The night felt as though it might stretch on forever into eternity. The young stallion stood, obediently silent, unmoving save for the occasional shift of a hoof on the rocky earth. His nostrils flared, drawing in deep breaths of the cool air, and his ears were pricked forward, listening.
What had begun as a pleasant stroll in the golden, late-summer afternoon with the woman had become a confusing, anxious puzzle. Whistles in the distance. Sharp cracks of whips. Scattered, strange horses moving past them, towards the foothills to the south. She had asked him to bear her away with haste, and he had done so. She bade him to run, and so he ran. The trees flashed past, for he was swift and sure-footed. But everywhere he tried to go, she halted him, turned him, urged him further and further south, up into the hilly slopes. The odd, troubling sounds of men whistling and cracking their whips were joined by harsh, inhuman voices. Far away, but drawing ever closer, coming from all sides. Closing in like a pack of wranglers determined to ensnare a wild horse. Only these men were driving not one horse, but many. Panicked and harried into the unknown uplands, she dismounted him at last and led him into a dark, narrow crevice in the mountainside, just as night descended. She begged him to be as still and silent as he could be, and so he was.
They walked often together in the afternoons and evenings. She had never once attempted to throw a rope around his neck, or lock him into a pen with the other horses she tended. When she first discovered him by the river, he was tired, hungry, and could not shake the memory of the face of his master. It wore at his heart, even while he roamed long miles over green hills, ever seeking. He had found a small herd without a leader, and over time had ingratiated himself to the mares and foals as a strong and protective presence. They were with him at the river, when the woman appeared and spoke to him in a kind, coaxing tone. Upon their second meeting, he felt a keen impulse to follow her, though he could not absolutely understand it. So he followed her, away from the adopted herd, and back to the village of the horse-lords.
She allowed him to wander in and out of the village freely, for he was frequently gripped with the urge to seek his master, though he did not know where to look. He followed the shape of the land, and the path of the wind, and at times, the bright flicker of campfires at night, but he did not find the man. And he would return to the woman’s home, because she was kind, and she tended him well, and kept him fed, and spoke lovingly to him. If he could not find his master, she would look after him. One of the village horses, a large, older stallion, would come near him at times; curious to the point of being irksome, but patient and good-humored. The woman had a word for this other stallion: Jack. She had a word for himself, too: Forlorian. When she gave him this word, she said, “Because you are lost.” He never did discover the reason for the word she gave to the bothersome, friendly, older horse.
Now, their afternoon walk had ended in a cramped, dark cave. He did not altogether comprehend what had given the woman such terror, and driven her to exhort him to flee from the sounds far off through the trees. The sounds of the whips were not pleasant to his ears. He knew the horse-lords did not whip their beasts. The woman’s fear confirmed that these noises were a source of something to be avoided, and the rough, growling voices that had reached his ears made his hide tremble. She had shown love towards him, and thus he trusted her, and loved her in his own way in return. If she said there was danger in the deepening twilight, then he believed it.
She leaned against him through the hours of the long night. The moon climbed overhead. Now and then, his ears picked up faint sounds, far down the hillside. Men. Horses. And other creatures he did not wish to know. She whispered to him in the shadows. Comforting him. Telling him that he was brave. She said that they would depart at dawn and make a run towards a place-name. Aldburg. The word was meaningless to him, but she sounded certain of herself. The place-name meant safety from the unsettling men with whips who were driving many horses into the mountains. He would run when she told him to run. He trusted her.
His hooves began to ache from standing so long on cold, hard stone, unable to move about. He was mighty and young, but not invincible. The woman stroked his neck and begged him to keep still. He did not move.
The trees beyond the mouth of the cave grew light with the coming morning. The woman and the stallion watched together. Listening. They could not run until there was enough light. The hillside was rocky and steep, and a hoof placed wrong could topple them both and be deadly.
The sky to the east brightened, and there was hope renewed in his simple, horse’s heart. Light was life. His tail flicked eagerly. He was ready to bear the kind, caring woman to safety.
Then there were new voices. Men. Much closer than before. Climbing the hill. The stallion could feel fresh fear quivering in the woman’s hands as she stood with him in the shadows. More than one man. They spoke in a tongue that was not like the woman’s. She leaned her brow against his shoulder, weary as he was from standing through the night. The men stopped just beyond the cave, where the land was flat. They were not alarmed, and there were noises of camp-making. A fire was built, and the smoke floated on the sun-warmed, morning air. Their shelter of hiding began to be filled with it. The stallion pinned his ears back. She had told him to remain quiet, but without air to breathe, he could not obey her. She, too, was bent over, struggling to be silent as their air became thick with the haze. He choked on the urge to cough and clear the burning sting from his nostrils. In the end, it was the woman who could not contain the first, sharp cough.
The men outside fell silent. And then…
"Who hides? Come out and show yourself to us, she-spy."
There was something in that voice that made the stallion’s skin twitch. The woman straightened herself. She was a small human, unlike other women he had beheld of her homeland. Her posture was like a spirited mare, drawing herself up, proud and rebellious. She stepped out of the cave and into the bright, morning sunshine. He would not let her go alone, and he followed close behind.
There were two men by a fire. They were rough-looking. Wild. Not the fair-haired people of the woman’s home. He stood close to her shoulder, snorting warily. One man was broad and thick, and the other thin and wiry. The men and the woman did not speak to each other at once. The thin man stared for a moment, then seized a fiery brand from the campfire and immediately charged forward towards the stallion, hissing and shouting.
His hooves carried him immediately backwards, away from the threatening flames. The woman turned, looking up at the stallion in horror. He trusted her. She was his keeper, so long as his master remained absent from his world. The thin, cruel man continued to press forward, and a terrible conflict warred within the horse. He could not leave her to these cruel, strange men. But nor could he endure fire being waved and thrust at his face and hide. He reared back, hooves striking out. Panic flared in his heart, the fire brushed his shoulder, he felt the heat and the bite of it. Love could not overcome the immediate need of survival and instinct, and he turned and ran a dozen strides, swiftly away from the man with his weapon of fire. There, he spun to look back, prancing and pawing in rage and fear.
The woman was running forward, trying to put herself between the hateful, thin man and the stallion. The man turned and swung his fist, striking her hard to the ground. He took hold of her and bound her hands and feet, then roughly placed her beside the campfire, and the thick, wide-set man who had been quiet throughout. The men spoke lowly to each other while the horse paced in the trees, safely away from their fire and weapons, but near enough to keep the woman in view. He snorted and tossed his head in agitation, unable to return to her side, but unwilling to flee. The men took her belt, and her shoes from her feet.
As the sun rose, he heard the woman speak a single word in a voice cold and bitter; a tone he had never heard from her lips. “Thieves!” He did not know the word’s meaning, but he understood the hard-edged music of her voice. She spat at their boots, and the broad, quiet man picked up his axe. The stallion stomped at the ground. Perhaps he might charge in, take them by surprise, crush their skulls under his mighty hooves.
Before he could take a step, the thick man struck the woman with the blunt back of his axe-head, and she fell over in a heap, as if she were dead. A feeling of dismay overtook the horse, holding him at bay in the trees. In the next breath, there were fresh voices filtering up the slope, and those dreaded whistles carrying on the breeze. Closing in again, corralling him against his will. He circled and paced, wheezing with anxiety. But before the sun had reached the height of its autumn arc in the sky, the cruel men had driven the stallion away from his vigil over the fallen woman, further up the hard, crumbling hillside, where he was joined by other frightened, harried horses in a makeshift corral.
Once again, torn from the person he had committed himself to. Lost.
