Call it what it is: monster racing.
Forget that, and you die.
Tamra
thought she should have that tattooed on her forehead so the idiots she
was trying to train stood a chance of remembering it. Bellowing with
every shred of voice she had left, she shouted at her newest crop of
riders, "They're not your pets! They're not your friends!
You falter, they will kill you! You lose focus, they will kill you! You
do anything stupid, they will--say it with me now . . ."
Dutifully, the five riders-to-be chimed, "Kill us!"
"Yes!"
One of
her students raised her hand, timidly, which was not a good sign. If a
little shouting withered her, how was she going to survive a race? "But I
thought you told us to befriend the kehoks? Earn their trust?"
Oh, by the River, was that
how they interpreted it? "Did I?" She fixed her glare on each of them,
letting it linger until they wilted under her gaze like a sprout beneath
the full desert sun. "Can anyone tell me exactly what I told you to
do?"
Another answered, "To, um, be kind to them? Serve their needs?"
For the
last month, she'd had them mucking out the kehoks' stalls and piling
them with fresh straw, dragging water from the Aur River to fill the
kehoks' buckets, and selecting the highest quality feed. She'd
instructed them to care for the kehoks as they would a beloved horse,
albeit keeping away from their teeth and claws and, in some cases,
spiked tails. "Exactly. Anyone want to tell me why?"
The first student, Amira, cleared her throat. "So they learn to trust us and will obey--"
"They
are monsters," Tamra snapped. "They do not trust. They do not feel
gratitude. Or mercy. They do not understand kindness." Kehoks didn't, couldn't, change. Unlike the rest of creation, they were what they were, condemned for all time.
"Then why--" a third began.
"Because we are not monsters!" Tamra bellowed. "The decency you display is for the sake of your souls. The kehoks are already doomed to their fates. I will not train riders only to have them come back as racers!"
They all looked shocked, and she had to resist rolling her eyes. River save me from the innocent arrogance of youth.
All of them believed they were too pure to ever be reborn as a kehok.
Only the darkest, most evil souls came back as those insults to nature,
and so her young students believed themselves safe. They didn't
understand that evil could grow if planted in a field of banal cruelty.
They didn't see why it was important to diligently protect and preserve
every scrap of honor. Then again, this wasn't a temple.
They'd either figure it out eventually or regret it for an eternity.
Besides, more than likely, they'll all turn out mediocre and come back as cows.
All she
could do was give them the chance to improve their lot, both in this
life and the next one. She couldn't control what they chose to do with
that opportunity.
Tamra
put her fists on her hips. "The ability to show kindness and mercy to
those who do not deserve it is a strength! And that strength will give
you an edge in the races."
And now they looked confused.
"Only
the strongest win," Tamra said. "You've heard that a thousand times. But
is it strength of muscle? Obviously not. No human alive can out-muscle a
kehok. It's strength of mind, strength of heart, and strength of will."
The
third student, a fifteen-year-old boy named Fetran, crossed his arms, as
if that made him look tough and defiant. With his gangly limbs and
pimply face, he just looked petulant. Why, oh, why did I agree to train these children?
she asked herself. Oh, yes, their parents were paying her. Lousy way to
pay the augurs' bills. Not that she had much of a choice. Because while
she'd be far better off picking a potential winner, training him or her
up with a brand-new kehok, and claiming her share of the prize money,
there was the little problem that she couldn't afford the race entrance
fees, not to mention the purchase price of a new kehok. . . .
"So, last season?" Fetran drawled. "Was your rider weak of mind, heart, or will?"
Low blow.
Tamra smiled.
He shrank back.
She
smiled broader. She knew that when she smiled, the scar that ran from
her left eye to her neck stretched and paled. She'd gotten that scar
during her final kehok race, a race she'd won, before she'd retired to
raise her daughter and train future champions. Emphasizing that scar
made people uncomfortable. She loved her scar. It was her favorite
feature, a relic of a time when she was the one destined for greatness,
with a wide future ahead of her.
In a
falsely chipper voice, Tamra said, "Maybe it was a combination. But you
seem to have everything sorted out, so how about you show us how it's
done?"
Fetran looked as if he wanted to bolt. Or vomit. "I c-can't . . ."
She let
him squirm a minute more, intending to let him off the hook, but then
Amira stepped forward, cleared her throat, and said in a squeak, "I'll
try."
