The Horse In The Mirror

by Lisa Maxwell

  Chapter One

  The two horses picked their way down the forest-clad slope following a steep deer track.Their riders sat as silent as the shadows under the old-growth pines through which they rode.The horse in the lead was a towering eighteen hands tall, solidly muscled and proud.His liver-chestnut coat matched perfectly the color of the pine needles underfoot.He carried his neck arched, his mane and the feathers on the backs of his legs rippling with each ponderous step.His hooves were the size of dinner plates, his legs like pillars and yet there was nothing of the dullness of a draft horse about him.His eyes shone with intelligence as he bore his rider with care and grace.

  By contrast the stallion’s rider sat hunched and inattentive on his back, grief drawn about her like a cumbersome cloak. Dark hair spilled in uncombed tendrils from beneath her hood, almond-shaped eyes cast down as though watching the trail in front of her, but she saw nothing.

  The horse that followed was much smaller, less than fifteen hands tall, as fine boned and petite as the stallion was massive. She picked her way among the roots and rocks with the wisdom of a horse accustomed to steep and difficult terrain. Her dappled bay coat and black mane blended with the dappled shadows, and her large eyes shone with intelligence in her finely chiseled face.

  The mare’s rider fought the grief and shock that threatened to overwhelm him, aware of the danger lurking in these woods. His gaze swept the forest to either side, in sync with the rhythm of his horse’s gait. Too many things could go wrong in an instant.His sand-colored hair fell in a ponytail down his back, revealing a round face that was better suited to joy and friendliness than the grief and worry it held now. Dressed in the skins of wild animals, he was almost as hard to pick out of the shadows as his horse.

  He was well equipped to handle some of the dangers they might face. He was Hluit, a horse herder –.born to the wild.As a boy, Petre had traveled these lands in a small tribe and later alone as a scout.He knew the land, the animals, and the risks, but what he faced now was beyond those simple and direct things. He was responsible for keeping Isadora and the stallion safe but he was not the leader. He would follow where Isadora and Lark led for they would take him – if they were successful – to a place he could never find on his own no matter how well he knew the land.

  Somewhere over the next several ridges their destination, Amil’s cabin.Petre knew it only as a ruin – a few stacked bricks that were still recognizable as a chimney, scattered mounds of fieldstone overgrown with vines, inhabited by mice and lizards when the weather was warmer.Petre tried to banish that image from his mind.Where Isadora would take them, if she could, was Amil’s cabin when it had been new and whole and inhabited by a man. Amil had been a scholar in the Alliance before he had become an outlaw hiding from the Alliance, as Petre and Is were hiding from the Alliance now.

  The ability to get to Amil’s cabin in its original state was beyond Petre. He could only get them to the right place. Isadora had to get them to the right time. He looked at her slumped, grief-stricken form and worried. She seemed barely aware of her surroundings, hardly caring of her own survival. It was not fair that the survival of all of the tribes of Hluit rested on her. Yet Petre was secretly glad that there was something driving her to stay alive. Without that she would have sought to die as John had died.

  Sorrow moved Petre to reach out and stroke his horse’s mane as though to reassure her. This was John’s mare, Celeste, whose presence sometimes made it hard to believe that he would never see John again.

  Petre had grown up with John. They had been best friends as boys; John, Petre, and John’s brother Ondre had been inseparable. As young boys they had gotten into trouble together trying to race the brood mares they were supposed to be watching. As adolescents they had tried more daring adventures – climbing Deadman’s rock, shooting White Eagle Rapids in a handmade canoe. John was always the instigator; always sure the impossible could be done. John. It was impossible not to be swept up in his energy, infected by his idealism, impossible not to love him. Now all of their hearts had to pay the cost for that love.

  It was no surprise that John had chosen for himself the most dangerous occupation a Hluit could have – spying inside the Alliance. For a time Petre and Ondre had followed John even there, leaving their wild homeland to infiltrate the huge concrete cities of the Alliance. In time Petre and Ondre had been drawn home to the open grasslands, the horse herds, and nomadic life but John had stayed on in the Alliance penetrating to the top levels of secret Alliance research.

  Petre’s fingers stroking Celeste’s mane were stopped by a knot – a knot that would never have been there when John was alive. The Alliance had caught John spying and had done to him the very sophisticated equivalent of cutting out his tongue. When the Alliance was through with him, John could not communicate in speech, writing, or sign. He had escaped, but was unaware that his captors had arranged for him to steal certain provisions that were poisoned. If Isadora hadn’t found him soon afterward, he would have died.

