Accidental Sorcerer by K. E. Mills

Author:K. E. Mills [Mills, K. E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

After a restless night filled with disquieting dreams, Gerald walked into Lional's private stable yard at two minutes to seven. It was a pretty cobblestoned place with neat flowerbeds and some twenty stables with horses in most of them. Another ridiculous extravagance; what did one man need with twenty horses? Lional was little more than a gluttonous child, snatching at everything he saw just because he could.

And everyone else in the kingdom goes without to keep him in ponies.

Whoever thought royalty was a good idea?

It was a dank, cool morning; mist draped the treetops and curled in tendrils across the damp ground. Moisture beaded his hair and stippled his shiny black boots, his breeches and the jacket hastily conjured up from his existing wardrobe. Maybe when this was all over, provided he was still in one piece, he could set up shop as a magical tailor? He was certainly getting enough practice with clothes ...

Lional, of course, had arrived before him. The king stood in the middle of the yard surrounded by a milling horde of black and tan hounds, all barking and snapping and slavering, competing for his attention. Lional laughed at them, his face alight with pleasure. He was sheathed in silk and supple leather, dark as midnight. A long-bladed hunting knife rode his right hip.

'Good morning, Professor!'

'Good morning, Your Majesty,' Gerald replied, giving the hounds a wide berth and trying not to look at the prancing black monstrosity of a horse making a spirited attempt to flatten its handler as it was led from its stable. If Lional thought he was going to ride that thing he really was mad.

'Looking forward to our little expedition?' said Lional, taking the black monstrosity's reins and feeding it a sugar lump. '1 know I am!'

'Ah ...' Even though his belly was empty, he still wanted to be sick. 'Certainly, Your Majesty. Wouldn't miss it for the world.'

'Excellent. Now, let's mount up, shall we?' He clapped his hands. 'Stable boy! The professor's horse, if you please!'

Oh hell, oh shit ... He turned, braced for the sight of a second fire-breathing monster.

'This is Dorcas,' said Lional as he vaulted - vaulted, the bloody show-off - into the black horse's saddle. 'I'm sure the two of you will get along like peas in a pod.'

Dorcas was a pony. A short, fat, mud-brown pony with a resigned expression and sleepy eyes. She stared at Gerald with a minimum of interest and he stared back with a maximum of surprise. Then he realized. Of course he was riding a Dorcas: how likely was it that Lional would risk being upstaged by his wizard?

'Get a leg over, Gerald!' said Lional, as his wild black horse fought the restraint of the bit and plunged amongst the excited hounds like something possessed. 'The morning gallops away, sir, and so must we. Come, Demon'.' Clapping his spurred heels to the black horse's flanks he charged out of the stable yard, scattering gravel and grooms. The hounds bolted in his wake, yelping.

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