia Briggs: Dragon Bones

I could have left it there. He'd understood the implications well enough, but I needed him. My uncle would have two years to win my people. I would have to make sure that when the time came, Hurog's people would listen to me and not my uncle. For that, I needed Penrod to know that I might be more than they'd given me credit for, so I winked at him.

Penrod stiffened even further, shocked into turning from the horse to stare at me for a moment. It must be hard to change one's opinion of someone so quickly, but he had the added incentive of the carrot I offered him. He looked at the dark horse again.

"I'll see that he's put out in the paddock because you think that, like you, he doesn't like small, enclosed places." Underneath Penrod's bland voice vibrated a taut, fierce joy.

"Dark," I muttered. "Don't like dark."

"Right," he said with a small smile.

Once he followed my orders to disobey my uncle, he was mine. With him would come the rest of the stablemen. It would mean that eventually everyone would know I was not so stupid, but I wasn't sure stupidity was still in my best interest. The playing field was changing.

I frowned at my father's horse. "Stygian's too hard to say." There was a flower in one of Mother's gardens that was about the same color as Stygian. I had to wait a while longer until my lips quit trying to smile at the thought of what my father would have said before I spoke.

"I'll call him Pansy," I said blandly.

Ciarra pulled away and turned to face me, her expression so incredulous it needed no words.

"Mother has a flower in her garden his color. I asked her what it was," I explained.

"Pansy," said Penrod stiffly, doubtless thinking about how it would look on a pedigree. Then, abruptly, he smiled. He nodded his head at the three tense-faced stablemen holding the stallion. "Hard to be scared of something named Pansy."

I nodded abruptly and called to the grooms, "Put him in the round corral, then take off the halter." I turned to Penrod. "I need a long whip, like the ones we use to train the youngsters. And I need five or six copper pots. You can send someone to the kitchens. And an empty grain sack."

I'd had a long time to think about what to do about Stygian…Pansy. No sense waiting until my father was cold to steal his horse. Some dark emotion twisted my mouth before I could banish it. I would not grieve for my father. I would not. Instead, I would spend the afternoon making his horse mine.

In the training ring, Stygian stayed as far away from me as he could, which was fine with me for now. Four years wasn't to be undone in an afternoon—or a dozen afternoons. But I might make headway if I was lucky.

I held the sack of pots in one hand, careful that they made no noise. With my other hand I held a whip twice as long as I was tall. Half the length was stick from which the whipcord dangled.

"Let's go," I said without undue emphasis once I was in the center of the ring. At the same time, I shook out the whip, and the stallion took off at a dead run after aiming a kick somewhere in my general direction.

I let him run a dozen times around the smallish pen. He thought he knew what this was about. All my father's horses started in this ring to learn simple commands like walk and whoa. But I'd brought him here to learn a different lesson, I hoped.

He started to slow to a canter, more because it was hard for a horse with his stride to gallop around such a small enclosure than because he was tiring.

"Let's go," I said again and waved the whip in his face. A green horse would have turned around and run the other way, but he'd learned too much about whips. He flattened his ears and reared at me; then, in case I didn't get the message, he charged.

I could have hit him with the whip and driven him off, but he already knew that whips hurt. It wouldn't have taught him anything. Instead, I shook the bag of cooking pots hard, yelling and stepping toward him aggressively, banging on the bag with the hard end of the whip. It sounded like the kitchen after someone vexed the cook.

The noise was too much for Stygian. He spun on his hindquarters and darted in the other direction as if a pack of wolves were on his tail, crow-hopping around the circles his size wouldn't let him negotiate smoothly. By the fourth time I turned him, his chest and flanks were covered in foam. At last he dropped his head and looked at me, not challenging, but asking for permission to stop.

I pulled the whip up and said, "Whoa."

He stopped as he'd been trained, but his hindquarters angled toward me, so I shook the whip and sent him running again. I waited until he carried his head low once more. This time when he stopped, he faced me. We'd both had enough.

"Good lad," I said, setting the whip and the bag down. I walked up to him and patted his wet shoulder gently. "We'll turn you into a Pansy, yet, eh?"

His whole body heaved with the effort of breathing; he was too tired and disheartened to care who I was. Dull-eyed, he watched me, not expecting much, I thought. It was fear, not anger, that made him dangerous. I doubted he'd ever be a fit mount for anyone else, but he'd trust me, eventually.

I put a normal halter on him, not his usual one. It had taken a long time to wear him down to this point, but I doubted anyone would have to worry about his aggressiveness for a few hours yet. Tomorrow would be a better gauge of the progress we'd made. I hadn't hurt him once. He'd remember that long after the effects of his running were gone.

His ears twitched. I turned and found the Brat standing right next to me. She knew better than to approach a horse like Stygian without a good reason, so I wasn't surprised to see my uncle standing by the fence. He scared her, mostly, as far as I knew, because he was the twins' father and our father's brother.

It took a heavy tug on the lead rope to get the stallion to move—something I'd work on later. First things first. Penrod took him from me as soon as we'd cleared the gate while another groom ran into the ring to gather pots and whip.

"We've set the funeral for late tomorrow afternoon," said my uncle, approaching me. "It's too warm to wait longer, though it means your aunt cannot make it here in time."

I looked at him, then allowed my face to clear with comprehension. Ah , he would think (I hoped), the moron remembers his father died today . I nodded.

He waited, clearly hoping for some further response. "I see you're not taking Penrod's advice. I talked to him after the Hurogmeten died. That beast needs to be put down."

Fat lot you know , I thought.

"He's pretty," I said. "Hot blood and small spaces. Big things like him and me need space." I thought about the tunnel leading to the dragon bone cave and the raw places on my shoulders ached in response. "Lots of space."

"He killed your father, Ward. He's dangerous."

I looked at him. "If he couldn't control him, he shouldn't have ridden him." It was father's favorite axiom with variants like, "If he couldn't beat him, he shouldn't have started the fight."

Duraugh turned as if to go but twisted abruptly and closed in until we were face-to-face.

"Ward," he said intently, "your mother may be Tallvenish, but you are born and bred Shavigman. You know that our land is ruled by magic. I've fought skellet in the high reaches—"

Ciarra darted behind me at the mention of the unquiet dead.

"— and I've seen a village the Nightwalkers destroyed." Duraugh waved a hand vaguely southward. "The Tallvenish laugh at our fear of curses, but you aren't a flatlander, are you?"

I didn't know what he was getting at, but I played along. Ducking my head awkwardly so I could meet his eyes, I whispered, "We have a curse."

And an embarrassingly poor curse it was, too. No verse, no obscure references, just something that looked as though a group of adolescent boys had scratched it into a stone wall. It wouldn't have been so bad if the wall hadn't been in the great hall. The only reason visitors didn't laugh when they saw it was that it was written in old-style runes that few people could decipher. "Do you know what it is?"