Мерседес Лэки - Passages

Walking—that was no problem. She managed to center all four arrows in their respective targets. Trotting, however—that was another question altogether. Hellsbane was a superbly trained Shin’a’in warsteed, but that did not mean she had a smooth trot. Kero considered herself lucky she got arrows in the target circles at all. The canter was a relief after that. The gallop had its own challenge of getting four arrows off in such rapid succession that she had no time between them.

At least they all hit. She rode Hellsbane up to the targets and collected her arrows, then gathered up the reins and returned to the recruiting sergeant, whose face was utterly unreadable.

By this time she had an audience, which was to be expected. While mercs in winter quarters would be expected to keep in training, that did not mean they spent all day training. Mercs were no different from anyone else, really; they’d train just as much as they had to, and laze about as much as they thought they could get away with. Watching a potential new recruit get put through her paces was as good an excuse as any to slough off.

“Do the same with them javelins I see ye got,” was all he said. So Kero repeated the exercise, with the only difference being that since she only had eight of the javelins, she had to pause between the trot and the canter to retrieve her weapons. She took the opportunity to examine her watchers out of the corner of her eye.

They didn’t appear impressed, but they didn’t appear un impressed either. Good. Not that she was doing any less than her best! These were supposed to be some of the best fighters in the Mercenary Guild, and if she could impress them—that would not be a good omen for the quality of Lerryn’s people. Tarma hadn’t just sent her out to earn her living. Tarma had sent her out to keep learning. If the reactions of the Skybolts lounging behind the recruiting sergeant were anything to go on, skillwise, she’d probably be just about their average. Which should be good enough to get her in and still give her plenty of people she could learn from.

When she finished retrieving her javelins the second time, the sergeant directed her to go up against the training dummy for mounted fighting. “I’ll call the shot, you take it,” he told her. This was a comfortable drill, familiar, enlivened only by the fact that this dummy was on a pivot, and when you hit the arm or shield, the thing would spin, potentially cracking you in the head with one of its arms as it did so. This wasn’t the sort of dummy she’d trained on, so it took a couple awkward ducks out of the way before she figured out that an un-called block was expected of you.

This was probably as much of a test of Hellsbane as it was of her; a recruit could, potentially, turn up with a green horse that would be no damn good in the field without a lot of extra work between now and spring. A warhorse had to endure a lot, and do so as calmly as her rider.

Most fighting horses were mares or geldings. Bardic songs about heroes on “their mighty stallions ” were full of crap. No one with sense was going to go into battle on something that would turn unreliable at the first whiff of a mare in season.

Her guess was affirmed when the next thing the sergeant asked for was to “put your mare through her paces.”

So she had Hellsbane wheel on her heels sunwise and widdershins, rear and lash out with her fore hooves, kick back low, kick back higher, gallop in tight circles, then in tight eights, rear and pivot at the same time, and finally jump nearly vertically from a standing start and lash out with her hind hooves at the top of the jump.

All the while she was sticking to Hellsbane’s back like a burr.

Now the sergeant was impressed. As well he should be. I’ll bet there isn’t a horse in the Skybolts that can match Hellsbane.

When she was done, Hellsbane had barely broken a light sweat. The sergeant came up to her stirrup and looked up at her.

“Any experience fightin’ with a unit?” he asked.

“No, Sergeant, sir,” she said, shaking her head. He tsk’ d, but with a faint smile. “Well, that’s easily remedied with drillin’. Yer in, gur-ril.” He looked over at the spectators and beckoned to a dark-skinned, black-haired woman with shoulders many men would envy. Kero couldn’t tell if there were muscles to match those shoulders under all the layers of wrappings she wore, but there probably were. “Lidreth! I’m assignin’ Kay Taldress to you! Get her squared away.”

The woman snapped to attention—not a crisp sort of “attention,” like you’d find in, say, the Rethwellan army, but brisk and efficient. “Aye, Sarge,” she said, and crooked a finger at Kero. “With me, recruit.”

Kero dismounted and followed her, leading Hellsbane across the barren practice grounds toward the stable. Lidreth was not the talkative sort, it seemed, and was disinclined to point out the obvious—like which buildings were which.

Kero approved of the stables as soon as she entered the door. There weren’t a lot of windows open, but the predominant smell was straw, not dung or urine. The horses all had loose-boxes, and all the beasts that she could see were warmly blanketed against the cold. Lidreth took her to an empty stall about the middle of the back row and indicated with a nod that this was where Hellsbane should go. It was already furnished with a water bucket and a thick layer of straw. Under Lidreth’s gimlet eye, Kero rid Hellsbane of her tack and the saddlepacks, brushed her down, blanketed her, and got her food and water from the common stores.

She was just finishing the job when someone—had he been one of the lurkers?—came nosing up to the stall. He was almost exactly Kero’s height, knotty and balding and missing a couple of teeth, which was scarcely unusual in a merc. He surveyed Hellsbane with the air of someone who thought he knew everything about horseflesh and guffawed. Kero stepped outside the stall to put herself between him and the gate at the entrance.

“What kinda mule did ye come in here with, gir-rul?” he chortled, reaching over the wall of the stall toward Hellsbane, who flattened her ears with a warning snort.

“Don’t touch my horse,” Kero replied, shortly.

The man paid no attention and reached for Hellsbane’s halter.

Faster than anyone other than Kero would have believed, Hellsbane snaked her head around, extended her neck, and snapped—not at the man’s outstretched hand but at his face peering over the wall of the stall. Her teeth clicked together an inch from his startled eyes.

With a muffled curse, he pulled his hand back in a fist, clearly prepared to clip her across the nose. Kero’s temper flared.

But he wasn’t watching Kero, who grabbed his wrist just as he swung, redirected the motion and pulled, sending him tumbling over his own hand and landing on his back on the floor of the stable.

Breath driven out of him, he could only stare up at her.

“I said, don’t touch my horse,” Kero repeated, fighting down anger. “She’s war-trained. And I just saved you from losing your hand. If you’d hit her, that would have been the last time you ever hit anything with that fist.”

“You heard the recruit, Hadrick,” Lidreth drawled, but in a way that made it an order. “Don’t touch her horse. I don’t care if you get mustered out as an amputee, but your squad leader might.” She stared at him as he picked himself up out of the straw. “And a war-trained horse is worth more than you are. If anyone interferes with this beast, I’ll know who to look for.”

“Yessir,” Hadrick replied, and not in a tone that made Kero concerned that he might try to meddle with Hellsbane once she was out of sight. In fact, Hadrick sounded downright contrite.