Chapter 2: Herding

I was up at the crack of dawn.

The kitchen was already hopping, and I was able to get fresh tea and a hot meal into me. I then went and checked with the stable master and asked where I could get travel rations. She directed me to a storage shed that was used by the kitchen staff.

I filled the spare saddlebags I had found and the space I had in the backpack with enough supplies to last a couple of weeks until I had worked out what was available in the high country to forage on. I didn’t think I’d have a problem feeding myself.

I took two extra water bottles out of the box of a dozen and even borrowed the flint I saw on a top shelf. Most people use the phosphor sticks these days, but a flint still worked even if wet. You just had to have the knack, and I did. It could be cool in the high country even here. I also liked having a fire so that I could read.

Happy I had most of what I needed I made one more stop. Yantel looked at me strangely when I made my request. “Books? You want some books?” she said with disbelief. All kids were supposed to do book learning from the age of six to fourteen, but many never touched a book again.

Cavil had walked in and heard her exclamations. He gave me a strange look. “Come with me,” he said. I followed him to the big house, and he led me to a room at the back. I had never seen so many books in all my life.

Warh wasn’t a big reader, and I’d had fun scrounging for books at home until I’d found the old library. I’d been working my way through all the old books in it since. Cavil had shelves that went to the high ceiling along three walls, and they were all full of books.

I looked at the titles and noticed they had been set up in a sort of order. I stopped when I found a book titled Animal Husbandry and Health. I flicked the pages and determined that while some of the words were unknown to me, I taught myself enough that I thought I could work them out.

I found one called the Law of the Herds and another called Hind History that was old and hand written like a diary. It would take me a while to read the thick books. I was pleased with my finds.

Cavil looked at the books. “That should keep you entertained for a while,” he commented with a grin.

“That’s the idea, sir,” I replied.

I thanked him and happily went to saddle my lankys and headed out.

I had little trouble rounding up my charges, and we ambled off to the high pastures.

I had to smile when several people noticed that Red wasn’t trailing me. She was on the other side of the small herd. She didn’t need a rider to tell her what to do. She only wore a simple halter that I could attach a rope to if I need to.

I had to chuckle as I watched her nudge the yearlings to keep up. She was one smart lanky. King was also behaving. He was happy with the new bridle and the blanket saddle, and pranced like the king he was. I think he was just happy to get out the stable.

We spent the remaining five weeks of the glorious spring in the high country. I’d never felt so at peace. Red and King had no trouble with me changing to wolf so I could hunt. It was far more efficient and more rewarding to hunt in this fashion. It also kept me fit and toned.

I located a big lake that was full of fish, so I was more than happy to change to merman to hunt this way too. I’d change to my bull form to graze, so my diet was balanced. Otherwise, I hunted for root vegetables or climbed trees to gather fruit and nuts that were already ripening. Due to our warm climate, many trees fruited all year around.

I’d begun to notice as the spring wore on that when I changed to human and dressed, my pants had climbed up above my ankles. I was going to have to get some new clothes when I went back. The fact that I rarely wore them during the day unless I decided to ride meant that I didn’t wear them out so quickly.

Red and King were the perfect outriders, and I often changed to bull when moving the herd as they just followed along behind me. I’d noticed that King and Red had both put on weight and were looking as healthy, as I felt.

The longhorns all considered me the dominant male, so we had few problems. We camped away from streams when it rained. We had few predators to worry about. We mostly had wolves on the island. Most of the minor problems we had were scrapes from downed trees and the animals stepping into holes.

Since I could heal, they weren’t big problems.

I’d been out in the wilds for two weeks and had moved my herd to the east when I found the spaceship.

Somehow, it had managed to wedge itself into a wide cleft between two steep hillsides. I could see where it had smashed into the ground. I guess the hillsides had collapsed over time and at least two-thirds of its 60m height had become part of the landscape.

