The King's Horse (Shioni of Sheba Book 2) (16 page)

T
alaku charged off with
the grace of a furious rhinoceros.

Shioni did not wait for his dust to settle, nor did she pause to consider Azurelle’s astonished protests
. Seizing the trailing rope halter, she launched herself up onto Thunder’s back, yelling, “Go, go, go!”

Thunder needed no second invitation.
He barely waited for her backside to touch the saddle before he pinned his ears back and hurled himself down the trail as if he were a frog fleeing the snap of a heron’s beak. He was so fast! Wind rushed in her ears like the river gushing past Takazze, the Sheban royal city, after the rains. Shioni’s legs cramped against his flanks as she fought to keep her seat. She muttered at herself to relax, raised a hand to tug a hank of blonde hair out of her mouth, and checked Azurelle was safely tucked into her pocket.

Ahead of them, Talaku was weaving around a series of huge granite boulders, each the height of a full-grown man, and Thunder too was forced to slow his pace as the trail wriggled between the boulders like a frightened snake. But they soon burst out into a long meadow of dry, crunchy grass the same tan colour as a desert, a meadow that flowed up against the huge, black basalt cliffs which frowned over the valley the Shebans had conquered and called home. Thunder kicked up his heels and surged forward.

A trader was leading a train of overburdened donkeys up the river trail; precarious haystacks perched on top of little trotting legs, with long ears and a dark nose poking out of the front. He shouted in astonishment as first the giant and then the horse and its riders whipped past him.

As Shioni ducked beneath the spindly, spiky branches of an acacia tree overhanging the trail, Zi shouted up to her: “He’s crazy!”

“I know, Zi.”

“So we’re following him… why?” The
Fiuri had to scream to make herself heard above the eye-tearing buffeting of the wind. “Because you prefer charging into trouble, as opposed to your usual stroll?”

Shioni’s uneasy laughter was snatched away in a gasp as Thunder extended his stride into his full racing gallop. Incredible, she thought. He had greater speed still? His blood must be boiling at that challenge–from a mere human! The picture foremost in his mind was less than flattering.

But even the proud Arabian would have to admit that Talaku was in superb condition.
Superhuman
condition, Shioni corrected herself with a sardonic smile, for how else could a man hold his own against a horse in a straight race? His enormous, bounding strides were all about power; power he had in abundance, thanks to an eight-foot-plus frame all bound up in ropy muscle, fuelled by a gigantic appetite that could demolish a whole goat at a sitting and pour that nourishment directly into his extraordinary growth and girth. He must burn it all–somehow!

Ahead of her, Talaku thundered through a family of gazelle, sending them bounding and darting in all directions, and then, swerving into the river shallows for a few steps inundated in silvery spray, he scattered a flock of peaceably-feeding crowned cranes to the four winds. Their raucous honks of alarm echoed between the cliffs.

Shioni loved all the riverine wildlife, and hated scaring the animals in this way!

If Talaku resembled a racing rhino rumbling along, Thunder was a falcon in flight. He had the advantage of four legs as opposed to two, but Talaku had not tarried to make a fair start. They were over the halfway point in their race now, and she sensed the giant might be tiring after his prodigious opening burst. Thunder’s hooves were still striking the iron-hard ground with rattletrap speed. She leaned right out along his neck, making herself as small as possible, letting her instincts
meld her body with the flow of his charge. On a whimsy she sent him an image of a flying horse she had seen on one of Annakiya’s scrolls, which described legends of ancient Greece.

Thunder tossed his head with an approving whinny.

A peculiar thing happened just then, as she held that image of the flying horse lightly in the forefront of her mind. Her ears, attuned to the rhythmic drumming of Thunder’s hooves over earth, rock and water, suddenly told her they were hearing nothing of the sort. It had to be the wind wittering in her ears. She tried to pop her eardrums by lowering her jaw, and glanced down at the hooves flying beneath her precarious perch–but it was impossible, at that tremendous speed, to ascertain if she was simply imagining the horse was no longer quite touching the ground, according to her whimsy. She glanced up again. Whatever the case, one thing was clear: they were suddenly overhauling Talaku as though he had paused in the shade for an afternoon doze.

A hundred paces from the juniper tree, Thunder thrust his nose ahead of the astonished giant. The horse let out a shrill whinny of exultation. Shioni followed suit with a war-whoop as they slowed up past the crooked juniper, just a couple of paces ahead of Talaku but clearly the winners.

“You stinking little
cheat
!”

Stung, Shioni whirled at the roar from behind her. She was about to shout back, when Thunder reared unexpectedly. She heard a shout: “The ferengi!” Something heavy struck the small of her back, lifting her clean out of the saddle. She landed flat on her back. Every last gasp of breath exploded out of her lungs. Next she knew, she was
lying face-up to the white-hot sky. A Wasabi warrior with a face painted in a hyena’s maniacal grin loomed over her, his spear raised in the act of pinning her to the ground.

Even though her brain was screaming the need to roll aside, her body refused to respond. She was too slow. Everything was too slow. Talaku was bellowing as his great double-bladed war axe, which he called Siltam, flared blindingly in the late afternoon sunshine. His cries struck her ears as long, drawn-out groans. The axe hung mid-air as if suspended on strings. A hoof swirled into her peripheral vision and crashed ever so slowly into the Wasabi’s grinning face. Thunder! She noticed–surprised in some faraway part of her mind at the detail–how his metal horseshoe smashed the man’s cheek, the precise angle at which the warrior’s head snapped aside, how his body twirled in a floppy half-turn before thudding face-down beside her. Red clay dust drifted gently upward from the area of impact.

