Page 207 of The Cradle of Ice
One head, then the other, slowly bowed, willing to try. It was far from confirmation, but it was a start. Without saying a word, Nyx and Daal separated, proceeding to their respective mounts. She chose a male, the most like Bashaliia. She let her love for her winged brother shine.
Daal’s mount was a shy female, much like Neffa. Knowing this, Nyx stirred up a memory from Daal that was still inside her—from when he had first trained Neffa. A time of abundant joy, many mistakes, and even more laughter, but underlying it all was a sustained affection and warmth.
She shared it with the raash’ke.
Working in tandem, she and Daal fixed their saddles. They relied on memory, instinct, ingenuity, and some gentle irritated nudges from the raash’ke. She compared her rigging to Daal’s and Daal’s to hers. It took some additional improvisation, but Daal finally nodded his satisfaction.
Nyx wasn’t as sure, but she turned to the others. “Ready?”
They were not—but how could they be?
She crossed around her mount, running a palm over him, never breaking her touch. She lifted a foot into what passed for a stirrup: a small pouch of sharkskin that barely fit her toes, especially in boots. She snugged a purchase, then pushed up. Her knee came to rest in a pocket in a leather side flap. She leaned and lifted her leg over his back.
An orkso saddle—now a raash’ke saddle—sat higher than on a horse. It rested on the withers, near the base of the neck. And rather than dangling her limbs to either side, she bent her legs and balanced more on her knees and toes, keeping out of the way of the wings’ movement.
As she settled her weight, the raash’ke shifted—not to throw her off, but to balance her better. She ran her fingers through the thick fur of his neck.
“You remember this, too,” she whispered, knowing all the raash’ke shared one mind, one memory.
We’ve all done this before.
She crouched low and glanced over at Daal.
He balanced on his knees, clearly more comfortable than her after his years of riding orksos. Maybe he thought the same thing. His gaze swept over to the river, to the bodies resting together. The waters ran clean again, as the orksos’ blood, like their lives, had washed away.
Daal lowered his gaze, his hands coming to rest on the two leather grips at the front edge of the saddle. There were no reins, as there had been for guiding the orksos. Control was all balance, knee pressure, and instinct between rider and mount.
Daal’s knuckles whitened as fury hardened through him. His raash’ke sensed his anger and shivered with a flap of wings.
Nyx knew they needed to keep moving or that anger would loosen Daal’s control, panic the mounts. She lifted higher in her saddle.
“We’re leaving,” she called to the others. “Try not to move. Arms out.”
She took a breath and sent shining tendrils wafting through the air to the other raash’ke. She reinforced what she had already shared with the giant beasts, with the horde-mind. In the past, the raash’ke had ferried Pantheans, latched in claws, tucked close to the heat of their furry bodies.
The four skittish raash’ke accepted this accommodation. They were familiar with hauling captured prey between the Crèche and the Mouth. Only here the route would be reversed—with no feeding allowed.
The four raash’ke leaped off their perches. They swept low and snatched up those gathered along the river’s shore. The plucking was not gentle. The four were snapped off the rock. The one who tried to lift Shiya nearly crashed. It bobbled, fought, and finally found its rhythm, dragging its bronze anchor skyward.
Before Nyx could wish it or say it aloud, her mount burst upward. Caught off guard, she slid in the saddle. Her rump caught the lip at the back, keeping her in place. Her hands, as white-knuckled now as Daal’s, latched hard to the grips. Her stomach sank deep in her gut.
She glanced in time to see Daal’s raash’ke take flight, too.
Bashaliia leaped after them.
She swung back around, balancing between terror and joy. Other smaller raash’ke were swept up in their wake, giving chase, following them, forming an escort.
She hunkered low, struggling to find her seat, her balance. Then after a time, without needing to think about it, she found a hand tightening at the exact right moment. Her knee shifted on its own as the raash’ke made a turn. She settled lower, letting the wind whip through her hair. She kept her face down, protecting her eyes, searching ahead with just the peripheral sight past her brows.
It all felt … right.
She recognized what was happening. It was an awakening of old memories, blurring instincts and reflexes of the past with hers now.
And it wasn’t just her.
The raash’ke under her slowly responded, too, remembering, falling into a familiar rhythm of balance between rider and mount. They circled a wide path out of the Mouth, using the rising hot air as much as the strength of wings. A peek back under her elbow showed the fiery spread of chasms and fissures.
They climbed away from it and swung toward a broken cliff of ice, the westernmost edge of the Shield. The air quickly cooled, and the world darkened, lit only by the stars, the moon, and the reflection of both off the ice.
