The Key of the Keplian

7

Beside Eleeri there was a snort of fury and a roar of swift hooves. Tharna charged down on the foals, crying for them to follow. A Gray One thrust forward to intercept her, to be sent flying with a well-aimed kick. Another slashed at her heels, only to find she had swapped ends and he was seized in savage teeth. They met through his spine as he was hurled lifelessly aside. The foals screamed in terror, leaping for the big mare. They were too young to form thoughts into words as Tharna did. Nor could they send far. But at this range they were almost deafening mare and human with their emotions. Before they had reached Tharna, Eleeri had counted enemies. Nine, with two already down.

The girl had not waited to see more. Arrows flew; Gray Ones howled in pain and fright as they died or bled. Tharna had charged. To her the babies ran desperately and she stood over them, ready. Eleeri circled, continuing to shoot as the wolf-creatures attacked her. But they relied on tooth and claw, and the pack tactics. She swung the pony beyond them and shot again and again. Tharna was withdrawing slowly, foals clinging to her flanks.

The attackers slunk back, howling their baffled rage and frustration. Eleeri watched. They preferred to face safer odds, it appeared. She guarded the rear as her friend headed for the river again. With a sigh, the girl removed her leathers. She was getting tired of crossing this river. She grinned to herself. She’d better not say that; it was a safeguard, since the Gray Ones would not cross. She cantered after the Keplian mare and foals.

The babies were afraid of the water. They balked at the brink, but Tharna was not to be halted by juvenile intransigence. A swift nip sent a colt forward with a surprised squeal, more of fright than pain.

Eleeri pushed her pony into the water on his downriver side. He swam valiantly and her assistance was limited to a grip on his mane, which helped him find his feet again on the far side. The two younger, smaller fillies needed more. By now, too, the Gray Ones had recovered some of their confidence. But as they raced forward an arrow storm met them, so that they rolled screaming and howling. With the trembling babies behind them, girl and mare faced the remaining enemies.

“If I hold them, can you get the other two across?” Eleeri hissed.

*If they do not panic,* Tharna sent. *If they do, I have no easy way to aid them.*

Her friend snatched a look behind her at the two foals who cowered in their shadow. They couldn’t be more than a few weeks old. Keplian foals seemed to be born small. True growth didn’t come until they reached two or three months of age; then they seemed to grow as if they were being inflated. But these two—she hooked a foot out of her leather.

“Watch the Gray Ones.”

Moving quickly, she released the stirrup leathers from her saddle and flipped one around each foal. Buckled into the last and next to last holes, they fitted. Good. Now if one did slip, the mare would have something to seize.

She swung back onto her mount. The enemy had begun to advance again, hoping she was occupied. Seeing her attention was on them once more, they backed away.

Keeping her eyes on them she signaled the mare. “Go! One at a time.” She watched from the corner of an eye as mare and foal plunged into the water.

Among the enemy there seemed to be some dissent. Eleeri thought she could hear growls and occasional snarled words. She was correct; the gray ones were furious at the likely escape of prey. But they had died in sufficient numbers to make it clear these two were not to be trifled with.

Their current leader was making the best of it. “Watch them. If we can, we pull them down. If not, we still have three dead ones to feast us.” His look boded no good to Keplian and human, though, and his memory was working busily. A Keplian with a human. It could only be the pair he had heard of a few weeks ago. A pack had hunted them, to find themselves the hunted instead. They had lost many of their pack as the prey escaped. Back in their own lands he would bespeak all packs that they should watch for these, kill if they could ever be caught off guard. It might be some trick of those from the valley. He would show them the Gray Ones were not so easily taken or tricked. His lips peeled back from fangs as he snarled his frustration.

His fellows were less interested in the escaping prey. Behind them lay enough meat to feast on for days. Longer, now that half their number was dead. The wounded were thrust aside as the rest sought the best parts to begin their meal. The last filly gave a tiny whimpering squeal at the sight. Eleeri cursed the feeding enemy harshly and she reached over to stroke the shaking foal.

“Don’t worry, little one, we’ll get you to a safe place, and your mother can’t feel anything anymore.” The baby looked up and Eleeri was struck all over again with the red fire that swirled in Keplian eyes. Her fingers curled around her pendant, feeling it grow warm.

