Read The Equen Queen for Free Online Page B

took.

     
    ‘Slow.’ Tab placed a hand on the mare's neck pushing her head away from the water. Too much too fast would make her ill.
    The equen staggered away from the barrel. She swayed on her feet.
    ‘You can sleep. I will keep watch,’ Tab promised.
    The mare fixed Tab with a wary and intense gaze for a moment and then, satisfied that her new friend would maintain the vigil as promised, sniffed the bedding. She dropped to her knees. The rest of her body hit the floor with a thump. Her head drooped until her chin was resting somewhere deep in the straw. She groaned, a hoarse wheeze in her chest. She blinked three times and then her eyes stayed closed.
    Tab's eyes ran over the little equen's tired and defeated body. She could see the intricate pattern on the backs of her legs. ‘Tattoo,’ she whispered. ‘That's your name, isn't it?’
    The mare's eyes fluttered open for a second and Tab saw gratitude there. Tab knew that this equen was as far from home as she had ever been – so far it seemed unfathomable. It was plain on her face that she'd given up any hope of seeing her own kind again.
    That feeling of sorrow that she'd felt on the skytraders’ ship draped over her. It was so heavy Tab didn't think she could stay upright. She crouched down next to the equen. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
    Tab thought of telling Tattoo about the other two equens at the palace livery. They could go there after the fighting was over – assuming that Quentaris won.
    ‘No time for that!’ Fontagu said interrupting her thoughts. ‘Wake her up. Use that mind skill of yours. I want to know everything.’ He prodded Tab in the side. ‘Go on, then.’
    ‘She's exhausted!’ Tab protested, slapping his hand away.
    ‘Listen!’ Fontagu tilted his head to the side. ‘Can you hear it? Sky-traders are fighting with us, taking lives, risking their own, for her .’ He nodded towards the equen again. ‘Must be worth something, wouldn't you say?’
    Fontagu rubbed his hands together, almost jigging with joy. ‘Tee hee!’ he chortled. ‘I knew it! The moment I clapped eyes on the old girl in her cage this morning. But I have always been an excellent judge of true value.’
    ‘I won't help you!’ Tab said, rubbing her streaming eyes with her sleeve.
    ‘Yes, you will.’ Fontagu grinned. ‘You can't help yourself.’ He chuckled again. ‘Just at dusk the clouds rolled in and there was an empty vessel in the harbour.’ His fingers danced in front of his face. ‘It was like divine providence. There was no one standing guard. No one! Can you imagine? Those sky pedlars must have mistaken Quentarans for honest folk.’
    ‘Most of us are!’ Tab told him, but even as she said it she reddened. While she preferred to make an honest living, she had ‘borrowed’ when the opportunity arose.
    ‘… or fools.’ Fontagu regarded her for a moment with a faint smile on his face. Then his mind turned to self-congratulation once more. He strode about, as though he were on a stage, snapping his fingers. ‘I just have an instinct! It's a gift. Like you, for example. You're not much to look at. Just a scrap of a thing really, but useful, and I saw it first! This one will be just the same. You watch.’ He crouched down next to her. ‘Go on, then. Burrow in there, little mouse.’
    Tab looked down at the wretched dozing equen and realised that Fontagu was right. She wasn't going to leave her here at his mercy. She'd made a promise.
    She closed her eyes and reached out for Tattoo's mind. When she found it Tab couldn't tell if what she was seeing was in the present, or the past, or sometime in the future. It was as though she was living inside the equen's dream.
    Tab saw a savannah. Stunted, misshapen trees clung to the landscape like sea anemones on a tide. Spiny grasses sprouted out of the soil in patches between craters of salt and sand. In the distance high mountains loomed and shimmered a deep purple colour.
    A family of fin lizards caught