The Blue Sword (Damar #2)(42)

"Are there other women at the trials?"

He grunted; she recognized it as relief that she wasn't going to nag him further about Tor the Just, who probably wasn't that boring if he could hold off the Northerners for nine days and melt a hole in the Hills, and Aerin and her dragons. He said gruffly, "A few. There are always a few. Once there were more." He put Windrider forward again, and in the click of hooves she had to strain to catch his last words: "It would be a great thing for us, and for our daughters - a damalur-sol."

Damalur-sol. Lady Hero.

They set up their own small and travel-stained tents not far in from the ring of Hills they had just left. She felt the drifting shadows of other Hillfolk as she rubbed Tsornin down, and when she came back to the firelight of the small blaze she had - rather efficiently, she thought, with the first of Mathin's three methods of fire-making, which simply involved the correct application of a tinder-box - started in front of their tari, there were four such shadows sitting on their heels around it. Mathin came into the light as she did, carrying his saddle. He joined the four, and after a moment's hesitation, so did she. She walked, pretending to be bold, toward a gap between elbows; and the owners of the elbows made room for her as they would for a comrade.

"How goes it, my brothers?" Mathin said, and she was startled by his voice speaking to someone other than herself.

One shadow shrugged. "As well as a first day ever does." Mathin had told her that the first day was reserved for those less highly trained, who did not seek to win their sashes; she had sighed. Mathin told her, "You would find it dull work, the first day. Believe me." Harry, after a moment, recognized the shadow as Innath, and relaxed slightly.

"And how does our prodigy?"

Harry blinked. It had taken her a second to remember the word prodigy, and then she was alarmed and heartened simultaneously by the our.

"Prodigiously," said Mathin, and he grinned at her. She smiled faintly back.

The shadows nodded and stood up; but each one touched her shoulder and then her head as he passed behind her. The last was Innath, and his hand lingered just long enough on her hair for him to have time to murmur, "Be of good courage, prodigy," and he too was gone.

The camp awoke before dawn; the tents were pulled down, and the fires, after heating the malak and the porridge, and singeing the breakfast bread - Someday, she thought, I will teach these people about toast - were tramped out. She gave Narknon less than her usual percentage of porridge, because she would doubtless need all of her strength, unenthusiastic as her appetite was at present. She mounted and waited to be sent to her fate. All over again she missed bridle and reins, and the scabbard of her sword looked strange to her, slung on the saddle, and the small shield banged awkwardly against her thigh. Mathin, with the pack horse reluctantly following, rode up beside her. "Your way lies there," he said, nodding in the direction of the invisible City gate. "You will find a man dressed all in red, a kysin, riding a black horse with a red saddle. Tell him your name - Harimad-sol," he added, as if she might need prompting. Maybe she did. "He'll know who you are." She surreptitiously hitched the shield an inch or so forward, and wiped her hands on her thighs. The leather felt clammy. Who would the kysin think she was? She couldn't even tie her own sash without help.

Mathin reached out to her, pulled her face toward him, and kissed her on the forehead. "The kiss of luck," he said. "You have no sash-bearing father or mother to give it you. Go as the Daughter of the Riders. Go."

She turned away. Innath was sitting his big grey stallion just behind her. He smiled at her, a friend's smile. "Be of good courage, Daughter of the Riders."

The morning was already hot, and the plain offered no shade; the ring of Hills seemed to hold the heat like water in a bowl. Harry found the man in red, and gave him her name; she thought he looked at her sharply, but perhaps he looked at all the laprun candidates sharply. He nodded and gave her a white rag to tie around her arm, and sent her off toward a milling mob of nervous horseflesh and even more nervous riders. She looked at them critically; there were some fine horses here, but none could outmatch her own mount, and very few could come near him. There was one big dark bay that caught her eye; she was ridden by a boy in blue who carried his shoulders and head well. Harry wondered what the other riders thought of the one in the maroon sash on the big golden chestnut.

There was little conversation. There were those who gave their names to the red man and joined the ever-increasing throng here at the City end of the plain; the rest - the audience, she supposed - crowded behind barriers she could not see, that stretched from the feet of the red man's horse to the far side of the plain. Around Harry, some of the trials riders moved their horses in fidgety circles, just to avoid standing still; some looked down at themselves often, as if checking to make sure they were all still there. Harry twisted strands of Sungold's mane between her damp fingers and tried to keep her teeth from chattering. There was the dull murmur of horses' hooves, and the rush of their breathing, and the squeak of leather, the hush of cloth; and the sun overhead gazing down. To try to take her mind off the trials for a minute, she looked up, searching for some sign of the City, some path to its gate, and saw nothing but rock. It's right before my eyes and I can't see it, she thought, and had a moment of panic. Tsornin, who could read many of her thoughts by this time, flicked one ear back at her: Stop that. She stopped.