The Destroyer Book 3 (27 page)

“Squeeze your heels into the flanks of the horse. It will follow my lead.” She made some small movement in her legs and her stallion meandered out of the stable and into the pasture. I pushed my heels into the sides of my mare and she didn’t move. Then I increased the pressure until she finally did. I wondered briefly if the mare was being stubborn or if I hadn’t used enough of my strength through my heels.

I was riding!

The joy clawed its way from my legs and hips to my brain after the horse had taken half a dozen steps into the pasture. What would Leotol think of this? He’d be envious. We had talked about how it would feel to sit so high, to feel the sky so open, and to feel the wind in our faces as we rode. I almost wanted to jump off the horse, run into the smithy shop he shared with Father, and brag to him right now.

“I can tell you are enjoying yourself,” Iolarathe said as she backed her horse up next to mine.

“Thank you, Mistress. This is wonderful. I have always wanted to ride a horse.” Tears came to my eyes but I blinked them away. No telling how she would respond if I showed too much emotion. Each time she spoke a frisson of fear and pleasure coursed through my body. This was how it always was between us, but tonight I had the added element of fear of being caught riding. I could not fully relax and ignore that fear, though I wanted to let myself go the way I did when we made love. I continued to glance around and worry she was speaking too loud.

“You are not riding yet, Kaiyer.” She let out a laugh of amusement. “You are just walking the horse. It is easy enough, but hardly any fun. Let us trot. Click your heels into the animal’s side twice with force.” I nodded and did as she asked. Suddenly my mare increased her walk to a bumpy jog that threatened to launch me from the saddle.

“Push your legs into the stirrups. Heels down. Back straight!” she instructed while she trotted beside me. The cold night air blew into my face and froze the tip of my nose, but I could observe Iolarathe alternating a standing motion in time with her own horse's steps. I followed her instructions and found that the bumps smoothed. They were still uncomfortable, but I felt more in control of the massive beast beneath me.

“Pull the reins back and down to stop,” she said after ten minutes of circling around the pasture.

I obeyed her command and the mare stopped quickly.

“Trotting is boring. Cantering is much more fun.” She gave me a wicked grin that made me think she might skip some steps with my instruction. “Turn the animal’s head this way with your reins.” She demonstrated, yanking her reins on one side and turning her stallion’s head. “Then you move your same leg back to the horse’s hip.” She looked down at her right leg while her hair draped over her shoulder. I could see her shift her heel toward the rear of the horse. “Opposite leg digs in the same middle flank as a trot. Then she will canter for you. Do it.”

She repeated the steps she had just showed me and her mount launched forward with the graceful stride that I had seen thousands of times. She flew away into the green moonlight. Her dark horse blended into the night and gave the impression she was floating, her hair streamed out behind her and danced to the sound of the wind. I wanted to dance with her across the pasture. She was so free.

I carefully turned my mares head with the reins, moved my heel back, and then I pushed with both heels. I was surprised again when my horse dashed forward in a gentle, loping motion. It was exhilarating. I was really riding. The wind blew cool in my face and I could hear the patter of my mount’s hooves. I had to be moving twice as fast as I could run. It was amazing.

Then suddenly it was too fast. My face must have revealed my panic because Iolarathe was instantly back at my side.

“Move your hips with the animal!” I tried to comply.

“Slow your hips now.” I nodded through gritted teeth and forced my body to do what she said.

“Excellent. If you are skilled, you can canter as slow as a trot. This will tire the horse though.” I nodded and gasped to catch my breath. It was much more comfortable to canter, but I wasn’t happy with how quickly the animal traveled.

“You are good at this, Kaiyer. I think you already ride better than any of my suitors.” She laughed again and spun the horse. Then she somehow made it trot backward to keep pace with me.

“We’ll go a few more times around the pasture.” She smiled and the moonlight reflected off of her eyes and teeth. I nodded and tried to focus on my legs. They were already sore from trying to hold the right position to make the horse canter.

“Pace me, lover!” she commanded and then spun her mount again before cantering away from me. I tried to adjust my hips, but it took me a few minutes to figure out how to get the horse to obey. By the time we matched her speed, she had already done a lap around the fence and I was able to stay right behind her.

We spent another ten minutes riding around the field until I grew more comfortable with the speed and feel of my steed. She watched me and barked instructions to help improve my technique. I followed her instructions and she appeared pleased with the results. Finally, she yelled at me to stop and we rested in front of the gate at the far end of the pasture opposite the stables.

“You are ready to go out into the grasslands.” I nodded and licked my lips nervously. Occasionally I would help my father mend the fence at the end of the feeding pasture, but I had never gone beyond it to the rolling green hills that surrounded our home. Iolarathe seemed to sense my fear and reassured me. “Do not worry, lover. I often ride out there. I assure you that there is nothing more dangerous than me within a few thousand miles. Open the gate,” she commanded.

I nodded and tried to dismount with some sort of agility. I didn’t fall on my face, but the newness of the movement made me feel clumsy and slow. Especially when compared to her. The grass was cold on my bare feet and covered in night dew. I nervously flipped the wooden latch on the gate that opened to the fields and then pushed it ajar.

“This will be fun. I want to show you something. Let’s go,” she said once I had climbed back on my horse.

“Yes, Mistress,” I answered, but she had already taken off and I reset my heels and pushed my mare to keep up with her.

The rains had been plentiful this year and the grasslands were thick with fresh green growth and laced with streams. Our horses seemed to sense their freedom and they joyfully skipped across the endless rolling hills and splashed through the creeks with abandon. On top of the mare I felt as powerful as one of my masters. I was fast, tall, and invincible. Space and time did not matter while I covered ground so quickly. I felt no fear. No fear of the speed, no fear of capture, no fear of Iolarathe.

