Riders of the Realm #3 Read online

  The healers, two old Gorlanders, one male and one female, nodded receipt of Rahkki, and Prince Daanath exited the tent, leaving the boy alone with them. The male giant scooped Rahkki onto a huge gurney, felt his fractured bone, and then gathered cloth wraps from a bin, cutting them into boy-sized pieces.

  Rahkki sat up, confused and curious. It seemed the giants were going to treat his wounds. But why? So far, their behavior was shocking and unexpected—it went against everything he had been taught about giants. Rahkki still wasn’t sure he could trust their kindness but saw no profit in rejecting it. Through an open tent flap, he watched the sun drop fast in the western sky, casting the clouds in scorching hues of orange and pink. Outside, the Gorlanders went about their evening business, grunting and stomping and playing reed pipes.

  As the healer splinted and wrapped Rahkki’s ankle, Rahkki remembered Sula’s bravery when she’d taken Harak’s arrow to protect him. She’d been using Rahkki to save her friends from the hordes—he knew that—but he’d never guessed she truly cared. She’d proved she did when she risked her life for his. Rahkki clenched his fists, hoping she was safe.

  The Gorlan giant had just finished casting Rahkki’s ankle when a ruckus outside startled all of them. Giants beat the ground and rumbled. Rahkki’s medical cot shook. This is it, he thought. They’re coming to kill me. He tensed, waiting.

  Another flap swept open and two giants carried a feathered creature into the massive tent. Fresh claw marks raked her gold-and-white flank and an arrow jutted from her throat.

  “Rizah!” Rahkki scrambled out of his cot and crawled toward the Kihlara mare. This was his friend Tuni Hightower’s Flier. A young Sandwen soldier had shot Rizah after Harak ordered Tuni arrested during the Sandwen uprising. The soldier had been trying to scare Rizah off, but his aim was poor and his arrow had pierced her throat.

  Rahkki stroked the golden pinto’s forelock. “Shh, Rizah,” he whispered to the mare. Her green eyes, glassy with pain, met his and brightened with recognition. She tried to nicker and her throat rattled. “Shh,” he repeated.

  He studied the claw marks in her flank and exhaled dizzily. A jaguar had attacked her, drawn by her weakness, no doubt. The giants must have found her and carried her to their camp. More unexpected kindness! Everything Rahkki thought he knew about the giants swirled in his mind, a confusing jumble when compared to what he was witnessing firsthand. He couldn’t wait to tell his uncle and his brother, Brauk, about it.

  The female healer prepped an awl and sinew and set about removing Rizah’s arrow and treating the wound. The male healer cleaned the claw marks on her flank and dressed them in salve. Rizah’s eyelids flickered as she lost consciousness. When they’d finished treating her, the healers layered a bed of furs on the floor and gently placed the golden pinto on top of them.

  Rahkki curled beside her. “You’re going to be okay,” he whispered. Her breathing was shallow and marked by wheezing. He doubted she would have survived another moment alone in the jungle. Rahkki’s heart swelled, overcome with gratitude. He grunted to draw all the healers’ attention. “Thank you,” he signed, and they nodded.

  But Rahkki remained suspicious. Was this kindness, or were the giants healing him and Rizah for a darker purpose? His mother had believed that the hordes could be allies, and maybe she was right, but his mother was gone.

  Rahkki rolled onto his back, feeling drowsy. All the Fifth Clan’s troubles had begun eight years ago when Lilliam had attempted to assassinate Reyella and failed. His mother had reached the docks of Daakur, very pregnant with her third child and traveling with two Sandwen guards, but there her trail had gone cold. No one knew where she was now, or if her unborn child had survived.

  Eyes watering, Rahkki turned his thoughts toward Sula. He and his mount had Paired and now she was gone. As glad as he was for her new freedom, the pain of it stabbed his heart, sharper than any arrow. He imagined her soft gray muzzle, her dark eyes, and her powerful wings. They’d worked hard to understand each other. She’d accepted a bit and armor and let him ride on her back. She’d reminded him that he did love to fly! Rahkki could feel the pleasant looping sensation in his belly as he remembered her sharpened hooves pushing off the grass, her nose angled toward the clouds, and her agile purple wings shaping the wind. Sula—his Flier, his protector.

  From the first moment he’d spotted her wild herd flying above his territory, hopes and dreams had blossomed within him. Clan elders had taught him that no wild Kihlari existed anymore, but they’d been wrong, and maybe they were wrong about the giants too.

