Lightnings Daughter, Mary Herbert [year 7 reading list .TXT] 📗

One night, when the half-moon rose above the plains, Gabria lay on her pallet in the dark, cramped temple and thought about her family long into the night. After a while she dozed, drifting in and out of sleep. Her dreams crowded in and jostled with her memories of her father and brothers. She tossed and turned as the dreams grew more vivid, and the phantoms of her old terrors gathered like shadows in her mind.

In the blink of an eye, her thoughts cleared. A vision came to her then, as real as the first time she had experienced it. It was the same vision she had dreamed that previous summer, just before her first meeting with Lord Medb.

Gabria saw herself standing on a hill, looking down at the ruins of a once-busy camp. The sun was high and warm, and grass grew thick in the empty pastures. Weeds sprawled over the moldering ashes and covered the wreckage with a green coverlet. A large mound encircled with spears lay to one side, its new dirt just now sprouting grass.

Gabria jolted awake. The vision faded, but the image of the burial mound remained clear in her thoughts. She had no idea if the mound was real. When she found Corin Held after the massacre, she had been alone and unable to do anything but leave her people where they had fallen. It was ill she could do to save herself.

Gabria mulled over the vision for several days, and in that time her desire to see her home again became a powerful yearning. The more she thought about it, the more important it became for her to see for herself if her clan had really been buried. There had been no chance to say good-bye to her father and brothers on that horrible day. Perhaps now, while she stil had about eight days of exile remaining, was a good time to go. On Nara she could cover the distance to the treld in three or four days and be back before anyone missed her. No one would have to know she had left the temple.

When Gabria told the Hunnuli mare of her idea, Nara agreed. To see your home once more wil give you strength, the mare told her. We wil go.

They left the next morning in the cold, misty hour of dawn.

Nara cantered east beyond the foothil s to the plains and gradual y swung north to avoid the Khulinin scouts. By sunrise they were wel to the north of Khulinin Held and fol owing the Sweetwater River. Nara settled into an easy, flowing canter that would carry them for hours over the open leagues of grass.

Gabria relaxed on Nara's broad back. It felt wonderful to be on the plains again, away from the temple, the hil s, and the people who would not come near her. Here on the wide, treeless grasslands she could see from horizon to horizon, feel the wind that tugged at her hair, and rejoice in the eternal blue sky that arched over her head. She threw her arms wide and laughed happily at her freedom.

Nara neighed in reply. The black horse stretched out into a gallop, her muscles moving effortlessly as she raced the wind for the sheer joy of running. Her black mane whipped into Gabria's face. Her hooves pounded the hard ground.

Gabria laughed again. She felt the power of the Hunnuli flow beneath her as quick and hot as the lightning that' marked the horse's right shoulder. All at once she was overwhelmed by love, gratitude, and wonder. As long as she had Nara, she knew she would never be alone. She would always have an empathetic companion who would stand by her no matter how often her own people rejected her. She flung her arms around Nara's neck and pressed her cheek against the soft hair.

The mare slowed to an easy canter. Are you all right, Gabria?

The young woman sat up, smiling, and rubbed the horse's shoulder. "Stay with me, Nara, and I will be."

Always, the Hunnuli replied.

Silently they went on. There was no need to say more.

They traveled north for three days through the wide, grassy Val ey of the Hornguard. To the east, the snowy peaks of the Darkhorn Mountains towered into the sky, their white mantled heads crowned with clouds and their gray ramparts hidden behind veils of wind and snow. To the west, the smal er range of the Himachal Mountains bordered the valley like an old, crumbled fortress wall. The valley was a fertile, green land where antelope, wild horses, and small game flourished. Both the Geldring and the Dangari hunted in the Hornguard, and, since Gabria had no desire to meet anyone from the clans, she and Nara stayed to the eastern side of the valley among the foothills of the Darkhorns.

To Gabria the journey felt strange, yet half familiar. They were traveling back the way they had come almost a year ago.

The mountains and hil s looked much the same: barren, gray-brown with winter, and patched with snow. Only Gabria was different. She felt a lifetime older and wiser; she was no longer a simple, terrified, girl. The realities or war and magic had changed her.

Her problem was that her experiences had not erased her memories. The closer they came to Corin Treld, the more nervous Gabria became. Time and again she remembered that hideous day when she had stumbled into the ruins of her home and found her murdered family. She had thought that she would be calm and able to deal with the memories, but the feelings of terror, grief, and confusion boiled out of her mind like a turbulent flood.

As hard as she could, Gabria fought down the turmoil within her and pushed on, refusing Nara's suggestion to stop and eat or rest. The Hunnuli was not bothered by