That brought them all up short. He raked his eyes across them, noting who flinched and who looked down and who met him eyes-on. When he had them all, he spoke more softly. “Well, tribesmen. You know who I am. If you stay with me, you’ll learn what I am. I’ll fight your champions if I have to, and kill them if that’s what it takes. I’d rather not. If we’re going to take down the empire, we need every man. It’s imperial blood we should be thirsting for—not the blood of our own.”
The sound that rose in response to that made a shiver run down his spine. It began as a growl and rose to a roar. It was pure lust for blood—imperial blood, blood of the enemy who had barred the gates of the south since the people first came out of the dawn lands.
That gate would fall. That was Euan’s oath and his promise.
They raised him up in the hall of his fathers, lifting him high on an imperial shield. The chieftain of Dun Gralloch clasped the heavy gold torque about his neck, and the lord of Dun Carrig weighted his arms with gold.
He stood at that dizzy height, supported on the shoulders of his warband, with his head brushing the beams, and allowed himself to savor the moment. It would not last long. The One knew, there was trouble enough waiting.
But not today. Today, he would let the sun shine. Today, he was king.
Ten
Iliya won his wager—almost. By the first day of the testing, sixteen eights of the Called had come in, less one. They had had to open one of the long-unused dormitories, and all the First and Second Riders were called on to oversee the testing of each eight and the final, anomalous seven.
There had never been anything like it. They were all male—that was a relief to the older riders—but they were not all boys or very young men. Some were older than Kerrec. One was a master of the sea magic. Several were journeymen of various magical orders, and some of those were close to mastery.
“The gods are in an antic humor,” Master Nikos said the night before the testing began.
He had invited the First Riders to dinner in his rooms. That was tradition, but this year the celebration was overlaid with grief. A year ago, three of the four had been Second Riders. Their predecessors had died in the Dance of the emperor’s jubilee.
Tonight they had saluted the dead, then resolutely put the memory aside. This was a time for thinking of the future, not the past.
“It’s good to know we have a future,” Andres said.
He was the oldest of them, and he seemed least comfortable in the uniform of a First Rider. He had been a Second Rider for twenty years and would have been content to stay at that rank for another twenty. His gift was for teaching novice riders and overseeing the Called.
He did not know how valuable he was. That was humility, Kerrec thought. Kerrec was sadly deficient in that virtue. He had not been born to it and he had shown no aptitude for it since.
Tonight Andres was more at ease than he had been since Nikos ordered him—on pain of dismissal—to accept his new rank. The Called were his charges, and he had come to know them all well. “They are remarkable,” he said. “There’s more raw power in them than I’ve ever seen.”
“More trained power, too,” said Gunnar. He had been a Beastmaster when he came, one of the few before this year who had had training in another order. He had just made journeyman when he was Called. “The Masters of the orders may take issue with it, if it seems they’re going to make a yearly habit of losing their best to the Mountain.”
“This may be an anomaly,” Curtius said. Next to Kerrec he was the youngest, but as if to compensate for that, he tended to take the reactionary view in any discussion. “After all we lost in the emperor’s Dance, the gods are giving us this great gift. Next year, maybe, we’ll be back to four or five eights each spring, and the usual range of ages and abilities.”
“Or not,” Gunnar said. “The world is changing. It’s not going back to what it was before, no matter how hard any of us tries.”
“You don’t know that,” said Curtius.
Gunnar glared at him under thick fair brows. He was a huge man from the far north. People there had accepted the empire, but they shared blood with the barbarian tribes. Some said they shared more than that—that they were loyal not only to their wild kin but to the One God who stood against the many gods of Aurelia.
Gunnar was a devoted son of the empire in spite of his broad ruddy face and his mane of yellow hair. “Have you been blind when you ride the Dance? Even in schooling, the patterns are clear. They’re not the same as before.”
“They’ll shift back,” Curtius said stubbornly. “They always do. We’ll make sure of it ourselves, come the Midsummer Dance.”
“Will we want to?” Gunnar demanded. “Think for once, if you can. We were locked into patterns that almost cost us the empire. It took a terrible toll on the school. Maybe we need to change.”
“Change for the sake of change can be worse than no change at all,” Curtius said.
Gunnar rose to pummel sense into him, but Nikos’s voice quelled them both. “Gentlemen! Save your blows for our enemies.”
“Gods know we have plenty of those,” Gunnar said, subsiding slowly. He kept a grim eye on Curtius.
Kerrec sat in silence. He had learned long since that wine did not blunt the edges. It made them worse. It helped somewhat to focus on the others’ voices, even when they bickered.
This would end soon enough. Then there would be the night to endure, and after that the days of testing. He did that now. He counted hours and days, and reckoned how he would survive them.
Master Nikos caught Kerrec as they were all leaving, slanting a glance at him and saying, “Stay a moment.”
Kerrec sighed inwardly. The others went out arm in arm, warm in their companionship. Watching them made Kerrec feel small and cold and painfully alone.
He stiffened his back. That was his choice. He had made it because he must.
Master Nikos had stood to see his guests out of the room. Once they were gone, he sat again and fixed Kerrec with a disconcertingly level stare.
Kerrec stayed where he was, on his feet near the door. He was careful to keep his face expressionless. So far he had evaded discovery, but this was the Master of the school. If anyone could see through him, it would be Nikos.
“You’re looking tired,” the Master said. “Will you be up for this? It’s a lot of candidates to test—and as skilled as the others are, they haven’t been First Riders long. It’s all new to them.”
“Not to Andres,” Kerrec said. “Gunnar is the best trainer of both riders and stallions that we have. They’ll do well enough.”
“And Curtius?”
Kerrec lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “He’ll rise to it. If he doesn’t, we’ll find a Second Rider who can take his place.”
The Master sighed. They both knew that was not nearly as easy as it sounded. But when he spoke, he said nothing of it. “There’s something else.”
Kerrec’s back tightened. Valeria, of course. The rider-candidate who could master all the stallions. The only woman who had been Called to the Mountain in a thousand years.
They had been evading the question of her all winter long. In the meantime she had settled remarkably well among the rest of the candidates of her year. Sometimes the elder riders could almost forget that she was there.
Now spring was past and the Called were ready to be tested. For that and for the Midsummer Dance that would follow, they needed their strongest riders. She was the strongest on the Mountain—not the most