Monso snorted explosively, then curled his upper lip, almost as though he were laughing. Dakar grinned as he curried his mount’s back. “I admit it sounds unlikely, but I know what I know. Wager on us, Lady Eydryth, and you’ll not have to sing tonight to earn extra silver.”
The minstrel gazed at both horse and master for a long moment, then nodded. “May you race as fast as ever Lord Faral did, Dakar. I will go and place my wager.”
Monso snorted again, then bobbed his head as though he understood and agreed perfectly.
An hour later, Eydryth jostled for position along the hedges dividing the racecourse from the fairground. Tucked safely into her coin purse was a flat chip of wood, marked with the amount of her wager and the odds. As she had suspected, Monso was not among those favored to win the race—too many people had seen the runaway’s mad flight across the fairgrounds. Any horse that had already spent itself so greatly was regarded as too leg-weary to prove a dangerous challenger.
The songsmith squinted, trying to make out the field against the reddish glare from the westering sun.
There! One spot of dull brown and black, contrasting vividly with the colorful caps, sashes and saddlecloths of the other entries. Dakar rode Monso onto the course, his saddle one of the light ones used by battle-couriers. Unlike the other riders with their long-legged, secure seats, he rode with his stirrups short, almost perched atop, rather than astride, his mount.
Eydryth smiled inwardly. The Kioga rode like that when they raced… short-stirruped, crouching over their horses’ withers, rather than sitting heavily on their backs. The young woman knew from experience that Dakar’s position in the saddle would permit his horse maximum freedom of stride, while greatly lessening wind resistance.
Around her, the townspeople of Rylon Corners also noticed the stranger’s odd seat. Several rough-looking rogues that she’d seen in the wagering tent pointed and laughed, predicting that the young man would find his brains spattered on the packed earth as soon as the race began.
As the horses milled behind a rope stretched across the track, the official starter took her place. She was the mayor’s wife, a greying, buxom woman who stood beside the judges on the inside of the racecourse. In her hand was a red scarf that fluttered in the wind.
Minutes went by as the horses wheeled and sidled, their riders urging them into their appointed positions on the starting line. Eydryth noticed that none of the other animals would stand within a length of Monso. As though he had expected no less, Dakar, without being told, took up position on the far outside, where he would have the greatest distance to run—an additional handicap. Eydryth bit her lip, thinking of the silver coins she had wagered… thinking how ill she could afford to lose them.
A moment later, the line of horses momentarily steadied; then suddenly the strip of red silk fluttered free.
The rope barrier dropped.
A roar of excitement erupted from the watching crowd as the racers lunged forward, trying to gain a position next to the inside hedge. Great clumps of dried mud pelted the crowd, thrown up by the thundering hooves.
Monso! Where is he?
Eydryth craned her neck, trying desperately to see, but many of the men in the crowd were taller than she. She ducked between a goodwife carrying two hens in a cage, and a blank-shield whose breath proclaimed his afternoon in an alehouse. On tiptoe, fists clenched, she squinted at the course. Slowly, she was able to pick out the individual horses.
The grey in the lead, then the red chestnut… third was the dun… the golden bay was neck-and-neck with the liver chestnut, then came the dark bay with the blaze face. But no black!
Fear tightened like a fist on Eydryth’s throat. Monso! Dakar! Where are you?
Anxiously, the bard looked back along the length of the track, fearing to see a downed horse and rider. But the hoof-scarred clay was clear. Puzzled, she turned back to the race.
The horses, still closely bunched, were approaching the far turn. But as they reached the opposite side of the oval track, Eydryth made out a smaller, black shadow clinging like a sticktight to the side of the second-running chestnut!
“Go!” Eydryth whispered, not even hearing herself amid the din of the crowd. “Run, Monso!”
As if he had indeed heard her, Dakar guided the black horse perilously closer to the inside hedge; then there was free track before them! Eydryth gasped as Monso leaped forward so swiftly that it seemed as though he had only now begun to run. In the space of a heartbeat he was beside the grey leader. Then he was past—a length in front—two lengths—
Eydryth clapped a hand to her mouth, seeing that Dakar was holding his mount tight-reined, not allowing him to run full-out. His hands moved, pulling hard, working the steel bit against the corners of the horse’s mouth. And still the black, moving with the speed of an advancing tempest, continued to gain!
Monso was a full four lengths in the lead when he swept past the finish pole. There was no cheering from the crowd, only a stunned silence.
“ ’Tis unnatural!” the woman with the hens exclaimed finally. “That creature ran past Hawrel’s Grey Arrow as though the beast was hitched to a plow—and that grey is the fastest horse the town’s seen in a score o’ years!”
“Aye,” the blank-shield muttered, disgustedly snapping his wagering chip in two. “No horse should have been able t’ run like that, after that chase cross the fairground today. No normal horse, that is.”
No normal horse.
Sudden realization made Eydryth fasten her teeth in her lower lip to avoid crying out in recognition. Now she knew where she’d seen Monso’s like before. That spark of red in the beast’s eyes had been no reflection of the sun! That creature is no more a mortal horse than Hathor’s Ghost Stallion! she thought. But… how? How could anyone catch and master a Keplian?
The songsmith vividly remembered the time she had seen one of the demon horse-spirits sent by the Dark to lure unwary travelers. It had been shortly after her mother disappeared. She, Jervon and Lord Kerovan had been out searching, and had camped for the night near a stream in a seemingly deserted valley.
Eydryth had rolled out of her blankets in the silver dimness before dawn, only to see the creature standing just outside their camp. The Keplian had the seeming of a tall, perfect black stallion as it had stood cropping the dew-heavy grass. Both she and Jervon had cried out with pleasure at the sheer beauty of its delicate head, its straight, clean-boned legs… the flowing lines of its arched neck and straight-backed body.
Both she and her father had started toward it, enthralled by the creature’s unearthly beauty. Both of them might well have been ensnared past all saving, but suddenly, Kerovan stepped into their path, the wristband that he wore glowing brightly. As its light bathed their eyes, they staggered back, returning to their senses, for the ancient talisman possessed the ability to warn and guard against the presence of any evil.
Kerovan had raised his arm in a warding gesture. “Get you gone, fell thing! Do not return!” As the wristlet’s light struck the Keplian, it had snorted with pain, then raced away.
So Monso is a Keplian. That explains much, Eydryth thought, standing bemused, hardly hearing the disappointed grumblings of the departing onlookers. And yet… he does not have that unnatural perfection of form that the creature I saw possessed Could he be a crossbred? Is it possible that Keplians can mate with mortal horses?
Her speculations continued without answer as the songsmith turned to make her way through the thinning crowd, her goal the wagering tent and the claiming of her winnings.
The race had been the last event of the horse fair; all around her horse traders and merchants were feeding their stock and closing up their pavilions until the morrow, when the fair would reopen. The sun was setting rapidly now, and by the time she emerged from the wagering tent, blue twilight was stealing across the land like a thief, robbing the place of color and life.