Disclaimer: I DO NOT own these characters. The story, places, and characters are Tamora Pierce's. Some minor character are my own, but nothing else.
Nikki (Nick-y)
Nikki scrambled down the ladder as fast as he could. He was just a stable hand he knew, and a small one at that, but he worked well with most horses. They tended to respond to him well.
They should. After all, Stefan, the most trusted stable hand of the King and Queen, was his father. No one could handle a horse better than him. And he had taught his son well. There were stories, mainly whispered among the servants, that Stefan had a special magic that made him communicate well with animals.
Nikki didn't believe that. You just had to know them, and look them straight in the eye, and they could understand you. And animals were always easy to read. All you had to do was figure out what had happened, and then you would know the animal's reaction.
But there was no time to consider any of this. At last, he was only three feet above the ground. The eight year old boy jumped the rest of the way to the ground, landing soundlessly.
Quickly, he ran to Cold Blood, gently stroking its well brushed nose. Cold Blood immediately responded and calmed, but he still twitched anxiously waiting for his master.
The evil men that Nikki had heard stopped moving on the field. They knew that the horse had quieted. But they could not see the almost invisible Nikki brushing the horse soundlessly. He could see them hesitate, not sure whether or not to approach. Lights flickered on in the palace, and the men began to worry.
"Go kill it anyway," the leader finally decided. He didn't want the horse to start up again as soon as he walked away. The one named Greyl walked forward carefully.
With a last word of encouragement in the horse's ear, Nikki slipped quietly under Cold Blood, now completely masked by darkness. He quietly drew he knife out of his belt. This would have to be aimed perfectly for his plan to succeed. The man had no bow, he noticed, making his chance of survival much better.
As Greyl neared he called back to his partner. "Do you really want me to kill the horse, Draqu?" (Draa-ck) Greyl asked. "He's bein' real quiet-like now."
"Just kill it!" was the hissed answer from the darkness. Nikki aimed his knife as best he could. His hand was shaking and he knew he was off target before he even threw. But throw he did.
There was a muttered hiss of pain, very close to him, and a figure seemed to stop—writhing suddenly his right arm dangling helplessly at his side. The sword he had been holding dropped to the ground, and Draqu called out in confusion.
"What in the world is going on?" he asked, though at that moment, he saw the bloody gash left by Nikki's knife in Greyl's shoulder. Draqu's look turned to anger, and he stared futilely at the black stable searching for the attacker.
Just then, Cold Blood reared, catching Nikki's skull sharply with his front hooves. There was pain in the horse's scream that Nikki was sure could be heard from miles around. There, embedded in the horse's side, was the very knife he had just thrown.
Grabbing the knife with strength that he had left, Nikki jumped up, just in time to meet the first attacker. He feinted forward with the blade, quickly switching to a side cut that landed directly on Greyl's rib cage. Greyl winced in pain, but he kept on with the attack.
He blocked a few more lightning swings of Nikki's, only enduring minor cuts, but he could not see nearly as well as Nikki. Finally, Nikki swung up in an arc above Greyl's head, changing at the last minute to cut down, reaching his heart.
The man collapsed in front of him, and Nikki felt an overwhelming sickness, staring at the man he had just killed. Draqu looked bewildered and decided it was better to leave the horse be than to face the dark faced boy with the impossibly fast blade.
With that decision, he threw the unconscious Karyl over his mount and galloped away. Only now did Nikki truly become aware of the pain in his head. He was bleeding, but it was not a severe cut. The horse had checked at the last minute, inflicting much less damage than he could have.
As he sank to the ground, Nikki realized that the horse was losing blood, too. Cold Blood knelt down beside him, nursing his injured side. Nikki reached out to touch the wound, and suddenly, a white light flared from his hand, wrapping around the deep gash on the horse's side.
When the spots cleared from his eyes, Nikki could not believe what he saw. Where there had once been a bleeding cut, there was only perfectly smooth, unharmed skin on the horse's side.
"Horse magic," Nikki whispered incredulously, though there was no one around to hear. "I have horse magic. So the rumors are true. It's in my blood."
Once the awe faded away, Nikki decided that there was only one this to do. He quickly saddled Cold Blood, and mounted flawlessly, just another skill that he had learned from being a stable hand. He had a lot to think about, but right now, Karyl needed to be rescued.
"Ride, Cold Blood, ride," he called urgently to the horse, firmly underneath him. "Ride like you never have before. I'm pretty sure we're in for a very long trip."
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