  Is had been an outlaw herself, fleeing from the Alliance troopers, hiding from other outlaws and the Blueskins who inhabited the Boundary Mountains. Even though it was a big risk, she had tried to help John. Although he must have often seemed more than half crazy, for any attempt to communicate would throw him into a fit of hysterical laughing or crying, Is had come to trust him.

  She had once told Petre that her trust in John was because of the gentle way he treated his horse. He rode Celeste without bridle or bit of any sort, the way all the Hluit rode their horses, but back then Is had never heard of the Hluit. The bond of trust required by that sort of horsemanship intrigued her. Petre half smiled at the thought. Is, who had trained the magnificent and deadly war stallions that awed his people had wanted to learn this gentle love-based horsemanship. Is, who had suffered so much abuse at the hands of the Alliance that she had finally been driven to steal one of the stallions and flee, had still been able to recognize in John, as crazy as he appeared, the kindness and love she needed to heal. It was no wonder she had fallen in love with John.Petre worried at the knot in Celeste’s mane and thought of the first time he had seen Isadora on her stolen war stallion, returning with John when everyone had thought John must be dead. Even in the joy of that reunion it had been clear to Petre that Is had a special connection with John. It was also clear that under her brave exterior she was terrified of people and social situations. Petre had spent enough time in the Alliance to know how badly its citizens were treated, especially the women. Is needed help adjusting to Hluit society. She needed someone to explain things to her, and John could not do that. Petre had meant only to befriend her.

  The knot refused Petre’s attempts to undo it. He would have to cut it out with his knife later. Right now his attention was needed on the trail which seemed to be taking them too far west, but he couldn’t be certain wending through the trees as they were. He needed an open vista to get his bearings.

  He was playing with the thought of stopping to climb a tree when they came upon a sudden break in the forest. Is stopped Lark short before he could step into the open.Petre rode up beside her.An avalanche had cut a swath, wiping out all trees and vegetation and leaving behind a clear chute with only a few stray boulders, stripped like bone and left to stand sentinel.

  Petre left Is and the horses in the protection of the trees and made his way out into the open using the rocks for cover.He could not let himself be seen; there were too many people looking for them. Alliance troopers wanted to take Is and Lark back to their territory where Lark would be used for some purpose that would further the Alliance’s dominion over its people and Is would be punished or executed as a traitor.

  The troopers weren’t the only ones looking for them.There were also the Blueskins and possibly bounty hunters searching for them.

  Crouched low, Petre made his way to one great slab of rock that leaned out over the valley below.Its cracked and fissured surface supplied plenty of hand and toeholds.When he got near the top h
e lay on his stomach and inched his way out to the very edge, careful never to let himself be silhouetted against the sky.

  To either side of the avalanche chute the forest fell away below him – evergreens, tall and dense, making a secret of what was happening beneath them.Even the sounds he should hear if anyone were down there would be muted by the pine needles.The sky above was blue, the sun bright, and the air so clear it seemed he could see every needle on every tree.It was a perfect fall day, the kind that Petre would normally have enjoyed to the utmost knowing there would be few enough days like this before winter set in.But today the beauty seemed at odds with the danger that faced them. This could be the last autumn his people would ever spend free on the land, at peace with their horses.

  Near the base of the chute, all the boulders carried by the avalanche had come to rest.A shadow moved in that maze of rocks and broken trees.An instant later a horse and rider broke from the cover of the forest and flowed into the cover of the boulder field.The rider was bare from the waist up despite the cold.The bluish cast to the rider’s skin was unmistakable, as were the feathers and strips of animal skins tied in his horse’s mane.The Blueskin glanced behind him, guiding his horse with his knees as he disappeared from sight among the rocks.

  In his wake came more quick-stepping little horses streaming from the woods, their barebacked riders, legs dangling long, wearing full war party regalia.Naked from the waist up except for orange and black paint, they were armed with anything from sharpened sticks to sophisticated blasters taken off troopers they had killed.Like the leader’s horse, their ponies were painted and adorned with feathers and skins.

  They moved into the boulder field below Petre, fading from tree shadow to rock shadow.Only his vantage point allowed him to see them fanning out among the boulders, bays and buckskins and paints carrying blue-skinned, war-painted riders.

  Petre eased back down the rock, cautious not to make a sound, relieved that for the moment the Blueskins were not hunting him and Is. At the same time, he dreaded telling Is that her worst fear was coming true.People were about to fight and die because of what she had done, when she had only meant to save the stallion’s life and escape the oppression of her existence.

