Eden's Rat, First Chapter

EDEN'S RAT

The Evening Of The First Day

Wearing shoes was a strange sensation, welcome but uncomfortable at the same time. Being fully clothed in the summer was almost as strange. Soon his shivers stopped and he began to feel hot, even sweaty. Rat was wondering what to do next when Maac-Kail came back around the corner of the stable at a dead run, his arms full of bundles. The expression on his face scared Rat more than the thought of the Seekers chasing him had. That fear was less immediate; Maac-Kail was right before him.
"We go now," Maac-Kail said in a strained voice, his outland accent strong. "They come." He wasted no time in pulling his fine yellow horse out of the stable and throwing the light saddle on its back. Cinching the girth took only seconds under his practiced hands, and he abandoned the horse and ran to the next stall. The gray horse inside was a considerably inferior animal, smaller, slightly sway backed, with its head habitually held low as if tired.
Rat ran to the door to listen. There was no sound out of the ordinary to his untrained ears. Cows mooed and here and there roosters crowed challenges at each other. Faint conversation from the inn was the only sound of human presence. Why was Maac-Kail suddenly so sure the Bakers were coming? How did he know? The sound of thunder in the distance was Rat's first clue. It didn't rise and fall naturally, but continued to get louder.
"Mr. Kail! Horses running!" he called across the stable. Maac-Kail looked up from where he was strapping bundles onto the gray. He cursed once, "Jaag!" and carrying the remaining bags in his hand led the two horses quickly out of the stable.
"Follow. Silence." His command of the language seemed to have left him as danger threatened. Rat didn't question, but stayed right next to him as they circled behind the stables and then followed a broad path through the black night, away from the inn. Rat had never been anywhere so dark, and he tripped and stumbled every third step. Maac-Kail seemed to become impatient of Rat's slow progress, for he stopped and picking him up under the arms slung him atop the gray horse. Rat hung on amid the bundles as they stepped up their pace. He realized that Maac-Kail was running in the dark, leading the horses.
"How can he see in the dark?" Rat wondered as he bounced wildly up and down and sideways on the saddle, almost falling off first on one side then the other as they turned corners in the dark. He crouched down, holding on to the saddle horn with one hand and the horse's thick mane with the other. He wished he had been tied on like one of the bundles. The walls of hedges closed in around and over the path so thickly that Rat couldn't see the ground beneath him, or any spark of light to the sides. Only a thin sliver of moon shown through the hedge-tops when his head happened to point upwards in its shaking.
The hedges suddenly disappeared and they entered a wider area, how wide Rat couldn't say, whether a pasture or merely an open spot in the path. "Down. Get down." Maac-Kail was fighting to speak clearly. "Take the reins, lead the horses to the far edge." Rat could barely make out Maac-Kail's pointing finger as he awkwardly slid off the gray. He gingerly took the reins, remembering the teeth Vlitz had threatened him with that morning. Both horse's heads were high now; he hoped they didn't bolt. He wouldn't be able to hold them if they did. He imagined them dragging him by the reins, trampling him under their hooves as they ran, and he resolved to let go and try to jump aside if they did.
"Mr. Kail, what are we going to do?" Maac-Kail didn't answer, and in the silence Rat heard clearly the sounds of pursuit. Horses were coming, a whole herd it seemed, and men were shouting to each other not far away. Rat thought they must be just a few minutes behind. He looked at Maac-Kail for reassurance but was shocked to see that he seemed to be laying a fire. Where the wood had come from Rat had no idea. A tiny flare in the middle of the stack, and suddenly small flames lit up what Rat now saw was merely a crossing of two paths, a wider space for carts to turn around in where they met. The whole space was no more than twenty paces from side to side. The fire flared up brighter, Rat thought it must be very dry wood to catch so fast, and the voices of the pursuers strengthened with it. Surely they saw the sudden light.
"Mr. Kail! We have to run! What are you doing? They'll see the fire." Rat was almost in despair, ready to bolt when he saw Maac-Kail kneel down beside the fire, facing back towards the sounds of pursuit. He seemed to be muttering to himself, a guttural that made Rat grit his teeth, glad he couldn't hear it clearly.
With shocking speed, on foot and silent, the first of the Bakers charged into the crossing. Rat screamed when he saw the short club in the man's hand coming down on Maac-Kail's head. He closed his eyes mid-scream and when he opened them again he saw Maac-Kail still kneeling beside the now roaring fire. The attacker was stumbling across the clearing toward Rat, hands spread awkwardly before, drawn by his scream.
In reflex Rat shoved the man away, expecting to be clubbed as he did. To his numb surprise the man stumbled and fell flat on his back. He didn't try to rise, but thrashed and flailed his arms and legs where he lay. Rat had no time to see more, the mass of the Bakers was at that moment rushing the clearing. Some rode left and some right as they entered the clearing; well trained, they immediately spread out to attack from two sides. Two of them charged Rat where he stood with the horses, clubs already swinging.
Rat ducked under the gray, intending to flee down the far path, but he was brought up short and lifted into the air. He kicked at the man holding him, and realized to his even greater terror that it wasn't a man, but Maac-Kail's butter-colored horse Vlitz, holding him up by the back of his shirt. His thrashing feet, though clad in heavy shoes now, seemed to have no effect on the animal. Rat shouted, and as he did a flash of brilliant red light flared from the center of the clearing. Rat blinked, trying to see in the sudden return of darkness, his eyes dazzled.
After a few long moments the horse dropped Rat to the ground, and he scrambled away from it as fast as he could move his hands and knees. He crawled into a sprawled body and recoiled from the heat it radiated. The scattered remains of the fire gave enough glow to show a troop of Bakers in white, all lying sprawled on the ground and motionless, their horses bolting down one path or another. Maac-Kail remained at his place in the center of the crossing, but his face was down in the dirt nearly in the scattered coals, and his arms were loose. Rat stood up to go to him.
After a few seconds he said something indistinct in a foreign language, and then he pushed himself unsteadily up. Taking a few uncertain strides he came up to Rat and put his hand on Rat's shoulder, heavily enough to stagger the boy.
"We...have…to...go." he panted out, sounding more foreign than ever. His hand on Rat's shoulder was hot enough to radiate through the new shirt. Leaning on the flinching boy he stumbled to his horse and clambered up. Rat mounted the other horse no more gracefully, and the two started down one of the four ways together. It seemed to Rat that the horses chose the way. He didn't see Maac-Kail guiding his, he wasn't even holding the reins, and Rat certainly had no idea where to go. He let the horses go where they would.
The night seemed to stretch endlessly as the horses walked steadily on, occasionally pausing at a corner, but soon going one way or the other. He soon lost his first fear of riding, as it seemed clear he wouldn't fall off at this slow pace, and that left him plenty of time for thinking through what had happened back at the crossing of the paths. There was little to think about, though, the facts were few and the conclusion inevitable. Maac-Kail was a sorcerer. Rat thought it through again and again and could come to no other result. The warm night air chilled him to the bone and he shivered violently.

To delete a post

I just deleted my query and a few pages of my novel that I had posted below. I decided I didn't like the query and I am going to post a new one later. Figure I will post a few chapters of the book too.