Oh, kehoks. That was not what she'd meant to happen.
Tamra opened her mouth to say, No, you're not ready. But then she stopped. Studying Amira, she thought, There's some strength in her. A spark, maybe. If it could be fed . . .
Briefly,
she allowed herself to imagine the glory, if she transformed one of
these rich kids into a fierce competitor. She'd be the most sought-after
trainer in all Becar, and her daughter would never again have to feel
worry that they'd be separated.
No. It's a crazy idea. I can't turn one of them into a winner.
It was widely known that the children of the wealthy dallied in racing
but never won. None of them had the fire. You had to burn with the need
to win, with the conviction that this is what you were meant to do. That
was an aspect of racing that couldn't be taught, and these spoiled rich
kids had never felt it. They'd never known the feeling of yearning for a
future that vanished like a mirage before your eyes. Or the feeling of
having all your dreams slip like sand through your fingers. They'd never
tried to change their fate and discovered it was immutable.
They'd never been thirsty.
On the other hand . . . the girl had volunteered to try.
Maybe
the answer to all Tamra's problems had been right here in front of her
the whole time, and she'd been too stubborn to see it. The augurs
preached that you could improve the quality of your soul by your
choices, and thus grant meaning to your current life and hope for your
next. Tamra might not be able to read the state of these kids' immortal
souls . . .
But maybe I could give them a chance to shine.
"Follow me," Tamra said curtly.
"Hey, she asked me," Fetran butted in. "I'm first."
"You're going to break your neck," Amira told him.
"And you won't?"
"My kehok likes me."
Tamra
heaved a sigh. Seriously, why did she bother talking? It wasn't as if
they listened to her. Kehoks liked no one, because they loathed
themselves. I'm a terrible teacher. I should switch to raising potted plants.
"You'll race each other. And you'll use chains and harnesses." When
Fetran began to object, she held up her hand. "I don't want to explain
to your parents why their darlings are minus a few limbs."
Or have them explain to me why I'm not getting paid anymore.
Without
looking back to see if they were following, Tamra stalked across the
training grounds to the kehok stable, a prisonlike block, made of
mud-brick and stone, that dominated half the practice area. Out of the
corner of her eye she saw other trainers' students running obstacle
courses, lifting weighted barrels, and wrestling each other on the sand.
She didn't make eye contact with any of them. She knew what the other
trainers would think of this--her students weren't ready for the track.
But they would never be ready if they didn't take risks.
And if there was a chance she could shape them into what she needed them to be . . .
Closer to the stable, she heard the kehoks.
The
worst part about a kehok scream was that it sounded almost human, as if a
man or woman's vocal cords had been shredded and then patched up
sloppily by an untrained doctor. It made your blood curdle and your
bones shiver.
Tamra was used to it.
Her students still weren't.
Amira and Fetran huddled with the others in a clump as she flung open the doors. This is a terrible idea,
she thought. Sunlight flooded the stalls, and the kehoks screamed
louder. They kicked and bashed against their walls. There were eighteen
kehoks in the stable, five of which were owned by Tamra's patron.
She halted in front of them.
The
unnaturalness of the creatures made your skin crawl, even if you were
accustomed to seeing them on a daily basis. Kehoks looked as if they'd
been stitched together by a crazed god. There were dozens, even
hundreds, of possible varieties, all of them with the same twisted
wrongness to their bodies. In the batch before her, one had the heft of a
rhino and the jaws of a croc. Another looked like a horse-size jackal
with the teeth and venom of a king cobra. Another bore the head of a
lizard and the hindquarters of a massive lion. According to the augurs,
the shape of the kehok's body reflected the kind of depravity it had
committed in its prior life.
Tamra
picked the lion-lizard and the rhino-croc. She wasn't trusting newbies
around venom, even in a practice race. Starting with the lion-lizard,
she positioned herself in front of his stall and met his eyes.
Like all kehoks, he had sun-gold eyes.
The eyes were the only thing beautiful about any of them.
She let
her gaze bore into his. Steadying her breathing, she shut out all other
distractions: the whispers of her students, the screams of the other
kehoks, even the muttering of other trainers, who had come to see what
she was doing in the stalls so early in the training season.
She felt her heartbeat. Steady. Thump, thump, thump. Focusing on that, she willed the kehok's heart to beat at the same tempo.
