Or have them explain to me why I’m not getting paid anymore.
Without looking back to see if they were following, Tamra stalked across the training grounds to the kehok stable, a prisonlike block, made of mud-brick and stone, that dominated half the practice area. Out of the corner of her eye she saw other trainers’ students running obstacle courses, lifting weighted barrels, and wrestling each other on the sand. She didn’t make eye contact with any of them. She knew what the other trainers would think of this—her students weren’t ready for the track. But they would never be ready if they didn’t take risks.
And if there was a chance she could shape them into what she needed them to be . . .
Closer to the stable, she heard the kehoks.
The worst part about a kehok scream was that it sounded almost human, as if a man or woman’s vocal cords had been shredded and then patched up sloppily by an untrained doctor. It made your blood curdle and your bones shiver.
Tamra was used to it.
Her students still weren’t.
Amira and Fetran huddled with the others in a clump as she flung open the doors. This is a terrible idea, she thought. Sunlight flooded the stalls, and the kehoks screamed louder. They kicked and bashed against their walls. There were eighteen kehoks in the stable, five of which were owned by Tamra’s patron.
She halted in front of them.
The unnaturalness of the creatures made your skin crawl, even if you were accustomed to seeing them on a daily basis. Kehoks looked as if they’d been stitched together by a crazed god. There were dozens, even hundreds, of possible varieties, all of them with the same twisted wrongness to their bodies. In the batch before her, one had the heft of a rhino and the jaws of a croc. Another looked like a horse-size jackal with the teeth and venom of a king cobra. Another bore the head of a lizard and the hindquarters of a massive lion. According to the augurs, the shape of the kehok’s body reflected the kind of depravity it had committed in its prior life.
Tamra picked the lion-lizard and the rhino-croc. She wasn’t trusting newbies around venom, even in a practice race. Starting with the lion-lizard, she positioned herself in front of his stall and met his eyes.
Like all kehoks, he had sun-gold eyes.
The eyes were the only thing beautiful about any of them.
She let her gaze bore into his. Steadying her breathing, she shut out all other distractions: the whispers of her students, the screams of the other kehoks, even the muttering of other trainers, who had come to see what she was doing in the stalls so early in the training season.
She felt her heartbeat. Steady. Thump, thump, thump. Focusing on that, she willed the kehok’s heart to beat at the same tempo.
He fought her. They always did.
Rearing back, he struggled against the shackles.
“Calm,” she murmured. “Calm.”
Moving slowly, Tamra gestured to Fetran to pass her a harness and saddle. He did, and Tamra kept her thoughts firmly fixed on the kehok. Thump, thump, thump.
She tossed the saddle onto the kehok’s back. The monster shuddered but didn’t try to bolt. Continuing to move deliberately, she attached the harness—both the harness and the saddle clipped onto a chain net that was fitted over the kehok’s thick hide. The chain net allowed them to be shackled within their stall, as well as quickly saddled.
She repeated the process with the second mount.
When both were ready, she signaled her students: Fetran and Amira to the starting gates and the rest to the viewing stands. Grasping one harness in each hand, she barked at the two kehoks, “Follow!”
Kehoks didn’t respond to words.
They responded to intent. And will.
According to Becaran scientists who had studied the kehoks for ages, the kehoks read your conviction through a combination of your voice, your expression, and your body language. The augurs claimed they responded to your aura and its reflection of the purity of your purpose. But Tamra believed what most riders and former riders secretly believed: the kehoks read your heart and mind. Regardless of how they did it, though, the result was the same. Doubt yourself, and you’ll be gored. Don’t doubt . . . and they’ll take you to the finish line.
In other words, the more stubborn you were, the better control you would have.
And Tamra was very stubborn.
She just had to hope these two teenagers were as stubborn as she’d been.
Everyone watched as she led the two kehoks to the racetrack. She was, she admitted to herself, showing off. Not many people could control two at once. It had been considered a useless parlor trick when she’d been a rider—you were allowed to influence only your own racer—but it had come in handy as a trainer.
Locking the kehoks into the starting shoots, Tamra beckoned Fetran and Amira. They slunk closer, clearly regretting having agreed to this. She thought about letting them back out, but then thought, This is their chance at glory! Or at least it was a step in the general vicinity of glory. Whether they knew it or not, she was offering them freedom from the lives that had been mapped out for them. And a chance to change the fate of their souls.
“One lap,” she told them. “Loser mucks out the winner’s stall for a week.”
“Get ready to shovel,” Fetran said to Amira, his bravado belied only by the adolescent cracking of his voice.
Amira’s eyes were as wide as a hare who’s caught sight of a hawk. But she said, “You’re only saying that because you’re scared I’ll win.”
You’re both scared, Tamra wanted to say. “Mount up,” she ordered instead. “Belt yourselves in. Fetran, take the rhino-croc. Amira, the lion-lizard.”
The two students climbed the ladders into the starting shoots. Tamra moved around to the front, forcing the two kehoks to focus on her instead of the riders. Normally, an advanced rider would do this by him- or herself, but she wasn’t taking chances. Her students had never run side by side before, on a shielded track. So far, all their experience with riding the kehoks had been solo, heavily supervised by her. She held the mounts steady with her will.
This is going to work, she thought. I’m going to make them into winners! I’m going to change their destinies! Instead of dilettantes who dabbled in racing before returning to run their parents’ estates, they’d be champions. When they went for their annual augur readings—or however often rich kids went—they’d be told hawk or tiger, instead of cow or mouse. They’d be thrilled—the young always wanted to be reborn as something grand.
The two students lowered themselves into the saddles and belted themselves in with the harnesses—the straps should keep them on their kehok’s back no matter what the monster did. In a professional race, there were no harnesses and no chain nets.
It added to the excitement.
She broke contact with the kehoks and climbed the ladders to check the straps. The second she switched her focus to the saddles, the kehoks began to buck and snort. Fetran and Amira clung to their backs.
Straps were secure.
She took a breath . . .
Reconsidered all her life choices that led her to this moment . . .
Decided it was too late to change her mind and run off into the desert to live a less stressful life subsisting on scorpions and camel dung . . .
She retreated to the stands, beyond the dampening shield that covered the track. All racetracks had an augur-created psychic shield that prevented anyone in the stands from influencing the racers, whether it was by concentrated determination or an overabundance of enthusiasm. From here on, it was up to her two students.