Gorinthians (37 page)

"Yes sir,” a tall,
powerfully built man with a black beard that hid his scar said,
saluting smartly. "You think they will come back, sir?"

"I think they left the
chance open, since they hid the vessel and tied it off,” Sanders
replied curtly, turning and walking back to the troops still being
ferried ashore on the long boat.

"Sergeant Grism," Sanders
called crisply, "I want you to gather the remaining troops and
follow us. I will be leaving with those we have ashore
immediately."

---

Jesha woke with a start as a
firm hand gently shook her shoulder. "It is time to go now,” Des
whispered down to her.

The room was still pitch
black, but Jesha could feel where everything was with her
yar
. Though she had never
learned to do anything with her
yar
as she had witnessed Des doing, she had always
been able to feel everything around her: emotions as well as the
physical world. Rising from her bed, she walked over to the door
and waited for Des to pull her pack back on. A moment later, Des
opened the door to the still dark hallway and knocked lightly on
Ferrich's door before entering quietly. Ferrich was twisting around
in his sleep, mumbling incoherently. Des reached out and shook him
lightly and he sat up straight with a gasp, breathing heavily for
several moments before calming down.

"Don't tell me we have
another Elemental behind us,” Des said, half seriously.

"No," Ferrich said as he
swung around the bed and began pulling his boots up. "I think that
there are some soldiers about an hour away, though."

"How many?” Des asked
quietly.

"Close to a hundred,”
Ferrich replied, grunting as he pulled his pack on. "They split
their forces twice, once when they reached the first road, and
again when they reached the main road."

"Go wake up Seranova,” Des
told him, still talking quietly. "Jesha and I will purchase some
horses and meet you out front in half an hour."

Jesha could feel Ferrich's
reluctance as they left his room, almost as strongly as she could
feel his attraction to Des. She could not feel anything at all from
Des, except that she was there. She must have learned to hide her
feelings from the strange sense that Jesha had, as well as from her
face.

They made their way down the
stairs and through the common room to the front door without
meeting anyone. As they entered the street out front, the sky to
the west was just beginning to lighten. Jesha wondered if Des knew
she could sense things without her eyes. "Do you know where they
will be selling horses at?” she asked Des in a soft voice. She had
learned in the village that speaking softly made her seem younger,
matching her physical size.

"Just follow the smell,” Des
instructed her, just as softly. "Stables always have a strong
enough smell to guide you to them from anywhere in a town this
small."

Jesha looked around at the
large two-story buildings around them, wondering what a large city
must look like if this was a small town. There were several people
beginning to make their way into the street as the western horizon
continued to grow lighter. Des led her down a side street where the
buildings began to change from stone to thick timbers that had only
one floor. They followed the side road until they came to the outer
edge of the town where they found a large stable with several
horses grazing on lush green grass surrounded by a log fence. A
young man was just making his way over to a shack next to the fence
when she and Des arrived.

"Excuse me," Des addressed a
young man that probably had not seen his first shave yet, "we would
like to purchase four horses."

The young man stood gaping
at Des, unable to say anything for several moments before he
finally stuttered several times, asking them to wait a moment while
he disappeared back into a large house by the stables. Jesha looked
up at Des with an impish smile on her delicate face, "I think that
he is smitten."

"Wonderful,” Des said dryly,
unconsciously brushing a stray lock of hair behind her
ear.

Jesha had not really noticed
how beautiful Des was before because they had spent all of their
time trying staying alive or running, but she did now as the sun
crested the mountains to gleam off the dark hair that ran down her
back. She was slimly fit with a delicate jaw line that almost
looked Zeran, and a fluid way of walking that reminded Jesha of her
mother.

A short, chubby man was
exiting the house with the boy closely following. The boy could not
seem to keep his eyes off Des and his mouth was still slightly
slack. The short, chubby man bowed in front of them. "Master
Delton, at your service Mistress,” he said at the bottom of his
bow, "I understand that you wish to purchase some horses.” As he
unbent, smiling ingratiatingly at Des, his eyes also widened
slightly, and he bowed once more. "Forgive me mistress, but you are
a woman of rare beauty."

"Thank you,” Des replied
without blushing. "Indeed, I am in need of four horses."

The two of them walked over
to the stables and Master Delton showed her what he said were his
finest horses. The two of them haggled for several minutes, with
Master Delton finally telling her that for a woman of her beauty,
he could accept the counter offer that she had made.

"Kenthon, get them horses
saddled,” Master Delton commanded the young man who was still
gawking at Des. When he did not respond to Delton, the chubby man
cuffed him on the side of the head. "Come on now, they don't have
all day."

Blushing to the roots of his
hair, Kenthon hurried over to the tack room and began pulling
saddles and bridles out for the horses. When Des began helping him
saddle the horses, both Master Delton and Kenthon protested that
she need not trouble herself. Ignoring them, she continued saddling
two of them in the time that it took Kenthon and Master Delton to
saddle the other one. Handing Master Delton several silver coins,
Des led the horses out of the stable and they made their way back
to the inn.

As they made their way
through the streets that were quickly filling up with people, Jesha
looked at the large horses doubtfully, wondering how she was going
to stay on top. Ferrich and Seranova were waiting in front of the
inn with their packs at their feet. Ferrich was gesticulating with
his hands in front of him as he tried to explain something to
Seranova. She watched him with a somewhat resigned expression on
her face, commenting occasionally. When she saw them moving toward
them, she cut him off, pointing at them. As he turned and saw Des,
his face broke into a wide grin that Des could not seem to help
returning.

