The King's Horse (Shioni of Sheba Book 2) (13 page)

T
ariku, Talaku and Shioni,
relieved neither to be stewing in Kalcha’s pot nor decorating a rebel’s trophy collection in a forgotten hut somewhere in the mountains, chatted about the mysterious stele as the sun climbed in the sky and the heat pressed down mercilessly, as though bent on suffocating the travellers. Tariku told them an old story from his people about a cow-stealing giant and the villagers’ hilarious, bumbling efforts to catch him. Talaku claimed Tariku was giving him ideas for how he could create more trouble.

As the men fell to bickering
, Shioni’s attention wandered.

Star’s easy gait and the
soaring temperature combined to make her sleepy, but not so sleepy as to miss a flash of movement on the far bank of the Mesheha river.

Her voice climbed to an embarrassing squeak. “Ah…
Tariku!”

“What… well,
what?
”

“I just saw one of Kalcha’s hyenas!”

“You’re imagining–” Tariku’s spear leaped into his hand. “By all that’s holy! Three of the mangy curs!”

Talaku chuckled.
“Lucky for them they’re over there.” Whipping Siltam off his back, he tested the blade’s edge lovingly with the pad of his thumb. “We’ve a score to settle with them, haven’t we, my beauty?”

The hulking, yellow-fanged monsters stared at the travellers across the
muddy, fast-running flow of the Mesheha river. They paced up and down, showing off the thick, rolling muscles of their powerful jaws, necks and shoulders, which tapered down to the faintly ridiculous hindquarters which always made Shioni think God had taken two differently-sized, but equally disagreeable, animals and shoved them together without care or forethought. Who could love such a beast?

A quiver
vexed her body as Shioni remembered her dream. Shame gave way to animosity. Yes, she had been afraid! And hurt! She had to refuse to give in. She had to give her feelings voice. Before she knew it, the recurve bow was drawn as far as she was able. An arrow arced up over the broad river.

“
Shot!” Tariku approved, shading his eyes to follow the flight.

But the arrow stopped mid-air as though she had
aimed at the wall of Castle Asmat. It dropped harmlessly at the feet of one of the hyenas, who opened his jaws and rent the air with a fearful belling and yipping.

“Kalcha!” snarled Talaku.

The fifty-odd paces separating them across the river was not enough to shield Shioni from the dismay that shook her at the sight of Kalcha. The witch-leader of the Wasabi sat tall upon a stallion as black as her robes, and it seemed to Shioni that had Kalcha been able to burn them across the waters by the sheer force of her gaze alone, she would have. Her hands rose slowly, hooked as talons ready to rend her prey.

“Get down!” cried Tariku.

As one person, they ducked.

Mocking
laughter drifted to their bank. “Oh, scared you, did I? Pathetic little Sheban warriors, with your pathetic little slave, jumping at your own shadows. Don’t worry unduly–we will meet soon enough. Kalcha is hunting other prey this day.”

T
ariku motioned with his hand for them to stay down. Talaku was growling something unintelligible beneath his breath. The only word Shioni caught rightly was ‘slice’. She could imagine he’d want to do a bit of slicing after Kalcha had tried to smash his brains out with her flail during the battle for Castle Asmat. Talaku, the King’s Champion, was not the kind of man to take defeat lightly.

“Nevertheless, I should leave you with a present,” Kalcha called. Shioni frowned. Could she see a strange shimmering developing in the air above the witch? Or was that the heat? “Consider this
… a token of my generosity.”

Kalcha’s lips moved soundlessly
. Her black-clad arms rose in dramatic sweeping movements, gathering power to her breast. The shimmering gathered form and deepened in colour from gold to a smoky midnight blue, the colour of storm clouds pregnant with a deluge. Shioni’s pulse began to throb so strongly in her throat that she imagined she had swallowed a great
kebero
drum and the drummer was pounding out the rhythm for a thousand dancers.

“
Hit the dirt!” shouted Tariku, showing the way with alacrity that might, another day, have made Shioni hoot.

Kalcha’s strange mist shot over the river more swiftly than Shioni’s arrow.

But Star had spotted a tasty tuft of grass. Taking two steps forward, she bent to crop a mouthful. The mist struck her side… and vanished.

