Chapter 3

Her name was Cerys—though I did not know that at the time—and her life hung by a thread.

The humanhorse of the hated Tankic, captured (or arguably saved, given the way the battle was going with the introduction of the monstrous Uymals stamping and biting) by my rider Akrith, may have survived that murderous battle but was now on the verge of death. The naked Welsh girl stood on an iron stool with kindling stacked beneath her bound feet. An Egri warrior, holding a flaming torch, stood by, ready to set a fire going beneath the stool. While she had not been freed from the customary waist belt of all humanhorses and thus still had her wrists chained to it, her otherwise unrestrained arms which had been stripped of the Grethek elbow weapons, were locked behind her with a chain tight round her upper arms, pushing her heavy breasts out invitingly. The expression on her face told me that she was in considerable pain. Around her neck was a tight chain, running up to a sort of gallows-like arrangement.

She could barely breathe as it was, standing two feet off the ground as she strained to keep her balance.

More, Cerys had already been whipped soundly across her saddle-less back, across her breasts and her belly. Only a curious unspoken rule about a humanhorses’ legs never being whipped—irrespective of Egri or Tankic ownership—saved that part of her from a lashing. But then this was no surprise; all humanhorses on Sevir are whipped above the cunt line often, but never below.

I recalled a farmer on the adjacent farm to where I spent my first weeks as a novice horse being taken for a whipping on his own body for the crime of applying whip below the cunt of a humanhorse. As may be apparent, these inhabitants of the planet Sevir are bedevilled by both a cruel streak and an implacable set of customs.

I put the memory of my introduction to being a humanhorse behind me, and stared at the helpless Cerys. I knew the choice before the captive humanhorse would be when she would die, or rather when she chose to abandon the agonies of the fire searing the soles of her feet and throw herself forward. Her time left was up to her. She would, unable to withstand the heat, step off the stool and hang herself sooner or later. From what I could hear from the chatter of the all-female Egri warriors summoned to the council gathering to witness this that there was considerable betting as to how long the humanhorse could endure. It was not expected to be long.

I felt sick, for I had seen a fellow human in terror and hoped my rider would in rescuing Cerys find a way to put the captive to a better use. I imagined an auction, as I had gone through. Now, as I was happily free of my night hood and was chained by my neck to a post close to the gathering, I could see and hear the event.

Most of all I could hear what Akrith was saying to the gathering, and I felt a surge of pride in my rider. She looked resplendent in the blue and black patterned tunic of her tribe. Her family as she called it.

“This creature was claimed in battle by me, Akrith of the Selnith fold, rightful of Sevir and noble warriors of the Egri,” the small figure of the warrior was speaking clearly where she stood close to the tortured humanhorse. “You know well of my feats in war, my devotion to our name, our true cause. I took this horse in battle; she is mine. She is mine to slay, not that of the gathering. This is the law of our gods. I say you all agree to release her from her bonds, and allow me to keep her to dispense with as and when I see fit.”

The gathering had been largely quiet as Akrith spoke, but now a huge murmur went up. Although I speak Egri well after two years as a farmhorse, I was unsure with the different accents of the assembled warriors in their various different tunics if there was a wholesale agreement or a disagreement.

The look on Akrith’s small but beautiful face told me that the rising sounds were not good. She resumed her impassioned speech. “I hear you, warriors! I am one of you in all wars. We hate the Tankic, and thus we hate their horses. Killing an enemy horse is the equivalent of slaying one of their foul riders. I would have slain this one had she been mounted. But she was an empty saddle, and as we know within my right of capture.”

“Would you have slain the horse with the rider if you could?” A sinewy Egri woman stood. She looked older than Akrith, and she bore the air of a leader. Her tunic was yellow and red, but a dark blood red. The Egri do not have ranks as I understood them, but the markings—either a tattoo or a stain on her arms—told me she had authority. The rumblings among the gathering stopped instantly.

“You know I would kill the Tankic,” said Akrith. I detected coldness in her voice. There was, I determined, a rift between these two. I am not given to mental-image as the Egri call it, but I sensed a darkness in the air. I shivered a little and my neck chain clinked.

“Do I, Akrith? In the battle at the Fell River, I saw you did not. I witnessed you that distant day, as did others.” The sinewy one spread her hands and chorus of agreement rose. “So why, Akrith of the Selnith—a tribe who has not provided many warriors of late, I note—should I believe you on this?”

“You have my word as a true Egri, Kemmor of the Racmor fold. Unlike you I understand the laws.” Akrith’s tone was icy and the glare between the two small figures obvious. They were clearly enemies from a long time before.

“Laws your fold have not followed in the past, it is said.” I will give this Kemmor her due; she was the closest I had seen to an accomplished lawyer in my time on Sevir. Her delivery was clear and her sense of timing perfect. Her words carried weight, and barbs. “Tell me, good warrior, when did the kin of your fold decide to follow the laws of the Egri fully?”

“I would challenge any here who say otherwise to a duel,” snapped Akrith. She was angry and I did not like it. Emotion would undo her.

“But,” again this sinewy woman spread her thin arms in an act of appealing to all, and she even smiled the way people do when sensing they are in the right, “how would you fight? You have no sword at your side. A warrior should bear her sword, is it not true?”

“My blade was lost in the fight,” retorted my rider. “I had to kill with my knife.”