Talaku’s axe sliced a comet trail through the dust and drifting pollens, which glittered as if swarms of fireflies were spiralling above her head. Thunder’s mane resembled a swirling silken curtain as he spun with a dancer’s poise, hooves flying in a deadly ballet amongst the crowding Wasabi warriors.

Every detail she perceived seemed suffused with an unearthly beauty.

Was she dying?

But then the world roared back into her senses, a deluge of chaotic impressions: a din of stamping hooves, men bellowing like cattle, a full-throated roaring from the giant mixed with Thunder’s furious screams, dust being kicked up to obscure the battle scene in a weird, bloody half-light. And she lay helpless amidst it all.

Lungs burning; heaving, hacking and coughing, a whistling through her airways; she couldn’t breathe or even cry out for help as she wanted to.

Silence fell.

A hand cupped her head, engulfing it from ear to ear. “Easy does it. You hurt?” She tried to speak, but her throat felt as if it had been scratched by claws. “Relax. Take slow breaths and it’ll come back, I promise.”

Precious air finally seeped into her lungs and her panic ebbed away. Shioni was able to croak, “No. Not hurt... much.”

“It’s a horrid feeling. But it’ll pass.”

Talaku helped her to her feet. She ached more from her neck to her waist than if her weapons-master had pummelled her at staves, which was her regular lot during training.
A few extra bruises? They would find plenty of company on her body! Dusting off her tunic, Shioni surveyed the wreckage, averting her gaze from all the bodies. So many dead bodies! For the first time in her life, she thought, she understood something of what the priests must mean when they talked about hell.

Clapping her hands to her mouth was no aid. Shioni succeeded only in catching what remained of her breakfast. She spat and wiped her mouth. “I’m sorry, Talaku. I’m not used to this.”

A cloth landed at her feet. “Clean yourself up. I also… well, I vomited the first time after I killed a man.”

Her eyes jumped back to the giant.
Guardedly.

“The rest of those Wasabi dogs fled,” he was saying. “We must have run straight into their camp. And–will you stop looking at me like that? I’m–well, I’m normal now.”

Shioni fell to examining her toes, thinking hard. Normal, yes, but for how long? General Getu had once tangled with dragons. They burned him and bit off his left arm. Five years later, Getu’s son Talaku was born, somehow tainted by the dragon venom left in his father’s body. At least, that was Getu’s explanation for Talaku’s gigantic stature. What might dragon venom do to a man? She worried her lower lip between her teeth. Getu had warned her Talaku was becoming dangerous and unpredictable. He had just torn an entire troop of Wasabi warriors to shreds–seasoned warriors who knew which end of a spear was for stabbing with. Now his madness was multiplying too!

“I’m sorry I led you into danger,” the giant added quietly. He misunderstood her silence, she realised. “I had no idea the Wasabi were here, so close to the castle. Your horse is a real fighter–is he trained for battle?”

“He says he is,” Shioni confirmed.

“You’re still talking to animals?” Talaku cleaned Siltam on a dead Wasabi warrior’s clothes.

“Quite the freak, aren’t I?”

His head jerked up as though slapped by her wry response, and his gaze burned darkly at her. “You think
you’re
a freak?”

Despite her heart leaping into her throat, Shioni tried to meet his fury levelly. “Sure, I don’t know too many giants, Talaku. How many blonde-haired, green-eyed ferengi slaves do you know?”

Ah, the favourite insult of her fellow slaves, leaving a taste akin to bitter aloes in her mouth, Shioni thought. A ferengi was a foreigner, a stranger, someone different. In her experience, someone who would never fit in. One to be bullied. No amount of sunshine would turn her skin as brown as a Sheban’s, she had discovered. Children from the villages around the castle sometimes ran from her in fright. Others called her names, or just threw stones. It was all too easy to let the grief flood into her eyes and she let Talaku have every drop of hurt she could muster.

This time it was the giant who dropped his gaze. Apparently lost in thought, he sheathed Siltam into a leather holster strapped across his back and heaved an almighty sigh.

She should put bitterness behind her, Shioni told herself, as Mama Nomuula had told her. It would only eat her up like the dry rot that could eat a tree from the inside, destroying it over a period of years. Many people treated her just as one of them. Most people! Why could she not see that and forget the few bad mangoes in the barrel?

Shioni let her own sigh reply to Talaku’s. “We’re a fine pair, aren’t we?”

Talaku straightened up with a laugh. “I forget you’re just a half-grown kid sometimes, Shioni. You keep me sane. So, you won the race. But you cheated. You must have. I haven’t been beaten by a horse in over two years.”

Shioni flushed hotly and glared up at him, hands on hips. “I’m no cheat! Besides, Thunder isn’t just any horse–he’s an Arabian, and the fastest animal on four legs!”

Talaku’s expression seemed to be saying ‘there’s fast and there’s
fast
!’ He clearly didn’t believe her, not a word. Shioni noticed that her head was only just above the level of his belly button, so glaring up at him felt ridiculous, as though his sheer immensity had diminished her to the size of a five-year-old child. Well, she was eleven, according to the record of her ownership, wasn’t she? Although the records for slaves were notoriously inaccurate. Warriors and nobility could trace their ancestors for ten generations, but slaves? No chance. About as likely as an elephant flying to the moon, she thought.

And she was half a head taller than Princess Annakiya already–an ungainly, graceless foil for her supremely graceful friend, who made looking and behaving as a princess ought to seem so blasted effortless…

Thunder pushed his nose insistently into Shioni’s hand. He sent her a picture of Wasabi warriors slipping away among the trees.

“So,” she said, mentally throwing her resentful thoughts out for the hyenas to breakfast on, “you let a few Wasabi escape. Where do you think they went?”