Free Squire by Tamora Pierce

have to get rid of them, too. That’s probably what Graystreak’s doing now, culling the slaves that bred with that crowd.”
    Kel got up abruptly and walked away. Killing horses because they’d been mounted by wicked centaurs was obscene, she thought, hands shaking as she washed her dishes. It was as obscene as babies being shot as their families ran from danger.
    That was the eleventh night. The next morning the party with fresh supplies found them. Clean garments and insect repellant gave everyone, including Kel, a more cheerful outlook. She could even talk to the centaurs, though she had to banish the word “cull” from her mind when she did.
    On their fifteenth night they got a piece of luck: Osbern’s squad picked up Macorm, a Haresfield renegade. The young man was filthy and afraid. A bite on his arm was infected. He was bound hand and foot, wounded arm or no. Osbern told Raoul it was to protect Macorm as much as hold him: Osbern’s men had not liked what they saw in Haresfield. They knew Macorm had been one of the two who had opened the gate.
    “It wasn’t what I imagined, my lord,” the prisoner told Raoul. “There was no feasting or pretty girls or wine. Just take and run, and run. Gavan likes it, but he likes killing, too.” A tear ran down his face, drawing a clean track in the dirt. “All I did was ask to go home. I swore I’d never tell, but they didn’t believe me. They said they’d cull me at sunset for the Mares with Bloody Teeth - “
    “Our goddesses of vengeance,” explained Iriseyes. She and two other centaurs were listening to Macorm’s tale.
    “They said they’d eat my heart. I believed them. They tied me up, but I got away.” More tears followed the first.
    “We’ll just shackle you, then,” Raoul said. “To keep you from repeating the experiment.”
    “I know where they’re bound next,” Macorm told him, desperate. “They thought I ran straight off, but I went up a tree. They never thought I’d stay close, let alone right on top of them, and I hid my scent with pine sap. I heard them talking after the searchers went out. For the king’s mercy I’ll tell you what they said.”
    “If we catch them, we’ll speak to the king,” Raoul said after a moment’s thought. “If you lie - if it’s a trap - “
    “Gods, no!” Macorm began to weep in earnest.
    Raoul and Flyndan traded looks. Flyn raised his brows; Lord Raoul nodded. “Time to call the Riders in,” Flyn said with a thin smile. “Buri would never forgive us for leaving her out of the party.”
    “I’d never forgive myself if she were left out,” Raoul told his second. “Kel, get Noack up here with his tools,” Raoul told her. “I want shackles on this lad. If you’re good, we’ll feed you,” he told Macorm. To Kel he added, “We’ll need Emmet of Fenrigh.” He’d named one of the men with a healing Gift.
“He’s out of it.”
    “Aiden’s squad,” Kel said. Raoul grinned. “You learn fast. Under thankless conditions, I might add. Off you go.”
    She went to find the men he’d requested.
    The Rider Group under Commander Buri came just after sunset; the second Group arrived soon after. Maps were produced, laid flat, and anchored by stones and cups of steaming tea. Kel was kept busy pouring tea and bringing food for the hungry Rider leaders. She even served Macorm, chained to the tent pole for this conversation. Raoul had asked her to do it, though what she wanted to do was take him to Haresfield and rub his nose in the streets filled with the dead, like a bad puppy. Two things stopped her: she was on duty, which meant keeping her feelings to herself, and she knew that Haresfield had surely finished burying the dead by now.
    From what she had overheard, a village called Owlshollow was to be the next target. A human bandit had heard the son of that village’s biggest fur merchant, apprenticed to a tanner in another town, talking drunkenly. The son complained that the old man wouldn’t die and