  Petre found Is leaning against a tree, resting her back from the hours of riding.She lifted her chin toward Petre as he approached, dark hair falling back from her too-pale face.Gaunt, hollow-cheeked strain had replaced the easy, unconscious beauty Petre had always found in her face before.He hated to tell her what he’d seen.

  "Blueskins," he kept his voice to a whisper."War party.They're setting an ambush."

  "For us?" she asked.

  “No.”At least so far the Blueskins were unaware that the woman for whom they were about to fight was only a few hundred yards above them.

  “They're concerned about something behind them,” he told her.“My guess is they’ve tricked some of the Alliance troopers into chasing them."

  "So they'll draw them into the ambush, and . . . kill them?" Her voice dropped.

  Petre let out his breath and nodded. He did not like what was happening any better than she did, but if the Blueskins would keep the troopers busy he and Is might slip by them.

  For the first time in the days they'd been riding together Petre saw the strength and stubbornness that had been so much a part of Is return to her.She moved toward the stallion.

  "What are you going to do?" Petre whispered, suddenly worried.

  "Stop them."

  "Is, wait!" Petre whispered urgently, catching her arm because he knew she wasn't going to listen to him.She threw his hand off as she spun to face him.He caught a glimpse of her eyes, wild and angry, and in that instant he knew she was beyond listening to rational argument.Then his attention was forced to the stallion.Lark moved toward Petre, drawn up to his full impressive height, ears pinned back, massive neck arched, muscles tight as he stepped forward on pillar-like legs and hooves that could crush and kill.Petre had never seen Lark display any aggression before.He fell back a step in surprise.Lark faltered.His ears came forward.For a moment he looked confused, as though he didn't remember what he had been doing.Then he lowered his huge head and sniffed gently at Is's hand.His soft brown nostrils fluttered as he let out his breath. Only kindness and intelligence shone from his eyes.

  Is's hand trembled as she reached out to him.

  "He's changing, isn't he?" Petre asked softly.He saw the back of her head nod and she buried her hand in the horse's mane to hide its shaking.Petre's heart surged.Is didn't need to face this right now, but he had to know how quickly the shift was likely to happen.They might still have a chance to make it to Amil’s.

  "How much longer will you be able to control him?"

  "Three days," she said, her voice without expression."No more."

  Petre let out a long breath.There was no way to stop what would happen to Lark unless there were some answers at Amil's.

  "Does this mean his rider is coming nearer?" he asked.Although Is trained the stallions, each horse was connected by a microchip in its brain to a special warrior, a berserker, who would ride him into battle.

  "Yes.If the troopers have Lark’s berserker with them that would be the easiest way for them to find Lark and to control him once they take him."The words were dead of hope.

  "We have to go on," Petre said."We might make it to Amil's in two days."He knew Is didn't care.She didn't believe they could save his people or her stallion.Still she nodded.She had agreed to try because that’s what John would have wanted and she would hold to that bargain no matter how painful or hopeless it was.Petre felt a little rush of pride for her.

  He swung onto Celeste and watched Is mount Lark.

  "We're going to just . . ." She gestured back to where the Blueskins would lure the troopers into the boulders and kill them, “ . . . leave them?

  "We can't stop them.Even if you gave Lark to the troopers now, the Blueskins would try to take him back.They'd still kill each other.Is, you're not responsible for the Blueskins or the troopers.You didn't ask them to fight each other.They made their own decisions.You can only allow them the freedom to do so.”

  He watched the stubborn set of her jaw as she refused to meet his eyes.She had no love for either Blueskins or troopers.Though she’d been mishandled by both, Is did not want to be the cause of a war between them.He was proud of her for that. She had every right to hate both sides and wish they would wipe each other out.

  “It would be wrong for you to let them force you into an action you don't want to make.Then they are taking your freedom away," he said more gently.

  Hluit society was based on accepting the responsibility of freedom and allowing others to do the same.But Is had not been part of the Hluit long enough to know how to deal with the really hard decisions sometimes demanded by that philosophy.

  Into her hesitation, Petre said, "C'mon, let's get out of here."He sent Celeste past Lark and when he looked back the stallion was following.For the first time, Petre was certain that his decision to ride John’s mare instead of his own horse was a good one.Lark was attached to this mare almost as much as he was to Is.Maybe between the two of them they could hold Lark against his urge to go to his berserker.Maybe they could keep the great amiable horse he was now from changing into a crazed war horse that would attack anyone except his own berserker.

