Chapter 8
The Race
Aleksi woke with a jolt, his heart hammering
in his chest and his bed linens tangled around his legs. He
unwrapped the twisted linens and sat up, swiping the sweat from his
face as he called for Kiska, his heart kicking back into a somewhat
normal beat as she poked her nose out of the pile of his clothes
under which she had taken cover.
“Were you hiding from my thrashings, little
one?” he cooed as he picked her up and buried his nose into her
soft fur, the rhythm of her contented purring slowing his racing
pulse.
He had dreamt of the kitten dragging her
mangled leg behind her as she crawled into a bucket filled with
maggoty oats hidden in the dark, dank corner of a strange stall
that reeked of old, moldy straw and horse piss. When Aleksi reached
into the bucket for the kitten, it was Zolotoy he pulled out, the
stallion unfolding one disjointed leg at a time until he stood on
all four legs and shook a grave’s worth of dirt off his coat.
Aleksi had jumped onto the stallion’s bare back and ridden in a
frenzied gallop, chasing a blood bay mare and its rider across
scorched plains and swollen rivers, up snowy mountain passes and
down crowded city streets, their glossy black manes streaming
wildly in the wind. Chasing, always chasing, and never gaining any
ground until the figures vanished in a cloud of smoke. When the
smoke cleared, Aleksi, barely able to breathe for the grief
crushing his chest, was left kneeling before his father’s body laid
out for burial, his withered skin stretched over his bones like
dried parchment.
“By the gods,” he rasped as a convulsion of
shivers wracked his body. He gave the squirming Kiska a smacking
kiss on her head and set her down to scramble off as best she could
on three legs as he stood and shook the night’s terrors from him
and then splashed cold water from the wash basin over his face and
chest. “It would not take a seer to explain that dream,” he laughed
hoarsely, rubbing a drying towel over himself, quick and rough, as
much to dry his body as to chase the chill from it. “Every fear I
currently have made itself known in that one dream.” He stepped
into his leather riding breeches. “At least now I’m awake, I can
confront them,” he pulled on his boots, “and do something about
them.” He stood and donned his soft linen undertunic and leather
outer tunic. “For a nightmare surely loses its power in the light
of day.”
He intended to bring one fear in particular
out into broad daylight.
After giving Zolotoy a bucket of fresh, clean
oats, Aleksi double checked his saddle bags. One was packed with a
change of undertunics, his otter-skin cloak, and a tub of
sandalwood soap, and the other with six days’ worth of flatbread,
jerky, nuts and dates, and a fist-sized packet of rendered goat
fat. He tied his bedroll up tight and laid it beside the saddle
bags and two full skins, one with water and the other with
wine.
The race’s course would be crossing many
rivers and streams. The water-skin could be refilled easily enough,
but the wine would need to be rationed out. He pulled his short
sword and tested its freshly honed edge by shaving the fine hairs
from his forearm. Satisfied with its sharpness, he laid his two
waist blades out next, along with the small, narrow boot blade that
his father had given him the spring he had turned ten.
There was a knock on the stable wall.
“Aleksandr? It is Arman, Anya’s son.”
“Arman.” Aleksi let Anya’s son into the stall
and clasped his arm. “It is good to meet you. Anya has spoken much
of you.”
“And you,” Arman said.
Almost as tall and broadly built as Aleksi,
with a head of curly brown hair and his mother’s grey-blue eyes,
Arman followed Aleksi into the antechamber and took a seat on the
stool, eyeing Aleksi’s arsenal. Any worries Aleksi had concerning
Arman staying here to watch over Kiska and Aleksi’s extra gear
vanished as soon as Kiska jumped into Arman’s lap and demanded
attention. Arman, who Ratter had recommended for the job, seemed
happy to oblige the little pest.
“I see how easily replaceable I am, you
disloyal little wench,” Aleksi teased, though he was glad the
kitten had taken so quickly to Arman. “Try not to let her jump
around too much,” he told him. “Remember, she is quite good at
hiding, much better than she is at coming when called.”
“As is every self-respecting cat,” Arman
said, laughing as the kitten swatted at the frayed end of his waist
belt. “Do not worry, Aleksandr, I will take care of Kiska as if she
were my own. Win this race. I have placed a moon’s wages on you and
your golden stallion.”
Arman’s words stopped Aleksi short, for he
had not thought past what his winning or losing would mean other
than for him, Pyotr, and Serge. He had not considered that others
would stake so much on the outcome of the race as well.
“I will do my best,” he told Arman. Aleksi
meant it. He always did.
“I know you will, Aleksandr,” Arman said.
