In the name of Zandru’s frozen hells, where was your mind, you who are so good a horseman, not to see that burrow?” she demanded crossly. Romilly, shocked by the horse’s screams, went to kneel by his side. His eyes were red, his mouth flecked with the foam of agony, and, quickly sliding into rapport with him, she felt the tearing pain in her own leg, and saw the bare, white, shattered bone protruding through the skin. There was nothing to be done; weeping with horror and grief, she fumbled at her belt for her knife and swiftly found where the great artery was under the flesh; she thrust with one fast, deep stroke. A final, convulsive struggle, a moment of deathly pain and fear – then it was quiet, all around her stunned and quiet, and the horse, with his fear, was simply gone, gone from her, leaving her empty and cold.
Stunned, fumbling, Romilly wiped her knife on a clump of. grass and put it again into its sheath. She could not look up and meet Jandria’s eyes. Her damned laran had cost the horse his life, for had she been attending to her riding, she would surely have seen the burrow….
Jandria said, at last, “Was it necessary?”
“Yes.” Romilly did not elaborate. Jandria did not have laran enough to understand, and there was no reason to burden her with all Romilly’s own feelings of guilt, the rage at her own Gift which had tempted her to forget the horse beneath her in straining for the hawk above. Swallowing hard against the tears still rising and making a lump in her throat, she cursed the Gift. “I am sorry, Janni. I – I should have been more careful-”
Jandria sighed. “I was not reproaching you, chiya; it is ill fortune, that is all. For here we are shy of a horse in the deepest part of the hills, and I had hoped we could reach Serrais by tomorrow’s nightfall.”
“Is that where we are going? And why?”
“I did not tell you, in case we were followed; what you did not know, you could not tell-”
So Jandria does not trust me. Well enough; it seems I am not trustworthy . . . certainly my poor horse did not find me so…. yet she protested. “I would not betray you-”
Gently, Jandria said, “I never thought of that, love. I meant only what you did not know could not be wrung from you by torture, or ravished from your mind by a leronis armed with one of their starstones. They could find out quickly that you knew nothing. But now you would know in a day or two, anyhow.”
She knelt beside Romilly and began to tug at the saddle straps. “You can ride one of the pack chervines; they cannot travel at the speed of your horse, but we can put both the packs on the back of the other. We will travel less swiftly by chervine-pace than we would with two good horses, but it can’t be helped.”
She began to off-load the nearer of the chervines, saw Romilly standing stone-still and snapped, “Come and help me with this.”
Romilly was staring at the dead horse. Insects were already beginning to move in the clotted blood around the smashed leg. “Can’t we bury him?”
Jandria shook her head. “No time, no tools. Leave him to feed the wild things.” At Romilly’s look of shock she said gently, “Dear child, I know what your horse meant to you-”
No you don’t, Romilly thought fiercely, you never could.
“Do you think it matters even a little to him whether his body is left to feed the other wild things, or whether he has a funeral fit for a Hastur-lord? He is not in his body any more.”
Romilly swallowed hard. “I know it makes sense when you say it like that, but-” she broke off, gulping. Jandria laid a gentle hand on her arm.
“There are beasts in this forest who depend on the bodies of the dead things for their food. Must they go hungry, Romy? This is only sentiment You feel no pain when your hawk kills for her food.”