  As the Gorlanders rumbled and chuffed around him, and the crickets launched into their evening chorus, Rahkki snuggled tight against Rizah. He dreamed of his own mount, wondering where Sula was and if she missed him half as much as he missed her.

  2

  The Fifth Clan

  HAZELWIND, REDFIRE, AND GRAYSTONE CARRIED Echofrost by her wings and tail, flying her just above the treetops. The Storm Herd steeds glided beside her, casting nervous glances at their silver friend. Harak’s arrow had slid neatly between a gap in Echofrost’s armor and pierced her lung. Beside her, pregnant Dewberry panted hard. The round weight of her belly drew down her hindquarters, causing her to fly at an almost upright angle.

  Echofrost moaned. “What happened to Rahkki?” she whinnied.

  “Don’t speak,” Dewberry nickered. “We’re far from your Landwalker friend.”

  Echofrost’s eyes slid toward the pinto mare’s stretched belly and pinched expression, and she guessed Dewberry had entered the early stages of labor. She glanced back toward Mount Crim, the home of the Gorlan giants. The massive ranges reached toward the clouds, forming a barrier around its plateaus and valleys.

  Her Rider, Rahkki Stormrunner, was trapped somewhere in those mountains. She imagined his golden eyes and gentle hands, his chattering voice. Rahkki’s people had abandoned him to their enemies, the giants. Her heart walloped with familiar fury and disappointment. How could they leave such a young cub behind? She tossed her mane. Actually, she did know how they could do it.

  When she was a weanling in Anok—her homeland across the Dark Water ocean—she’d been abandoned too. A foreign herd had stolen her and another colt because they’d trespassed. Her herd had decided not to risk a war to rescue them. Eventually, the foreign steeds had let her go, but Echofrost had suffered horrific bullying from their yearlings.

  And after crossing the Dark Water and landing on this continent, the Fifth Clan people had captured the roan mare named Shysong. Hazelwind and the others had decided not to risk Storm Herd in order to save her, so Echofrost had gone back to rescue Shysong on her own. She didn’t understand the point of a herd or a clan if they didn’t fight to save each member. One might as well live alone! But now Hazelwind had promised that they would stick together, all of them. She gasped for air, afraid she’d pass out again in the heights.

  Below her dangling hooves, the palm trees swayed and the jungle creatures quieted as the winged shadows of Storm Herd passed over them. The static-filled sky had darkened, the clouds once again piling high and threatening rain.

  Still dressed in the Sandwen armor Rahkki had given her, Echofrost knew her body was heavy. “We’re almost there,” she nickered, encouraging the friends who supported her.

  “I see it,” Hazelwind whinnied through a mouthful of feathers.

  Ahead, the Fifth Clan village rolled into view. Small torches brightened the Sandwen settlement like fallen stars. The Landwalkers had carved the chaotic jungle into organized pathways, built stone dens, corralled animals, grown food in perfectly aligned rows, and tamed an ancient herd of pegasi, turning them into flying warhorses.

  “Are they going to attack us?” Graystone asked, glancing nervously at her and Hazelwind’s wounds. Harak’s arrows had punctured each of them.

  “I don’t think they’ll hurt us,” Echofrost answered, “but they might try to catch us.”

  “What’s the difference?” Dewberry huffed.<
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  “You’re right, we’ll land in the jungle,” Echofrost decided. “Brim will have to come to me.”

  Her friends were carrying Echofrost to Brim Carver, the Fifth Clan’s healer. It was Shysong’s idea. The roan mare had lived with the Sandwens long enough to know that Brim was a talented and gentle healer, and she was one of the few Landwalkers Echofrost and Shysong had learned to trust. Storm Herd had quickly agreed, hoping Brim could repair the hole in Echofrost’s lung.

  “I’ll fetch her,” Shysong nickered. “Brim knows me.”

  The pegasi quickly descended and landed outside the settlement. Beneath the wind-brushed jungle canopy, singing insects, calling parrots, and hooting primates performed their daily chorus. Hazelwind, Redfire, and Graystone lowered Echofrost as gently to the soft soil as possible. Still, she grunted on impact.

  “Sorry,” Hazelwind nickered. He anxiously swiveled his ears, and Echofrost leaned against her best friend.

  “I’ll set up a perimeter to look out for predators,” Redfire said.

  Hazelwind nodded. “And we need to keep our eyes up. The Sky Guard flies all day and most of the night.”

  Redfire and Graystone assembled Storm Herd and assigned jobs. They’d lost twelve steeds in the battle against the giants, leaving one hundred and thirty pegasi.

