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You’ve already met Poldin M’dierra, the nephew of Aesil M’dierra, commander of Golden Company. Aesil is presently the only woman running a mercenary company in Paksworld, and she’s very good at it. Poldin, her nephew, came to her with the usual starry-eyed romantic-idealistic notions about being a mercenary, despite having known Aesil all his life. He’s learned a lot, since he came–he’s spent time with Fox Company, he’s now familiar with most parts of Valdaire, he rides better, he’s learning some fighting skills. But he’s still a boy at the age where boys shoot up fast and sometimes do foolish things.
This snippet may or may not be a spoiler, depending on whether the 2000+ words I wrote today actually do fit in the final book, or just some of them, or (worst case) none of them.
Who: Poldin M’dierra, mounted on his aunt’s favorite charger, which he’s been allowed to ride across Valdaire to Fox Company’s winter quarters, to deliver a message.
Where: Fox Company training fields
The stallion was jigging before Poldin even got lined up, and would not walk composedly along the line. Poldin missed the first rag ball, knocked off the second, and when he lifted the reins slightly, the horse charged forward, straight along the line but so fast that Poldin missed all but two of the balls and almost fell off when the horse skidded to a halt, wheeled, and charged back down the line full tilt. On the wrong side of the line. Poldin reached across and caught two more balls, then concentrated on stopping his mount, this time managing a straight stop.
No one said anything. No one laughed. Captain Burek rode over, close enough to speak quietly. “I gather you didn’t plan that.”
…………………………………………
Comment by Tibbi — August 7, 2012 @ 11:23 pm
Just read this aloud to my sweetie. He is now laughing himself silly. As am I. Great snippet.
Comment by Iphinome — August 7, 2012 @ 11:52 pm
I’m going to just imagine the Benny Hill music playing in the background.
Comment by Chris in South Jersey — August 8, 2012 @ 5:35 am
Burek, the master of understatement.
Comment by elizabeth — August 8, 2012 @ 7:09 am
He’s trying not to laugh out loud, remembering his own first experiences with a highly trained and very “hot” horse. But yes. Understatement. Poldin became popular with the troops when he was helping out, which is why everyone’s being tactful.
Comment by elizabeth — August 8, 2012 @ 7:14 am
Can you tell I once got on a barrel racing horse–had never done barrel racing myself–and was taken for a wild ride? I didn’t know the horse would regard “there’s a barrel in this place” as a signal to run the barrels. I’d ridden fast horses, including a brush-racing QH, but not around barrels. That first turn nearly left me hanging in air. Glad you enjoyed the snippet.
Comment by elizabeth — August 8, 2012 @ 7:15 am
(whimper) I don’t know the Benny Hill music, but assume it’s appropriate.
Comment by Iphinome — August 8, 2012 @ 7:22 am
Perhaps you know it by its proper name, Yakety Sax. http://www.bennyhilltheme.com/
Comment by Eowyn — August 8, 2012 @ 8:50 am
Ah yes, the riding a former barrel racer who sees the pattern and goes. My aunt brought her former racer to visit me when I was visiting Grandma. There were 3 trees in the yard, next thing I knew we were flying … my poor mom looks out the window to see her baby (I think I was around 8 at the time) go flying by. Sometimes it is good for the horse to know the game … sometimes it can be problematic … esp. for a less skilled/focused rider.
Comment by elizabeth — August 8, 2012 @ 9:02 am
Iphinome: I didn’t know it by either name, but once I heard it knew I had heard it before. And yes, that’ll do quite nicely for Poldin’s Equestrian Adventure.
The stallion is quite smug on the way back home. He’s like a school horse I knew in San Antonio, used for both beginner and intermediate jumping lessons. If you were still a beginner, he was rock solid reliable over fences at a trot. Never refused, never bored out to one side, aim him at the little X or the low bar or whatever and he’d go over straight and easy.
However, when you started cantering low fences, he had a trick. He had had a lot of dressage training and could do a perfect canter to halt transition without warning. So you’d come cantering up to this little two-foot wall thing in two-point–and he’d cantered one or two jumps with his usual steadiness before–and he’d finish a full canter stride with HALT and stretch his neck down. Exactly spaced so the rider would slide off his neck and land on the wall.
Most fell for it. I saw him do it to someone else and kept it in mind. So I didn’t fall off. I said “You stinker.” And he turned his head and looked at me, heaved a sigh and never tried it with me again. (I fell off other horses for other reasons…)
Comment by Jenn — August 8, 2012 @ 9:15 am
Thank you for another snippet! I will be racking my brains now trying to figure out how this is spoilerish except that maybe we now know that Poldin lives?!
Happy typing
Comment by elizabeth — August 8, 2012 @ 9:23 am
I don’t think it can be spoilerish, honestly. But it’s from Book V, so I had to be super careful. There’s stuff in surrounding paragraphs that might be spoilerish…er…would be spoiler.
Comment by GinnyW — August 9, 2012 @ 4:04 pm
What a pleasure. I can’t wait to see the surrounding frame. (Well, I can if I must.) Burek continues to be a great walk on character.
Hopefully the crowd in the last post has sorted itself out. And may their lives be interesting.
Comment by Gareth — August 9, 2012 @ 5:33 pm
Ginny – ‘Interesting’ as in the Chinese curse – I hope not ‘May you live in interesting times’…?
Comment by OtterB — August 10, 2012 @ 2:53 pm
Heh. Ex-barrel racers. My daughter is currently leasing a horse who had barrel raced in the past. She learned about the “see barrel” = “speed up” reaction early on, when she used a pair of barrels, on their sides, to support cross rails. Canter down one side of the arena, jump cross rails supported by normal jump standards, horse behaves perfectly well. Canter up the other side of the arena, jump cross rails supported by barrels – whoa, Nellie!
Enjoyed the snippet – I always do.
Comment by boballab — August 10, 2012 @ 9:28 pm
Just be thankful they were barrel racers, my experience was at my Great Aunts thoroughbred race horse farm. Sure the horse was getting up there and was retired but what did my cousin expect would happen when he let go of the halter after leading the horse onto the practice track. Can you say “There off”? I knew you could. It was very painful when I went flying off that horse in the first turn.
Comment by elizabeth — August 10, 2012 @ 10:46 pm
boballab: OUCH. I did get to ride a brush-racer QH mare a few times, and she was hair-trigger to start–but I knew we were going to do that–when it’s a surprise it’s a huge difference.
Comment by elizabeth — August 10, 2012 @ 10:56 pm
OtterB: I can just see that. And feel it in the seat of my pants, too. I’m guessing that desensitization has taken/is taking place?
Comment by Daniel Glover — August 11, 2012 @ 5:58 am
And dangerous. Had a friend die when she went head first into a pole as she was falling off. Died doing what she loved.
Comment by elizabeth — August 11, 2012 @ 6:52 am
Dying doing what you love is better than dying wishing you’d done it, but still…dying young leaves a lot of potential undiscovered.