Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,94
camp at the other end, which meant everything for the camp and the horse had to be on the horse. The more stuff you thought you needed, the more the horse had to carry … and so on. And what the horse had to go over, under, and through meant that at any moment you might be trotting, off the horse and walking, or helping the horse to get over something. Or swimming—though this was winter, so the water they’d had to cross was all frozen right now. What the point of this was (aside from, to make you feel as if you had been beaten from head to toe at the end of the ride) Spirit didn’t know.
She, who had never ridden until she got here, had at least discovered that she had what the new riding instructor, Mia Singleton, said was “a natural seat.” That at least meant she could stay on the horse and manage to get in rhythm with it so she didn’t get pounded to death. It didn’t mean that she had any idea of how to handle this huge thing, and she always had the feeling that the horses she got took one look at her and started snickering about how they were going to make her miserable.
At least Addie was in her class, and Loch. Loch was good enough, but Addie had ridden all her life; she’d stick to Spirit like a burr and make sure the horse didn’t run off with her, or stop and not move at all.
“What’s the point of all this?” she asked Addie in despair, as she fumbled with all the gear that was supposed to go on the monster. “Do they really think we’re going to be charging at the Dark Lord on horses, and when we’re done, camp on the battlefield?”
“We might have to run for it, and there aren’t exactly a lot of cars at Oakhurst,” Addie pointed out somberly. “At least this way we’ve got a chance of getting away and surviving to get to a rally point.”
“Oh. Um,” Spirit replied, shivering with both cold and apprehension. Apprehension, because she had the feeling that if it ever did come to that—she’d die.
“Don’t worry, Spirit,” Addie told her. “If it comes to that, I’ll be right with you.”
They didn’t have any chance to say anything more, since Ms. Singleton showed up and started her inspections. When everyone had everything loaded to her satisfaction, she whistled shrilly as the sign to mount up, opened the stable doors, and waited for them to line up at the “start.”
Ms. Singleton didn’t talk much, and generally in as few words as possible. Skinny, tough, hair cut short—if she’d had tattoos, she would have looked like a girl gangbanger. But on the rare occasions she did open her mouth, out came perfect English with a cultured accent. Spirit had never seen her outside of the gym or the barn. She couldn’t help but wonder what it was that Ms. Singleton did for Breakthrough. It was obvious why she was here, though; like the others, she had an Oakhurst ring. Horses would do anything for her—though truth to tell it seemed more a matter of control than because they wanted to. From what Spirit knew at this point, this was one of the things Earth Mages did—Animal Control, rather than Animal Speech. Coercion rather than cooperation. That seemed to fit Ms. Singleton.
When the kids were lined up—eight of them, including Spirit and Addie—Ms. Singleton whistled again, circling her hand above her head three times and pointing down the trail. They all dug heels into their horses’ flanks and started. Most with more success than Spirit, whose horse snorted and stood there, until Addie came alongside, leaned over and gave him a sharp smack on his butt. Then he lunged forward.
This wasn’t a horse she’d had before, and he settled quickly into a very hard trot. Fortunately that “natural seat” thing came in to save her. When he figured out he wasn’t going to bounce her off, he snorted and eased into something a little less bone-jarring. By that time they were at least a mile from the school. The others were all several hundred feet ahead of her. Loch turned to see where she was, and pulled his horse to a complete stop, waiting for them.
“Smack him, Spirit!” Addie called over her shoulder. “Or—wait, this is Pendleton I’m on. I’ll fix your mount for you. Pendleton does hate laggards.”