He fought her. They always did.
Rearing back, he struggled against the shackles.
"Calm," she murmured. "Calm."
Moving
slowly, Tamra gestured to Fetran to pass her a harness and saddle. He
did, and Tamra kept her thoughts firmly fixed on the kehok. Thump, thump, thump.
She
tossed the saddle onto the kehok's back. The monster shuddered but
didn't try to bolt. Continuing to move deliberately, she attached the
harness--both the harness and the saddle clipped onto a chain net that
was fitted over the kehok's thick hide. The chain net allowed them to be
shackled within their stall, as well as quickly saddled.
She repeated the process with the second mount.
When
both were ready, she signaled her students: Fetran and Amira to the
starting gates and the rest to the viewing stands. Grasping one harness
in each hand, she barked at the two kehoks, "Follow!"
Kehoks didn't respond to words.
They responded to intent. And will.
According
to Becaran scientists who had studied the kehoks for ages, the kehoks
read your conviction through a combination of your voice, your
expression, and your body language. The augurs claimed they responded to
your aura and its reflection of the purity of your purpose. But Tamra
believed what most riders and former riders secretly believed: the
kehoks read your heart and mind. Regardless of how they did it, though,
the result was the same. Doubt yourself, and you'll be gored. Don't
doubt . . . and they'll take you to the finish line.
In other words, the more stubborn you were, the better control you would have.
And Tamra was very stubborn.
She just had to hope these two teenagers were as stubborn as she'd been.
Everyone
watched as she led the two kehoks to the racetrack. She was, she
admitted to herself, showing off. Not many people could control two at
once. It had been considered a useless parlor trick when she'd been a
rider--you were allowed to influence only your own racer--but it had
come in handy as a trainer.
Locking
the kehoks into the starting shoots, Tamra beckoned Fetran and Amira.
They slunk closer, clearly regretting having agreed to this. She thought
about letting them back out, but then thought, This is their chance at glory!
Or at least it was a step in the general vicinity of glory. Whether
they knew it or not, she was offering them freedom from the lives that
had been mapped out for them. And a chance to change the fate of their
souls.
"One lap," she told them. "Loser mucks out the winner's stall for a week."
"Get ready to shovel," Fetran said to Amira, his bravado belied only by the adolescent cracking of his voice.
Amira's
eyes were as wide as a hare who's caught sight of a hawk. But she said,
"You're only saying that because you're scared I'll win."
You're
both scared, Tamra wanted to say. "Mount up," she ordered instead. "Belt
yourselves in. Fetran, take the rhino-croc. Amira, the lion-lizard."
The two
students climbed the ladders into the starting shoots. Tamra moved
around to the front, forcing the two kehoks to focus on her instead of
the riders. Normally, an advanced rider would do this by him- or
herself, but she wasn't taking chances. Her students had never run side
by side before, on a shielded track. So far, all their experience with
riding the kehoks had been solo, heavily supervised by her. She held the
mounts steady with her will.
This is going to work, she thought. I'm going to make them into winners! I'm going to change their destinies!
Instead of dilettantes who dabbled in racing before returning to run
their parents' estates, they'd be champions. When they went for their
annual augur readings--or however often rich kids went--they'd be told
hawk or tiger, instead of cow or mouse. They'd be thrilled--the young
always wanted to be reborn as something grand.
The two
students lowered themselves into the saddles and belted themselves in
with the harnesses--the straps should keep them on their kehok's back no
matter what the monster did. In a professional race, there were no
harnesses and no chain nets.
It added to the excitement.
She
broke contact with the kehoks and climbed the ladders to check the
straps. The second she switched her focus to the saddles, the kehoks
began to buck and snort. Fetran and Amira clung to their backs.
Straps were secure.
She took a breath . . .
Reconsidered all her life choices that led her to this moment . . .
Decided
it was too late to change her mind and run off into the desert to live a
less stressful life subsisting on scorpions and camel dung . . .
She
retreated to the stands, beyond the dampening shield that covered the
track. All racetracks had an augur-created psychic shield that prevented
anyone in the stands from influencing the racers, whether it was by
concentrated determination or an overabundance of enthusiasm. From here
on, it was up to her two students.
"You have one task," Tamra called to Fetran and Amira. "Fix this word in your mind:
"Run!"