  They made a wide detour around where the Blueskins were setting their ambush.Petre wanted to get another ridge between them and the Blueskins before they stopped for the night.They let the horses drink at a little stream at the bottom of the drainage before setting off to climb the next ridge.With winter so near, darkness would come early, even earlier under the enormous branches that reached far above their heads.

  Petre could feel Celeste tiring with the steep climb.He could imagine how much more work it was for the massive war horse to climb this slope.He could hear Lark’s labored breathing and on a particularly steep place he heard the great horse slip, sending a small avalanche of mud and rocks ric
ocheting into the trees below.He twisted around in time to see Lark make a mighty lunge, Is crouched over the stallion’s withers, encouraging him with her voice until he regained his footing.

  Lark stood blowing, head lowered, and a muscle in his flank quivering.Petre took a moment to assess the situation.All four of them were exhausted, but Is would not ask for rest and the war horse had not been bred to quit.Hardening his heart, Petre sent Celeste onward.Their path was so steep now that they had to traverse the slope in switchbacks gaining only a little elevation at a time.

  It was growing darker by the moment but finally Petre caught a glimpse of lighter sky in a break between the trees above them. “We’re almost to the top,” he told Is.“We’ll rest there.”

  Her silence was consent.Now they urged their horses directly up the bank.Its slope was too steep for walking and the horses took it in a series of powerful lunges.

  Finally at the top, they stopped to rest.They hadn’t noticed the wind lower on the slope with the protection of the trees, but here on the exposed ridge it struck them head on.The horses sent clouds of steaming breath into the wind where it whipped away and disappeared.Steam rose from their long winter coats now damp with sweat, and it too streamed away.It was too cold to let them stand for long.

  The sky was shaded toward indigo as Is and Petre turned their horses down the long decline.Stars were becoming visible until branches once again closing overhead blocked them from sight.Under the dense canopy, it was already twilight but at least the wind was gone.There would be nowhere to rest the horses until they reached the bottom of the drainage, they had to trust to their horses’ night vision to find the way in the deepening darkness.

  Going down was no easier work for the horses than going up had been.Again the more massive stallion was at a disadvantage.Petre heard Lark sliding behind him as mud and dislodged stones came down between Celeste’s legs.

  “Better let me go first,” Is said, her voice tight.

  Petre was glad to oblige.Better to have Lark in front so he could not send Celeste careening down with him if he lost his footing.As they broke out of the trees for a stretch, Petre could see Lark almost sitting on his massive hindquarters as he half-walked half-slid down the mountain.His tail dragged the ground.His hooves cut long furrows through the dirt.A mudslide preceded him, rocks and leaves rattled down the slope.Once again Petre was impressed with Lark’s strength and courage, not to mention Is’s.

  Celeste picked her way daintily.She did not like to slide but where it was too steep to walk she sat back in her hindquarters, walking with her front legs and skiing on her hind hooves. Despite the treacherous terrain, she seemed controlled and balanced.Petre felt well taken care of and safe on her back, and he understood why John had loved this mare so much.

  The ride seemed to go on forever.Petre imagined how tired the horses must be but there was no way to rest them on this steep slope.As the ground gradually became less steep, they heard the welcome sound of water.A few moments later they came to a little creek.

  The riders dismounted gratefully and both horses immediately dropped their heads to eat the grass along the water’s edge.They loosened the horses’ saddles and Is unbridled Lark.It would be another cold camp, no fire, no tents.It was just as well.They were too exhausted to do more than unroll their sleeping bags and munch the cold meat, nuts, and dried fruit the tribe had sent with them.

  Petre ached from tension and lack of sleep.

  “I’ll watch,” Is said.“I can’t sleep anyway.”

  Petre was too tired to resist.“Promise you’ll wake me when that bright star goes behind that mountain,” he said, pointing.That would be approximately half the night.He fell asleep waiting to hear her promise.

  He woke to a feeling of dread and emptiness so profound it was as though Is was already gone and all his people were dead at the hands of the Alliance.Unable to fight this forlorn feeling lying down, he sat up.The star was almost lost behind the trees of the next ridge.He could make out Is sitting wrapped in her sleeping bag, her head down.He thought maybe she had dozed off until she spoke.

  “Waking up’s the worst,” she said as though she knew exactly what he had experienced.

