Chapter Nine
THE NIGHTS IN THE BLACK SANDS WERE MAGICAL.
The steeds we had hired were not.
“Are we sure there are no horses available to rent?” I asked for the fifth time, Teryn already seated on the back of his quadoth. Mine, a sour-looking beast, stood in the street, chewing on a cud as it gave me dark looks.
“Horses are not as capable on the stretch of the sands that we must cross. You will find that riding a quadoth is quite enjoyable. Very similar to a horse.” Teryn gave his one-humped ride a soft pat that made its long lashes flutter. “Climb into the saddle. Time is of the essence.”
Knowing he was right, I did as told, ignoring the eye roll from the woman who rented these sandy creatures. She chortled rudely.
“Come up with authority. Throw your leg over the hump. Sit down. Mainlanders.” She waved a hand at the beast kneeling on the cobblestone road.
Around us, people came and went, many casting amused looks and whispers at the milky mainlander trying to mount his ride.
Once I had my foot in the stirrup, I threw my leg over and around and sat down.
The quadoth got to its feet, heaving me forward and back.
I clung to the saddle horn, adjusted myself, and then nodded at Teryn.
He smiled sweetly, seated on his beast with his legs crossed and wrapped around the saddle post. He looked the expert while I looked… well, like a fool.
“I am ready to ride,” I announced with bravado. The fat woman tittered as we rode off, my body unfamiliar with the odd motion of the quadoth under me. It was irregular. Not at all like the measured gait of a horse.
“Do not try to fight the ride,” Teryn called over his shoulder as we picked our way along narrow streets with round dark windows in every home.
“And do not try to control your beast as you would your horse. Quadoth are notoriously stubborn. Your mount will follow mine. Remain calm, and if your quadoth frightens, just simply speak to it in soft, peaceful words as you would to your horse. You will see how pleasant it is once we leave the city.”
“Pleasant, yes, I am sure that is the word I will use.”
It was not the word I used to describe riding a quadoth.
The beast, whose name was Razgol, which Teryn had explained meant pretty flower, was, in fact, not a pretty flower at all.
Razgol was a bitter root branch with horrid thorns.
She kept trying to reach back to bite me.
She tried to veer off the path that Teryn’s lovely ride, Petarh, which meant gilded star, was leading her through.
Every small bush that we passed, she wished to sample.
When I would tug on the reins attached to her halter, she would make an unholy sound and whip her head about on her long neck to try to sink her teeth into my thigh.
She urinated frequently, squatting down without warning to send me lurching backward.
Surely she was doing that to send me to the street so that I would crack my skull open.
My words to her were neither soft nor peaceful.
“She is picking up your nervousness,” Teryn called to me a dozen times.
A small dog darted out in front of us as we reached the outskirts of the port town of Yaza Kee.
The pretty flower that I was sitting on did her very best to stomp the scruffy mutt into a puddle of pomegranate pudding.
Thankfully, the dog was small and fast, so it was able to avoid the wide, padded feet.
“I am trading this monster in for a cow at the next settlement,” I huffed after a long battle to get my quadoth back in line with Teryn’s, which waited patiently for us. “I will ride the cow.”
Teryn laughed heartily as I rode up beside him as Razgol tried her best to bite the placid Petarh on the haunch.
“Imagine the songs the bards of Celear will sing when they discover that the bronze warrior rode a cow through the desert,” he said between chuckles.
“Better a cow than this hellspawn,” I replied, taking a moment to gaze at the rising view of a small mountain range.
Now that the city was behind us, the Rajaz Mountains rose into the inky black sky.
A hundred thousand stars winked down at us.
Once we rode out of the city under the cover of night, the air grew cooler.
The cobblestone streets fed into dirt roadways.
Spindly trees and bushes populated the landscape.
“That is a beautiful sight,” I confessed as we eased into the steppe regions of the main isle.
“Yes, the Rajaz are holy mountains,” Teryn said and nodded to a small convoy of riders on quadoth entering Yaza Kee.
“The goddess Shamsira spoke to her people from the highest peaks, bidding them to follow her teachings of love, faith, and magick. While the range is small compared to the Witherhorns that our yeti and dwarven friends call home, they are just as magnificent.”