Kalcha seemed satisfied. Whistling her hyenas to heel, the witch trotted off downriver, paying Shioni, Talaku and Tariku as much attention
as she might have a trio of cockroaches.

“Well!” Tariku rose, dusting off his trousers. “What do you make of that?
A curse?”

Talaku shrugged massively.
“Depends if you believe in curses.”

“And those snakes crawling all over Castle Asmat when we arrived were imaginary, Talaku? As too the
way that witch flattened our warriors? Believe you me, nothing good can come from that vile woman!”

Shioni followed the two warriors as they made to move on.
What had Star done by moving between them at that vital instant, she wondered? Despite the jovial sun beaming down on their path, her neck did not stop prickling for hours afterward.

B
y early afternoon, the
travellers had trekked all the miles back north, upriver, to the base of the trail that Girma had mapped for them. Here they paused for a brief meal of nuts and tart fruits gathered from the trailside. Shioni tried to speak to the King’s horse–when the men were not looking–but he appeared to be in no mood for conversation. He was gaunt, lethargic, and several places on his flanks were scabbed over where branches or perhaps the teeth of the wolves had torn his flesh. There was a worrying dullness in his eyes.

But at least the horse was not living up to his nickname ‘the mad biter’.
He seemed somehow broken in spirit, which to Shioni seemed worse than all the arrogance and temper he had displayed before.

“You should ride Star,” said Tariku, helping Shioni rig a rope halter on her pony.
“I don’t want to be stuck halfway up at sundown. And I’ll not have you hopping along up there, it’s far too dangerous. Just keep your head down where the trail winds beneath those overhanging parts and trust your pony’s footing.”

Shioni nodded.
It was like the bad feelings between them had never existed. This was the Tariku of easy camaraderie. He was treating her like she imagined he might treat his own daughter, fussing a little, making sure she was safe. And yet when they returned, she would have to face the General or have Tariku bring down his wrath upon her instead.

“Do you think we’ll see those wolves again?”

Tariku was checking Hoplite’s saddle girth. “Who knows, girl? Keep your dagger loose. Do you know what happened to the mad Arabian? He’s not mad anymore.”

“He’s
sick,” she said, without thinking, “but he just won’t tell me what the matter is.”

Twin gasps
alerted her to what she had just said. Shioni clapped her hands to her mouth. Stars above, if she could once in her life learn to keep her big trap shut! Better still, learn to hide her reaction when she blabbed like any gossiping monkey.

By the time these thoughts had coursed through her mind, it was far too late.

Talaku flipped her a mock salute. “Friends, I smell a confession in the air.” And with an efficient twirl of his fingers, he reversed his great axe mid-air and sheathed it on his back.

“I take it from the frightened-
bushbuck look, Shioni–ah, your knack with animals…”

“
Tariku, stop.” Shioni drew a breath so deep it made her shudder. “Look, I keep it quiet because I’m enough of a freak without adding… well, some people think I have witch skills, alright? Or that I’m an asmati. So I can understand animals. Some talk, some sort of give off pictures or feelings.” The warrior folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Your horse thinks that the name ‘Hop Along’ is an insult. Call him Hoplite and he’ll like you better.”

“Really?”
He harrumphed like a horse, but patted Hoplite on the neck nonetheless. “So tell me about those four scratches on your shoulder. Mister Lion didn’t feel like talking?”

“He was making a point I still don’t understand.”

“Four points, like they were carved by daggers,” said Talaku, putting his big paw on Tariku’s arm as if to restrain him. “Look, I understand feeling like the scabby hyena in that castle. Go easy on her, Tariku. There’s an advantage for us in this–for Sheba, I mean–if we can figure out how to use her skill.”

“Yes, there might just be at that.” Tariku’s easy smile returned, but Shioni had a horrid suspicion her secret had just been hoarded away somewhere inside of him, ready to be used against her if needed. “I imagine the trick is to avoid being eaten before you talk,” he quipped. “Who else knows?
Mama, or I’m a bald-headed vulture. What about your mistress?”

Shioni stared mutinously at a pair of common waxbills pestering each other in a nearby bush.
“Annakiya knows. And Azurelle.”

“
Hmm. Very well,” said the warrior, tying his packs onto Hoplite’s saddle. “Let’s move out.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “Shall I add this to our list to discuss with the General, then?”