“Help me get her away safely,” she whispered softly. “And I hope that meal poisons the lot of them.”

Back in the old days, as she remembered, wolvers had poisoned cow carcasses with all sorts of compounds, but mostly strychnine. They’d been after stock-killing wolves, not Gray Ones, but by all the gods she’d like to see this lot killed by the very mares they’d murdered. Once, when she was a child, she’d seen a container of the deadly powder. Her hand tightened on the pendant as she recalled the descriptions Far Traveler had given her of its use and actions.

The third foal was safely across and the mare was sending impatiently. *Battle-sister—Eleeri! Stop thinking and get over here before you provoke them.*

The girl came to herself with a jolt. Wordlessly she swam her mount across the water, then led her group along the trail. One hand still gripped the pendant, its warmth unnoticed. Nor did she see that the tiny eyes glowed with a wicked fire. Long ago the girl had also seen the molecular structure of strychnine. Now that knowledge swirled almost to her conscious before subsiding again.

The Gray Ones feasted heartily before sprawling in the shade. They snapped and snarled lazily, and the wounded were careful to watch their uninjured companions. At present there was enough meat for all. When the time came that there wasn’t, they must be on guard.

Mare, human, and rescued foals were all well up the trail and out of earshot when the commotion began. A Gray One found his arms and legs had begun to shake. Then another began to twitch. The spasms increased in severity as one by one all fell into the pattern. Only the wounded that had not been permitted to eat were free of the trouble. They, in turn, trotted over; with their fellows occupied, now was a good time to feast. Their satisfaction was shattered in a short time as the first of them also began to twitch. The spasms became continuous until all gasped, unable to breathe. Finally they went limp.

Far up the trail, Eleeri still sat her mount with a hand on the pendant. Strychnine was a cruel death, so she had always heard. The worst of it was all the other deaths that led from poisoning a carcass. The stock killers died, but so did anything else that ate the poisoned meat, be it bird or beast. The wolvers had rarely bothered to clean up the lethal remains. That was wrong. No, on second thought, she would not wish such a death on even the Gray Ones, not if it meant the innocent dying with them.

Where the Gray Ones lay in death’s rictus, a bird landed. It hopped to the meat and began to feed. It was joined by others. They ate eagerly and departed, to be replaced with others. All were safe. Sometimes wishes can be more powerful than the one who wishes will ever know.

In another hour the foals were beginning to falter. Eleeri consulted with Tharna and called a rest break. Then she drew the mare aside.

“What are we to do about feeding them, sister-kin? All are young. The colt might manage on grass and water; he’s no doubt been eating grass as well as nursing, from the size of him. But the fillies are far too young.”

The mare was serene. *Hylan no longer needs my milk. I have fed him because it pleases us both, but it was not necessary to him. Now I will feed these instead.*

Her friend surveyed her. “That’ll be a real drain on you. You’ve been nursing Hylan for months and now you switch to feeding two foals for months more.”

*True, but even if I can only give milk for another month or two, they may then be old enough to manage part of the time with grass.* Eleeri nodded doubtfully, saying no more. She couldn’t bear to see the foals starve, but still less did she wish to watch as her friend wasted away, her strength going to feed the babies. She glanced over to where the three slept, slumped on the grass in utter exhaustion. Poor little things would probably be grieving badly, too, as soon as their strength returned. She would push this trip as hard as they could handle. If they were tired out, they’d be less inclined to mourn.

It was so, although the foals may not have appreciated her motives. Hylan was delighted at their safe return, and with playmates. As the older, stronger, and smarter, he took leadership at once. Even the other colt deferred to him carefully. Indeed, his deference was so marked, Eleeri wondered.

*Stallions kill easily,* the mare enlightened her.

“Hylan isn’t a stallion, and I don’t think he’s a killer by nature, either. In horse herds it isn’t that unusual to have more than one stallion. Not if it’s a large herd.”

