Free Yesterday's Kings by Angus Wells

was reduced to splinters.
    Andrias emerged from the inn. “I doubt he’s a carthorse.”
    Cullyn eased his hold on the lunging horse’s reins and shrugged. “No,” he allowed, facing the inevitable.
    “More a rider’s horse,” Andrias suggested.
    Cullyn extricated the cart’s traps from the saddle and calmed the big, black horse. “One deer?”
    “And do you need a healer, I’ll pay.”
    “Thank you, but I’ll not.” Cullyn set a foot in the stirrup and swung astride the stallion.
    Then he had no time to answer whatever it was Andrias shouted, because he was sitting astride a bucking monster that was intent on throwing him from the saddleand likely—he now remembered the warnings—stamping him dead.
    He felt the world spin around—it was as bad as his hangover—saw the courtyard revolve, and felt the saddle smash against his buttocks, sending pain up through his spine into his still-aching head. He clung to the reins and wrapped his legs about the horse’s ribs firmly as he’d swung them around Elvira’s.
    Then Fey calmed. He was unsure whether it was because he had beaten the horse, or because Fey accepted him. He only knew that the big stallion settled as Andrias opened the gate, and charged out.
    The cart was left splintered and forgotten as Cullyn thundered down the road, heady with the excitement of this wild ride. He felt the big black horse pounding toward the forest and savored the whistle of the wind in his hair. He charged through the village, and onto the fields beyond. He had a horse—and such a horse as could run, and he exulted in the sensation.
    Then, after he’d reached the forest’s edge, he was spilled from the saddle.
    He was unsure why—perhaps a low branch, or only his ineptitude—but Fey came back to nuzzle his face, as if in apology, and he climbed to his feet and mounted the horse again, and knew that he loved the animal.
    He rode home and put Fey into the fenced area behind his cottage. He set out water and grain, and watched the pigs squeal around this newcomer.
    And then he prepared a meal as the sun went down, and thought of Elvira and Abra and Lofantyl.
    The one was lost to him, and he felt no great regret for that; the other was beyond his reach—a keep lord’s daughter with an orphaned forester? But Lofantyl intrigued him. He picked up the knife the Durrym had gifted him and turned it about in the light of the settingsun. It glistened as no metal did; it was more like wood or stone, picking up the dying rays as if it embraced them and took them into itself. He thought on what Lofantyl had said about living with the forest, and how Kash’ma Hall was built of wood. He thought that he’d like to see that place.

F OUR

    A BRA WOKE to the sound of birdsong, and sunlight on her face. Dawn’s brightness came in through her bedroom windows and the chorus of the avians seemed to accompany her troubled thoughts as she lay contemplating what she’d heard the night before. For a while she rested, then determination overcame her and she arose, washing quickly and dressing faster. It was her father’s habit to rise early—far sooner than his wife—and take his breakfast with his men.
    Abra went to join him.
    She found him in the dining hall, a plate piled with bacon and eggs before him, a loaf of fresh-baked bread at one elbow, and a mug of mulled ale at the other. He smiled as he saw her, and drew a hand through his beard, scraping off crumbs that fell onto the table.
    “You’re up early, child.”
    “I was thinking,” she said.
    “About Wyllym? Don’t worry—you’ll wed by your choice. Say nay and I’ll support you.”
    “It wasn’t that.” Abra took the mug of tea a servant offered, and helped herself to a measure of eggs. “I heard what you said after …”
    She wondered if Bartram might be angry, but he only chuckled and said, “I wondered. The chimneys, eh?”
    She nodded, and he laughed aloud. “When I was a child,” he said, “and my father was