Free Whisper by Harper Alexander Page A

that confession, I wanted to ascertain my value was well-established with or without the other trainers as part of the equation.
    With my confidence recharged, I put my subjects back in their pens and went to get the deed over with, knowing I couldn't get away with ignoring my human charges for much longer.
    The Lieutenant was in one of the stalls treating a horse's hoof for thrush with a bottle of bleach recovered from the rubble. The smell stung my nose. A good excuse to come back later, I thought, but chopped the tracks from in front of that train before I could invest in a ticket.
    “Yes, Alannis?” she asked as I stood outside the stall.
    “I can't teach it to them,” I confessed.
    “Reason given?”
    “I...they're not...horse whispering material?”
    “Good answer,” she awarded, straightening. “Put the incompetence on them so I'll still see your potential.”
    “I didn't–”
    “Relax, Alannis. It's a good tactic. You would do well to pretend you meant as much even if you didn't.”
    I shut my mouth.
    “So, what do you have for me, then? Can you train an entire camp of horses?”
    No pressure . “In theory. But of course it will depend on time constraints and the quality you're aiming for, and other similar factors.”
    “Well. Anything you can do will, in theory, make us better than what we are. So start there. See what you can do for us.”
    “I don't suppose you have any Demon Horse models on hand?”
    “I'm afraid not. The closest we have are some rowdy young soldiers.”
    “If they don't breathe fire, I doubt they would be of much service.”
    Just then, a bedraggled-looking member of the camp approached, but I couldn't remember seeing him before. All manner of grime was caked across his form, and I wondered what kind of training drill he had just been at. But when he spoke, his words were those of a wilderness-ravaged scout returning home.
    “Lieutenant.”
    “Private.”
    “I come from Restoration.”
    “Res–”
    “It's the new face of the region that was once your home.”
    “Official, now, is it?”
    “They're moving on. Gabrial's armies are marching East from there.”
    “East across the Shardscape from Restoration,” Sonya mused. “That's precisely what I don't want to hear.”
    I did the math, recalling the few times I had seen a map of the United States how it used to be, before it was one big mash-pot of ruins. Colorado would be straight across from Missouri, with only Kansas in between.
    “If he hems us in with the majority of the wreckage, it'll be his turf,” the Lieutenant said. “Our horses can't compensate for the rubble as their battlefield. We need to get to K.S. territory, where there's open ground.”
    K.S. Kansas.
    “We are to meet them?” asked the scout.
    “Unless we plan to let him move into this half of our country, yes. Kansas is the middle ground, and our greatest potential battlefield. Let's seize it and hold it.”
    He nodded and briskly departed, apparently knowing the drill. The Lieutenant turned to me.
    “Does your whisper work on the move?”
    “You want me to come with you?” I asked in surprise.
    “This move is vital. We need an edge, Miss Wilde. You're all we've got in that department. Like I told you, we have a distinct lack of fire-breathing creatures among our ranks. No clawed ones either, coincidentally. Just one that whispers.”
    I considered for a moment – as if I had the right to weigh my options and refuse. Did I even have that right in the face of war? Was she asking me along, or was it a condition?
    Jay would not be happy.
    He lost any measly scrap of authority he held over your head the moment he contrived to walk out on you, I reminded myself. He had already done his part looking after me. All that time traveling cross-country, getting us into Tara's camp, pulling me out of that gulley, and then, that thing with Fly...
    He had done his part. More than done his part.
    “When do we leave?” I asked, pushing Jay from my mind.