Her hair was a fire laced flag. The light of the moon shone green, but the color of her mane overpowered it, possessed it, and turned it a deep blood red. She looked over at me and smiled across the span of our horses.

She pushed her mount into the lead and steered the creature right, past the shore of a stream. Then we rode up a slope next to the water and approached something so unusual I almost stopped my horse to stare.

A series of tall, white stone walls rose in a row that spanned the moonlit horizon, each one higher than the largest building on Iolarathe’s estate. Beyond them stood an even taller structure that appeared to reach the moon.

“What is this place?” I whispered when Iolarathe stopped us in front of the wall.

Now I was afraid.

“Ruins of a forgotten time,” Iolarathe said. The crumbling stone walls looked like the marble floors the Elvens used in their homes, though the stone was ancient and decayed.

“Forgotten time?”

“Your forgotten time.” She smiled at me. “It doesn’t matter for you now, Kaiyer. What I want to show you is inside these walls.” She nudged her horse forward to a jagged break in the thick stone.

“Did something move over there?” I asked as I walked my steed after her. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and my stomach spun in knots. We should not be here.

“It was a carrion beast. They haunt ruins like this,” she said nonchalantly without looking at me.

“Are they dangerous?” I was surprised at how confident my voice sounded. Either the cold or my fear made me shake.

“Not to me, and therefore not for you, lover. Come.” She increased the pace of her horse when she passed through the other side of the wall and I followed.

There were countless ruined stone slabs and toppled pillars inside of the walls. At first they seemed arranged in a haphazard way, but my brain attempted to organize the ruins into a pattern.

“Did an Elven tribe live here? This looks like streets and homes,” I asked Iolarathe

“No.”

“Who lived here then?”

“It doesn’t matter, Kaiyer. They are all dead and the world has moved on to a better existence.”

I wanted to ask her again, but the tone of her voice indicated that she didn’t wish to speak of it anymore. I followed her across the ruins, past the impossibly tall structure that looked like a stone hut, and into a dense grove of wide leafed trees gathered a hundred yards from the base of the ruin.

“We should take the horses in through the grove path or the carrion beast might attack them.” I nodded and gulped. Iolarathe didn’t seem worried about the creature I thought I had seen, but if anything could make a horse a meal it had to be deadly. And large.

The air was perfectly still within the space of the ruined walls, but inside the grove of dense trees a warm breeze seemed to come from everywhere at once. The ruins had made me afraid, but the copse was comforting and familiar. The tree branches extended into the paved trail but did not snag my clothes. They gathered dense around us but the light of the moon still cut through above us and lit the way.

“Almost there,” Iolarathe whispered from in front of me.

“I like this place,” I said without thinking.

“Wait. The best is yet to come.” She tossed her red mane over her shoulder and glanced back at me. Lust was clear in her eyes. I had never made love to her under the stars, let alone in the wilderness like this.

“Here. Come look, Kaiyer.” She beckoned and I followed her to a clearing that opened up on the path before us. Stone steps led down into a small valley. Benches lined the slopes surrounding a flat platform carved of rock that filled the base of the basin. At first I assumed it was the remains of a grand estate, but then realized it was some sort of amphitheater where Elvens could gather to listen to their chieftain.

Then I saw the lights.

I must have been blind not to see them earlier. They floated, danced, and drifted around the empty meeting place like absentminded fireflies. They glimmered in various shades of green, blue, and purple. There were dozens of them, and as I watched they seemed to pulse and dance toward us.

“They are Wisps,” she said, as if I should know what that meant.

“What are Wisps?” I couldn’t hide my amazement. A deep purple one floated a foot from my face, bobbed up and down for three seconds and then drifted away in what I assumed was boredom.

“Some say they are ghosts of the long dead. Some think they are memories, some think they are hell spawn and when they have gathered, they will open a rift to the underworld.” I looked over at her and saw three Wisps, two blue and one green, dancing around her head. She smiled at them in amusement.

“What do you think?”

“I think they are beautiful. That is why I wanted to show them to you. I’ve been here a few times and they have never attempted to harm me. Most of my tribe avoids this place.”

I nodded and held out my hand to the purple Wisp that had first found me. It was now joined by a blue one that circled around me. They both seemed to pulse at the same time and I found it mesmerizing.

“The horses don’t seem to care for them though. Tie them up at the tree over there, grab the blankets from the packs, and join me down below.” Iolarathe turned her back to me and walked down the broken stone steps gracefully. I watched her descend the stairs and then shook my head to clear the fog of lust. The horses seemed bored with the Wisps and the clearing but they were interested in munching on the grass that grew on the outskirts of the stairs. I tied them to the appropriate tree, grabbed the blankets, and dashed toward the platform. The moonlight glowed bright, but the long blades of patchwork grass concealed a good portion of the steps, making it hard to choose my footing. Luckily, time and weather had eroded the edges of the stone stairs and they were not as sharp as they first appeared.

Iolarathe sat on the edge of the platform and dangled her feet off of the four-foot ledge. When she saw me approach she leaned back on her hands and tossed her hair around her shoulders with a twist of her neck. The movement seemed to startle the Wisps that had been keeping her company and they lazily spun away.

“I think they like you.” She pointed behind me and I turned to see a dozen of the little lights following me from a safe distance. “Maybe I was right about you having magic, Kaiyer.” She laughed, but it sounded more like a childish giggle. It was the first sound of carefree joy I had ever heard from her. It was so easy to forget how much fear she inspired amongst the other human slaves when I saw her like this.

“Are they attracted to magic?” I asked with concern. I didn’t want any part of magic. If the Elvens found out they would torture and murder me right before they did the same to my brother and father.