Veren horse barons

The horse barons are the families who own Veren’s bloodlines, and they are wealthy enough to give a trained Idirian thoroughbred away to buy a reputation. Breeding rights are contracted property. Breeding stock only leaves the country under a return contract, so a horse given away as a gift is gelded or spayed first, and what the recipient gets is the animal and nothing behind it.

The Valiant Few came by one on the strength of a tavern story. Koa’s old bugbear companion had been holding forth in a Veren taproom about how he taught the boy everything he knows and how he was turning sixteen, and a baron who supported the company laid out four trained thoroughbreds and told Koa to take his pick. Koa laughed, said he was turning nineteen in five days, and offered to let the gift go rather than leave the lie standing. He took a fifth horse instead, an unbroken Khalid filly, because a horse he trained himself would carry his own mark and not another man’s. She cannot be ridden yet, so the donor family agreed to board her at Veren at their own expense for up to a year.

They also sent light cavalry and spare mounts east to Leon Yaegar’s camp for the disbandment.