Centauriad 1 - Daughter of the Centaurs (33 page)

“Jump, Sky. Jump!” she shouts in his ear. Sky circles back around and launches himself into the air, soaring over the heads of the lions, who leap and snarl in frustration. Malora wakes up with her hair sweat-damp and her heart beating wildly in her chest.

Lessons that morning are a solemn and rote affair. Zephele’s face is pale and stony. “I encountered Neal this morning outside the Hall of Mirrors,” she says during a study break. “He told me the Flatlanders say Gastin, the scoundrel Flatlander who interloped, is to be turned out. I blame it all on that upstart Canda Blackmane. She must have known she was dancing with a Flatlander. How could she not?”

“He wore a mask,” Malora says.

“The Blackmanes always were a bad lot,” Zephele says.
“But it gets worse. They say that if Gastin is turned out, then poor Mather must be turned out as well. Have you ever heard of anything so absurd?”

“Mather did violate the Edicts against squaring off and carrying weapons,” Malora points out glumly.

Zephele scowls at Malora. “Whose side are you on? You sound like a Flatlander. Neal says the Flatlanders are out for Mather’s blood. They say if the Salient rules in favor of Mather, the Flatlanders will most likely stage an outrage.”

Malora doesn’t like the sound of this. “What is an outrage?”

Zephele gnaws at her lip. “It is squaring off multiplied, Flatlander against Highlander. Not quite war, but hardly peace. It has never happened in modern times, but Papa is beside himself with worry that an outrage will break out under his rule. For years, he has worried about the unrest. I thought he was just being an old grumble guts. I didn’t realize until today how deeply disgruntled the Flatlanders are.”

Malora wants to say that if Zephele had even once come down off the mountain and walked among the townships, she would have gotten a very clear picture of the Flatlanders’ discontent. But saying this, she knows, would only make matters worse.

“Ladies, this speculation will only add to your distress. In times such as this, it is best to keep busy.” Honus issues them both their assignments. “I must attend a special assembly of the Salient. The Apex needs me. I will trust you to work independently.”

“What advice will you give him?” Zephele asks as she trots behind him to the door.

“I will advise him that he turn both out,” Honus says without hesitation.

Zephele cries out and claps her hands over her mouth. “No! Honus, please, tell me you won’t.”

“I am afraid it is the only way to keep the peace.”

“Poor, poor Mather!” Zephele bursts into tears. “His doom is sealed!”

“Where does Mather live?” Malora asks as soon as Honus is gone.

“Four doors down the Mane Way to the south. Why do you ask?” Zephele says, blowing her nose hard on a lacy cloth.

“I must go to him and give him some advice on how to survive in the bush. I can tell him how to make weapons and snares, what plants are good for snakebite, which berries—”

But Zephele shakes her head vehemently. “No, no, no, no! You will not. You must not, Malora, especially if what Honus says comes to pass. No one is permitted to help a centaur who is about to be turned out. It is tantamount to treason. I won’t let you risk it, because if you are turned out”—her eyes well up again—“Orion and I will be undone, so strong has our attachment to you grown.”

It is as if a whole world of woe, like a great noxious cloud, has settled on top of Mount Kheiron and the surrounding Flatlands. Above the cloud, the sun might be shining, but everything Malora sees is choking in a fog of grief.

After some time has passed, Orion arrives, trailing West, bearing the news that the Flatlander has been banished but the Salient is still in conference over the fate of Mather. Orion’s eyes are drained of color, nearly gray. Even West looks aggrieved. He curls up in a corner and goes immediately to
sleep. Malora, Orion, and Zephele lean on the stone parapet of the terrace and stare out over the rooftops. They can hear the chanting of the Flatlanders gathered outside the walls of the city, calling for Mather’s banishment. Of all the fearsome sounds Malora has ever heard in the bush—jackals barking, hyenas yelping, wildcats snarling, elephants trumpeting, even the dreaded and hateful Leatherwings humming—this is somehow more frightening. It is the sound of an angry crowd of centaurs who will settle for nothing less than the death of Mather Silvermane.

It is dark by the time Honus returns with the news that both Gastin and Mather are to be turned out this very night—Mather to the north, and Gastin to the south. Zephele throws herself into Orion’s arms.

“In the dark, too. How unspeakably cruel!” she cries. “Is anything as dark as the bush at night?”

