Both horses they now rode were mottled gray; they had thick necks and huge, ugly heads with broad foreheads. They looked like unpolished statues of rough granite, and were nearly as tough. They could live very handily on forage even a mule would reject; they could travel sunrise to sunset at a ground-devouring lope that was something like a wolfs tireless tracking-pace. They could be trusted with an infant, but would kill on signal or on a perceived threat. They were more intelligent than any horse Kethry had ever seen -- more intelligent than a mule, even. In their ability to obey and to reason they more resembled a highly trained dog than a horse, for they could actually work out a simple problem on their own.
This was why Shin'a'in battlesteeds were so famed -- and why the Clansfolk guarded them with their very lives. Between their intelligence and the training they received, battlesteeds were nearly the equal partners of those who rode them in a fight. It was in no small part due to the battlesteeds that the Shin'a'in had remained free and the Dhorisha Plains unconquered.
But they were rare; a mare would drop no more than four or five foals in a lifetime. So no matter how tempting the price offered, no battlesteed would ever be found in the hands of anyone but a Shin'a'in -- or one who was pledged blood-sib to a Shin'a'in.
These horses had been undergoing a strenuous course of training for the past four years, and had just been ready this spring to accept permanent riders. They were trained to fight either on their own or with a rider -- something Kethry was grateful for, since she was nothing like the kind of rider Tarma was. Tarma could stick to Hellsbane's back like a burr on a sheep; Kethry usually lost her seat within the first few minutes of a fight. But no matter; Ironheart would defend her quite as readily on the ground -- and on the ground Kethry could work her magics without distraction.
Both battlesteeds were mares; mares could be depended on to keep their heads no matter what the provocation, and besides, it was a peculiarity of battlesteeds that they tended to throw ten or fifteen fillies to every colt. That meant colts were never gelded -- and never left the Plains.
This time when Tarma left the Liha'irden encampment, it was with every living soul in it outside to bid her farewell. The weather was perfect; crisp and cool without being too cold. The sky was cloudless, and there was a light frost on the ground.
"No regrets?" Kethry said in an undertone as she tightened Ironheart's girth.
"Not many," Tarma replied, squinting into the thin sunlight, then mounting with an absentminded ease Kethry envied. "Certainly not enough to worry about."
Kethry scrambled into her own saddle -- Ironheart was nearly sixteen hands high, the tallest beast she'd ever ridden -- and settled her robes about herself.
"You have some, though?" she persisted.
"I just wish I knew this was the right course we're taking... I guess," Tarma laughed at herself, "I guess I'm looking for another omen."
"Lady Bright, haven't you had enough -- " Kethry was interrupted by a scream from overhead.
The Shin'a'in about them murmured in excitement and pointed -- for there, overhead, was a vorcelhawk. It might have been the same one that had landed on Kethry's arm when Tarma had been challenged; it was certainly big enough. This time, however, it showed no inclination to land. Instead, it circled the encampment overhead, three times. Then it sailed majestically away northward, the very direction they had been intending to take.
As it vanished into the ice-blue sky, Kethry tugged her partner's sleeve to get her attention.
"Do me a favor, hmm?" she said in a voice that shook a trifle. "Stop asking for bloody omens!"
* * *
"Why I ever let you talk me into this -- " Tarma stared about them uneasily. "This place is even weirder than they claim!"
They were deep into the Pelagir Hills -- the true Pelagirs. There was a track they were following; dry-paved, it rang under their mares' hooves, and it led ever deeper into the thickly forested hills and was arrow-flight straight. To either side of them lay the landscape of dreams... or maybe nightmare.
The grass was the wrong color for fall. It should have been frost-seared and browning; instead it was a lush and juicy green. The air was warm; this was fall, it should have been cool, but it felt like summer, it smelled like summer. There were even flowers. Tarma disliked and distrusted this false, magic-born summer. It just wasn't right.
The other plants besides the grass -- well, some were normal (or at least they seemed normal), but others were not. Tarma had seen plants whose leaves had snapped shut on unwary insects, flowers whose blooms glowed when the moon rose, and thorny vines whose thorns dripped some unnamable liquid. She didn't know if they were hazardous, but she wasn't about to take a chance; not after she saw the bones and skulls of small animals littering the ground beneath a dead tree laden with such vines.
The trees didn't bear thinking about, much. The least odd of them were as twisted and deformed as if they'd grown in a place of constant heavy winds. The others...
Well, there was the grove they'd passed of lacy things that sang softly to themselves in childlike voices. And the ones that pulled away from them as they passed, or worse, actually reached out to touch them, feeling them like blind and curious old women. And the sapling that had torn up its roots and shuffled away last night when Tarma thought about how nice a fire would feel...
And by no means least, the ones like they'd spent the night in (though only after Kethry repeatedly assured her nervous partner that it was perfectly harmless). It had been hut-sized and hut-shaped, with only a thatch of green on the "roof -- and hollow. And inside had been odd protrusions that resembled stools, a table, and bed-platforms to a degree that was positively frightening. A lovely little trap it would have made -- Tarma slept restlessly that night, dreaming about the "door" growing closed and trapping them inside, like those poor bugs the flowers had trapped.
"I'm at the stage where I could use a familiar," Kethry replied, "I've explained all this before. Besides, a familiar will be able to take some of the burden of night-watch off both of us, particularly if I can manage to call a kyree."
Tarma sighed.
"It's only fair. I came with you to the Plains. I took a battlesteed at your insistence."
"Agreed. But I don't have to like this place. Are you sure there's anything here you can call? We haven't seen so much as a mouse or a sparrow since things started looking weird."
"That's because they don't want you to see them. Relax, we're going to stop soon; we're almost where I wanted to go."
"How can you tell, if you've never been here?"
"You'll see."
Sure enough, Tarma did see. The paved road came to a dead end; at the end it widened out into a flat, featureless circle some fifty paces in diameter.
The paved area was surrounded by yet another kind of tree, some sort of evergreen with thin, tangled branches that started a bit less than knee-high and continued straight up so that the trees were like green columns reaching to the sky. They had grown so closely together that it would have been nearly impossible for anything to force its way between them. That meant there was only one way for anything to get into the circle -- via the road.