Read Online Lords of Grass and Thunder by Curt Benjamin - Free Book Online Page A

bear, of course. Even as a boy he had recognized the rich embroidery of a poet’s imagination, but he wondered now what less miraculous truth like his own hid behind the singer’s art.
    Riding between the round white tents of the city, however, his companions had taken up the decoration of the afternoon with elaborations of their own exploits at the hunt. His objections lost in the laughing contributions of his fellows, Jumal accepted that he would have no say in the part he would play in the coming epic. Which was exactly what Tayy wanted. He laughed with the others, adding his own variant: “Where is the maiden in the tale? How can we have a hero without a maiden?”
    Qutula paled alarmingly at the suggestion, but Tayy spread his arm wide to express his generosity when he said, “I will gladly cede my place in the tale to a princess. Perhaps the warrior queen of Pontus may rescue the embattled warrior? Even Qutula could have no objection to such a womanly rescue!”
    They had all seen the warrior queen and her women’s army in battle, and agreed that she made a more comely heroine than the prince, “Though as likely to skin the brave companion as the bear,” Bekter pointed out, which made them all laugh the harder.
    “A gentler maiden, then,” Jumal suggested, to which Tayy made one change: “Then she must take your place, good friend, and offer up the charmed spear to the gallant youth.”
    Jumal flashed his eyelashes, ever the fool for a joke, and Tayy added his own jeering to that of his companions.
    Then he saw the girl, conjured, it seemed, by their discussion.
    There was nothing outwardly noteworthy about her, he would later admit. Pretty, but in a self-contained way, with none of the obvious allure that Sechule seemed to hold for her suitors. The girl stood with a broom in her hand in the doorway of a tent with ravens embroidered on the flap that closed over the smoke hole. He didn’t know why the broom seemed so important—he’d seen enough of them in the hands of slaves and servants. But raven feathers decorated the doorway of the tent the way pelts of stoats hung from Bolghai’s burrow. Brooms hung from Bolghai’s roof as well. Tayy’s friend Llesho, who had turned out to be a mortal god, had danced with a broom to find his totem form. So he wondered if the broom in the hands of the girl had magical properties, too.
    She met his gaze, her dark, thoughtful eyes taking his measure, though he couldn’t tell what judgment she made about him. She wore the simple dress and hair ornaments of a maiden, but she didn’t giggle or hide her face or disappear inside the tent as most girls would do. She didn’t call out to him or smile either. Tayy felt turned inside out, with all his guts exposed to view. His thoughts from the deepest to the most frivolous, his feelings from the meanest to the most exalted were suddenly there on the surface for the girl to examine and to judge.
    If he’d had a place to hide, he might have done so—except that for some reason he didn’t mind the intrusion of her gaze as he might anyone else who looked at him that way. Anyone but Lady Bortu. His grandmother had the same way of reading him to the ground with her glance. He didn’t get this funny feeling in the pit of his stomach when Lady Bortu did it, though.
    Look your fill, he told the girl with his own gaze. “Scars are the measure of a king.”
    “Excuse me, my prince. I didn’t hear.” Qutula asked, polite attention on his face, while a little behind them, their companions watched expectantly for his answer.
    “Nothing—” He must have spoken aloud without realizing. “Nothing, just a riddle my father used to tell. ‘Scars are the measure of a king.’ ”
    Chimbai-Khan had laughed at the wounds he took in battle, giving the riddle as his reason. Tayy had thought he meant that a khan was spared the pain of his injuries. Bruised from weapons practice and combat games, he had longed for the day he became khan so