Helpless rage
washed through her. Suddenly, she wanted to be on her own. No more talking with Tariku. No more of his snide comments.

Shioni squeezed with her knees.
“Come on, Star. This place stinks anyway.” Star sent a wistful image of tasty hay, a warm stable, and the company of other ponies and horses. “Soon enough, old girl. Just a small mountain to cross.”

Closing her eyes
to the world, Shioni stretched out along Star’s back and let herself be carried along. She draped her arms around Star’s neck. At least she had one friend she could depend on. She could not hear the men following and she didn’t care. She had received her wish. One more secret out in the open. Wonderful.

H
er resentment decided her
place at the head of their group. Shioni allowed Star to choose her own pace along the trail as it climbed sharply, narrowing and nestling itself into the escarpment wall. Soon she was above the treeline, bathed in glorious sunshine that stung her sunburned shoulders and neck. She drew her legs up as her toes scraped either side of a narrow cleft, and then the ground to her left hand seemed to shear away and she was climbing the cliff itself.

Shioni wished for nothing more in the world than one of Mama Nomuula’s hugs to strengthen her for the ordeal which lay ahead
–oddly, she realised, she feared returning to the castle more than she had feared the Wasabi or the rebels. Why? They had discovered the location of the new Wasabi hideout. They were returning with the King’s horse, even though he was in a sorry state. They had seen Kalcha. Shioni could tell the General who was leading the rebels. All she had to do was break her promise…

But she could not help mooching over Tariku’s words.
Was she really being that selfish, putting excuses above the lives of her friends? And her owners, bullies and tormentors, and those few Shebans who simply did not care for any ferengi?

She was not one of them.
She was not even Sheban.

“Would you really give
anything just to fit in?” she asked herself, remembering how often Mama liked to tell her it was good to be different. She was a foreigner too. But nobody seemed to mind
her
origins! Probably because she fed them nicely, like the love of a puppy for the hand which feeds it. She wished she could have had Mama’s duck-like ability to let things wash off her. She wished she could have been born Sheban, not some ghastly, pale, half-human target for vegetable peels in the kitchen.

She patted Star’s neck.
“At least you understand me!”

A backward glance confirmed Talaku was still plodding along behind her, leading the King’s horse, and further behind him, Tariku brought up the rear.
Tariku had a smile for her. She glowered back. He could go kiss a hyena for all she cared.

A branch
thwacked the side of her head.

“
Eyes on the trail!” called Tariku, full of false cheer. Shioni wished she could have raised her hackles at him like a dog.

She
eased her shoulders, but took his advice as Star weaved her way through a patch of small, gnarly trees that sprouted from the rocks and hung into space. In places, Star had to literally squeeze around boulders that threatened to push the trail right off the cliff’s edge. Shioni had to raise her right leg, or risk having the skin scraped off. Star was so surefooted! The yawning drop didn’t seem to bother her, even when she was placing a hoof a mere hand’s-breadth from disaster.

Shioni’s imagination
, however, could conjure up a hundred disasters! She tried to think about other things–about the heat blazing against her neck, or how they must soon reach the top, or how the eagles were swooping off the rocks above to plummet into the gorge with enviable ease. But the sheer enormity of the precipice was a magnet to her eyes.

She
started as a large walia ibex appeared on the trail. It stared wild-eyed at her, panting as though terrified, and then made an impossible series of leaps down the cliff face. Shioni peered over the edge, marvelling–for a large animal, with thick curving horns, it seemed to combine an eagle’s grace with a snail’s ability to glue itself to any surface, and a vertical leap that would put any antelope to shame.

Tariku said, “I wish I could jump
down cliffs like that. Make this trail easier than floating down a gentle stream.”

Shioni
glanced over her shoulder. “Me too.”

“It would have made a fine dinner,” said Talaku, rubbing his belly.

That finally brought Shioni’s smile back. And then she saw the giant’s face change.

There was a blast of sound,
followed by a shriek from the pony. Shioni’s world turned head-over-heels. The rope halter burned through her fingers.

Star stumbled,
jerked down by Shioni’s weight as her wrist tangled in the rope. There was a sharp crack. Rocks rose up to thump her in the ribs. The pony was trying to turn, to kick with her hind legs, but the space was too narrow for her and there was something wrong with her foreleg.

