Rider at the Gate

He got a dark, chilly feeling then. There was one of the horses he couldn’t pin down—Froth was easy to identify, agitated most of the time and full of temper; and Ice just didn’t communicate much.

And that left the horse named Shadow, just the faintest thought, just the skitteriest images, a hostility you couldn’t get hold of.

Shadow didn’t like him and didn’t like Cloud, that much he picked up, and Shadow was always there, behind the other two, lurking behind Froth’s jittery everywhere images and Ice’s unfriendly quiet… Shadow didn’t swear like Cloud did, Shadow just sent hostility slipping out around the edges of what was going on, so maybe it was easier to feel unwanted, and easier to feel danger in the night.

<Cattle tails. Kick and bite. Lightning flash and rain.>

That last was surely Cloud, and Shadow didn’t like it.

“Keep it down,” Jonas Westman said, while their supper cooked. “We’ve no need for that, boy. Calm that horse of yours.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, asking himself what about the situation deserved calm, and how, the same as at home, everything got down to being his fault.

They didn’t have any preachers here to say so. But it seemed a reliable commodity, guilt. You could get it here cheap, handed out like come-ons to a sale.

“Not my damn fault,” Da

“Did I say that?” Jonas asked. And Hawley Antrim, Ice’s rider:

“Nobody said that. Just calm down. Horsefights feed off quarrels. And we don’t need that kind of trouble.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. Everybody was sir, being senior. And they weren’t telling him in any sense what they were doing waiting here, or whether they’d found any sign of Guil Stuart. He knew he hadn’t come across any tracks but the ones he’d been following. But he’d been up in the hills a good deal of the time.

“Gone overland,” Luke Westman said. “Same’s we could, but we know where he’s going.”

“We don’t need to hurry.” Jonas said, put another stick on the fire, and adjusted the frying pan. “Stuart won’t appreciate interference. He’s an independent type. We let him handle the business up-country, if he can.”

It seemed dangerous to him, and not too helpful to Stuart. He wanted not to have an opinion, but they kept coming up. He kept his eyes on the fire and tried to keep his mouth shut.

“Don’t trust us?” Hawley asked.

Nosy question. It scared him just thinking about it. There were a lot of ways a junior could get into trouble with men like this, as rough as this. He didn’t want trouble. They had Stuart’s gear in those extra packs they shared out, everything he owned. Hawley carried Stuart’s rifle, having none of his own. At least he thought they meant to deliver it all to Stuart.

“Easy on the kid,” Jonas said. “He’s noisy enough. Quiet mind, kid. Quiet. Think about supper. You’ll be fine.”

You could get fiber from knifegrass. You stripped off both the edges with your fingernails and you braided the strands you got. You could braid as many strands together as you had the skill for, and Guil just round-braided it as he rode, with a little wrap of nighthorse hair when a piece quit and the end wouldn’t quite stay tucked on the splice.

The result was a tough cord. You wouldn’t break it by pulling on it—it’d cut right through the skin of your hands.

It was also fine-gauge enough that it made a fair fishing line; a notched large thorn, carefully scored about for the cord to tie on, made a decent small hook, a dry twig tied into the line a convenient float, while he was sitting on the bank of a fair-sized stream. He dropped a rock into a shallow to trap a handful of mi

<Burn eating fish,> Burn thought.

“Pest! You had yours. This is my fish.”

< Delicious fish frying in fragrant bacon grease.>

“Do you see bacon? Do you see a frying pan?” <Rider hostel in Shamesey. Guil’s gear in corner of room.>

Burn sulked.

Effectively enough Burn got the next fish. Guil filleted it while he was waiting for another to bite. Burn couldn’t manage the bones, but he so loved the taste, almost as much as Burn loved sugar-cured bacon.

Fish wasn’t bad, raw. He drew the line at other things. He hadn’t the makings for fire, hadn’t the energy for fire-making, even given that he did, now, have the cord for a bow-drill; raw fish was good enough.

And he found a number of spotty-neck shellfish along a rocky edge, which were also fine eaten raw. Burn got a couple of them, which pleased Burn mightily—a knife left them in ever so much nicer condition than cracking them open under nighthorse feet, and Burn liked for his to be washed in water before eating—in beer, if it was available.

It wasn’t. Burn sucked down his dessert and resumed his proper watchful duty, protecting the two of them from goblin cats, feral nighthorse pairs in autumn lust, and other potential hazards, while idly nipping the tops off tasslegrass, eating only the seed-bearing part, the extravagance of autumn.

Meanwhile Guil limped about, cutting soft-needled branches along the wooded streambank. He heaped up a fragrant pile of them in a sheltered spot, and when he had a large enough pile, Burn helpfully sat down in the middle, rolling out a nesting spot.

“Get up, dammit! Mybed, Burn.”

<Sweet smell. Warm nighthorse belly. Guil in sunlight.>

“Oh, hell,” Guil muttered, and went on cutting branches, to make their bed wider.

Da

But of course they had to. Riders couldn’t lie to each other.

At least, juniors couldn’t lie very well. To anyone.

He hadn’t picked up on everything that was going on, that was sure.

He wasn’t wholly surprised when Cloud came over and settled down on the ground next to him, sharing the fire warmth, sharing his own warmth, sharing his muddled, half-asleep nighthorse thoughts with him, that ran mostly along the general content of the ambient.

A ghosty was in the brush watching them, not a specific thing, just one of three very different creatures that townsmen gave the same name to, and he didn’t know much better. Cloud knew what it was, Cloud wasn’t spooked by it, and no cattle-guard needed be, except sometimes the little creatures would spook the cattle just to have them away from their territory.

The ghosty wanted them to go away, too, probably. But it was scared of Cloud.

Da

He really, really wished to keep his mind quiet and let the senior riders rest. Hawley was on watch, he was aware of that. So was Ice, and he didn’t think much would get past that horse.

He didn’t think the senior riders believed that Harper, if that was who it was, intended to do them harm. Harm to Stuart was another matter. But as long as they stayed their pace, the common thought he picked up was <them staying in one group, ahead,> and <Harper’s party in the other, behind, neither meeting.>

It wouldn’t help for him and Cloud to have another argument. He wanted Cloud to know that. He wanted Cloud to agree to stay with him.

He wasn’t sure what Cloud’s answer was. He shut his eyes, but that made pictures behind them, of the hillside and the dark, fluttery smell-shapes following them. He stared into the dying coals and that was better.