P. Hodgell - The Sea of Time

Timmon nudged his horse closer.

“You should be riding that precious rathorn of yours, Jamethiel, not a Whinno-hir.”

Jame made a face. Timmon kept teasing her with her true name until she almost wished that she hadn’t revealed it. On the other hand, while other Highborn had been horrified, Timmon seemed merely amused that she had such a dire namesake, commenting at the time, “Oh, well, that explains everything.”

She stroked Bel-tairi’s silken neck. “True, Bel is an easier ride, but we’re supposed to perforate, not decapitate. Besides, Death’s-head is off hunting.”

“You did warn him about the local livestock, I hope.”

“He never preyed on the herds near Tentir, and he prefers his chickens roasted, not raw.”

Timmon’s mount sidled and tossed its head, sensing his mood.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Everything. Look, they’re ready.”

The handlers had unleashed their charges and were backing away. Behind the ten-commands was a pile of bruised fruit. The tortoises started for it, necks outstretched, snapping at each other to gain room.

“Go!” said the sargent in charge of the exercise.

A Knorth and an Ardeth spurred forward. They wove through the oncoming mass, one shooting to the right, the other to the left. With both hands occupied, they had to steer with their knees, making this also a test of horsemanship. The Knorth, Niall, scored two hits; the Ardeth, three.

“Beginner’s luck,” said Jame. “Wait until Erim’s turn.” She glanced sideways at the Ardeth Lordan, whose horse was again fidgeting. “Are you going to tell me?”

“You’ll laugh. No one here takes me seriously.”

Jame thought about that. All his life, Timmon had tried to measure up to the hero that he had believed his father Pereden to be. Peri had been her brother’s second-in-command and then leader of the Southern Host, but he had never been a randon. His reckless sense of entitlement had led him to march the Host into disastrous battle against the Waster Horde before he had betrayed it altogether. Timmon had only recently learned about the latter, to his chagrin. Now he was among randon who had served under his father and knew his fickle nature only too well, measured by the lives he had squandered.

Timmon hadn’t helped the situation by his lackadaisical attitude at Tentir. Not that he had done badly there, but he had used his Shanir charm to slip out of any duty that didn’t interest him. People had noticed.

The trick now was to hit fresh straw targets, preferably in the head or breast. The cadets were also being timed: twenty seconds to loose three arrows each. Distracted by the pound of oncoming hooves, the tortoises began to scatter. The horses swerved around them.

Jame cheered a hit on Damson’s part and groaned when she missed the next two.

Damson worried her. The Kendar girl could shift things in people’s heads, in one case having caused the cadet Vant to lose his balance and fall into the firepit where he had burned to death—all because he had teased her about her weight. Worse, the memory of her deed gave her pleasure. On the whole, she seemed to have no inborn sense of honor at all. If she passed her second year of randon training, she would become at least a five-commander, responsible for other lives. At the moment, she was Jame’s responsibility, and Jame didn’t know what to do about her.

G’ah, think of that later.

“I suppose you’ll have to prove yourself,” she said to Timmon, returning to his problem.

“How?”

“Take your duties seriously, for one thing. No more slithering out of things.”

Timmon grimaced. The habits of a pampered lifetime were proving hard to break.

A thought struck her. “D’you know the names of all your cadets?”

“I know my own ten-command,” he said defensively.

“And the rest of the second-years, not to mention the third-years and randon?”

“Now, be fair. There are over one hundred and forty second-years alone here at Kothifir.”

“And only eighty Knorth,” said Jame, proud that she had only lost one to the last cull compared to the Ardeth’s twenty. “But I know them all, and am learning the rest. Tori remembers every Kendar sworn to our house, alive or dead.”

Timmon gave her a sidelong, defiant glower. “All two thousand of them, among the living alone? I heard that he forgot some.”

“Only one. A Kendar named Mullen, who killed himself to make sure that Tori would remember him forever. He hasn’t forgotten anyone since.” As far as she knew, and as she devoutly hoped. Kindrie’s genealogical chart should come in handy on Autumn’s Eve, if Tori chose to avail himself of it. “The point is, would you fight, perhaps die, for a leader who didn’t know who you were?”

Timmon wriggled.

It was a telling point. Second-years faced no more official culls, which wasn’t to say that a wayward cadet might not be sent home in disgrace. On the other hand, at the end of the year, each house’s cadets voted on whom they would most willingly follow into battle. It would be highly embarrassing for a lordan to lose that ballot.

“For that matter,” said Timmon, rallying, “consider all the time you spent away from Tentir playing with your Merikit friends. That caused talk too, and so are your little visits to Kothifir now.”

Jame reflected ruefully that that was true. She had never explained her peculiar role in Merikit society as the Earth Wife’s Favorite, not that most Kencyr would have understood if she had tried, except perhaps for Sheth Sharp-tongue. More than ever, she appreciated the Commandant’s understanding, although she also worried about what it might have cost him to let her graduate after so many excuses not to.

And now she was slipping away to Kothifir whenever she could, drawn by the lure of the city. Just that morning she had spent an interesting hour in Gaudaric’s tower workshop watching him mold boiled leather to the chest of a stoic client. Rhi-sar hide worked best for such purposes, but it was the hardest to obtain, second only to rathorn ivory. Gaudaric was a trifle vague on where it came from, except that patrols into the Wastes sometimes brought it back. Modern rhi-sar came in small skins and strips. Antique rhi-sar hides were much larger and rarer. Her brother’s full suit of hardened rhi-sar leather was probably the most valuable thing he owned, next to his sword, Kin-Slayer, and the Kenthiar collar.

Meanwhile, several more pairs of archers had made their runs. An Ardeth was loudly booed for grazing a tortoise’s neck. Then it was Erim’s turn. The stocky Kendar rode like a sack of turnips, but he had never been known to miss his mark, nor did he this time. The Knorth cheered, then groaned as his horse tripped on its way to the finish line and he tumbled off.

“Penalty, two shots,” announced the sargent.

“Our turn,” said Timmon, setting an arrow.

The two lordan came last. Being Highborn, they had the lightest bows but also the hardest run. By now, the tortoises had scattered all over the field, lumbering at the pace of a fast-walking man but lurching too so that the targets mounted on their backs swung wildly from side to side. Some of the manikins bristled with arrows. Jame swerved to the left after one so far unscathed, and nearly fell off as Bel stopped short to avoid another of the hulking behemoths. They were surrounded. Leathery heads snaked out and jaws snapped at the Whinno-hir’s slender legs. Bel gathered herself and jumped neatly from a standstill over the nearest broad back, knocking off its burden.

“You’re supposed to shoot it, not run over it!” shouted the sargent.

Jame tapped Bel’s sides with her heels and they dashed after the farthest pair of reptiles. One arrow went through a straw chest. Set, nock, draw, release. A miss. Timmon had already shot his three bolts with two hits and was racing toward the finish line. Jame twisted around on Bel’s back and shot almost at random. Her arrow passed straight through a nearby manikin and lodged in another farther off.