Osha watched carefully as Vreuvillä reached out, touched Wayfarer’s arm with only her fingertips, and closed her eyes so slowly, she might have been falling asleep.
When she opened them again, she whispered, “You wish to stay?”
Wayfarer nodded. “For a while.”
It troubled Osha to leave her with a strange woman and a pack of majay-hì. But this was why the girl had come, supposedly, and at least Shade would be with her. With one glance up at him, Wayfarer stepped off and followed the wild woman. Shade caught up, pushing in front between Wayfarer and Vreuvillä.
Both girl and dog looked back at Osha more than once.
He suddenly could not tolerate this. But at his first step, a grip closed tight on his bow arm.
“No, not yet,” Althahk warned, all hint of humor gone. “Come with me.”
Osha returned to the city and spent a restless night in an inn. The following day, Althahk took him to the barracks and introduced him to a group of five: three men and two women.
“This one will train with you,” he told them.
Without question, they accepted him.
The first day had involved nothing but a long walk through the forest. They finally camped somewhere on the forest’s edge beneath its immense trees. At least with those sentinels, though even taller than the ones of his homeland, he had one more moment of ease ... until he looked to the open, grassy plain beyond. It seemed like the same one he had first crossed upon entering this land.
And there were horses out there grazing.
When he asked about them, the smallest of the trainees—later known to him as Yavifheran—answered, “For later, when they think you are worthy.”
That set him on edge, and he eyed the horses: only five, as his inclusion in this group had been unanticipated.
There was not one day that followed when he was free of guilt over leaving Wayfarer and Shade with that unknown woman. And he felt more guilt than any sense of peace he felt with these others out in the wild. Though his skill was poor as compared to others of the caste, his anmaglâhk training aided him in what “games” were played for stealth, surveillance, hunting, and tracking.
From early on, not one of his new companions could match him with a bow.
More than one asked why he looked hesitant before—and angry and sad after—he fired an arrow and never missed his mark. He could not answer, for they would never understand. Praise for his skill only made this worse.
By looking in their eyes, he knew not one of them had ever killed in battle.
Especially not Siôrs, who was lighthearted and not a deep thinker. But of the five, Osha found Siôrs’s company a tonic sorely needed, for Osha himself had come to think far too much. Unfortunately, this broad-shouldered Shé’ith trainee also gave Osha new turmoil. Siôrs was forceful in teaching Osha the horse, and then the pole ... and finally the sword.
Each proved difficult for different reasons; the last was the worst, but riding came first.
The idea of sitting on the back of and attempting to control another being was abhorrent to him. That “she” had a name put upon her by someone was troubling, even though he had become accustomed to such things in the human world. This was even worse when Osha realized she was something more than the horses he had previously encountered.
En’wi’rên—“Wild-Water”—threw him off violently the first three times he hesitantly tried to mount her. The last time he hit the earth, she came at him. He rolled and scrambled away as her fore-hooves slammed and broke the forest floor, though nowhere near enough to have struck him.
She stood there, threw her head, and snorted.
“Oh, blessed green!”
Osha started at that moaned shout. There stood Siôrs among the others, all watching him.
“Stop treating her as if she will break!” Siôrs called with too much drama.
Even reed-thin Mehenisa looked astonished—or aghast. By her slight build, anyone might have thought her unsuitable to such a rough life. Ulahk and Kêl, cousins by human terms, were trying and failing not to snicker. Yavifheran, the youngest member, if judged by his size, watched with more disapproval than anyone else.
“Do you think the commander would send us out with untrained companions?” Siôrs asked as if the answer were obvious, and he flipped a hand toward En’wi’rên. “She is already a warrior and guardian, a full and true Shé’ith because—”
Yavifheran backhanded Siôrs across the arm, and Siôrs stopped short, as if he had almost made a slip.
Osha was too stunned by something else to give that much thought. A horse, not only named, held equal—no, superior—status among those present who trained to be Shé’ith?
Then who was En’wi’rên’s true rider?
“Show her respect, not your doubt!” Siôrs barked at Osha. “She has earned that more than any of us. Mount her knowing she will be there—always!”
As if to illustrate, he turned, charged straight at the horse, and leaped in the last instant.
Siôrs’s hands braced on the horse’s back as he vaulted and swung one leg over to land astride En’wi’rên’s back. Though she shifted, clearly that was a brief adjustment for the sudden passenger. Siôrs never even touched the reins.
“See?” he said, spreading his arms wide. Siôrs then swung his far leg over, slid off the horse’s back, and landed lightly on his feet.
En’wi’rên looked at Osha with her big black eyes, snorted at him, and shook her head.
Osha burned with embarrassment and stifled anger.
But it was the last time he disrespected En’wi’rên, no matter how much he abhorred riding another being. It was not that last time he fell, though that came later—again and again—in training with the pole or “mercy’s lance.”
He had difficulty learning to both feel and anticipate how En’wi’rên compensated for his mistakes while sparring on horseback. Most of his first falls were not from being knocked off her by an opponent’s lance across his midriff. He tried to pay more attention—to listen—to what she taught him in her movements. Less often did she have to save him, if possible. And then he still took a lance across the chest too many times.
En’wi’rên always stood silently, waiting each time until he picked himself up.
The worst came last, when he finally held that sword forced upon him. It was like touching the very thing that had taken everything he wanted when he had become Anmaglâhk. It was an unnatural, hateful thing; the seeming purity of the white metal blade mocked him. Everything about its use made this worse.
He understood striking from a distance with the bow, and even the return of the same from an enemy. With a small blade, though he could match few of his former caste, and never his teacher, the great Sgäilsheilleache, he also understood the bone knife’s hook, the stiletto’s hidden flash and speed, the strike and sweep of leg and arm, hand and foot, so close to an opponent that they were one.
But the sword ...
Constantly shifting at a distance beyond touch and yet well short of an arrow’s flight seemed impossible to master. How many times did he suddenly freeze in finding Siôrs’s sword—or that of one of the others—resting flattened upon his shoulder near his neck?
Too many times to count.
What little peace Osha found in the forest began to wither.
At night, in trying to sleep, he was too often tortured by thoughts of Wynn. Not only for the pain of wanting her and the pain of her sending him away, but in imagining her in a barren desert and in danger without him.
As well, he wondered what had become of Wayfarer and Shade.
There had been times when Wayfarer had sent Shade to find and assure him. Even fewer times had the black majay-hì agreed to guide him to Wayfarer, and always in a place that could not be where she stayed with that wild woman. Even when he did manage to see Wayfarer with Shade’s assistance, she was slowly becoming someone he no longer recognized. She treated him more and more as almost a stranger.