THAT night, Mags was sore, despite a good hot soak. The next morning he woke in considerable pain. He wasn’t about to complain, however; he had actually expected the pain. Every time he’d been set to a new task by the Pieterses, he’d hurt, from simple soreness to being in agony. That was just the way it was; you did something new, you used muscles you hadn’t before, and you hurt. And he knew what to do about it, too. He crawled out of bed, with his legs screaming at him, and slowly began to stretch. When his legs were only whimpering, he went to breakfast, then went back to the barracks room and stretched some more. Dallen noted this with quiet approval, and sent him in search of the Healer, who gave him a bitter tasting tea to drink and a bottle of something that smelled rather like pine sap to rub on. And both helped. By afternoon, most of the worst of the pain was gone, which was when Dallen summoned him to riding practice again.

On the one hand, he wanted to rebel. On the other . . . well, there was no doubt at all in his mind that this was not something he could refuse to do. He knew from all of his reading and all of the things he had picked up, listening to gossip around the Guard Post, that Heralds rode, and spent most of their time in the saddle. It wasn’t just the long ride to Haven, whatever that was—if he was going to stay with Dallen, he would have to learn to be a Herald. If he was going to be a Herald, he would have to learn how to ride, and ride well.

For something had changed inside him, when Dallen had shown him that intricate web of lives all linked together, lives that now included his. He had made a commitment without even having to think about it. It had begun when he had accepted Dallen, all unthinking, understanding only dimly that he would never be alone again. Now he had extended that acceptance to other Heralds and Companions, and to all that it meant, all he would have to do to become a Herald. Again, it was unthinking, because it was right. Not that this was something he was somehow “meant” to do, but because it was the right and proper thing to do.

So complaining, and rebellion, were irrelevant.

Out he went, in his oversized coat. This time, under Dallen’s direction, he got one of the Guardsmen to help him put all of Dallen’s stuff on him, and tell him the names of the things as he put them on. Then it was off into the snow again, for a repetition of yesterday’s lesson.