Sweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles #4) - Ilona Andrews Page 0,89
opening to a tunnel leading to wide open doors. Daylight flooded the doorway. Maud broke into a jog and emerged into the sunshine.
A wide pathway, completely straight and paved with flat stones, rolled out before her, leading to a gate. On both sides of her, large corrals lined the path, secured by massive fences. Behind each row of corrals lay a large stable.
The corrals were empty.
The vihr, the big-boned massive mounts vampires preferred, were gone.
She spun around and saw the Stablemaster off to the side. Middle-aged, huge, grizzled, with a mane of reddish hair going to gray, he scowled, checking something on his harbinger. A younger male vampire with grayish skin and jet-black hair stood next to him with a long-suffering expression. Maud strode to them.
“Salutations,” Maud said. “Where is the hunting party?”
The Stablemaster didn’t look up. “Gone.”
“Gone where?”
He stopped and gave her a flat look. “Hunting.”
“In which direction?”
“North.”
“I need a mount.”
The Chatty Cathy of the vampire world favored her with another look. “I don’t have any.”
“You were supposed to hold a vihr for me.”
“Someone took it. Hunting. North.”
Maud summoned the last reserves of her willpower and kept her voice calm. “Do you have any other mounts that I could ride?”
“No.”
Okay. “Do you have any mounts at all here? Anything that can run fast?”
The young stable hand glanced at her. “We have savoks. But you can’t ride the damn things.” He looked at the Stablemaster. “Why do we even have them?”
“Gift from the Horde, after Nexus,” the Stablemaster said.
Maud’s heart sped up. The otrokar of the Hope-Crushing Horde lived in the saddle. They prized mounts like treasure. They wouldn’t offer a gift of anything less than spectacular.
“I’ll take a savok,” she said.
“The hell you will,” the Stablemaster growled. “They will throw you, trample you, gut you with those claws, and bite your head off. And then I’ll never hear the end of it from the Marshal.”
That did it. She didn’t have time to argue this. “You had orders to provide me with a mount. Bring the savoks or I’ll get them myself.”
“Fine.”
The Stablemaster flicked his fingers at his harbinger. The closest gate in the stable on their left opened. Metal clanged and three savoks galloped into the corral. Two were the typical rust red and one was white, an albino. Incredibly rare. The sun caught the velvety short hair of their pelts, and they almost shone as they ran. If they were horses, they would be at least eighteen hands at the withers. Muscular, with four sturdy but lean legs, they moved with agility and speed. Their hind legs ended in hoofs, their front had three fused fingers and a raptor-like dewclaw. Their thick, short necks supported long heads armed with powerful jaws that hadn’t been seen on Earth since the extinction of bear dogs and hell pigs.
They thundered past her, the white male flashing her a vicious look from its emerald-green eyes, and kept running along the fence, testing the boundaries of the enclosure, their narrow long tails whipping behind them.
They took her breath away. Growing up in her parents’ inn, Maud had seen hundreds of otrokar mounts, but none quite like these three.
The savoks came around again, snapping their fangs at them as they passed. The big male drove his shoulder into the fence and bounced off. They galloped on.
“Told you,” the Stablemaster said. “Un-rideable.”
They had no idea of these animals’ value. By otrokar standards, these were priceless.
The vampires, with their crushing physical power, evolved on a planet rich in woods. They were ambush predators. They hid and sprang at their prey, overpowering it. They were not great runners or great riders, and their mounts, huge, sturdy vihr, who had more in common with bulls and rhinos than racing horses, served their purpose perfectly. They could be loaded with staggering weight, carry it for hours, and they were guaranteed to deliver you from point A to B. They wouldn’t do it quickly or gracefully, but they would get you where you needed to go.
The otrokar home world was a place of endless plains. The otrokar were lean and hard, and they could run for miles to exhaust their prey. Their mounts were like them; fast, agile, and tireless. They would eat anything: grass, leftovers, prey they could run to ground, and they were as smart as they were savage.
The savoks kicked the fence. They seemed stir-crazy. “When was the last time they were even out?”
“We let them out once a week,” the stable hand said.