onlookers gathered from the city gate to add to the confusion. The soldiers, riding up with shouts and derision, had to gather in reins to hold other bawling beasts.
Meanwhile no few riders let their beasts escape their inexpert reining, and those animals set to circling, ignoring tugs on their reins by the simple trick of laying their heads around. It was no surprise that several novices had their feet bitten, which brought howls and panic anew, and catcalls from the gate despite the presence of the auâit and the soldiers.
The madmen were mostly villagers, but they had walked the desert, not ridden it. Save a few desert-bred folk and two others who were clearly expert, the most of the madmen had never ridden in their lives, and the slaves had a great deal to do to convince any of the beasts thus mounted to keep a line.
Marak approached his own well-bred besha and took his quirt from the saddle. After the recent confusion his beast rolled a wary eye back, sizing him up.
Marak took the rein and stepped smoothly into the higher mounting loop. The besha, perhaps relieved to sense a rider who knew the fast way aboard, half straightened his forelegs and came up under him as he landed.
There was no need for hup-hup-hup! Marak sized the beast up, too, braced both hands against the double horn, one high, one low, as the back legs shifted.
The pitch forward reversed in the next breath as the forelegs straightened.
And just when an inexperienced rider would least expect it, the hind legs drove in one long shove, propelling the rider forward and all but upside down for an instant, testing the strength of the girth around the beastâs broad, deep chest.
That was what the double horn and straight-armed brace of the hands was for, and that was why children and old folk mounted a besha only with assistance, while it was standing.
A fourth, a minor jolt, almost a hop, straightened the forelegs entirely, and at that, the riderâs whole body snapped back to view the world from twice a manâs height, poised on a stilt-limbed body four times his size. It all proceeded in a few blinks of the eye; and weary as he was, trembling as he held the rein, and surrounded by a band of madmen apt to fall in the dust or lose toes to vexed mounts, Marak still found a breath of freedom.
The beast under him, no common run of the herd, wanted to move. He held it back. The besha swayed back and forth under him, grumbling in its chest, as beshti would do when they were full of spirit and impatient with the lowly pack beasts. Marak allowed no nonsense, settled his right foot possessively on the beshaâs curved neck, and heaved a deep and shaken sigh. The besha under him did the same.
They all were up. No one had been killed. Obidhenâs sons linked the animals that would move under halter, to loud complaints and the occasional outright squall of indignation from riding beasts unaccustomed to such treatment when they were under saddle.
The packs, meanwhile, all had their specific places, hung over the packsaddles, tied down with a few short turns of rope. The caravan slaves hastened, sometimes running from one beast to the other, beshti patience notoriously scant with imbalance or hesitation. Everything was packed, every packet balanced for the two sides of the saddle, everything apportioned to the individual beastâs capacity to carry: there was the mark of a veteran caravanner. Every pack went on the first time, and every beast responded to the light snap, not the impact, of a quirt.
A last few madmen, desert-bred, mounted up on their own, and rode back and forth, free of the detested lead, restless, as anxious as the beasts.
Certainly the caravan masterâs three sons had no need of help when the time came. âBas!â the order was, making a standing beast simply put out one foreleg. That served as a footbridge to an unseen mounting loop and, by a quick turn, to the saddle. To the unknowing eye, in the dim light
Meanwhile no few riders let their beasts escape their inexpert reining, and those animals set to circling, ignoring tugs on their reins by the simple trick of laying their heads around. It was no surprise that several novices had their feet bitten, which brought howls and panic anew, and catcalls from the gate despite the presence of the auâit and the soldiers.
The madmen were mostly villagers, but they had walked the desert, not ridden it. Save a few desert-bred folk and two others who were clearly expert, the most of the madmen had never ridden in their lives, and the slaves had a great deal to do to convince any of the beasts thus mounted to keep a line.
Marak approached his own well-bred besha and took his quirt from the saddle. After the recent confusion his beast rolled a wary eye back, sizing him up.
Marak took the rein and stepped smoothly into the higher mounting loop. The besha, perhaps relieved to sense a rider who knew the fast way aboard, half straightened his forelegs and came up under him as he landed.
There was no need for hup-hup-hup! Marak sized the beast up, too, braced both hands against the double horn, one high, one low, as the back legs shifted.
The pitch forward reversed in the next breath as the forelegs straightened.
And just when an inexperienced rider would least expect it, the hind legs drove in one long shove, propelling the rider forward and all but upside down for an instant, testing the strength of the girth around the beastâs broad, deep chest.
That was what the double horn and straight-armed brace of the hands was for, and that was why children and old folk mounted a besha only with assistance, while it was standing.
A fourth, a minor jolt, almost a hop, straightened the forelegs entirely, and at that, the riderâs whole body snapped back to view the world from twice a manâs height, poised on a stilt-limbed body four times his size. It all proceeded in a few blinks of the eye; and weary as he was, trembling as he held the rein, and surrounded by a band of madmen apt to fall in the dust or lose toes to vexed mounts, Marak still found a breath of freedom.
The beast under him, no common run of the herd, wanted to move. He held it back. The besha swayed back and forth under him, grumbling in its chest, as beshti would do when they were full of spirit and impatient with the lowly pack beasts. Marak allowed no nonsense, settled his right foot possessively on the beshaâs curved neck, and heaved a deep and shaken sigh. The besha under him did the same.
They all were up. No one had been killed. Obidhenâs sons linked the animals that would move under halter, to loud complaints and the occasional outright squall of indignation from riding beasts unaccustomed to such treatment when they were under saddle.
The packs, meanwhile, all had their specific places, hung over the packsaddles, tied down with a few short turns of rope. The caravan slaves hastened, sometimes running from one beast to the other, beshti patience notoriously scant with imbalance or hesitation. Everything was packed, every packet balanced for the two sides of the saddle, everything apportioned to the individual beastâs capacity to carry: there was the mark of a veteran caravanner. Every pack went on the first time, and every beast responded to the light snap, not the impact, of a quirt.
A last few madmen, desert-bred, mounted up on their own, and rode back and forth, free of the detested lead, restless, as anxious as the beasts.
Certainly the caravan masterâs three sons had no need of help when the time came. âBas!â the order was, making a standing beast simply put out one foreleg. That served as a footbridge to an unseen mounting loop and, by a quick turn, to the saddle. To the unknowing eye, in the dim light
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