Storm Warning - Mercedes Lackey [28]
Rubrik
Four
Karal didn’t get his wish, of course. He did, however, get possession of a bottle of muscle-salve that had such near-miraculous properties that he suspected magic, or the talents of a Healer-Priest in preparing it. When he woke the next morning, his aches were mostly gone, and the little pain that was left eased as he rubbed in a new application of the salve. It had a sharp scent somewhat like water-cress, not unpleasant, but nothing he recognized. Ulrich helped himself shamelessly to the potion as well, leaving the jar half empty.
They met in the courtyard of the inn, in the thin gray light of false dawn. Rubrik was already waiting, his cloud-white horse saddled and ready to ride. Rubrik himself looked quite disgustingly rested. One sleepy stableboy presented them with their mounts, already saddled, and a cook’s helper, powdered with flour, came out from the kitchen with a tray of buttered rolls and mugs of hot tea. Karal was glad he’d used that salve after he helped Rubrik to mount and climbed aboard Trenor. “Stiff’ simply wasn’t an adequate description for how he felt when he tried to actually make his muscles do some work. That reminded him of how little salve was left in the jar in his saddlebag—between himself and Ulrich, it wasn’t going to last more than another day or two.
The kitchen helper reappeared with a pair of cloth bags, and handed them to Rubrik, who slung them over his saddlebags. “Our noon meal,” their escort explained. “I hope you don’t mind eating on the road, but I want to make as much time as possible.”
Lovely. Which means we’ll probably be riding even longer today. Somehow he managed not to groan. “Excuse me, sir,” he said instead, anxiously. “But that salve you gave me last night worked very well—so well I don’t have much left. And—”
“And there’s more where that came from, young man,” Rubrik replied with a wink. “It’s very common in Valdemar; I have more, and I can make sure to get more when we stop for the night.”
“I can tell already that we both will require it,” Ulrich put in, with a rueful smile. “I purloined some of it myself. Perhaps you are used to riding all day, but we are not as sturdy as you. I fear the scholars’ life has left both of us ill prepared for this situation.”
Karal smiled at his mentor, grateful for Ulrich’s little comment. It made him look like less of a weakling. After all, how did it look, that a man who was half-crippled could ride longer and harder than a fellow half his age?
They left with the rising sun, completely avoiding any of the other guests at the inn by leaving before anyone else woke up. They didn’t stop until late morning, and by that time Karal and his master were both ready for another application of salve. How Rubrik managed such a pace, Karal could not fathom. Once they had stopped last night, he’d demonstrated his own physical weakness by needing help to dismount. On the ground, he had limped along with the help of a cane, his bad leg frozen with the knee locked, so that he had to swing it around from the hip, stiffly, in order to use it at all.
This morning he’d needed help to mount as well—help that Karal had provided, since the stableboy had vanished as soon as the lad brought their horses to them. Rubrik’s horse had also helped on both occasions, much to Karal’s surprise, by lying down so that Rubrik could get his bad leg swung over the saddle with a very little assistance. Karal bit his lip to keep from commenting or asking questions, since this went far beyond any horse training he had ever seen. Rubrik saw his expression, though, and simply smiled, without offering any explanation or inviting any inquiry, so Karal said nothing.
Once the sun actually rose, it looked as if (despite Rubrik’s warnings) they were going to have another day of good weather. The sky