“Not too much,” she said. “Not too fast.”
He snorted gratefully. She loosened the saddle girth and took a square of old blanket from her pack, rubbing him down and speaking softly to him. It had been a near thing, she realised. If she had kept going much longer, she could well have ruined her beautiful horse.
When he was rubbed down, she led him to the side of the road and let him crop the grass for a few minutes. Mentally, she kicked herself for coming so close to disaster. It wasn’t Sundancer’s fault, she knew. The blame lay squarely with her. She was the rider. She was the one who should have controlled him, harbouring his energy and strength.
She let him rest for some minutes, then took the reins and led him back onto the road. She’d walk for a while, until he’d cooled down properly and recovered. She stepped out and he followed her meekly. She turned and watched him for a minute or two, making sure there was nothing wrong with his gait—that he hadn’t strained any muscles or ligaments in that mad, heedless gallop.
To her relief, he seemed fine. She smiled fondly, shaking her head in wonder as she thought of his amazing speed and willingness, grateful that there was no permanent harm done to him. She wondered how far behind them Will and Tug were.
“We’re probably so far ahead that we could walk the rest of the way and still beat them,” she told Sundancer. He shook his head tiredly, plodding along behind her.
Then she became conscious of a noise behind them. A regular, rhythmic noise.
Dugga-dum, dugga-dum, dugga-dum.
She whirled round. Will and Tug had rounded a bend behind them and were cantering slowly towards them, still moving at that ridiculous, constant lope. Once more she had the thought that Tug ran like a rocking horse.
Be that as it may, she thought, he was a very consistent rocking horse.
Will drew up beside her. He didn’t check Tug as they came level. Sundancer lifted his head at the sight of the smaller horse and dragged back against the reins, but she held him in check.
“Your horse looks tired,” Will said amiably, as he began to move ahead of her.
“He’ll be fine,” she said defiantly.
He turned in the saddle to look back at her as he and Tug drew away.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said. Then he faced the road ahead and called back over his shoulder, “We’ll wait for you in Pendletown.”
She glared at his back, then turned and began to tighten Sundancer’s girth again. The Arridan, spent as he was, was moving nervously, eager to set off after Tug. She placed one foot in the stirrup, then stopped.
He wasn’t ready yet. If she allowed him to run, she might injure him. Reluctantly, she took her foot out of the stirrup and loosened the cinch again. Then she resumed leading the horse at a walk.
At the next bend already, Will was surreptitiously watching over his shoulder. He saw her begin to mount, then saw her come to a decision and begin walking the horse once more.
“Good girl,” he said approvingly.
How’s that? Tug, of course, was facing the road ahead and hadn’t seen Maddie’s moment of indecision.
“She won’t mistreat her horse, even if it means losing the race. We’ll make a Ranger of her yet.”
They rode on in silence for several minutes before Will spoke again.
“If only she drank coffee,” he said.
Dugga-dum, dugga-dum, dugga-dum.
Nineteen
“The thing is,” Will said, “we need particular qualities in a horse.”
It was three days since they had returned from the ford. Sundancer was none the worse for the experience. Tug, of course, merely shrugged off the long ride as part and parcel of his everyday life. Today they were riding side by side, although as yet, Will hadn’t said where they were bound. Maddie might have imagined it, but she thought Sundancer was showing a new level of deference to Will’s shaggy little grey.
“What sort of qualities?” she asked.
“Speed, of course,” Will replied. “And your Arridan has that. In the short haul, he’s possibly faster than Tug.”
Tug shook his mane and snorted. Will smiled and leaned forward, patting his neck.
“I’d say he’s definitely faster,” Maddie said. “After all, he just ran away from the two of you the other day. You saw it.”
“Yes. I did,” Will said evenly. “But Tug wasn’t running then. He was just loping along conserving his strength.”
“So how fast can he run?” she challenged, turning sideways in the saddle to study the little horse. As before, she thought that he was a fairly unimpressive sight.
To her surprise, Will shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She looked at him sceptically. “You’ve never seen him run?” she asked but he shook his head.
“I’ve seen him run plenty of times. And each time, he ran as fast as he had to. But I have no idea if that was as fast as he could go. In fact, I doubt it.”
Maddie frowned uncertainly. She wasn’t quite sure that she understood him.
Tell her about Sandstorm.
Will considered Tug’s suggestion, then nodded.
“Some years ago, we were in the Arridi desert,” he began.
Maddie nodded eagerly. “Yes. Was that when my mother went off to rescue the Skandian Oberjarl?” She’d heard vague references to that event, but neither her mother nor her father had ever filled in any of the detail. Now she sensed that she was about to learn more about that adventure and she hitched herself around so she could watch Will as he continued.
“That was it. In any case, at one stage, I had to match Tug in a race against an Arridan stallion called Sandstorm. He was a real champion, the finest in the Bedullin herd.”
“Bedullin?” she repeated uncertainly. She wasn’t familiar with the word.
“The Bedullin are a nomadic Arridi tribe. Great horsemen and wonderful horse breeders. One of their young men took a fancy to Tug.”
Actually, of course, it had been a predecessor of the present Tug who was involved in the race, but Will didn’t want to get into that, or his belief that his horse’s character transferred from one incarnation to the next. He wasn’t sure that he could explain it properly if he tried.
“We were separated—by a sandstorm, ironically enough. The young Bedullin found Tug wandering in the desert and claimed him.”
Maddie glanced down at the little horse. “Why?” she asked, undiplomatically.
Will looked at her for a few seconds, then shook his head. When he spoke, there was a hint of annoyance in his voice.
“Because they’re great judges of horseflesh,” he said tartly. “They look beyond the obvious.”
And I have a great inner beauty.
Absentmindedly, Will patted Tug on the neck again. “Anyway,” he continued, “Sandstorm was the pick of their herd. He was their ruler’s personal mount. I convinced them that if Tug and I could beat him in a race, I would keep Tug.”
“Why didn’t they just keep him anyway? Why did they have to race you?”
“The young man in question was having a hard time riding Tug. I agreed to help him if he won the race.”
She snorted disdainfully. “Can’t have been much of a horseman,” she said. “What was so hard about riding him?”
He was about to answer, then he stopped himself. He felt a sudden, wicked impulse. Maddie was so sure of herself, so quick to denigrate Tug. It might be fun to prick that balloon, he thought.
“I’ll tell you later. Anyway, Sandstorm took off like an arrow out of a bow. Tug went off after him, but over the first fifty metres or so, Sandstorm kept pulling away.”
“Well, of course he did,” she said, comfortable in her own certainty.