The pain made him think of the last, and worst, time Esah-Zhurah had punished him for anything. The only thing among the countless subjects they discussed that she adamantly refused to reveal to him was if there were any males in their society, and if so, where they were. On this one subject he could get nothing out of her other than, “You shall know when the time comes, if it comes,” and the subject would be considered closed.
The one time Reza had tried to push her on it, the last time he had asked about it, she had turned on him like a lioness defending her cubs. She had beaten him so severely that he missed nearly three days of training, spending most of that time in the care of the healers as they reset the five ribs and one arm that Esah-Zhurah had broken in the course of his punishment. The healing process had been nearly as bad as the beating itself, especially when they held him down and forced his mouth open, pouring a wet mass of the undulating healing gel down his throat. It slid across his tongue like a wet oyster before pumping itself into his airway and then his lungs. In the moment before it stilled the pain of the jagged edges of the ribs tearing into his lungs and made breathing easier for him, he thought he would go mad at the thing churning within his body. Esah-Zhurah had chastised him afterward for being a coward, shaming her before the healers with his squeals of revulsion. Her words had burned themselves into his heart and mind as he lay in the infirmary for the next three days with her sitting next to him, back turned, silent. If she had heard him call her name, or felt his tentative touch, or sensed the silent tears he shed, she did not show it. Only when the elder healer had cleared him as being well and he had risen from the bed of skins had she addressed him, and then as if nothing had happened.
“There,” she said, closing his shirt. She helped him get his torso armor back on, the bandage throbbing uncomfortably. “Come. You have completed your three obligatory matches for this day, and I have something for you.”
“What?” Reza asked, his mind alert to the mischievous undertone in her voice.
“Patience,” she said, her eyes laughing at him. “You shall see.”
He followed her, and was surprised when she led him to the stable where the magtheps honked and snorted as they stomped about their enclosure. Reza’s nose quickly filled with their musky smell, a smell he had become quite accustomed to in his first few days here, when he had to sleep with the animals, chained to a post.
“What is this about?” he asked her.
“Tomorrow we begin our free time before the Challenge,” she told him. “From sunrise tomorrow to sunset the second day after that, we may do as we please.”
“So?”
She turned to him. “I wish to take you somewhere,” she told him, “and, unless you wish to run to the mountains,” she gestured to the distant peaks on the northern horizon, “you will need to learn to ride.”
Reza’s heart suddenly began to beat faster. “You will teach me this?” he asked, his voice betraying his hopefulness. How long had he been here, he wondered. A Standard year, perhaps? Two? And this would be the first time he would ride one of these fascinating animals, rather than running along behind them like a dog.
Esah-Zhurah smiled, mimicking a human, her lips parting to reveal her ivory incisors. “I will provide you an animal,” she said. “The rest will be up to you.” She paused a moment, watching Reza’s face turn from hopeful excitement to wary reservation. “It should be interesting to see one animal ride another.”
“Where is it?” he asked, forcing himself to be calm, forever wondering why he continued to hope for some kind of real respect from her, or even a little genuine warmth. Without doubt, he told himself cynically, you are the galaxy’s greatest optimist.
“Come,” she said, beckoning him to follow. She led him around the enclosure, stopping in the low-ceilinged tack room at the far side of the stable where she retrieved a riding harness and a light saddle, which she gave to Reza.
When he followed her around to the far side, he found himself standing at the gate to a large, individual enclosure that he had not seen before.
“This is the animal,” she told him, pointing into the enclosure.
A single beast stood there, a young bull that was larger than any magthep Reza had ever seen. The animal stood alone, except for the scrub rats that darted across the enclosure, searching for food. Its eyes were fixed on Esah-Zhurah and himself, and Reza could see that the animal was uneasy at their presence by the way it perked its floppy ears and nervously shifted its weight from foot to foot. The talons, grown too long on this soft ground without a trim, raised small clouds of dust from the parched soil. Its hide was dirty and unkempt, and Reza could easily make out the whitish tracks of scars that crisscrossed the massive animal’s back and withers.
“This animal has been mistreated,” he remarked coldly.
Esah-Zhurah snorted. “That is not so,” she protested. “It simply refuses to be tamed. The scars you see were left by riders when thrown from its back. It has never been beaten as punishment.”
A clear advantage over my social status, Reza told himself sourly. “If no one can ride it,” he asked, “why is it kept in the stables? Why not let it run free or kill it for meat?”
“Because,” she said, “there are those who find such challenges entertaining.”
“And those,” he finished for her, “who are entertained by watching someone as they are thrown and then trampled.”
“Here,” she said, pointedly ignoring his comment as she gave him the bridle, the leather saddle already in his other hand.
He was about to mention the fact that she had not bothered to show him how to attach the saddle and bridle, but decided against it. Both of them were relatively simple devices that he had already seen on other animals, and he was sure he could figure them out. The major problem, he thought, was going to be getting close enough to the snorting magthep to put them on. And, until that was accomplished, he did not have to consider the prospect of being thrown. He only had to worry about being trampled and then shredded to pieces by the hooked talons on the animal’s feet.
As he pondered his first move, a glint of green near his sandal caught his attention, and he saw with surprise that he was standing in a patch of yezhe’e plants, which he knew magtheps liked. Looking at the beast’s enclosure, he saw that he was standing on the edge of a green border that marked the magthep’s reach beyond the wooden bars, everything closer to the fence having already been plucked from the ground and eaten.
Gathering the saddle and bridle in one hand, he leaned down and pulled as many shoots as he could hold. Reza noted with satisfaction that the prospective food had not eluded the magthep’s wary eye. With cautious steps and flared nostrils, it moved slowly toward him.
Reza motioned for Esah-Zhurah to open the gate. Once inside, she closed it behind him, the squeak of the wood jangling his nerves. He let out his breath quietly, forcing himself to relax as the beast came closer, its large almond-shaped eyes and their yellow irises fixed on him. He decided to leave the riding gear behind for the moment, setting the bridle and saddle down slowly so as not to startle the animal. If he could not gain its trust, he would not need them. Then he took off his gauntlets with their gleaming talons and hooked them onto his belt, hoping the touch of his bare hands might be more reassuring than the lethal weapons his fingers became when encased in the armored gloves.
Now armed only with the tempting plants, he began to slowly walk toward the magthep, calling to it quietly. “Easy, boy,” he said in Standard low enough that he knew Esah-Zhurah would not hear, and thus take offense. “Take it easy.”