“Yes, they are amazing,” I agreed, my ride finally calming. Perhaps it was because I was settled in for the long ride atop her. It seemed they were much like a horse in many ways and unlike a horse in many ways. “Will we be crossing them?”
He slowed so that I could come abreast. I held the reins tightly to avoid a bite to his quadoth from mine. He peeked at me, gold eyes aglow, from a slit in his robing that he had artfully wound around his head. Mine had come undone during my struggles with the pretty flower beneath me.
“No, we will be skirting them, keeping to the savannahs at the base. We shall ride to the east and then cut into the desert on the other side. There is a small settlement before the sands begin in earnest. The oasis will be a short respite. With Shamsira’s blessing, we may begin our trek over the Black Sands desert tomorrow night if we keep at pace. ”
That was a surety. We must make haste. My weakness during sea travel had already cost us time that we did not have to spare. I prayed my steed would behave well enough to get us to the other side come daybreak. If not, a cow/quadoth trade would be imminent.
We rode through the night, keeping to ourselves as much as possible.
The savannah was amazingly diverse. There were rolling grasslands, small farms, and sparse trees.
Many low-growing shrubs were seen as we ambled past, some quite enticing to Razgol.
Turning her from the scrub bushes was difficult even for an experienced rider as myself.
Experienced on horseback, I should say, quadoth were totally different animals.
I had never missed my mare Gwedel more than I did sitting atop this mulish beast. Still, even with the unruly pack animal under me, I enjoyed the cool air on what was exposed of my flesh, which was not much.
Teryn had suggested I wear my coil root armor because once we left the civility of the port town, we were wholly on our own.
Our disguises were good, I felt, but the animosity that was present and growing stronger between our peoples could be coming to a slow boil.
I’d been spat at already. And aside from some fallen angels at the brothel, the glances I had received had been far from friendly.
Those were minor issues easily dealt with.
My purpose here was to keep Teryn safe. Spittle on my boot, dark glares, or harsh slurs had to slide off like water on a tortoise’s shell.
“You are quiet,” Teryn said as we passed by a small homestead.
Smoke rose from a thin chimney beside the squat, pale stone homestead.
Scraggy goats milled about in a pen, and a large dog with short sandy hair sleeping with the goats barked at us.
My steed spat at the dog and kicked out at the fence the mutt stood behind.
I tugged hard on the reins, the dog moving back to curl up with its charges as we moved by.
“Keeping this monster on your path requires all of my thought,” I said as I came up astride Teryn, Razgol making those odd guttural groans to Petarh, who seemed to understand as she made her own noises that carried out over the arid landscape.
“She is a handful,” he commented, swaying in his saddle as if born to it, his face hidden beneath a long pleat of his robes. “Many say that the quadoth was a favored beast of the goddess, for it carried her across the sea from our oppressors to these blessed islands.”
“Did they have wings or are they incredibly good swimmers?” A nightbird called out to our left. A high, lilting five-note song that made the quadoth twitch their large ears.
Teryn laughed softly. “That was the very same question I asked of my teacher when I was a child. He swatted my ears and called me a bad boy for being so truculent.”
“That seems a harsh penalty for a question honestly asked.”
“I thought so as well. So, I dropped a brown-legged stick bug into his midday meal satchel. My father was not impressed with my conduct, so he made me spend several suns with my younger sister in the nursery instead of in school with my friends. The indignity!”
I chuckled. “I can imagine.” He was such pleasant company. Lighthearted, kind, respectful. So unlike many dignitaries I had met during my tenure in the king’s guard. “You have never mentioned your sister before. Does she live in Padana as you do?”
“No, she left us to dwell with the goddess when she was just a small child.”
“You have my sympathies, Teryn. I did not know.”
“Thank you, but it was many hundreds of seasons ago. She was a bright, bubbly child, eyes of gold, and a laugh that made even the most sour smile. One day as she slept, a ringed adder slid into her room and bit her on the thigh. She died before anyone could perform any healing magicks to negate the toxin. Her death crushed my mother and father, myself as well, but their grief outweighed mine. To this day, there is no mention of Landa in their home. Their house is a sad place.”