Tharna snuffled. *That’s horses. With our kind, the stallions are very quick to kill any who appear to defy them, mares and foals alike.* She saw her sister-kin’s eyes widen. *Yes, I tell you this. I have seen it happen. It was why I wandered far away from the lands of the Keplians.*

She saw that Eleeri was interested and continued. *I bred to one of my kind so that I was in foal to him. He was slain by another, who would have bred me, but I was heavy in foal. If the foal died, I would come into season at once and he could breed as he wished. He would have slain my foal at birth so that none of his rival’s blood survived. I knew what he would do. I knew him, too, to be vicious and cruel to mares, so I fled from our lands. It seemed then that anywhere I would have stayed was claimed by another creature. I was pushed farther and farther to the south.*

She snorted. *Then that Gerae found me. I was ready to foal, so that he was able to place ropes about me. Then he dragged me back to his village, where I and my foal were to be tortured, then slain.* Her head came up as her eyes flamed red with remembered fury. *Hylan was born and they gave me an hour to love him. Murderers, twice cruel. Then they would have killed him before me, but that I fought them.* Her sending softened. *Then you came, battle-sister. I know humans are cruel, but I will always know, too, that they can be as you are. At first I hated you, also. I accepted your help, planning to kill you as soon as we were safely away.* She saw the quirk of her friend’s mouth and blinked. *You knew!*

“It was—um—rather obvious.”

Amusement gurgled between them.

Tharna curved her neck proudly. *I learned to know you, to trust. I am not ashamed to change, to alter my mind. You saved us both, but I feared some kind of trick: that you saved us only to use us yourself. Then you fought for us again, killed your own kind to save my foal. I saw that you would risk yourself. That is not the way of one who plans to use. I watched you with Hylan, saw that he loved you, that you loved him, also. I began to believe in your kindness. I, too, came to—*

Her sending broke off as Eleeri flung warm arms about her neck, hugging as hard as she could. The girl cupped her hands over the soft muzzle, giggling as powerful teeth nibbled gently.

“I know. I love you, too, kin-sister, you and Hylan. You’re my family, and these three little ones, too, if they can accept that.” Her voice ended on a questioning note.

*The fillies will love us all. They are younger, more adaptable, and prepared to love any who are kind and gentle with them. The colt I am not so sure of. He is slower of mind, more ready to sly violence if he thinks we do not see.* Her sending grew sad. *I fear it may be too late for him to learn love.*

“Do you think he recalls the way here?”

*No, part of the way we came in the dusk. He was exhausted and did not think to look about him.* She snuffled thoughtfully. *I do not believe he even knows for certain if we went north or south.*

“Then we’ll see he doesn’t learn, if possible. But we may have to make a decision sometime if he looks like he would be a danger to us all.” Eleeri sighed softly. Things could never be simple. But that was life.

Weeks passed, then months. Outside it was winter, but within the canyon the air seemed to remain warmer. The fillies had grown, ceased to nurse, and gave their names trustingly. The colt, too, had given his, but the look in his eyes grew wilder as time went on. Eleeri marked her eighteenth birthday and taught the foals to enjoy celebrating their own. Hylan was smug; he already knew about birthdays. It was that smugness and the growing desire to dominate that thrust the younger colt into action.

Terlor flew at Hylan, teeth bared, hooves already striking out. Taken by surprise, Hylan nonetheless fought back. He was larger and stronger, but reluctant to injure his fellow. The younger colt had no such inhibitions. He attacked with a driving fury that sent his enemy to his knees. Tharna arrived just as Eleeri came running from another direction.

“Stop it, Terlor! Stop it!”

Her voice went unheeded as the mare waded in. With ruthless efficiency, her teeth clamped down on Terlor’s neck as she hurled him to one side. She stood between him and her colt, eyes dangerous.

Eleeri marched up to the panting youngling. “What did you think you were doing?” His ears went back and his muzzle shot out, teeth grabbing for her. She evaded him neatly as her hand slashed across his nose. She had handled biters before. But Terlor was no horse. Even dullwitted though he seemed to her, he was Keplian. It had been a feint, and a hoof upflung caught her hard behind a thigh. She fell, rolling so quickly his next strike missed.

The mare came then in a drumroll of hooves, eyes suddenly crazed with anger. Massive hooves drove down, the colt squealed in pain and fear, the sound cut off as hooves crunched down again. Blowing through her nostrils, the mare stepped back from the body. Her mind was sad.