It was shaped more like an annulus than a rectangle as it angled evenly into the top. The top metal section was about 60m square but it curved with the peeks parallel to the hills. The top was interesting. It was like two wave crests. The trough had a very thick and wide metallic section and the crests were some sort of clear material.

I guessed as I moved around the outside of the ship that the base was probably closer to 100m square. The outer board curve was barely discernible since it was buried and wedged into the cleft. One hillside had collapsed to bury one side and front corner more fully than the other did.

The trees had grown up around the ship in the landslides, and their dense foliage hid most of the top of the ship from view. If the sun hadn’t glinted off it from my vantage point, I would have passed it by. I climbed up the hillside that buried more of the ships face and stopped when I encountered the strange metal of the craft.

I ran my hands across the metal in wonder and nearly died of fright when a section of it slid back. I grabbed a big rock and planted it in the doorway so I wouldn’t be locked in. I entered the small room and approached the second door.

When I pushed on it, it slid back into the wall. I dropped another rock in the hatch to keep this door open. It provided me with a little light so I could see down the long hallway. As I moved further down the hallway, the ceiling started to light up.

It didn’t get real bright, and many panels didn’t work, but it was enough that I could see as my eyes adjusted. Some of the businesses and older buildings in Horn City still had these types of lights, but no one knew how to make the parts to fix them anymore.

It didn’t take long for me to learn that the ship had been pretty much gutted. I could see where many of the wall panels had been removed and taken away. Warh had several walls in the older part of the house made from those panels, so I knew where some had gone.

I remembered some of the walls in Cavil’s house were also like these panels. I thought it odd that both libraries, in particular, had these panels and wondered why. The books were well preserved in both of them that were for sure.

Even gutted, the ship was an exciting find. I don’t think anyone had been near the ship for hundreds of years. The trees and the hills had done a good job of hiding it. I was surprised that some of the lights worked as did several doors. Those doors that didn’t, I could pull open with little resistance.

I did find out about the waves on top. They were green houses. They had been emptied a long time ago. The floor below was probably one that was still the most intact. It had some interesting rooms and a lot of the control rooms had been left alone.

I was on one of the lower levels when I noticed something odd about one of the walls. I could swear a section in it flickered. I stood right up near it and watched carefully. When I saw it flicker again, I stepped forward. Don’t ask me why, I just did.

The small square room I entered was empty, but I noticed two areas in the back two corners of the two side walls that shimmered. I went to the left one and waited. When it flicked, I stepped trough. I gasped as I looked around the 4m square room. I wondered how it had stayed hidden.

The room was lined with rectangular slots. Only eleven of the hundreds of slots had a box in it. I pulled one of the boxes from the hole in the wall and placed it on the cube that sat in the middle of the room.

I couldn’t find a way to open it. I removed another box and had no luck with it either. I had removed all ten of the lower boxes, and they were all the same. I pulled the last one down and placed it on top of the others.

It was sealed like the others with no visible joins. I noticed it was slightly bigger in each dimension. I’d left it until last because it gave me a creepy feeling. Discouraged, I placed both hands on the box and sighed in frustration. I damn near shat myself when the box moved.

Once I got my heart back in my chest, I examined it and realised that it had opened. I looked at how the lid worked and pushed it back and looked inside with great curiosity. To my surprise, there were three items.

A thick banded gold ring studded with gems, a flat gold octagonal medallion with two sides longer than the rest, it was on a gold chain, and a thin gem studded gold band about 2cm wide that looked like what girls wore to hold their hair back.

They were suspended in the air as far as I could tell. The space under them was a deep, fathomless black. When I got up the courage to pluck out the ring, I couldn’t feel any type of material under it. It was bloody creepy I can assure you.

The ring and the headband had five gems on them. They were the same gems on each but in different sizes. The largest central gem on both was a strange green/yellow colour, and I swore they had tiny lights swirling in them. A bigger square one just like them was in the centre of the medallion.

I later learned that the other four gems were an aquamarine, an agate, a rose quartz and a moonstone. They all had dominant red streaks or speckles in their patterns. At the time, I simply thought they were a strange collection of gems to put on jewellery.