Tamra
then slapped the lever that unlatched the gates, and the two kehoks,
with their riders still clinging to their backs, burst out of the
starting shoots. They barreled forward--even at a cheap training
facility like theirs, the practice track was hemmed in by high walls, so
there was no place for the massive mounts to go except forward. But
that didn't mean they wouldn't try to resist.
She jogged through the stands, parallel to the track.
The
lion-lizard bashed against the wall, trying to knock his rider off. He
didn't understand that the rider was attached. Tamra felt each blow in
her memory--her bones still ached because of the number of times she'd
been slammed against a training wall. Then there was the time a kehok
had rolled on top of her in an attempt to unseat her. Her right leg had
broken in three places, but she'd won that race. Some days--like today,
with twinges of sympathy--her leg still hurt.
"Run!"
she shouted at the two riders. "That's all that matters! That's all that
exists! You are nothing but the sand beneath the hooves, the wind in
your face, the sun on your back. You are this moment. Feel the moment.
Feel the race!"
She
missed it, the way the wind felt, the way the rest of the world fell
away, the way life was distilled into a simple goal. Nothing about life
was simple anymore.
She
wished she could peel away everything else and just focus on this: a
race. Just her and a monster that she understood and could control,
rather than the monsters who wore human faces and believed they were
purer of soul than she.
Maybe they are purer than me. But that doesn't make their actions right.
She
couldn't dwell on that now, though, as Amira and Fetran demanded her
attention. The other students and trainers cheered as the two kehoks and
riders thundered around the track. Sand was kicked into the air in a
cloud that billowed up toward the sky. She began to feel a shred of the
old exhilaration--the barely bridled wildness of the kehoks, matched
with the barely contained terror of the riders. It was intoxicating.
Tamra cheered with the others as the riders rounded the third corner.
And then it happened--
Fetran lost control.
She knew
it a split second before the crowd gasped. It was in the way the boy's
kehok tossed his head, the sun glinting off his golden eyes--
Freedom.
The
rhino-croc sensed that the boy's focus had slipped, and he pivoted on
his back feet. Rising up, he struck the other kehok, the lion-lizard, in
the face. The lion-lizard crashed to the wall, and the girl--pinned
between her mount's back and the wall--cried out in pain. Shaking off
the crash, the lion-lizard then charged at the rhino-croc. He lashed
with his claws, and the croc clamped down with his massive jaws.
Tamra
was already running. She leaped onto the sands of the track with no
thought but to save her students. Ahead of her, the two kehoks were
tearing into each other.
She
threw herself forward, feetfirst, skidding between them on her back.
Hands up, she roared with every fiber of her being: "STOP!"
Later, the other trainers would tell her what she did was suicidal.
You're crazy.
You don't throw yourself between out-of-control kehoks.
You don't lie prone beneath their hooves and claws.
But Tamra did.
What she didn't do was allow a shred of doubt or fear into her mind. They would stop because they must stop. Her livelihood depended on it. Her daughter depended on it. I will not lose these students.
You. Will. Stop.
And they did.
Snorting
and snuffling, the two kehoks dropped back onto four feet and retreated
from her. Rising to her feet, hands outstretched, one toward each,
Tamra felt her whole body shaking with . . . She had no name for what
she felt. But they would calm. Now.
She
heard the others running toward them. Shouting for healers, the other
trainers unstrapped her two riders. She heard the screams of her other
students, their voices melding as if they were a single scared beast.
One of the riders, Fetran, was howling in pain. The other, Amira, was
frighteningly silent.
But Tamra kept her focus on the two kehoks.
She
walked toward one and took his harness. Then she took the other. She led
them along the racetrack, crossed the finish line, and then led them
back across the training ground to their stalls. It felt ten times as
far as it was.
Only when they were locked in did she allow other thoughts to enter her mind.
Her students.
Were they dead?
Was it her fault?
Yes, of course it is. She was their trainer. Part of her job was teaching them not to die.
For a
moment, Tamra couldn't make her feet move. She'd rather face a herd of
kehoks than exit the stables now and see what damage had been done.
One of the kehoks snorted as if it were mocking her cowardice.
Go, she ordered herself.
And she
walked out of the stable to see how badly her students were broken, and
to take responsibility for letting her hopes destroy their dreams--and
possibly her own.
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