*There was no choice, sister-kin. He intended to kill you. He was too dangerous to allow freedom. He would have been sure one of us was alone next time so help would not come.*

Eleeri knelt by the body. Hands smoothed the black hide as tears stole down her face. “I know.” She stood. “But now what do we do with this? We don’t want it rotting here.”

Without thinking, she clutched at the pendant. From it a mist arose, silver, laced with soft golden glimmerings. It swept out and over Terlor. When it cleared, he was gone, as mare and human stood staring at each other.

“Automatic garbage disposal,” Eleeri said, looking stunned.

*What?*

“Nothing. Look, Tharna, I hated Terlor dying, but you were right: he’d have killed me. If he’d stopped, we could never have trusted him. His mind was too clear just then. He wanted us all dead—you, me, and Hylan. That way he could have the canyon and the fillies.”

She said no more, but departed with bow and arrows. Hunting would soothe her, and a fat bird or two from the lower foothills would soothe her stomach. As she walked, she thought. There was a surprising difference between the colt they had rescued and Hylan. Tharna’s son was not only large and powerful for his age, he was also far more intelligent. Tharna was sure it was the constant companionship he shared with his mother and Eleeri. Colts were usually pushed away from their dams as soon as they were able to survive alone. This seemed to be partly for their own sake. A Keplian male never hesitated to kill a colt that wasn’t his own. In fact, from what Tharna had said, he didn’t hesitate long even if the baby was one of his blood.

As a result, the abandoned small colts learned savagery to survive. In turn they killed foals, used mares as they willed. The cruelty was self-perpetuating, and in many ways it seemed similar to the pack rule of the Gray Ones.

But what of a colt brought up with love, taught gentleness by a dam he loved, a human he trusted? Would he in the end revert to stallion behavior, or would he breed a new race of gentle intelligent Keplians? The partners to humans that Tharna thought they may have been created to be so long ago? At Eleeri’s throat the miniature gave out a sudden light, a shaft of warmth that attracted her attention. She lifted it up.

“Is that it? We were called here to change things? Is Tharna right?” Secrets twinkled in the sapphire eyes, but she was suddenly sure her guess was correct. She grinned, strolling off along the faint deer trail. Well, it made for an interesting theory. But if they were to breed a new race with just Tharna, Hylan, and the two fillies, it would take rather a long time. Her own people had raided for children to strengthen the tribe. They’d accepted any child as Nemunuh if the children showed they wished to be and had the skills. Adults, too, had been accepted.

That sparked a thought. She’d talk to Tharna once she found meat and returned to the canyon. It sparked another as well. She found herself wondering as she trotted along: With all this breeding going on, where did she fit in? Was she to be barren, or did the plans of the someone who’d started all this include a mate for her, too?

She laughed, throwing back her head as she padded off on a fresher trail. Never mind a mate. If her other idea was right, she’d be too busy to think of anything else. She made her kills, a fat hill hen and a small half-grown buck. She could dry the meat within the huge old fireplace. There was a hook well up within the chimney, as she had discovered. In the meantime, she’d eat the hen while she discussed this new plan with her battle-sister.

The mare was interested. It would soon be spring, when trails opened again to the lower lands. It would do no harm if they merely scouted Keplian lands.

They set off together a month later. Hylan remained to care for the fillies. He was becoming a strong young yearling who thought as Keplian stallions had not bothered to do for generations. The fillies adored him. At present they looked up to him as a protective big brother. In another couple of years that would change. Meanwhile, Hylan enjoyed being left alone in the canyon with his charges. It made him feel important and removed some of the sting of not being permitted to accompany his dam and her kin-sister.

Down in the plains once more, Tharna cantered briskly along the river’s edge. *I know all the places to hide once we reach our lands. If only you can persuade that horse to cooperate.*

She regarded the pony with scorn, and Eleeri grinned. The mare despised the sturdy little dun as a mere copy of a Keplian. She would never have wounded her friend’s feelings by the obvious retort.

Two days later, they were drifting unobtrusively around the fringes of Keplian country. Twice Tharna wandered toward another mare and exchanged gossip. Self-centered as their race was, none remembered that she had fled under strange circumstances almost a year ago. As long as she remained out of sight of any of the stallions, they were safe. After several days of this, Eleeri was well bored.

