P. Hodgell - The Sea of Time

Jame told her.

“Truly?” Her eyes widened.

Then she started as the great horn outside Harn’s apartment blared out over the drowsy camp. One by one, the waking compounds added their alerts, the Knorth’s immediately above Jame’s quarters, on the roof. Below, feet hit the floor and cadets scrambled into their clothes. Damson appeared at the door, barefoot with her shirt unlaced. Quill and Niall were behind her.

“What?” she asked, then registered Jame’s presence. “I should have known.”

“Just answer it,” said Jame. “I’ll catch up as soon as I can.”

They turned and ran.

Now, where was . . . oh, there. Gaudaric had delivered the rhi-sar armor as he had promised, in bundles piled at the foot of her bed. Jame tore off the wrappings and arranged the pieces on her blanket over the mound formed by Jorin, who had crawled under the cover and was resolutely ignoring her.

“They’re forming in the inner ward,” Rue reported from the northern balcony, hanging over it to look down. “Here come the other randon in camp. Ran Spare is talking to them. Some are arguing with him—no wonder when, from what you say, we’re outnumbered five to one. But as a Knorth he’s senior to the others.”

The horns stopped, little Coman piping to the very end and finishing with a discordant, excited bleat.

Rue turned back to the room. “What’s that?”

Jame unwrapped a large, round parcel. It was, as she had suspected from its shape, a shield, made of braided rhi-sar leather laced back and forth over fire-hardened ironwood. Another package yielded up barding in the form of a quilted crupper to cover a horse’s flanks. She hadn’t forgotten Death’s-head’s last, unfortunate encounter with the fangs of the black Karnid mares. That left one bundle. Now, what was this?

“Oh,” said Jame, and held up the rathorn ivory vest, which she had last seen on display in Gaudaric’s showroom. Morning light glimmered off its intricate, overlapping plates, each barely two fingers wide, drilled at the top and laced to a sturdy, padded jacket. Its collar was high, its skirt long enough to cover the upper thighs and divided for riding. It shifted in her hands, its scales softly clinking. A note tumbled from its folds.

“I could see that the gorget fretted you,” Gaudaric had written. “Please accept this as a gift from my family and a grateful city.”

“It’s beautiful,” breathed Rue, touching it with a fingertip.

“Yes. It is. And now it has to be useful as well.”

Jame regarded the armor laid out on her bed, trying to remember the arming sequence. One started at the feet.

Ran Spare’s voice echoed below, distorted by stone walls. He was telling the cadets what they faced.

Jame fumbled with the hooks that secured the back- and frontplates of the greaves, then remembered that she hadn’t buckled the heel plates onto the articulated boots. Quick, quick . . .

Next the belt, to which the thigh guards were attached.

“Now what?” Rue indicated the padded gambeson and the equally padded ivory vest.

Should she have put on the former first? Too late now.

“The vest.”

Rue helped her on with it and laced it up the back. Then she dropped the breast- and backplates of the cuirass over Jame’s head. Below, Spare was ordering the cadets to the armory, then to the stables.

. . . arm harnesses, spiked shoulder guards, gauntlets . . .

Jame started to pick up the helmet, then remembered that she needed a weapon. Gaudaric hadn’t sent her a sword because he knew that she already had one. It hung from a hook in its leather sheath in the corner, a nicely balanced, sharp-edged piece of steel with the wavy patterns down its blade of many foldings. Her lack of skill with it was legendary. As the doggerel verse went:

She had never yet managed to hang on to a sword throughout an entire engagement.

Beside it were her scythe-arms, those elegant double-pointed blades that functioned as extensions of her claws. Of the two weapons, Jame much preferred the latter, but they weren’t intended for mounted combat. Reluctantly, she took down the sword and strapped its belt around her waist.

“Here.” She gave Rue the shield and barding to carry, herself taking Death’s-head’s high, heavy saddle and bitless bridle from their racks. “We need to get out the South Gate before the cadets catch up with us.”

Horses neighed in excitement behind them in the ward as they hurried down the deserted street.

Creak, creak, creak went Jame’s leather armor. It might not be as heavy as steel plate, but it certainly was noisy. And stiff. I’m a dragon, not a tortoise, she told herself, beginning to sweat and pant as the saddle’s weight dragged her down and its dangling stirrups tripped her up.

Meanwhile, she called silently to the rathorn, but received only sullen silence in reply. She had visited Death’s-head as often as she could over the past year, but had had little to ask of him even though she sensed that he was growing bored and resentful. Now he was sulking.

Bel-tairi met them beyond the gate, over the bridge. Jame slung the saddle onto the Whinno-hir’s back and tightened the girth as far as it would go but, designed for a much larger barrel, it hung loose. Rue grabbed the right stirrup as Jame swung herself up, then handed her the shield, bridle, and folded crupper while she balanced precariously.

“I don’t think she can carry me too,” the cadet said, stepping back. “You go on.”

Jame looked down at her, remembering how Rue had longed to prove herself to the rest of the Knorth barracks. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. Go.”

She rode across the training field, into the dips and hollows carved by the Amar’s overflow. From ahead of her came the sound of swift water, and of something noisily churning in it. Splashing around a curve, Bel knee-deep in the early spring runoff, she saw the rathorn in the shallows, vigorously rolling in the mud. He regained his feet with a snort and shook himself. His white coat was streaked with muck, his mane and tail tangled. Jame regarded him in dismay.

“Oh, no. Not now.”

She shifted to dismount, and felt the saddle slide sideways under her. There was barely time to kick free her feet before she hit the water. Trinity, but it was cold, even so far from the mountains that had given it birth. She surfaced sputtering to find both rathorn and Whinno-hir watching her. Death’s-head snorted again, as if in scornful laughter. Jame pushed dripping black hair out of her eyes and scowled at him.

“Come here, you.”

At first she thought he was going to sidle away from her, but she must have put more command into her voice than she had thought. He stood, blowing with impatience, as she sluiced water over his shoulders and raked her claws through his unkempt hair. Beyond the ravine, out of sight, horses thundered past, the cadets riding to war. Quick, quick . . .

Death’s-head accepted the saddle, bridle, and crupper with an ill grace, but his ears had twitched at the sound of hooves. Something was afoot, something interesting.

Jame swung up into the high saddle, feeling water drain down inside her armor and run out of the gap at her heels. She had barely gathered the reins when the rathorn was in motion. He trotted up the creek bed with his horn-crowned head held high and his nostrils flaring red, then clambered up its steep bank to the valley floor. The other riders were a cloud of dust to the west. Death’s-head started after them at a canter that quickly grew into a gallop. Jame resisted the urge to clutch his mane, instead tightening her legs around his barrel. At the touch of her heels, he went even faster.