  Petre could only agree.In sleep there was the relief of oblivion.Fully awake he could submerge his grief in the need to survive.But at the moment of waking all his defenses against grief and fear were down. He arranged himself, wrapped in his sleeping bag, sitting against a tree next to Is so she could see that he was on watch, and could sleep if she would.

  After a very long time, during which Petre thought she might have dozed off, Is spoke. “I shouldn’t have let him go back into the Mirror.”She was speaking of John, blaming herself for his death.

  A harsh little sound came from Petre’s throat.“You couldn’t have stopped him.”He knew John.

  “I could have ridden away,” she said harshly. “He had already made the Mirror repair what the Alliance had done to him.He could talk.If I had not stayed, he wouldn’t have taken the risk of going back in there.If I hadn’t been there, he would have had to go back to Ondre’s camp himself to tell them what he’d learned.He would still be alive.”

  Petre didn’t know what to say to that.He didn’t know the circumstances of John’s death but he knew better than to try to ease Is with some empty platitude about how it wasn’t her fault.In his heart he felt sure she had done what seemed best at the time but she would not accept those words from him, not with her harsh sense of honesty and self-criticism.

  This was the first time Is had seemed willing to talk about John’s death.Petre was afraid to say anything for fear he would say the wrong thing.Is was here, doing this because John would have wanted her to try to save his people, to save her horse, and herself.The truce she had made with John’s memory, with Petre, and with death was too fragile.All Petre could do was wait in silence for her to continue, if she would.

  “You don’t know what it was like,” Is said.“To be connected like that with John.I couldn’t understand how he got the Mirror to do it, but he must have used something like the technology the Alliance uses to connect a stallion to his berserker.Only the connection was between John and me….”Her voice trailed away and Petre knew it must have been beyond description.

  “Not only could John speak,” she said. “I could hear him think.I could feel what he felt.It was like . . . it was like . . . he loved his people so much, they were all inside him.You and Ondre, of course, but, everyone else too, all of them.”

  Petre was struck by the realization of how that experience must have affected Is.From an early age, after Blueskins had killed her parents, she had been a ward of the Alliance, raised in a boarding school.Not only was she not loved, there was no one there to defend her. Petre knew enough about those schools to know that Is had needed defending from the predatory older boys, from the cruelty of children raised without kindness, and even from the teachers in a system that preyed on its citizens. Then to find herself not only loved by one man but also included – enveloped – in that man’s love for all his people . . . Petre could imagine how strong that must have been for Is.

  His heart reached out to her.He ached to say something to let her know how much he too loved her, but he feared there were no words she would accept from him.He held himself still and let Is continue.

  “John should have gone back to Ondre’s camp and told them everything he had learned, but that wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted to learn more. No one had ever gotten inside the Mirror like that before. If he could learn all about its powers he could bring that back to his people.”

  Petre could well imagine. John was never one to stop at enough. He always wanted to do more, give more. It was so easy to get caught up in his intensity. John had a way of making you feel more magnanimous and more courageous than you really were.It was easy to believe how John would have made Is feel that they should not stop with having repaired his ability to speak.But Is was not done.

  “I could have made him go
back to Ondre’s camp if I had just ridden away.The only reason I didn’t was because I wanted to feel more of what he was making me feel.I wanted to stay there forever with him, connected like that.I didn’t want to go back.I didn’t care about how important his message was to everyone.I didn’t care about anything except how I felt.”

  Her confession twisted in Petre’s heart.

  “I could have made him go back and I didn’t,” she said harshly.

  Petre could not let that stand.

  “Is,” he said, “I loved John, he was my brother-of-the-heart.”Petre referred to a Hluit custom where a person would have their brother-by-blood, or brother-by-marriage, but also the brother they really wanted, a brother-of-the-heart.It was a custom that held true for sisters, fathers, and mothers so that any Hluit could have family members of his or her choosing as well as his own biological family.“Even though he was my brother, I was never connected to him as you were.Not only were you lovers, but then you were connected by Alliance technology that broke down all separation as if you were inside his mind, his heart.John and I were only brothers, yet I was often carried away by his enthusiasm.I could not resist him even when I knew he was leading us into trouble. You were connected so much more deeply than that; of course you could not resist doing what he wanted.”

  He heard her take a shaky breath.

  “I didn’t know anything could hurt this much.I didn’t know how much it would hurt, not only me but everyone,” she said, her voice cracking.

  She had known much pain, beginning with her parents’ deaths at the hands of the Blueskins, then her upbringing in the Alliance school, and later the loss of one after another of her beloved stallions. But the grief she felt now was far worse.