  Shysong nuzzled Echofrost. “I’ll be back soon, with Brim.” The roan folded her black-edged blue feathers and trotted into the darkness, her tail swishing confidently.

  “That mare is much stronger than I first thought,” Echofrost whispered to Hazelwind.

  He flipped his long forelock off his face. “You’re strong too.” He raked his gaze over the brand on her shoulder, the armor she wore, the saddle on her back, and the bit in her mouth. “I can’t believe what you’ve endured to save Shysong and Storm Herd. . . .” He pressed his forehead hard against hers, unable to finish his thoughts.

  “I’m sorry I underestimated the danger here,” she nickered.

  He pulled back, arching his neck. “Storm Herd believes in you, Echofrost. I’m the one who’s made mistakes.”

  They let their feelings flow between them, felt but unspoken. Dewberry, whose mother was a medicine mare in Anok, worked nearby, assessing the jungle plants and collecting a few herbs and leaves. She chewed and spit, chewed and spit, muttering comments: Nope, that’s no good; Gah, my tongue; Ah, bitter!

  “Don’t poison yourself,” Hazelwind warned.

  “Ahh, this is the one,” Dewberry nickered, ignoring him. She chewed the chosen leaves into a pulp. Using her agile wingtips, Dewberry wiped the mixture around the plunged arrows that stuck out from Echofrost and Hazelwind like porcupine quills.

  Echofrost didn’t trust any jungle plants, but she trusted Dewberry, and as the pulp soaked into the wound, her pain eased. “It’s working.”

  “I figurrrred ith would,” Dewberry said. “Ith nuuumbed my thongue.” Next she inspected Hazelwind’s injuries more closely. “They’rrrre not therious,” she said, and before he could object, she bit the arrows’ shafts and yanked them out.

  She let the holes bleed, and then applied a different mixture to clean the wounds. “Ith’s turmeric,” she explained, having recognized the yellow plant from her mother’s teachings. Afterward, she again applied the chewed leaf pulp that had numbed her tongue.

  Redfire returned from assigning patrols and admired Dewberry’s salves. “Maybe we don’t need this Landwalker healer named Brim,” he nickered.

  Dewberry preened her stained feathers. “Hathelwind willlll be fine, but Ethofost neeeeeds more help.”

  Wingbeats startled them. Shysong arrived, coasting between the trees with an old Landwalker woman riding on her back. The roan touched down near Echofrost. “I’ve got Brim,” she nickered. “I don’t think anyone saw us.”

  The woman slid off Shysong’s back. “Oh my,” she cried, her cheeks bright. She smoothed her cloak and fixed her hair, swaying a bit unsteadily. Then she stilled, observing the herd of wild pegasi that surrounded her. They rustled their hooves and a few rattled their feathers, most having never been so close to a Landwalker.

  Swallowing hard, Brim clutched her satchel against her chest. “Oh my,” she repeated.

  “You’re scaring her,” Echofrost nickered to Storm Herd. “Lower your wings, don’t stare at her.”

  The wild steeds did as she asked and Brim heaved a breath. Her eyes found Echofrost tucked into a thicket with an arrow jutting from between her ribs. “I’m here for you, aren’t I?” she asked, her blue eyes shining in the dark.

  Echofrost didn’t understand Brim, but she lifted her wing, inviting the woman closer. Brim knelt, examining the wound, and then she began removing Echofrost’s armor and tack. At the sight of the chewed-leaf poultice, she froze. Glancing around, her gaze fell upon Dewberry, taking in her green-stained lips and her yellow-stained wingtips. “Oh my,” she said a third time, and then she opened her medical bag and began to work.

  3

  Trial

  “MY NAME IS I’LENNA WHITEHALL AND I AM the Queen of the Fifth Clan.”

  “Wrong.” I’Lenna’s mother, Lilliam, squinted at her from aboard her winged stallion. Her newborn baby, Prince K’Lar, lay curled in a sling across her chest. “I am the queen, I’Lenna.”

  The sun glided west overhead, floating like a blazing bubble toward the horizon. Three days had passed since the battle with the giants. I’Lenna’s uprising against her mother had failed and Harak had arrested her. Now, back at the Fifth Clan village, I’Lenna twisted, restrained by two Land Guard soldiers.

  Her hair hung loose and her feet were bare. A light cotton shift covered her body. Behind her lay the clan’s Sunstone. If she didn’t renounce her claim to the crown, the Borla would lash her to it and leave her for three nights to be judged by the clan’s guardian mascot, Granak, the Father of Dragons.