I felt compelled to put the items on, so I did so. Strange sensations come over me, and I received a feeling of pleasure from the jewellery. I then noted a feeling of hesitancy and something else I couldn’t place.

I got the feeling that something was a little wrong, but neither the entity in the items nor I knew what was causing the wrongness. It was very strange to feel as if someone else was in my head. Yet the entity didn’t really do anything, and while I felt its presence, it was vague. I couldn’t communicate with it, not with words anyway.

I didn’t realise that two of the original items were missing from the box. The spell book and the wand. However, I did luck in. I had noticed that two of the lower shelves each had a small, slim book on them.

On another shelf was a tube about 25cm long and 2.5cm round at its widest end. It had another one of the strange green/yellow gems in that end. When I picked it up, the gem flashed. I felt as if the other items and the entity had accepted this item as part of the ensemble.

I had no idea what it did at that time, so I dropped it into the magical box. The entity also seemed to accept the two magic books in a similar manner. I found the little books fascinating as I could read them even though part of my mind said they weren’t in my language.

Some of the pages on the left had a list of ingredients on them, and the right-hand page had instructions on them like a cooking recipe. Other pages towards the back read more like a diary. I noticed that there seemed to be a lot of previous owners and a lot more pages than the thickness of the book could possibly contain.

The pages also felt a little odd with their shiny surfaces. I decided I’d have a better look at them later. I moved my box to one side as I looked at the other boxes and wondered how I was going to carry them all.

I hadn’t piled them on the table real well, and when I went to straighten them, one slipped and speared into my open but otherwise empty box. As I went to remove it, I observed something weird. The end of the box that had fallen to mine shouldn’t have been able to fit into it as deep as it did.

I lifted it out and looked at the offending end. I turned the box and then lowered it into my box. This time, because of the angle I used, it dropped into the box, so only the end in my hand was out of it. I may not have had a lot of higher education as far as the sciences went, however, even I knew what I was seeing wasn’t normal.

I grinned as my mind finally caught up with what my eyes were telling me. I looked down and noticed the medallion had disappeared. The ring looked like a plain band on the middle finger of my right hand, and I was sure the headband wasn’t visible any longer either.

We had all heard a lot about magicians and even what magical items they wore. I’d even met a man who said he was a mage once. We didn’t have a lot of them on the island, but we had a few. I’d never heard of anyone having all the items that I was wearing.

I shivered as I also remembered that the number of gems I had on my items, the more powerful I was. I looked down and let go of the box I was holding. I looked into my box and could see it lying at the bottom, but the bottom was a long way down. I put my hand in and thought of the other box, and instantly the box was in my hand.

I let it go again and then happily dropped the other boxes into my new magical box, as well as one of the spell books. I tucked the other book into my shirt pocket for later. I scanned the shelves, but nothing else was left, so I closed my box.

When I lifted my box, it didn’t feel any heavier than when I first picked it up. Something else to ponder. I tucked it under my arm and left. I had little trouble walking through the mirage again. As I stepped into the small room, I decided to look in the other hidden room.

This room had several shelves lining the walls and two large chests on the floor. One shelf had six small chests on it. They were about 40cm wide and high, and 50cm long. I suspected that there and been much more in this room but the person who had left these must not have been able to come back for them.

I opened the first one. While I didn’t know a lot about jewellery, I was of the opinion that they were not very good pieces. It mostly contained headbands made of different metals. Many of them were incomplete.

Some of them had gems, but they also had spaces for other gems, but they were empty. I wondered if they were supposed to be new magical items but the person making them couldn’t find the gems they needed.

The next box also contained half made items. Most of them were rings, and a couple of small bags contained different sorts of gems, some cut and some not. The third box held medallions that had no inscriptions on them or the strange gem in the middle like mine. This crystal was missing from all of the items I noted.