  “I wish I had never brought Lark to your people.Now they’re all going to be killed too.Petre, I can’t stand it,” her voice had gone hoarse.“I can’t . . .”

  But he heard the anger as well as the pain.She would not cry.She would not quit.He gave her the only kind of help she would accept from him – honesty.

  “My people have always known the day would come when the Alliance wouldn’t tolerate our existence any more,” Petre answered.“We are prepared.”

  Is shook her head. “They will kill your people, Petre.You know they will.”

  Petre knew from firsthand experience what the Alliance troopers were capable of doing.He was afraid for his people too.But to Is he said.

  “We are prepared.It is one of the reasons every one of us must study our martial art.We know how to fight.We know the land.We can run and hide and fight . . .”

  He heard her let out her breath in a low sigh and heard the catch in it.She had agreed to this, right or wrong.He let the subject drop.Eventually Is spoke.

  “I didn’t know there was anything special about Lark when I took him.I just couldn’t stand to lose another of my stallions.You don’t know what that was like.”

  Petre did not refute her.As a Hluit he had been raised in a loving environment surrounded by friends and extended family, deeply connected to the land and the horses.It was no wonder to Petre that Is had stolen a stallion and fled. It was more of a wonder that she had stayed as long she had, watching one horse after another be taken from her to be ridden into a battle from which no one ever returned.

  But Is had been raised on Alliance propaganda and it was hard to break free of it. It was not until she met the Hluit that she had learned that everything the Alliance had taught her was false.The berserkers did not fight the Blueskins.In fact the Alliance had created the Blueskins for the express purpose of attacking outlying farms.The Alliance had no qualms that a few innocent farmers were killed from time to time. The attacks were designed to keep Alliance citizens fearful and controlled, and to keep them out of the Boundary where the Alliance was running top secret experiments.

  For generations the Hluit had watched the berserkers and their magnificent horses come onto their land only to die there. The warriors would engage in a battle with something the Hluit could not see. They would fight until exhaustion drove them to their deaths. Though none of this made sense to the Hluit, they had learned not to interfere.The berserkers were single-mindedly set on their own destruction and they would fight the Hluit as fiercely as they fought their mysterious unseen adversary. The Hluit had named that adversary the Mirror. To them it was as invisible as glass, yet the berserkers and their stallions must have seen a formidable foe in the clear air that surrounded them.

  The Hluit could not understand why the Alliance created such magnificent horses, not to mention the men who rode them, only to send them to such bizarre deaths.

  John had discovered that the Alliance was trying to create some sort of life after death.The Mirror was really a computer program that took the essence of man and horse apart as it killed them and tried to recreate them in some living form inside itself. But the Alliance didn’t know the Mirror was keeping its best attempts secret and John thought his people might be able to use that knowledge as leverage to negotiation for their own freedom from the Alliance. The Alliance considered the Hluit to be an experiment too, and the Hluit needed some way to keep the Alliance from deciding to terminate their experiment.

  For all the answers that John had given them there were still questions, especially about Lark.John had not learned anything about a stallion like Lark who could apparently move across time as easily as he moved across the land.

  The silence had grown long between Petre and Is so that he hoped she was finally asleep.A sliver of moon had climbed up over the ridge, found its way through the fringe of trees there, and now hung like a curl of ice above them.Even without a full moon the night was so clear, the stars so numerous and bright, that Petre could easily see Is propped against her tree, her head hanging down.

  In the distance an owl called and was answered by another on the ridge behind them.For a while Petre listened to the owls talking back and forth as they moved closer together.If the owls were courting, all was well in this valley, no large troops on the move.He listened to Is’s breathing grow deep and regular.She had fallen asleep sitting up, her head now cast to the side.She looked uncomfortable but at least she was asleep and he dared not do anything that might wake her.

  Cold found its way into Petre’s sleeping bag, boring steadily into his back where it was exposed.He ignored it, not wanting to risk waking Is if he moved.Instead he imagined the beauty of the night seeping into him so that instead of cold misery he felt the joy of oneness with the land. A million stars were flung across the sky, some bright and hard as diamonds shimmering in the crystalline air, some so far away they formed a distant soft mist. Others seemed to have fallen into the trees where they flickered between the branches as if caught there.

  The horses had finally stopped eating and were standing side-by-side, heads hanging low. The stream ran behind them, a little rill of silver stars fallen into the grass.

  The owls had moved on. A profound stillness settled into Petre, calming his fears, blanketing his mourning heart with tranquility.