Free The Horse Lord by Peter Morwood Page A

snaking off into the shadows; some were bunches of metallic filament finer than a cobweb, but one slashed with black and yellow stripes was as thick as Aldric’s waist. A slight, cold drift of air moved out of the cavern, swirling slightly as breezes will in such monstrous empty spaces. Except that this space was far from empty.
    There was… something… crouched squarely in the middle of the cavern floor, an ill-defined mountainous bulk of dark smooth shapes and glinting edges. It dwarfed all else both in mass and in the eerie suggestion of dormant power. On trembling legs Aldric stepped towards it, all his senses tingling—and then Gemmel laid one hand on his uninjured shoulder and steered him away without a word of explanation.
    Warrior stared at wizard for several minutes before Aldric spoke. “Meneth Taran,” he said very softly. “So this is the Mother of Storms.” Gemmel met the boy’s unwinking agate eyes and nodded. Meneth Taran, Thunderpeak, was the heaven-scoring crag where the great tempest was born in the story. People gave the name half in fun to Sil’ive, tallest of all the Blue Mountains and one perpetually wreathed in cloud. Half in fun, but never completely so, and with the very air thrumming in his ears Aldric could guess why. Even if he gained no other knowledge from the old enchanter, he had at least learned the meaning of awe.
    By contrast, the living apartments were reassuring in their air of comfort. Most of the rooms were panelled in wood like a fortress and for the same reason—to conceal the fact that the walls behind were stone: in this case half a mile of living mountain rock. Live flames danced in elegant fireplaces and even Aldric wasted no time wondering where the smoke went to. With warmth around him for the first time in six days, his shoulder was taking precedence over frozen feet and hands. It throbbed wickedly.
    Gemmel noticed the slight wince with which Aldric took a seat by the fire in his study and nodded to himself. “Enough of this,” he said with a touch of impatience. “Your arm will heal in time, but it will be time wasted. Shirt off, please.” He set down a box of instruments on a handy table and opened the lid. Aldric blinked apprehensively at a row of tiny knives and probes, but made no move to obey.
    “I’d much rather have a bath and a shave first,” he ventured nervously. Gemmel tutted disapprovingly and shook something from its clear case.
    “And I would much rather have that wound dealt with. Now!” He set out two metal bottles, three small pads and a pair of gloves which he removed from their sealed pouch and worked onto his hands. With an uneasy swallow born of memories of having his arm set last spring, Aldric did as he was told. Gemmel peeled away the bandages and selected a knife. “This won’t hurt…” he said. The
kailin
jumped and yelped, then twisted round to fix him with a baleful glare. “Much,” the wizard amended.
    He told the truth and within five minutes was packing away his medical kit while Aldric felt with increasing delight for a scar that was no longer there. Gemmel grinned broadly; he had forgotten the great satisfaction that surgeon’s work always gave him and was pleased to discover that it had not diminished with the years. Then he returned to more basic matters. “Aldric, do you want something to eat now—or would you rather take that bath you mentioned?”
    Aldric was definitely in favour of eating first and said so. Emphatically.
    Even so, being high-clan Alban and as. fastidious as a cat, he went to wash directly after the meal, leaving Gemmel to stare at the fire, drink Hertan grain-spirit and try to shape what he wanted to say to this young man with the unsettlingly familiar face. So alike, and yet so totally different. Though Aldric had begun to smile a little in the past week, there was a freezing menace about him that Ernol had never possessed. The
kailin
was—Gemmel at first rejected the word but found it