I hit pay dirt with the last three boxes. One was full of small bags of coins. They didn’t look any different to the coins we currently used. The disappointment was that they were mostly low value. Even so, they were the coins I could spend easily.

The next held some better quality female type jewellery, and ten slim bars of what I believed were silver lined the base. The last held several bags of larger denomination coins and the base held gold bars.

I pulled my magical box back out of my pack and opened it. I grabbed one of the chests, but apparently, it was just too big. My box was closer to 32cm long and 26cm wide at the opening. It was also only 12cm deep. I’d just learnt that the items I could put in the box needed to be smaller than the opening.

I dropped in the items that were in the bags and the bars of gold and silver. Looking in it seemed I still had plenty of room and it seemed to organise itself neatly. However, I didn’t wish to drop the other items in loose.

Looking around the room, I noticed the two big chests. Rummaging through them, I found they were both filled with ornate clothing and good linens. One even had a very nice thick woollen blanket so I rolled it up so I could fit it into my box.

One pile of linens looked a lot like what we used for hankies. They were about 30cm square. I grinned, as they would be perfect. They were even different colours. I tipped the loose items from a chest into a square and tied it up then dropped it into my box.

I opened one hanky and tied a handful of extra ones in it. I was sure they wouldn’t go astray. The one item of clothing I took from the box was a very nice black coat. It was long and designed to be worn as a riding coat in wet weather. It even split in the back, so it covered your legs. I didn’t have one, so this one would do nicely.

I left the empty chests on the shelves and continued my investigation of the ship. I found some other interesting items I would like to keep in another room with a shimmering door, but they were too big or hard to explain why I had them. One day I’d come back for them.

Happy with my finds, I decided that I needed food.

Grazing and hunting can be time-consuming.

That night I set my snares and ate the items from my storage bags that I had collected in my travels. I had some root vegetables, and some leftover dried meat, so I dropped the lot into a pot to cook. I sat and read while the stew cooked.

King neighed at me and reminded me of my herd. I stripped, changed to wolf and sniffed around them. I checked they were all settled for the night and then checked on my snares from a distance, so I didn’t scare the game. Happy, I went back to my stew and my book.

The next three weeks passed fast for me. I had so much to learn. I played with my magic. My healing skills had increased tremendously, but that wasn’t all I could do. I had learnt how to start fires and to know if a plant was toxic to the herd or me without even touching it.

The coolest thing I learnt was how to create an invisibility shield that I could place over the animals and me at night. Oops! I also learnt that the shield could get me into trouble. It wasn’t until I removed it one morning that I found I had guests.

I had been working my way back to the homestead over the last week. An outrider must have seen me and reported my whereabouts. Apparently, Cavil had expected me back long before now to get camp food and other supplies.

One of the riders had fresh tea leaves, and I was more than happy to accept a cup when I invited them to my camp fire. It was one of the few things, which I had missed since I had been gone. My tea had run out weeks ago.

I fielded their questions, as they couldn’t believe they had camped so close to me and not seen the bighorns. It was obvious we had been in the same spot all night. I just shrugged it off and enjoyed the tea.

We were less than a day from home, so we decided the push the herd a little, and get moving. I loaded my stuff up onto Red and King. I told them what we were doing and changed into my bull form. I bellowed at my herd, and we took off at a slow jog.

The three outriders trailed behind and watched as we trotted off home. I put the yearlings in the same paddock they had been in when I first collected them. I changed back to human form and retrieved my clothes from my pack.

I redressed, shouldered the pack and mounted King to ride the last hundred metres back to the homestead. One of the outriders rode back to me and told me to report to Bull Cavil. She gave me a funny look and I knew she had watched me change and dress.

“So how many did you lose?” was his first question.

I had started out with fifty weaners I’d corralled eighty-six bighorns. I explained I had found a few as I travelled and still had the original fifty.

“So how many of them are now pregnant?” he then asked me.

“Don’s fifteen older cows are. I told him not to touch the others. It wasn’t easy for him as several of them came into season, but he survived the ordeal,” I told Cavil with a big grin.

