5th Day of Winter, 516AV || Outside Endrykas
He assumed it was the saddle that got them smirking, rather than the horse or the man. But it could have been either one. The Pridesun pavilion - or, rather, Jonas himself - wasn't about to waste a decent mount on a dead man.
She was an old nag, close to thirty Summers, with a bent back and grey snout. Even her whinnies were bubbling, lazy things. He'd quickly learned that spurring and whipping didn't faze the old girl, so a steady trot would be the best he could hope for. That didn't bother him much: he wanted a steady pace out there in the grass, not one that would exhaust his horse within a bell and leave her useless to take his prize back home.
Back to the pavilion, he corrected himself as he cantered past another clutch of blond, leather-clad Drykas who whispered and tittered at his strange, wahlak saddle. Not home.
Konrad didn't glare or squint; he barely even noticed them. People had been whispering and pointing at him since he was ten years old. But he pondered that it was the why of his little ride that was generating discussion, not just his face. He supposed that all in the Topaz Clan would have heard the rumor of a crazy, petch-faced wahlak stray of Jonas', who'd struck a deal to go out and die in the Sea of Grass, all over a crippled coyote he probably wouldn't find.
He knew that's what they thought. It was the smart conclusion, anyway. A non-Drykas, without a decent mount or that Webbing wyrd they all seemed to use, alone in the Sea of Grass, with all of Caiyha's creatures going mad within it... no, he wouldn't be coming back. Jonas had told him as much, in his tent, just before Konrad had made his pitch, and just after.
His answer had been the same. So had his deal.
Konrad. Or "Hansel", as it turned out. That was the name he'd gasped out when they'd found him... or a few bells after that, in point of fact. Once they'd closed his wounds and got some water in him. Konrad was grateful for that, though he wasn't sure where he should direct it: if they'd asked him right away what his name was, he might not have come up with that quick lie and blurted out his own name, rather than his long-dead cousin's.
"Easy, easy by, easy by, now!"
Common. A rare pleasure. The words boomed out by a drover and Konrad steered his ancient steed to the side of the rough road between tents, letting the babbling, bleating horde of sweaters-on-hooves trot past. A pair of Drykas shepherds were at their back, giving him a quick look as they went. Konrad stared back stonily and then continued, all the tumult of noon-time Endrykas roaring around him, the Horse Lords going about their day of sweat, toil, and animal husbandry in all its forms.
But the noise was starting to thin, as he clip-clopped towards the rim of the city. Endrykas wasn't so much a blob or a circle, he'd noticed, but a blunted star. Each point held one of the Clans, and there were several of them. Pavilions clustered around their Clans, he'd noticed, and they stretched out from the center tents like fat fingers in all directions. It was past the tip of one such finger he found himself, where he'd set his snares and collected his bounty the night before and earlier that morning, looking... looking...
There.
The blood had darkened from red to rust to black. Konrad frowned minutely. The coyote would probably be dead by now but the trail... yes, he could still follow it. He looked up at Syna, and saw she was nearly at her peak in the sky, right above his head. That meant he had maybe six, seven bells before night fell. Plenty of time. Oh, yes. Just ride out and claim what should have been his.
He'd a deal to stick by, after all. A trade, a favor for truth. Jonas had asked him before what brought him to a corpse and a slow death in the grasslands outside Kenash, and he'd clammed up. He offered him the truth now... or the broadest definition of it.
In exchange for a horse, and an afternoon. Jonas had agreed.
There was a wheezing, unimpressed sound at his front and Konrad rolled his eyes. Gods, even the petching horse wasn't impressed. He patted her neck and felt a momentary pang of alien remorse. He could be leading her out to death. The thought struck him and then he snorted, head dipped for a tick and hiding his face, his scars, his seaweed eyes and knife-slash smirk.
All roads lead to the Black Lady, he thought, mind sliding back into that of a sellsword with such ease after days thinking like a refugee, a trapper, a scavenger. Good a day as any.
He clicked his tongue against his teeth, kicked his heels into bony flanks and Old Girl started following the blood trail into the midday haze, where flame and smoke met scrub and hearth, and Konrad was but a dark figure on a pale mare, vanishing into the smear.