Malora wants to say that the bush is not dark. It is filled with light. There is the moon. And even when the moon is down, there are the stars twinkling like candles in the canopies of the trees. And then there are the animals’ eyes: green and yellow and blue and violet, like jewels swirling in the darkness. But she keeps her thoughts to herself.

“It is harsh, Sister, no matter day or night,” Orion says.

“My poor, dear, foolish, brave cousin!” Zephele sobs. “How could the Apex let this happen to his own flesh and blood?”

“It is because it is the Apex’s flesh and blood that he must,” Honus says quietly. “And do not think this doesn’t pain him. Medon is with Mather’s parents, his own brother, at this very moment, delivering the sorry news.”

Orion pats his sister’s back. “Kheiron give him the strength to break the news gently. This is a very sad state of affairs all around.”

“If Neal is charged with turning Mather out, I shall never speak to that Flatlander ever, ever again!” Zephele says with sudden savagery, pounding her fist against Orion’s chest.

“Easy now, Sister,” Orion says, catching her fist and enfolding it gently in his hand. “It’s not Featherhoof’s judgment, nor is any of this his fault.”

A heavy weight lies on Malora’s chest, and she has to clear her throat to speak. “You’re right, Orion. It’s not Neal’s fault. But it is mine.”

Honus, Zephele, and Orion all turn to stare at her in surprise. Malora feels the tears begin to fall as she says in a choked voice, “It is all my fault. If I hadn’t used that sharpened fence post to menace the lion, Mather would never have brought it back with him to Mount Kheiron. Because he had that post, he violated the Edicts.”

Zephele puts a hand to her mouth to smother a cry. “Oh, dear Hands! Can matters get any worse?”

No one disagrees with Malora. No one thinks to remind her that she saved West’s life with that post. No one stops her when she turns and goes to her bedchamber. She lies down and places the pillow over her head so no one will hear her crying. There is no Max, no horse of her heart, to lay his long head over her chest and comfort her. There are no boys and girls to surround her with their warmth. No Thora, no Jayke, no Aron, no Sky. She feels utterly alone. In all the world, there is only her. She wants to run far from this place, but
wherever she goes, it will be the same. Death will follow her all her days.

Malora weeps until she is exhausted, and then she falls into a fitful sleep. Once again, she is on Sky’s back galloping northward, away from Mount Kheiron. Sky keeps trying to turn around and return to the south, to Mount Kheiron, but Malora won’t let him. Instead, she urges him forward.

“Go! Go! Go! Get me away from this place!” she cries.

“You must return,” he tells her, tossing his mane and pawing the ground with his hooves. “You are needed.”

“I am
not
needed. I bring only grief to those I love.”

“If you stay, you will bring victory to one and all,” he tells her.

Finally, she is too tired to go on arguing with Sky. She lies down along his neck, buries her face in his mane, and feels him shifting beneath her, turning around to take her back to Mount Kheiron.

Neal Featherhoof bursts through the door, his chest heaving, sweat darkening his golden flanks.

Malora and Honus are in the big room, reviewing her sums side by side at the scrivening table. It has been a week since the banishment, and as long since Malora has seen Neal. She has stopped stealing away to go hunting with him. Neal thinks they should suspend their routine until the mood in Mount Kheiron is less volatile. If a Flatlander happens to see her with a weapon and reports it to the Apex, who knows what would happen?

“You’re needed down at the stable!” Neal says.

Malora looks to Honus, who says, “Waste no time! Go! Go! Go!”

Zephele trots in from the terrace, where she has been reading. “What now?” she asks in a voice filled with dread.

“It’s one of the Furies,” Neal says. “Gift, it seems, is out of his depth and has been from the very start. Come with me, Malora. I know a shortcut.”

She follows Neal at a run, out the door, along the hall, and down the service-entrance stairs. They leap across the road and clamber over the wall where she once snared squirrels. Then they go charging down through the scrub and through a series of backyards and plazas and courtyards. Down and down they go, bisecting the ring roads, sending centaurs and Twani scattering before them, their expressions stunned. Running is, as Zephele says, not the
done thing
.

“What happened?” Malora asks breathlessly as they slip and slide down the mountain.