“They aren’t yours?” he asked me in surprise.

I chuckled. It is a fact that when I turn bull, I can indeed impregnate a cow. I have enough genetic material to form perfectly healthy calves. Warh did it all the time. I often though he preferred fucking the heifers to the shifters.

“Not I, Sir. Don accepted with a little intimidation that I was head bull. He knew not to touch my girls. It probably helped that I let him keep his little herd. So even the other heifers are in the pristine state I found them. I’ve never been in the habit of fucking the stock,” I told him.

“Tray said he’s not a bad looking bull,” Cavil stated.

“I agree. His progeny is strong, and they fattened up as nice as the other girls did. He only had the two steers in his herd when I found him. They didn’t appreciate me gelding them, but they are prime on the hoof, all the same.”

“Tray mentioned the two steers. I assumed most the heifers would be pregnant. We often have at least half of them coming back in such a state,” he informed me.

I just shrugged. If the other outriders liked to ride the herd in more ways than one, that was their business but I didn’t do it. We talked a little longer about the conditions in the high country and the quality of the feed I had found.

Then he sent me to find some supper.

I headed to the barn to put my lankys to bed.

I heard some cussing and then a whip crack. I heard Red scream and I bolted. When I saw that the woman about to strike again, I reefed the whip out of her hand. As I stepped back, I drew the whip back, and then I cracked the tails across her arse. She screamed and backed away from me.

“You ever touch my lankys again with a whip, and you will suffer every stroke they did,” I told her in a controlled angry voice. I watched as the manager, Yantel, ran from the shed. I dropped the whip, approached Red and soothed her with my voice and hand.

I gently healed the welt on her flank and then started rubbing her down telling her how sorry I was she had been hurt. King neighed at her and gave her a sloppy kiss on the nose. He considered Red his filly.

I soon had my lankys bedded down and went to find food. Cavil found me in the dining room a little later. “Bron, tell me your side of the story,” he said.

Yantel started speaking, but Cavil held his hand up for silence. All thirty people in the room were silent. I sighed. I hadn’t even been back one night, and already I was in deep shit. I stood and faced Cavil and Yantel.

“I was heading back to the barn to bed my lankys when I heard Red scream in pain. When I raced in, I saw that she was about to whip Red again. I removed the whip from her grasp and gave her a taste of her own medicine,” I said, not removing my eyes from Cavil’s the whole time.

“That beast of a lanky deserved it,” Yantel spat out in a fury.

I turned my cold glare onto her, “What could Red have possibly done to deserve to be whipped?”

“She bit me. See,” Yantel spat and held up her arm. If she was going to bruise, it hadn’t formed, and the skin wasn’t broken. It was nip at best and not a bite.

“What did you do to her that caused her to bite you?” I asked in a softer voice. My anger, however, was still evident in my tone.

“I did nothing to her, I was trying to get that brute of yours into his stall but he wouldn’t leave the water trough,” she said crankily.

I frowned at her. “He still had all his gear on. Why were you trying to put a hot, thirsty lanky into a stall? Surely you’re not stupid?”

Cavil looked at her in consternation, “What were you thinking woman? You do know better than that.”

Yantel gaped, and it came to me. “You lie. You wanted to go through my saddle bags. You wouldn’t have found too much. Unless you were planning on doing my washing for me.”

She shook her head in denial, but it wasn’t very convincing.

“So did you find gold?” one of the other women asked.

I noticed the Prol workers looking at me hard. I shook my head in disgust. “What gold? I wasn’t prospecting, I was riding herd. I was doing what I was told to do.”

Cavil chuckled. “You’d be one of the first. Didn’t you hear the rumours before you left? Why else did you take a flat pan, a shovel and a pick?”

I had to stop and think. The items he mentioned had been in the pack I had picked up to use. I hadn’t tossed them as I could think of uses for all the items. I shook my head and sighed.