Shioni realised she’d tumbled over the edge of the cliff.
The trail was only an arm’s-length away, but it might as well have been the far side of the mountain. She could not possibly reach it. She grabbed for the rope with her free hand. Looking up, she saw a lioness, bellying over the rocks, her tail switching back and forth like an angry cobra. The lioness’ snarl was marred by gobs of saliva which dangled from her jaws, making her look more like a hyena than a lion, she would remember thinking.

Time
seemed to expand in concert with the dread blossoming in her heart. There was Talaku, lifting his axe off his back; Tariku’s face grossly contorted in the act of shouting something from behind. He could not have helped, even if the King’s horse had not been stomping about and backing up, away from the lioness.

Shioni slipped further. Her bare feet scrabbled about, feeling for some grip, but she was dangling over an overhang and so from the chest down, she was hanging in space. To fall would mean certain death. Would her weight drag the pony over the edge too?

With a powerful spring, the claws of all four paws bared like talons, the lioness landed on Star’s back. She sank her canines into the pony’s neck. Star screamed. The pony’s thrashing was knocking her about against the rocks. Shioni knew she was in deep, deep trouble–but what to do?

“Grab a tree!”
bellowed Talaku.

The giant was crouching, searching for a way to strike the lion cleanly with his long-handled axe.

“It’s rabid!” Tariku called from behind. He had an arrow nocked to his bow but did not shoot for fear of hitting Talaku. “Don’t get bitten or scratched!”

The axe swished through the air, a backhanded blow.
The lioness gave a terrible groan. Shioni ducked as something splattered down on her head.

Now she made a grab for a tree, which was growing sideways from a niche between the rocks, and managed to tuck her arm over it so that she was
swinging mid-air with the narrow trunk jammed into her armpit. Relieved of her weight, Star tried to struggle upright. Talaku’s axe flashed a second time.

Shioni lifted her legs and locked them around the tree, so that she could pull herself up.
A tearing sound came from near her head. Her perch sagged.

Shioni was
just starting to scream, “Help–!” when a hand snaked down and caught her braid! The tree tore loose, but the powerful grip on her hair arrested her fall. Her scalp felt as though it was being ripped from its roots. Her scream rose to a piercing pitch as she was lifted bodily by her hair, tree and all–for her arms and legs were still locked in a life-and-death grip around the trunk–and dropped not very gently upon the trail.

N
umb with shock, Shioni finally untangled herself from the tree. She sat on a rock and touched her abused head with delicate fingertips. Everything seemed to be present. Nothing much was bleeding.

Dear God, she had stared death in the face and
lived…

Talaku was calling Star.
“Here girl. Here, old girl.”

Tariku had found his way past the horses.
He crouched down next to Shioni. “Still with us?”

“Just about.
I’m cold.”

“You’ve had a
fright,” he said. “Don’t worry, the lioness is dead. Talaku will deal with the pony.”

Shioni stared at him.
The words scrambled around in her head, making less and less sense the more she thought about them.

The warrior’s voice was gentler than she had ever heard from him.
“She’s broken her leg–you know what that means, don’t you? And she’s been bitten by a rabid lion.”

A few steps up the trail, Talaku was pushing the lioness over the edge with the haft of his axe.
“Let the vultures get that one,” he said.

Star was hopping; clearly in pain, clearly confused. Blood soaked the side of her neck. Her shoulder had been torn open.

“No…”

“She’s an old pony and has lived well.
But she will never recover from this, Shioni.”

“No!”

“I know you were close. Why don’t you say goodbye? Then you walk up a ways and Talaku and I will… we’ll finish here. Right?”

All Shioni could think of was the gentle eagerness in Star’s eyes whenever the pony saw her approach
ing along the picket line; the trust she conveyed when she tied her near the lion’s cave; the way she had run from the Wasabi like the very wind unleashed.

After a long pause she
pushed herself to her feet, and forced her legs to limp up past Talaku. A harder few yards she had never walked. Shioni raised a hand to Star’s muzzle. The pony shied and stepped restlessly. A red haze of pain was washing against her senses. “Easy there, old girl. I know it hurts.” Shioni’s throat closed up and she could say no more.

She tried to picture warmth and encouragement and gratitude, but she was a mess of tears and felt only pain
–perhaps now a little something else–in return.

And then she walked on and did not look back.