She rather regretted that, and she knew Boots would, too. She made it a point to ride the gelding at least three times a week, and he spent his days in an open field, bounded by the river, with ready access to field shelter. Gayrfressa shared the same field with him, although unlike Boots she was as adroit at opening the gate in the fence around it as any two-foot and came and went as she willed. The manager of the city livery stable had helped erect the shelters in return for permission to put a half dozen other horses whose owners preferred to keep them at grass into the field with Boots, which gave him plenty of company. With the extra horses to play with, he was self-exercised enough to keep him fit, but Leeana didn’t ride him only to exercise him. He needed the time with her, just as she needed it with him, and in an odd sort of way, the hours she spent on Gayrfressa’s back only made riding him even more enjoyable. Her bond with Gayrfressa was so deep they truly were one creature; with Boots she had to work at that kind of fusion, and that made her appreciate it even more deeply.
“Time to head back,” she said more than a little regretfully. “I’ve got the duty tonight, and I owe him a good grooming.”
‹ Handy to have around, you two-foots, when it comes to things like that,› Gayrfressa observed with a deep, silent chuckle.
“‘Handy’ is it?” Leeana retorted, wincing at the deliberate pun, and Gayrfressa tossed her head in an equine shrug. “I’ll figure out a way to make you pay for that one.”
‹ I see why Brandark feels so unappreciated around him,› the courser said mournfully, and Leeana laughed.
“Well, either way, we need to be getting back to town,” she pointed out, and reined Boots around.
The gelding clearly understood what she had in mind…and equally clearly was in no hurry to get back to his field. Playing tag with the other horses was all very well, but he was enjoying himself too much to end his afternoon with his rider any sooner than he had to. Leeana smiled down at his ears as he tossed his head, sidestepping and expressing his reluctance with an eloquence which needed no words.
“Sorry, love,” she told him, reaching down to pat him on the shoulder. “Erlis is going to be irked if I don’t get back on time today.”
‹I think everybody in Kalatha is “irked” at the moment, › Gayrfressa put in. ‹ Or perhaps the word I really want is worried. On edge? Or is there another two-foot word that comes closer?›
“I think either of them comes close enough,” Leeana replied after a moment. “It would help if Shahana knew why she was here!”
Gayrfressa blew heavily in agreement. The arm had arrived in Kalatha the day before, accompanied by a twenty-man-and woman-mounted platoon from the rebuilt Quaysar Temple Guard. Their appearance had taken the entire town by surprise and sparked more than a little anxiety, especially when Shahana couldn’t explain why Lillinara had chosen to send them in the first place. Leeana’s husband had had rather more practice at being moved about in response to divine direction than most, and even she found the arm’s arrival…disconcerting. For those without her own secondhand experience, Gayrfressa’s “worried” probably came a lot closer than “disconcerted.”
“At least if it’s worrying us I’m sure it’s worrying Trisu even more,” she said with a slow grin. “And anything that worries him is worthwhile, as far as I’m concerned!”
‹ Isn’t that just a little petty of you?›
“Of course not! It’s a lot petty of me, and that only makes it even more enjoyable from my perspective. It’s a two-foot thing.”
‹ You wish,› Gayrfressa told her. ‹ The truth is — ›
She broke off suddenly and stopped in mid stride. Her head snapped up, her remaining ear pointing sharply as she turned to her left, and her nostrils flared.
“What?” Leeana demanded, halting Boots instantly.
‹ Smoke. Grass smoke.›
Gayrfressa’s mental voice was brittle with tension, and Leeana’s spine stiffened with matching alarm. The tall, browning grass was rustling tinder, more than dry enough to feed the rolling maelstrom of a prairie fire, and the breeze would push any fire directly towards Kalatha. Every child of the Wind Plain knew what that could mean, and while a courser might outrun the holocaust’s outriders, all too many of its creatures couldn’t.
“Where? Can you tell how far away?”
‹ Close… too close, › Gayrfressa replied, but there was a new note in her mental voice. The alarm was colored by another emotion-surprise. Or perhaps confusion.
“What is it?” Leeana asked, frowning as she tasted her four-footed sister’s perplexity.
‹ Why didn’t I scent it on the way out?› Gayrfressa asked, her ear shifting, and her head rose higher as she sniffed the breeze even more deeply.
“Probably because it hadn’t caught yet,” Leeana replied.
‹ And did you hear any thunderstorms or lightning strikes to set it after we passed?› Gayrfressa demanded.
“Well…no,” Leeana admitted.
‹ Neither did I. I think we’d better look into this, Sister.›
“So do I. You’re the one with the keen sense of smell, though.”
Gayrfressa snorted in agreement and took the lead, forging steadily through the grass that was shoulder-high on Boots.
They’d gone only a short distance before Leeana’s merely human nose began to catch the sharp, acrid scent. The gelding noticed it to, and he snorted uneasily. She felt the sudden tension in his muscles as he recognized the threat, and her own pulse quickened, yet there were only wisps of the odor, not the kind of overpowering wave that would have rolled along the breath of a true grass fire. That had to be a good thing, she told herself. Whatever had caused it, the burning or smoldering grass producing that hint of smoke was almost certainly limited enough that she and Gayrfressa could deal with it before it turned into the kind of fiery tempest that wreaked such havoc.
‹ There!›
Gayrfressa’s head rose again, her nose pointing sharply, and Leeana squinted, trying to see whatever the mare had seen.
“Where?” she asked after a moment.
‹ You can’t see it?›
Gayrfressa sounded astonished, and Leeana shook her head. The courser brought her head around to look at her for a moment, then turned back in the direction she’d been staring, and Leeana felt a fresh stab of surprise come from her.
‹I can’t see it, either…if I close my right eye,› Gayrfressa said slowly, and something tingled along Leeana’s nerves as she remembered Lillinara telling them both that Gayrfressa would see more clearly than most.
“What is it?” she asked after a moment, and Gayrfressa snorted softly.
‹ I have no idea,› she admitted. ‹ It’s like…almost like the kind of glow I saw when he healed the rest of the Warm Springs herd, but it’s…wrong. Like it’s been…broken or twisted somehow.›
For some reason, Gayrfressa’s “explanation” wasn’t making her feel any calmer, Leeana reflected.
“And where are you seeing it?” She was surprised by the levelness of her own tone.
‹ There’s a hollow up ahead.› Gayrfressa sounded as positive as if she’d actually seen that hollow before, Leeana noted. ‹ Whatever it is, it’s coming from something in the hollow.›
“Then let’s go see what it is.”
Gayrfressa tossed her head in agreement, and they moved ahead once again, more warily than before. They’d gone perhaps two hundred yards when Leeana saw thin, twisting tendrils of smoke rising ahead of them. She clucked to Boots, pressing gently with her heels to request more speed, and despite his own nervousness, the gelding moved quickly from a fast walk to a trot.
They crested one of the low, almost imperceptible swells of the Wind Plain and stopped suddenly.