“I used the pan to pour water into for the lankys at night. The pick also has an axe head for wood. The shovel was used to make sure the ground where I slept was softer and to bury my night soil. I can assure you I didn’t pan or dig for one ounce of gold. I didn’t even know you had any in this area.”

While I did find treasure, I’d not had to dig for it, and I wasn’t telling them that. I went on to say, “I had only been here for less than a day before I was sent to ride herd. I had spoken to four people that whole time. Yantel, the stable master, a servant to ask about food and you Lord Cavil.”

“I ate late and didn’t sleep in the main bunkhouse. So tell me, how was I to even learn about there being any gold? I only picked the pack I used because it didn’t seem to belong to anyone else. I still don’t even know who it had once belonged too.”

“So why were you gone for so long? Reliefs are sent out every two weeks for herders,” one of the other women accused me.

“Ask her,” I said in exasperation.

They all looked at Yantel. Cavil then asked her, “For that matter, why did the outriders find him alone and with the two of the most mismatched lankys you could have put together?”

Yantel open and closed her mouth a couple of times and then firmed her resolve and spat, “Who wanted to work with him anyway? He has sons.”

Fuck me! I couldn’t believe the shit that came out her mouth. Now I was really riled up. “I was raped by my grandfather at fifteen and damn near died having that child. My child that he callously gave away,” I spat at her. “Personally, I thought it was very fitting to have a son in the circumstances.”

There was a collective gasp. Cavil looked at me in shock, “So that’s why he wanted to get rid of you. He tried to tell me that you had behaved like your mother, and gotten yourself pregnant to someone outside the family and then lost the child. He had assured me that your healing skills were still good.”

I laughed without mirth. “Yes they are, but he didn’t know that. Our herds hadn’t been well since he raped me. He thought I was cursed. I was so sick during and after the pregnancy that I had simply stopped healing them.”

Cavil grinned at me, “Going by the state of the animals you brought back, you’re feeling a lot better. By the way, I’ve decided to keep Don, your bull.”

I nodded, “A smart move. His progeny may be a little smaller, but they are prime beef animals. If you put the heifers back to your other bull, you will get a lot more good quality bighorns.”

Cavil nodded in agreement with me, “I might even let him keep some of the other girls rather than sell them.”

“If you like I’ll cut out the twenty I think are the best and shift them to the other paddock. I notice those other weaners in the corral next to one I left the others in need some of my TLC. I’ll take them for the rest of summer.”

“Do that. We often go back out for the summer too, who do want to ride with you?”

I shook my head, “I’ve got Red and King, I don’t need anyone else.” I was still pissed at these people and didn’t want or need their company.

Greta, one of the herders who had come to find me, piped up, “You should have seen them, it was the most uncanny thing I ever saw. He changes into a bull and leads the herd. Those lankys of his acted as the outriders totally on their own. I’ve never seen the like. Not one of them bighorns even looked like misbehaving.”

“They are damn good lankys, and they work well together. It’s been a pleasure working with them,” I said. I was pleased that she at least thought I was worth something.

“Well, it looks like they won’t be going to the knackers anytime soon. I thought they had already been sent when I realised they weren’t in the stable,” Cavil told me.

“They just needed a gentle hand and bit. They both have soft mouths. I didn’t even need a proper saddle they were so gentle with me,” I told them.

Cavil shook his head. “Rest up for a few days. If you like, you can pick the herd you wish to take. This time, however, come back in a month. We’ll decide if they need to go out again or if you can take another herd.”

I was happy with this decision and more than happy to get back to eating.

I’d spent three days at the homestead, and I did get to meet a few people.

The one person who had caught my eye was Greta. She had a very strange effect on me whenever she came near. I’d only been wearing the magical items for a few weeks. However, I had noticed a change in my libido as well as my body.

Since my rape, the thought of sex made me feel cold, and my stomach would cramp up. I’d not masturbated in either gender form. It was if my mind had blanked out what sex was. But Greta was messing with my mind and my body.