  I’Lenna glanced desperately at the Fifth Clan villagers. They grimaced, wanting to help her, but Harak’s soldiers menaced them. I’Lenna and her personal guards had wrested the queenship from Lilliam right after the armies left to fight the giants. In a quick, private ceremony, the Borla had coronated her.

  I’Lenna had left the clan then and flown to the battlefield to negotiate peace with the hordes, and that had been her mistake. She couldn’t prove what had happened at home. Harak had accused her of lying and arrested her. When they returned to the clan, he immediately freed her mother from the Eighth Tower, the prison tower, and locked up the rebel army.

  Lilliam and her Borla had promptly denied that I’Lenna’s coronation had ever occurred. It was a bald-faced lie, everyone knew it, but the villagers who spoke out were immediately arrested. I’Lenna had spent three days locked in the prison tower, and now Lilliam wanted “justice.”

  I’Lenna writhed, furious and embarrassed. She’d let her people down, and she’d let down Rahkki Stormrunner, her best and only friend. She’d lied to him—about everything—but in spite of that, he’d forgiven her, even kissed her! Her belly fluttered, remembering.

  “Relinquish your claim,” the Borla screeched at her.

  I’Lenna drew a ragged breath as her eyes rolled toward the Land Guard soldiers. Never show your feelings to your subjects—Lilliam had drilled this into her, and so she addressed them with practiced confidence. “I command you to release me.”

  “The princess is mad, yeah,” Harak said to the armies. “Queen Lilliam never surrendered her throne. Why would she?”

  “You weren’t even here,” I’Lenna growled.

  Murmurings erupted from the Sandwen villagers. Several adults stood, their eyes scanning the crowd for support. Harak noticed their clenched fists and darting eyes. He nodded to the Sky Guard and the warriors flew down on their winged horses to push the villagers back.

  Lilliam fixed her dark-blue eyes on I’Lenna’s face and said nothing, her body as still as a mountain.

  The villagers fell back, defeated. The first thing Harak had done upon returning from Mount Crim was to
send his soldiers from hut to hut, confiscating all blades and bludgeons. Stealing their weapons went against Clan Law, but who could stop him? Lilliam had named Harak the acting general of the Land Guard and Sky Guard armies. And the sad truth was—whoever controlled the armies controlled the clan.

  I’Lenna’s teeth dug into her lips and several angry tears escaped her eyes. She’d never give up—never under the bloody sun! She’d taken the throne to protect the Fifth Clan. Three moons ago she’d discovered a terrible secret and the real reason why Lilliam had assassinated Reyella Stormrunner. It was not for personal glory, it was to steal from the Fifth Clan!

  A tremor rolled through I’Lenna’s body just thinking about it. Her grandmother, Queen Tavara Whitehall of the Second Clan, had sent Lilliam and a bevy of guards to oust Reyella and gain control of the Fifth Clan’s treasury. One moonless evening, while sneaking around the fortress, I’Lenna had witnessed a handoff between Lilliam’s treasurer and a woman disguised as a “merchant.” I’Lenna had hidden behind a door, listening to their voices.

  “The bag feels light,” the merchant had said, handling a sack that clinked with coins. “Is that all there is?”

  “Yes, that’s it,” snapped the Fifth’s treasurer. “Queen Tavara has been taking too much. I have to keep enough coin to run the Fifth Clan smoothly or folks will start asking questions.”

  “Tell Lilliam to stop spending so much on herself.”

  The Fifth Clan treasurer crossed her arms. “I cannot control that woman.”

  The other smiled, eyes glinting, and lowered her voice. “Just keep the deposits coming or Queen Tavara will replace Lilliam with one of her other daughters.”

  The false merchant tightened her cloak, mounted her Kihlara, and vanished into the star-spangled sky.

  Once I’Lenna had gotten over her shock and anger, she’d realized that both her mother and the Fifth Clan were in grave danger. She’d spied on the treasurer for another moon and witnessed two more exchanges, then she’d confided in General Tsun. They’d founded the rebellion against Lilliam together, but Tsun had promised to keep Lilliam’s treachery a secret. If the Fifth Clan knew, they’d execute I’Lenna’s mother. Queens did not abuse their own people, Clan Law forbade it. It was an abomination that required yanking out by its roots. I’Lenna had hoped to banish Lilliam peacefully, but she had failed and now General Tsun was dead.