In the meantime, she spent some time educating the Tenebrian grooms. She had ordered them to throw away their pain prods and because she was now the Royal Zorel Entrancer with the favor of the Crown Prince, they had to obey. Some of them grumbled about it but Elli was devoting an hour of every day to teaching them the correct way to handle zorels without using pain as a motivator.
“Zorels are beautiful, intelligent creatures who want to work with you,” she lectured them sternly. “You don’t need to hurt them to make them do what you ask—you just need to make them understand what you need and give them a motivation to obey.”
“Pain’s a good motivation, though,” one groom pointed out sullenly. He was clearly still missing his pain prod, Elli thought with a frown.
“It’s a good short-term motivation,” she said. “But in the long term, a zorel will do much more for you if you treat him or her with kindness and respect. Now come here, Yanus, and let me show you the proper way to use the reins when you’re guiding a zorel.”
The head groom came forward willingly—he at least seemed to take some interest in what Elli was trying to teach them all.
“Very good,” Elli remarked. “Now, I’ve noticed that a lot of you are sawing and yanking on the reins when you’re trying to direct a zorel you’re training or riding.”
“But how else are we s’posed to get the bloody greats beasts to go where we want them to?” Yanus asked in honest bewilderment.
“Just show them and tell them where you want them to go,” Elli told him. “Then offer a reward if they do as you ask. Zorels are highly intelligent beasts. They can learn direction like ‘go left’ and ‘go right’. Or you can point and say, ‘go to that post,’ or ‘stop here.’ You need barely touch the reins at all with a well-trained zorel who knows what you want and is willing to work with you. Watch…”
She was using the Duke’s mount, Wind Chaser, as an example because he really was an extremely pliant zorel when he wasn’t being bitten by bore worms. Grabbing his long, feathered mane, she swung herself up onto his broad back and took the reins lightly in one hand.
“Windy, dear,” she said, stroking his strong neck caressingly. “Do you see the water trough over there?” As she spoke, she pointed to the trough, which stood just outside the stables.
Wind Chaser looked in the direction she was pointing and snorted once—a definite affirmative.
“I want you to go to the trough and stop,” Elli told him. “And there’s a nice fresh krisper for you if you do it nicely.”
Wind Chaser snorted eagerly and trotted quickly to the trough, stopping just in front of it. He bent his head for a sip from the trough and then turned his long, flexible neck back towards Elli for the promised reward.
“Good boy!” she exclaimed, giving him the krisper she had in her pocket. “Aren’t you just the best good boy?” She stroked him lovingly as he chewed and Wind Chaser fairly purred under her caresses.
“That’s most impressive, Miss,” Yanus, the head groom said, frowning. “But it’s clear to see you’ve got a gift with zorels—how can the rest of us make them do what we want when we don’t have the same gift as yourself?”
“You don’t have to have a gift to get along with zorels,” Elli told him. “None of my brothers or my father have the same, er, connection with them that I do, but they train zorels every day.”
“Yes, but I’m bettin’ as that they was raised with the creatures,” another groom protested. “Beggin’ your pardon, Miss, but none of us had anything to do with them before the Crown Prince decided he wanted to move the castle to Pok and took us all with him—may he live forever,” he added quickly.
“You don’t have to be raised with zorels to work with them,” Elli said firmly. “You just need to be a kind and patient person. Yanus, come here. I want you to take my place on Windy’s back and ask him to return to his stall.”
“Well…I don’t know if he’ll listen to me as he does to you, Miss,” the head groom said doubtfully. “But I’ll try.”
He walked over as Elli was swinging down from the large gray zorel’s broad back. As she was handing the reins to the head groom, she couldn’t help noticing that he had some strange purple blotches on the backs of his hands and forearms. The color stood out against the pale blue of his regular skin tone and the flesh there almost looked melted and disfigured.
“Oh, Yanus—what happened to your hands?” Elli exclaimed, filled with concern.
The head groom flushed, his pale blue face going nearly purple with embarrassment.