While we have a bit left, we’ll take care of your other aches and pains. You have quite a healthy young body, but it appears you’ve taken quite a pounding this week. Mellador was still chattering inside my head, and the burning wave coursed through my veins like Papa’s brandy I had stolen to taste when I was small. And as all my bruises and soreness were eased, the slave slumped heavily against my chair.
“What have you done?” I said, finding my voice far too late.
“Quite finished now. Looks like we’d have to bring in another slave if you had one more scrape.”
He untied the flaccid arm from my own, and pushed the lifeless slave onto the floor, thrusting a wad of towels under him to prevent any blood from staining the tile. There was no sign of my incision, and no remnant of my injury, only a vile taste in my mouth and the boiling darkness in my blood.
“He’s dead.”
“Who… the slave? Of course. I’m glad I brought one with a considerable amount of vigor left in him, else we might not have been able to take care of all your ills.”
“Get out!”
“My lord?”
“Get out!” I jumped up from the chair and backed away from the surgeon and the results of his work. “Take him with you. If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”
Notole spoke in my mind. Are you not healed properly, my young Prince? Has Mellador displeased you in some way? We’ve not had time to discuss the process of healing.
“I didn’t know he was going to kill the slave. My knee would have gotten better on its own.”
But what better use for a slave than to put his master in good health? Mellador has prescribed a day’s rest, and…
… you will be able to go back to your proper business. It was Ziddari. Why are you unsettled, young Lord? You plan to kill these Dar’Nethi pigs in war. You have killed three in your sparring already. They live only at your pleasure and that of the Lords of Zhev’Na.
But there was a difference. Killing a soldier in battle was honorable. Killing a sparring partner-this was the first time they had told me that any of them had died-but that was almost the same. The practice slaves were trying to kill me, too. I had heard that slaves sometimes killed warriors in training, and they weren’t even punished for it. But to take his life for power… to cure bruises and scrapes such as any boy might get…
It is just. Remember it, said Ziddari. There is no difference in that slave and the rat you killed last week with your spear. Any Dar’Nethi would kill you in an instant if he was freed. We didn’t expect that you would have difficulty with this.
“I… I just wasn’t expecting it. Of course, I understand all you say.” I said what they wanted to hear, because I wanted them to leave me alone for a while. As I had the night before in the stable, I let darkness fill my head to block out their presence.
When the surgeon had gone, along with all evidence of his work, I called my slaves to run a bath. Hot, I said. Hotter than the desert. Though the midday heat hammered on the Gray House, and there was not the slightest stirring of the sultry air, I was as cold as if that red-black flood inside me had turned to black ice.
I spent two hours in the hot water, wondering what I would do for the rest of the afternoon. I wanted to get back to my training. That was the best time of every day. Nothing to think about except what you were doing right then.
I tried to sleep, but all I could see was the slave’s eyes, gray and clear. Accusing me. He had known what was going to happen-that they were going to kill him to heal me. That was what his look had meant. And then his eyes grew angry, then empty, and then they were dead.
My real father was a Dar’Nethi Healer. Was that what he did?
I threw down the sword I was polishing and pulled on my riding leathers. I didn’t care what the surgeon had said.
Fengara wasn’t in the stable, as she’d been told I wasn’t coming. So I saddled Zigget and rode into the desert alone.
Alone? Risky you know, young Lord. Our enemies might be able to locate you outside the fortress. Ziddari.
“No one would dare attack me. I bear the mark of the Lords.”
Ziddari kept picking at me, asking questions, telling me I should come back, let my knee heal. But I rode harder and faster, laying my whip into Zigget until the afternoon desert was a red blur, and soon I couldn’t hear Ziddari anymore.
I didn’t slow until the sun was low in the west. I had no idea how far I had ridden, but Zigget’s flanks were heaving, so I headed back toward the fortress at a walk, trying to cool him down as the evening came on. But the horse took his revenge. Something scuttered out from under a rock- a kibbazi most likely, a sharp-toothed desert rat. Zigget shied and reared, just when I didn’t expect it, and I found myself sprawled in the dirt.
“Curse you, devil,” I said, shaking myself off and gingerly testing my knee.
Zigget looked at me with blazing hatred in his eye, and then galloped back toward Zhev’Na.
Marvelous, I thought. A nice walk ahead. I wasn’t particularly worried. I could call on the Lords at any time, and they could have fifty warriors with me in a quarter of an hour or make a portal to take me back. But I didn’t want to ask for any favors. At least I had a full waterskin at my belt. I wasn’t stupid enough to go out without it, even though I was stupid enough to take Zigget on a ride alone.
I walked for a long time. Two or three times, the Lords stirred in my head, but I ignored them, shoving my anger between us like a wall. Soon I felt them withdraw, and they left me alone. It felt good to be alone in the night. Sometime around the mid-watch I heard hoofbeats and assumed that the Lords had sent someone for me. Not surprising. I knew I was a lot more valuable to them than they let on. But it wasn’t the Lords. It was Zigget-and the Leiran boy.
“Thought you might be needin‘ a ride.”
“Did the devil confess to you?”
“You might say that.”
He slid off the horse and offered me the reins. Zigget’s nostrils flared, and the horse shied. I kept walking.
“You should have brought another horse. This one won’t carry me again.”
“He’s the strongest and fastest in the stable. He’d be your friend if you’d let him.”
“How do you know so much about him? Is he a relative of yours?”
“He’s a deal better than any kin I ever had. Do you want to know his name?” The boy was walking along beside me, leading the infernal beast.
“I believe his name is Zigget.”
“Nope. Firebreather.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I just know.”
I stopped and glared at the idiot boy. “I’m not a fool. You’re not Dar’Nethi.”
“Call him Firebreather. Try it. Stand over there and call him.” He dropped the reins and stepped away from the horse. I set out walking again. “Call him,” the boy called after me.
“Here, Firebreather,” I shouted, just to silence the Drudge. Before I had walked five paces more, the horse followed behind me, hesitant, quivering, but close enough that his muzzle hung over my shoulder. I stopped, and he stopped.
“Now tell him something nice. Tell him there’s oats to be had at the stable when he gets you there.” He whispered this in my ear, presumably so the horse could get the good news from me.
“Oats?”
“Tell him.”
“Firebreather, there’s oats. Oats in the stable if you behave yourself.” I felt like an idiot.
The horse shifted his feet and blew a slightly happier note.
“Will you bite my hand off if I give you oats in it? This fool of a servant seems to think you are not a Zhid of a horse. Should I believe him?” I raised my hand slowly to pat his nose. He tossed his head. “Oats. Remember oats, Firebreather. I have the power of oats. My feet are indeed tired, thanks to you, but if you have a change of heart, perhaps I can too.”