“Now go and break your fast at the palace. I hear my mother has
prepared a feast worthy of twenty kings.”
The morning repast looked and smelled as
sumptuous as promised, and Aleksi reminded himself not to eat too
much as he took a seat beside Feroz. The race would start at noon
and an overfull belly was not a comfortable thing when bouncing
around on a horse for half a day. Sahar sat with her family,
talking quietly with her father and brother, both of whom had
ridden in the race before. Her father had won it the first two
times it was run, and had not ridden in it since, choosing to
retire his stallion, Storm Chaser, from racing. Her brother had
finished a respectable third in the last race three years ago, the
youngest rider ever to place. Now his sister would be the first
woman ever to ride in the race.
Across the salon, Yago sat with Taweel and
the Jackal, the bruising below his left eye visible even from
twenty paces as he glared at Aleksi who shook his head and tucked
into his breakfast, the last hot food he would eat for the next
several days. As he ate, he kept a wary eye out for Anastasia, who
finally showed up as he was folding pieces of egg and fish for
Kiska into a square of linen. He stood and made his way over to her
table and took the open seat between her and the rich, corpulent,
balding prince she had apparently decided would make a desirable
second husband.
“Sister,” Aleksi said as he spread his
shoulders, causing the prince to scoot his seat farther over.
“Bastard half-brother.”
“I have been informed by King Asad that our
father is ill. Why did you not tell me yourself?”
“I was not required to by my father. In fact,
quite the opposite.”
“He told you not to tell me? Why?”
“It is a matter for the royal family, of
which you are not a member.”
“I may not be a royal,” Aleksi ground out,
“but he is my father. I have a right to know. How ill is he?”
“Not very. It is actually more of a minor
inconvenience than an illness,” she said. “Certainly nothing you
need concern yourself with.”
“You had better not be lying to me.”
“How dare you call Princess Anastasia a
liar,” her prospective second husband-to-be defended her, his
double chin jiggling like congealed suet.
Aleksandr stood and towered over the prince.
“I dare because I know her to be a lying bitch,” he growled. He
looked to Anastasia. “It is her defining characteristic.”
The prince went bug-eyed and apoplectic, but
Anastasia simply shrugged.
“What if I am lying to you, my bastard
half-brother?” she said. “What can the likes of you do about it?”
She laughed, high and shrill. “Nothing.”
Sahar sat astride Lasair, the butterflies in
her belly flitting about as the riders maneuvered for position in
the starting line. She was not surprised when Munir posted his
gelding, Kedar, next to Lasair, but she was taken aback by the two
short swords strapped across Munir’s back and the lacquered vest
and arm guards he wore, as well as two waist blades.
“You are dressed more for battle than a horse
race, cousin,” Sahar said, using the endearment he had earned with
a lifetime of friendship and would soon inherit through marriage to
Halah. “Are you expecting trouble?”
“Always.” Munir adjusted the straps holding
the short swords. “It is what I have trained for.”
“It will slow you down.”
Munir shrugged. “Perhaps.”
He rode not to win, but to protect her, and
she could rage and rail all she wanted about not needing his
protection. It wouldn’t change anything. She didn’t blame Munir.
She was certain her father had requested, if not outright ordered
his guardsman to watch over her.
“Princess,” a low, resonant voice ran down
her spine as Zolotoy’s golden head stopped even with Lasair’s on
her other side. “Munir.”
“Aleksi.” Munir returned Aleksandr’s
greeting, raising her brows at the familiar name, something she had
only heard his friends Serge or Pyotr address him by. “It seems I
am not the only one ready for trouble.”
She eyed Aleksandr, who wore a short sword
strapped across his back, and two waist blades, his forearms
covered by leather guards. She followed the line of his leather
riding breeches down long, thickly muscled thighs and calves to his
boots, where the hilt of a small dagger poked out of the top of his
right boot.
“Better to be found ready than caught
unawares,” Aleksandr said with his usual cocky grin.
“Wear all the weaponry you like,” she said,
trying and failing to ignore the cursed shock of hair falling down
over his forehead. “Add a stone or two to your saddle bags as well
for all I care.”
“Are you worried we will not be able to keep
up with you and Lasair?” he asked with a mock frown.
“Worried?” she chuffed. “No.”
Aleksandr’s eyes narrowed to a spot over her
shoulder, and she turned to see Yago riding up alongside Taweel and
the Jackal, the three of them as heavily armed as Aleksandr and
Munir. She fingered the bone hilt of her solitary waist blade, and
regretted not listening to her father and arming herself with
more.
“Here.” Aleksandr pulled the dagger from his
boot and held it out to her. “This doesn’t mean we’re betrothed or