Iron and Magic (The Iron Covenant #1)(39)

“Since you’re here for the long haul,” Elara said behind him, “we felt dormitory style would be better than a single room with cots. There are twenty-eight dormitory rooms on the second floor, each containing four beds. There are two large communal bathrooms on each end of the second floor. On the first floor, you have ten more four-bed rooms downstairs and four pairs of single bed suits for officers. Each pair of suits shares a bathroom. You also have two large rooms to be used as you see fit.”

Above the mess hall doors, a black wrought iron crest hung, shaped like the head of a snarling dog.

The Iron Dogs streamed into the barracks.

Hugh stood still and stared at the crest. Elara halted next to him.

He didn’t say anything.

She leaned forward to get a look at his face. A smug smile curved her lips. It touched off something inside him, something new he couldn’t quite grapple with.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“I’m picturing cutting your head off with these scissors.”

Elara laughed and walked out of the barracks.





Hugh raised his head from the purchasing agreement for the volcanic ash.

A teenage girl hovered in the doorway of his bedroom. He’d seen her before. Where was it? The stables.

“Let me guess. Bucky’s gotten out again.”

She nodded wordlessly.

“Did you chain the stall the way I told you?”

She nodded again.

“What happened?”

“The chain was on the ground.”

Hugh sighed. “Fine. Wait for me downstairs.”

He put away the paperwork. He’s spent most of yesterday getting everyone into the new barracks, then went back to the moat, and when he’d finally gotten to bed, it was past midnight. He’d woken up early and went straight back to the purchasing agreements. It was close to nine am now. His stomach growled. After he caught that damn horse, he would have to get something to eat.

No matter how hard they tried to restrain Bucky, the stallion took off during the night. If he was corralled, he jumped the fence. If he was locked up in the stables, in the morning, the stall would be open, and Bucky would be gone. He always went to the same place.

Hugh made it downstairs. The teenage girl had fetched a length of rope from the stables and was waiting by the wall.

“Let’s go,” he told her.

They walked out of the gates and curved to the left, down the path toward the nearest patch of woods. The sun shone bright. The sky was a painful blue. It would be another hot, sunny fall day. He noticed days now that he knew his were numbered. Immortality had its perks, but with Roland gone, it was out of his reach.

He cut off those thoughts before they led him into the void.

The path brought them to the edge of the woods and dove under the canopy of hemlocks. They followed it a few dozen yards to a glen. Here and there, the sun managed to punch through the leaves, dappling the forest floor in golden light. The air was clean and smelled like life.

Hugh whistled. The shrill sound cut the air. The stable girl jumped.

They waited.

A streak of blinding white appeared between the trees and accelerated toward them.

Idiot horse.

The stallion was running at a near gallop. Any normal horse would’ve broken its legs by now, but for some odd reason Bucky dashed through the woods with the agility of a deer 1 /10th his size. He never tripped, he never put his feet wrong, he never ran into the branches. And he galloped around the woods at night, in near pitch-black darkness.

The stallion tore through the woods towards them, slid to a dramatic halt in the glen, and reared, pawing the air.

“Did you have fun?” Hugh asked.

Bucky trotted over and nudged him with his big head. Hugh slid a carrot into the stallion’s mouth, took the rope, and looped it over Bucky’s head.

“Let’s go.”

Bucky followed him, docile. The picture of obedience.

“There are dire wolves in the woods,” the stable girl said.

“He doesn’t care.”

“You could get a different horse,” she said. “The Lady would give you whatever horse you wanted.”

“Is that so?”

The stable girl nodded. “Yes. Any horse. She told us to give you whatever you need because you’re protecting us.”

He filed that bit of information away for further reference.

“So, you could trade him for a different horse.”

“No. He’s my horse. That’s that.”

She sniffed and squinted at him. “Is it true that you can ride standing up in the saddle?”

“I don’t need a saddle.”

She squinted harder. “Prove it.”

Hugh hopped onto Bucky’s back and nudged him into a walk. The stable girl followed. He pulled his legs up and stood on Bucky’s back.

She grinned. He dropped, swung his leg over, and rode Bucky with his back to the stallion’s head, facing her.

“How did you learn to do that?”

“Practice. Lots and lots of practice. The man who raised me came from steppe country. A place with mean horses. He taught me to ride when I was little.” Voron had taught him many other things, but horses had been the first lesson.

“Can you teach me?”

“Sure.”