Free [Hurog 01] - Dragon Bones by Patricia Briggs Page A

called Feather for the wisp of white on her wide forehead. She was deep chested, big boned, and loved to run as much as I needed her to.
    For her, the wild race over the side of the Hurog mountains was fun; for me, it was a necessary escape. While we raced up narrow trails and down steep-sided gorges, I had to keep my mind on where we were going rather than let my thoughts twist round and round about matters I had no control over.
    While we ran, the only thing that was real was the heaving of her great barrel under my calves and the thunder of her hooves. I smelled the sweat of her effort and heard the even rhythm of her breaths. When that rhythm broke, I would stop.
    The trail I directed her to today was challenging, full of dead-fallen timber and abrupt twists. We both knew it well. Usually, we stopped at the top of a craggy ridge near a lightning-struck tree and turned back toward Hurog at a saner pace. But when we flew past the tree, Feather was fresh, and I was still twisting between right and embarrassment.
    We tore around a sharp corner at the top of a steep slope. I leaned my weight to the inside to help her negotiate the abrupt turn, and the soft soil under her outside hoof gave way.
    She would have fallen then, and we’d have rolled all the way to the bottom of the mountain, except that I shifted my not inconsiderable weight and pulled her head around to send us galloping swiftly down terrain that was little better than cliff face.
    I gripped her with my legs and watched her ears so I could anticipate the direction she would dodge around the larger rocks. I had to steady her head without interfering inher frantic attempt to keep her legs under her as our combined weight pulled us downward. If the slope hadn’t been so steep, I could have thrown my weight back and asked her to slide on her haunches, but here such a move would have been fatal. There was a tangle of downed trees at the bottom, and somehow she managed to leap and jump through them at a speed no sane horse would have taken.
    If she had been a fraction less bold, we’d never have made it. I honestly don’t know how she kept her feet—nor for that matter how I stayed on top while she did it—but we were still upright when she stumbled to a halt. Her breathing rocked me, and the sweat of terror and effort warmed my legs.
    â€œShh, Feather,” I said, patting her neck. “What a good girl you are, what a lady,” and other such nonsense until the white left her eye and she rubbed her head on my knee with one of those incredible contortions horses are capable of.
    I swung off and landed on wobbly legs. I checked Feather over thoroughly, but she only had two minor cuts and no lameness. By the time we were halfway home, she was cool and relaxed, unlike me. I’d almost killed the both of us with my stupidity. When we got home, I’d explain everything to my uncle.
    Â 
    THE GROOMS WERE WORKING on a pair of strange horses that looked even more tired than my poor Feather when I rode into the stable yard. From the colors on their headstalls, gold and gray, they were Garranon’s.
    Garranon was an Oranstonian noble; moreover, he was the high king’s favorite. Normally, he spent all of his time at court or hunting on the estates of various acquaintances because Oranstonian lords, even the king’s favorite, were forbidden to spend much time at their own estates, aconsequence of the Oranstonian Rebellion. I couldn’t fathom what he would be doing here.
    Â 
    THERE WAS NO ONE in the great hall except for Oreg when I came in. He stood splay-legged, hands clasped behind his back, and stared at the ancient message, the Hurog curse, carved into the wall.
    There was such intentness in his expression that I stared at it, too, but it hadn’t changed. The runes still looked as though they had been rough-carved with a hunting knife, but no knife I’d seen would dig into stone. In some places, the writing implement