“One of the horses, Shadow, is hitched to a rig, and she ran off without a driver. She is whipping the cart this way and that behind her, and the wranglers fear she will snag it on something and hurt herself or someone else.”

“What were you doing at the stable?” Malora asks.

“I was at the gate when Shadow came charging past. I saw the blue and white on the rig, so I went to the stable and learned the rest. There’s more I need to tell you before we arrive on the scene.”

Malora’s guts churn. This scene he is talking about is where she is needed, and has been needed for a week. This is where Sky was telling her to go in the dream, and yet she did nothing about it. She didn’t understand. No wonder Sky
stopped coming to her in her dreams, no matter how much Breath of the Bush she lavished on the canopy.

Neal stops and grabs her arm. His copper eyes hold hers. “Gift’s two oldest hands were trampled to death last week by one of the stallions,” he says.

Malora sighs and shuts her eyes. “Has Gift kept the mares and the stallions separated? I just know he has,” she says through gritted teeth.

“He has kept them in the stalls in the cave,” Neal says grimly. “I think he’s been afraid to let them loose.”

“That was foolish. I told him not to keep them apart for too long. The mares have a calming effect on the stallions. I wish Gift had listened to me.”

“Gift is a fraud,” Neal says.

“But the Apex lured Gift away from Anders Thunder-heart’s racing stable. He even pays him nubs to do this job, and Twani are never paid. Do you mean Gift lied to the Apex about his skills?”

“It was a little joke Anders played on the Apex. He made sure to boast about Gift after the last race so that Medon would lure Gift away. Oh, Anders was thoroughly glad to see the last of that Twan,” Neal says. “Anders told me Gift was fine with broke horses, but not so good with green. No patience. None at all.”

“The boys and girls aren’t green! They are broke!”

“Broke to you, perhaps, but apparently not to Gift. I think he’s tried his best, but the Furies are more than he can handle. He’s afraid. What’s worse, he’s refusing to admit his fear to anyone, least of all the Apex.”

“That would only make it worse,” she says, fretting.
“There’s nothing that sets a horse off more surely than a lying, two-faced trainer. This is my fault. I should never have left them in the hands of fools.”

Human and centaur fall silent, saving their breath for the steepest part of the descent, between the lowermost ring road and the mountain’s boulder-strewn base. They pick their way over the rocks and down to the base path that follows the foot of the mountain to the stable. Dust clogs the air. Malora peers down at the ground and makes out a scrambled pattern of hoof and wheel marks in the dust. “She’s been past here four times. She’s looking for a way out.”

“The only way out is through the main gate,” Neal says. “And I’ve instructed the guard to bring down the gate.”

The Silvermane Stable is in an uproar when they get there. Dust-covered Twani are scurrying in all directions, and horses are pounding their stalls and screaming to the mare who has cut loose and run. The screams are as intelligible to Malora as the prints in the dirt: “Run away, Shadow! Run away! Even if we can’t. Run to freedom while you can!”

Malora has a picture in her mind of Shadow running, looking for a way out. It is just a matter of time before the poor distraught creature comes galloping this way, and Malora will be ready for her. She reaches back and quickly frees her horse tail from the braid. When the mare does return, Malora wants her familiar silhouette to be the first thing she sees. Inside the cave, the horses’ screams rise to a higher pitch, telling Malora that the mare is closing in again.

A cloud of dust appears from around the side of the mountain, resolving itself into a horse and rig coming on at high speed. Malora steps directly into the mare’s path. Legs
bent slightly at the knee and arms hanging limply at her sides, she takes as deep a breath as the dusty air will allow and attempts to present the most friendly, unthreatening sight this horse has seen in weeks. Fear of being trampled courses through her, and she tries to ground that fear, sending it down through her body, out through her feet, and into the dirt beneath her. The mare is scared out of her mind. There is no guarantee that she will not run over Malora and pound her into paste. But Malora will have to take that chance.

She whispers over and over again, “Please stop. I’m sorry. Please stop. I’m sorry. Please stop.”

As the horse bears down upon her, Malora smells sweat and the heat of the rig’s wheels. Against every impulse, she keeps her eyes wide open and a big, warm, welcoming smile on her face.

Less than half a horse’s length from where Malora stands, the mare digs in her hooves and grinds to a halt. The rig swings up behind her and slams down hard in the dirt, bouncing. For a long time, horse and human stand in the settling dust.