"Load the packs on this
horse," Des told them as she secured her own pack to it. "Jesha and
I will ride this one. You two can fight over which one you
want."

Ferrich held his hands out
in front of him, miming a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors at
Seranova.

"You go ahead and choose,
Ferrich,” Seranova said, shaking her head. "I don't know enough
about horses to care which one I ride."

Ferrich made show of
studying the two remaining horses, but Jesha could tell that he
knew no more about horses than Seranova did. Des rolled her eyes at
Jesha and pulled herself into her saddle. She offered her hand down
to Jesha with a smile of encouragement. Swallowing, Jesha took hold
of her hand and was pulled up into the saddle in front of Des as if
she had no weight at all. Ferrich and Seranova were climbing onto
their own mounts, Ferrich having finally grunted in satisfaction at
the dark brown mare, as if he found something that differentiated
her from the other.

"Let's ride,” Des said,
digging her heels lightly into her horse’s ribs. They walked at a
stately pace to the other end of town, where the gate was already
open and farmer’s carts were making their way into the
town.

"What is her name?” Jesha
asked Des, reaching out to stroke their horse’s neck as they passed
through the gate. The guards only looked at them with a cursory
glance before moving their gazes on to the rest of the
traffic.

"Why don't you give him a
name?” Des suggested, nudging the horse into a gallop as they left
the town.

Jesha creased her forehead
together in concentration as she tried to think of a name. A moment
later she smiled, "How about Nenstle?"

"Nenstle?” Des asked,
tasting the name. "That sounds good to me."

"That was my father's name,”
Jesha said with a sad smile, "He was strong and graceful like a
horse, so I think that he would be happy with the name."

Des hugged her with her free
arm reassuringly as they sped up the road in the morning light. The
landscape around them was filled with grassland and occasional
stands of sagebrush. A small river paralleled the road as they
moved south, toward the distant mountains. Des would stop and walk
the horses more frequently than they needed, casting an appraising
eye at their two companions that seemed to be riding a horse for
the first time. Ferrich had a wooden look on his face, as if he
were trying to ignore the jolt on his backside, while Seranova just
wore a resigned expression as she bounced around in her
saddle.

"How far is it to Chasel Ri'
Aven?” Ferrich called to her, wincing slightly as his mount jumped
over a small log in the road.

"About four days,” Des
called back to him with a grin. "By then you should be used to the
saddle."

"By then, my backside
will
look
like a
saddle,” Ferrich shouted back as his horse bounced him
around.

Chapter 21

"Duck!" a voice shouted
behind Li as she yawned in front of the fire. At the urgent shout,
she immediately dropped flat to the ground, just in time to dodge a
horse-sized boulder that flew over where she had been sitting.
Slowly rising into a crouch, Li prepared several shields in case
any other obstacles flew at her out of the slowly lightening sky.
She reached out with her
yar
, looking for the cause of the
abrupt disruption. She felt Lendel slither over next to her as the
others awoke from his shout.

"You owe me one, sis,"
Lendel said, nodding toward the spot where Lori was tossing and
turning on the ground. They could both feel her
yar
lashing wildly out of control,
followed by chunks of earth that exploded in the distance, and
sudden bursts of storm clouds over a ten-foot radius.

"I would rather owe it to
you than cheat you out of it," Li muttered distractedly. She did
not even dare to try shielding the strange girl that slept several
feet away from her. The raw power that was groping around her would
break Li like a reed. A moment later, Lori's
yar
seemed to shrink around her until
it was only reaching out an inch or two. It seemed to twist and
writhe, as if it were suddenly trapped and blind.

"What happened?" Lendel
asked in surprise. "Did she do that to herself?"

"I did it to her,"
Lochnar's voice replied coldly behind them, causing them both to
whirl around in surprise. Neither of them heard him approach from
behind and his
yar
was completely hidden from them. He was swathed in his usual
black shroud of clothing, with nothing but his face visible. Li
noticed again how alien his face looked, with the strong cheekbones
and black eyes that seemed to hold the entire chill of the Mountain
winter.

Looking around, Li noticed
that Thistledown, Terrance and Selindria were gone. "Where are the
others?" she asked Lochnar in alarm, wondering if Lori had somehow
done something to them.

"They left an hour ago,"
Lochnar replied shortly, his dark eyes studying Lori's sleeping
form. "They will return soon."

Celdic made his way over to
where Li was, glancing curiously at Lori as he passed her. In the
light of dawn, they could see that she was younger than she first
appeared. She could not have seen more than fourteen years. "What
happened?" Celdic asked Lendel, still watching Lori closely. He had
slept in his sturdy boots, like the others from Chasel Ri’ Aven. If
something attacked them in the night, they did not want to have to
defend themselves in their skin.

"I woke up when Terrance
left with Selindria and Thistledown.” Lendel was watching Lochnar
as he silently disappeared at the edge of their camp, continuing
his interrupted circuit. "A few minutes after they left, Lori
started reaching out with her
yar
in her sleep. At first, it just seemed like she
was floundering around without actually grasping anything, but a
few minutes ago she changed slightly. Trees started coming out of
the ground and a boulder flew over our camp, just about flattening
Li.” Lendel looked uncomfortable, "I was going to wake her up
earlier, but she looked like she had been through quite an ordeal,
so I just tried to keep anything from flying into our camp. I
didn't realize that she would be so strong."

"Next time, just knock her
out," Cha'le said dryly as she joined them quietly. "She won't be
using her
yar
if
she isn't dreaming."