Kared's Children - Chapter 15

"You’ll know," Raven said. "We’re the ones who won’t."

"If the Kagatje agree," Benjamin said, "They’ll send word."

"If they don’t-" Piskin began-but they all knew what would happen if the Kagatje didn’t. "How will we know who Benjamin’s friend is?"

Benjamin looked at Karec, the tall man, his white hair. "He will know Karec."

They waited for him to say more. He didn’t.

"We’ll try to meet you," Shaerden said.

Gerald regarded his friend, emotion awash in his face. "Until then."

They hugged.

Piskin and Raven nodded at each other.

"Take care of my friend, mage," Shaerden growled to Benjamin.

Benjamin looked at Gerald. "He should take care of me."

Shaerden and Gerald grinned.

Karec took Benjamin’s hand. "Corin be with you."

"And Kefed with you, Karec Stonen."

Morgan slapped his brother on the shoulder and then clasped him roughly. "You know Father would have been proud of you."

"He’d have been proud of both of us."

With only a few last words, Gerald and Benjamin, Morgan and Raven departed for the front of the Caravan. The others watched them go. As the sun climbed above the ridge to the east, each felt anew the seriousness of what they’d taken this journey to do. And each shared the sensation, whether he knew it or not, of the future: blank, imponderable, their destinies before them, threatening and immediate.

. . .

Atop a brown one with a white blaze on its forehead, Dox led the horses toward them along the right of the Caravan: two black and two brown at the end of a rope he was holding casually in a hand. They moved toward him, watching him come, ignoring those they were passing, who nonetheless watched them curiously, dully, briefly.

"You see how he does it?" Raven asked Benjamin. "You pull on the left and the horse will go left. Pull on the right, the horse will go right."

"What if you want it to go straight?" Morgan asked. "Pulling on both makes it stop, doesn’t it?"

"Shake the reins. Say, ‘hai,’" Gerald said.

"There must be a simpler way," Benjamin said. "One less impolite to the creature."

"You can ask it," Raven grinned, "But I’m not sure it’d listen."

Dox stopped the horses in front of them. The big man’s possessions, including his sword, were tied in a bundle behind the blaze’s saddle. He dismounted and offered the reins to Raven. "Jain says the village lies to the north-northeast."

Gerald looked vaguely in that direction. "Beyond the ridge."

"Yes, your Highness."

"You stop that."

Dox grinned. When he smiled, he looked like a boy. "The bearded one. The Sergeant. He said if we pushed the horses a bit, we might make the village before sunset."

"We’ll see how it goes," Gerald said. "If we need to, we will."

Raven was pulling the other horses closer. "I’m not sure I’d want to get there at sunset."

Gerald untied the reins for one of the horses and offered them to Morgan. Raven untied the others. Morgan and Gerald rearranged their packs and strapped them to their horses, then mounted without difficulty; the horses reacted casually to their burdens.

Raven tied his pack and turned to help Benjamin, then stopped short, staring. The Alaran was whispering into his horse’s black ear. The black’s other ear twitched in the breeze, but the animal otherwise was still.