Shadowkill

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Shadith slipped the strap of the arranga over her head, hung the instrument from the nearest upright, swung onto the bay’s back-grabbed a handful of mane as he quickstepped away. She’d forgotten how wide a horse was when you had to straddle the creature-and how quickly you felt his backbone in your tenderer parts.

With the Jinasu giggling with glee at her clumsy efforts, but patiently helping her to recover her form, she walked the bay around in circles. The girl whose body she wore now had ridden almost from the day she was born, so the body knew in muscle and bone what she had to relearn.

It didn’t take long.

By dusk she had her balance back and her feel for the horse’s rhythm; she couldn’t come near the skill of the Jinasu, but she was racing with them, laughing with them, enjoying the play of muscles in the beasts, the sting of the mane against her face, the thunder of their hooves.

When she slid off the bay’s back, her legs had no strength left, she crumpled to the ground, sitting splat in a pile of droppings.

The Jinasu held their sides and laughed so hard they nearly fell off their mounts.

She shook her head, laughing with them as she slid sideways onto a clean tuft of grass, wriggled back and forth to wipe her bottom off, then rolled onto her knees and staggered up. “Oh, god,” she groaned. “Oh, god, I hurt.”

She waddled bowlegged to the fence, crawled over it, collected the arranga and tottered back to the House.