The Mountain's Call. Caitlin Brennan

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СКАЧАТЬ fed each of them a bit of bread that she had brought from the mess hall. They were pleased to accept tribute, although none of them was hungry.

      Once she had given them their due, she sought out another current, one that led her past the rest of the horses in the stable. None of them was anything but ordinary. She had yet to see any of the white stallions. When she tried to discover where they were, she was gently but firmly turned aside. All in good time, said a voice that was not a voice. She knew somehow that it was one of the stallions.

      The current she followed was leading toward something much more mortal. The stable door opened on a narrow street. At the end of that she turned left into another square than the one she had seen when she first entered the school. This one was empty in the evening light, although she could sense the presence of people behind the blank walls and narrow windows. Behind one of those walls, she found the people she was looking for.

      The hostages reacted variously to her arrival. Donn snarled and went back to his mug of ale. Gavin and Conory grinned and saluted her. The others were asleep in beds much more luxurious than she had been given.

      “He’s in the jakes,” Gavin said before she could ask. He raised his voice in a roar. “Euan! Euan Rohe! Wipe your arse and come out of there. You’ve got company.”

      “No need for that,” she said. Her ears were still ringing from Gavin’s bellow. “I only wanted to see that you were here, and that you were well. And to apologize for—”

      “The magic had you,” Conory said. “We know.” He filled a mug sloppily and held it out. “Here. It’s almost decent, for imperial horse-piss.”

      Valeria drank a sip to be polite, but then she excused herself. This was not a night to spend drinking with the Caletanni. She needed her head in one piece for whatever would happen in the morning.

      She took a different and somewhat roundabout way back. The sun was setting and the shadows were long. The school was much larger than she would have thought, as large as the town of Mallia, where she had joined the caravan. Now and then she saw people intent on errands of their own, but none of them spoke to her. They all seemed to be servants, or else everyone here wore the same plain clothes. She had yet to see anyone but Andres whom she would have recognized as a rider.

      Euan caught up with her on the edge of the square with the fountain, directly inside the gate. She felt him before she saw or heard him. It was like a storm coming, a presence so strong that it almost frightened her. He had no magic except the power to lead men, but that was enough.

      She could have escaped before he found her. She stopped instead and waited beside the fountain, while the sunset stained the sky with blood and gold.

      Her eyes were full of it when she lowered them to meet his. He seemed taken aback. The magic must be running strong in her, for him to see it.

      He was too proud to say anything about it. Instead he said, “You didn’t stay.”

      “I didn’t mean to be rude,” she said. “I’m not supposed to be out.”

      “Neither am I,” he said with a hint of his usual humor. “Our test is to stay put until called for.”

      “I’m sure they won’t cast you out for failing it.”

      She saw the gleam of teeth under the red mustache. It was hard sometimes to tell whether he was smiling or snarling. At the moment it seemed to be a bit of both. “No, they’re saddled with us until the emperor tells them to let us go.”

      “I didn’t know they answered to him,” she said.

      “Sometimes they do.” He seemed to realize he was looming over her. He sat on the fountain’s rim, not too close to her. “Now tell me why you really came to find me.”

      “That was why. And,” she added, “because I couldn’t sleep, and it was an excuse to go prowling.”

      That was certainly a smile. “Now that I can believe. What will you do when you’re a rider? The discipline’s hard, I hear. It’s like being a priest.”

      “Riders ride,” she said. “That’s what they are.”

      “Any time they want?”

      “Often enough,” she said.

      “Well then,” said Euan, “when you pass all the tests, promise you’ll come once in a while to rescue me. I’m no kind of rider. They’ll have me hauling manure to make me useful.”

      “When I pass the tests,” she said. The evening air was chill, but that was not why she shivered. “If you have any luck to offer, I’ll take it.”

      “I make my own luck,” said Euan. “I’ve plenty to spare.” He smiled a remarkably sweet smile. “Take it with you, as much as you need. Go and sleep. Dream of victory. Be the bear and the bull and the stallion. Be strong.”

      If he only knew, she thought. She had a powerful, almost overwhelming urge to kiss him.

      That would have been a very unwise thing to do. She hoped her departure did not look too much like flight.

      Chapter Six

      As the first light of dawn touched the summit of the Mountain, the Called stood in a line in the inner court of the school. They were all perfectly silent except for the chattering of teeth.

      They had been awakened in the dark by the ringing of a bell. Except for the clothes they had worn to sleep in, everything that each of them owned was gone.

      The few who, like Valeria, had slept fully dressed were lucky. Some of the rest were naked, and most wore only a shirt. They had to get up and march where Rider Andres led, just as they were. Then they had to stand in the courtyard, shuddering in the early-morning cold. It might be summer in gentler countries, but winter still lingered in the mountains.

      Daylight grew slowly. Valeria watched the Mountain brighten. It seemed to hang above the wall in front of her, luminously white against a cloudless sky.

      The Call had gone silent. She felt strange without it, like an empty cup waiting to be filled.

      Somewhat after full light but before the sun climbed over the wall, she heard the measured beat of hooves on stone. A double row of riders on shining white horses came riding in beneath the arch opposite the Mountain, just as she had heard in all the stories.

      Her throat closed. Her eyes were stinging with tears. She had waited so long and traveled so far and given up so much, all for this.

      The riders halted facing the line of the Called and spread in their own line. There were eight of them, dressed alike in boots and breeches and coats of a familiar style and plainness. She was wearing much the same, in the same drab brown color.

      Their horses were smaller than they had been in her dreams. Apart from the white gleam of their coats and the magic of their existence, they were stocky and thickset and rather plain. Anywhere but here, she would have called them sturdy grey cobs with arched noses and—

      Oh, no, she thought. No. That could not—

      Two of the riders moved ahead of the rest. One was an older man, almost as grey as his horse. The other, in the circumstances, СКАЧАТЬ