“What have you learned so far?”

*That nothing changes.*

“Very helpful. When do we do something about it?”

The mare eyed her friend with amusement. She had seen the growing boredom and expected a demand for action would come shortly. She could provide that to some extent and proceeded to explain. Eleeri was slightly surprised.

“You mean she’ll come with us just like that?”

Tharna’s shoulder twitched. *Not so casually as you make it sound, kin-sister. But she will come. For her there is no choice unless she wishes to see her foal killed at birth. Her herd lives close to the old Dark Tower. The stallion lord was recently slain by a rival, who has taken the herd as his own.*

Eleeri nodded. “So according to stallion habit, he’ll kill any nursing or newborn foals not his own.”

Her friend sent sadness. *That he has already done. Only this young mare remains. She bred late and will not bear her foal for another month.*

“So she’ll come with us to give her baby a chance.”

*More than that. She fears if the stallion attacks her newborn, she may not be able to prevent herself from attempting to protect it. A stallion is likely to kill her, too, for that.*

For the remainder of the week, Tharna slipped out to speak with the distracted young mare. Choosing a time when the stallion was in a different part of his territory, the three trotted quietly for the river.

With the new addition safe in the canyon, the two comrades returned to Keplian lands. Over the course of a spring they added another young mare and two orphaned foals to their family. Eleeri surveyed the results with satisfaction. Three adult mares, three yearlings, and three foals. A nice balance of ages so far, yet still Hylan was the only male.

In fact, the girl had come to believe two ideas. One was that only a male foal raised with love from the very beginning would fit into canyon ways. The other was that with the way that stallions killed even tiny colts, Terlor had been something of a fluke.

Orphaned foals were simply left to stray or starve. Many fell to the teeth of the Gray Ones, others to the irritation of stallions. Life was difficult enough for a mare; few would accept a strange foal and risk shorting their own foal’s nourishment. Yet Eleeri believed most of that was learned. In an atmosphere of peace and plenty, attitudes could change in a bare generation.

Summer followed, harsher than usual down on the plains, but in the canyon, water flowed and grass grew thick and green. Tharna and Eleeri spent a lot of their time now shadowing Keplian herds, watching and listening. Twice they managed to save orphaned foals and return with them. The girl had even made a short trip down through the lands to the southwest. There she had successfully bargained for several nanny-goats and a male. The milk might not be exactly what they were used to, but the starving foals would drink it.

By the time winter came, they were twice the number spring had counted. Still three adults, and three more than yearlings now. But the babies had increased to a dozen. At that point Eleeri had called a halt and taken the mare aside.

“Before we accept others, we need to look at what we have. How many of us can the canyon support? Even with no outside addition, we are going to start growing as soon as Hylan is old enough to be accepted as a stallion by some of the mares here. Once that starts happening, our numbers will go up like a startled hill hen.”

*Before that time we may have found other solutions. I have found a strange thing, kin-sister.* Eleeri waited. *At first I had great difficulty passing the runes. Now I pass freely. Our friends, too, had to link somewhat with you before they were permitted to enter. Now the mares pass as freely as I do.* She paused, then her sending became diffident. *Could it be that the power here now measures us as of the Light?*

Her eyes were hopeful on the girl who stood there. Eleeri could not answer. She, too, had noticed this thing happening and wondered. But she would raise no hopes.

“I can’t say. I’ve tried to ask the pendant, but no luck.”

The discussion turned back to herd size, but there was a sad look in the mare’s eyes. Later that night, Tharna drifted silently down to where the silver mist sparkled and coiled. What was behind it? What did it hold? She had no way of knowing, but it drew her. Somehow she desired to be part of it, accepted as one of the Light. She had never known when this desire had begun, only that it had been part of her as long as she could remember—as long as she had the hope that there was another way of life for her kind.

She blew softly through wide nostrils. That change she had seen here; if she lived long enough, she might see the other. Her mind yearned as the mist wreathed her gently. Had there been any there to see, they might have thought it a trick of the moonlight, as for a fraction of a second her eyes appeared to glow a soft gentle blue. Then the mist folded back into itself and there was only a fire-eyed Keplian mare standing quietly, moonlight silvering her hide.