by Guy Antibes
“Herds in the Northeast,” Seeker said. “I will see you there, if you don’t get caught.”
“I don’t intend to,” Demeron said, and he felt another fear, being caught so he couldn’t return to Pol’s monastery.
Demeron left Seeker snatching up mouthfuls of ripe grass in the meadow, and he found a thin trail to take him further downslope. He could live in the mountains like Seeker, but what was the point? He wanted stimulation, and life with Pol held a lot of that.
He thought about his adventures and yearned for more. Demeron enjoyed working with Pol since he treated Demeron like a partner, rather than just an animal to ride.
Why did the monks have to leave? It frustrated him, but at least he had a goal to find Deftnis.
~
The foothills began to flatten, and he passed more human structures. There were cultivated fields that had been harvested, and that meant less fodder.
He found an abandoned farm. The barn doors hung open on broken hinges. The hay had spoiled inside, but the small fields around it hadn’t been harvested. Demeron could see why. The ground was filled with rocks, and the grain was scraggly.
That didn’t matter to Demeron. Grain was grain. He had to eat stalks to get to the grain, but it still tasted better than grass, and he ate until he was full.
He spent the night back inside the barn after drinking from the nearly-dried pond.
Demeron’s stomach began to bloat a bit, and he felt sluggish in the middle of the night. He didn’t quite know what to do, so he decided to walk it off. He left the barn and headed towards where the sun had set in the evening. He learned from his travels that was west. Deftnis was west, but west was a big place.
He walked until the sun came up behind him. The bloating had worked itself off. Demeron didn’t want that to happen again, but he didn’t have any idea of why. It had to be something he ate, or perhaps it was how much he ate?
Demeron didn’t know. He did feel better and came upon the edge of a large farm. The fields were so vast that he couldn’t see any farm buildings. He had traversed through fields this large in the Empire with Pol, but now that he had to travel alone, Demeron suddenly lacked confidence, although he knew he had to make a decision.
Seeker’s solution to roam the foothills of the mountains didn’t seem to be a solution at all, just one that had to be put off. Demeron stood looking at the fields, already harvested. He could still exist on the chaff, but the best parts of the grain were gone.
He turned south, away from the north and the herds that Seeker had described. Demeron didn’t want to be caught up in a herd aimlessly roaming the lands of the north looking for forage.
A few patches of grain were missed next to trees and bushes that bordered the fields, so Demeron could feast occasionally on the golden grain. He eventually came to the end of the farmland and a track that led to a modest farmhouse and barn.
At the end of the lane, Demeron looked at the farm. It looked nearly abandoned, but he noticed a trail of smoke coming from the smaller structure, and the barn doors looked intact.
Chickens, pigs, and goats rummaged around in the yard. Demeron walked cautiously through the other animals, hearing sounds of horses behind the barn.
Two horses were freely roaming in a corral that had a covered feeding bay. Demeron took a step closer.
“Horses,” he said to the two stallions. “Do either of you know the way to Tishiko?””
One of the horses pranced up to Demeron. “No, and we don’t care. We don’t like horses like her.”
“Her?”
“We don’t want to talk to you.” The reply took Demeron aback. What did the other two horses have against him?
He noticed another horse standing in the open stable, but he couldn’t make it out in the shade.
“Can you communicate?” Demeron wondered if it was a mute horse. He had run across quite a few in the Empire.
It turned around and poked its head out from the side. A mare looked at him with suspicious eyes. “And if I said something would it make a difference?” she said. Her thoughts were clear in his head. She seemed to be a smart Shinkyan horse.
“Not really,” Demeron said, “unless you have a good story. I have grown to like good stories.”
“You have been quickened.”
Demeron nodded. “I lost my friend.”
“You mean your master?”
“He is a friend first,” Demeron said.
“Humans aren’t friends,” the mare said with a vehemence that surprised him.
“Enough of them aren’t. I’ll agree, but there are good humans out there.”
The mare snorted. She walked out from beneath the stable roof and into the sun. Demeron noticed a network of scars on her body. Some human had badly abused her, or she had been attacked by a large pack of wolves.
“Wolves?” He asked.
“A two-legged wolf,” she said. “I hate to call him my Master, and he is definitely NOT my friend.”
Demeron didn’t know what to think about the mare, so he just introduced himself. “I am called Demeron.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“It is the name of a Sleeping God in another country. What is yours?”
“Amble. I was originally sold as a child's horse. The little girl never developed magic, so I was sold to the owner of this place, a close relative. A poor relative in many ways,”
“And he was a magician?”
“His wife. She died, and he blames me continually for the illness that took her life.”
Demeron could see what continual blame looked like. Her scars proved her story of mistreatment. Her master must have been a monster.
“Can I help you?”
“Free me,” she said. “I will show you the way to Tishiko, if you do.” Amble tried to walk over to him, but the bit in her mouth led to reins that were secured inside the stable.
Demeron smiled to himself. “I can do that.”
He backed up and jumped neatly over the fence. The other two horses came close, and one even snapped its teeth close to Demeron’s flank.
“I’ve killed wolves before, and they are harder to bring down than you,” Demeron said.
The horses veered away and moved to the other side of the paddock. He was much taller than the other two horses. They now looked more like ponies. He trotted back over to Amble.
“Where do you want me to bite off the lead?”
Amble looked up at him, and he noticed she was nearly as tall as he was. If he ignored the scars, she had the fine proportions of a true Shinkyan horse, but her coloring was a bit unique in Demeron’a limited experience, being a light brown like the golden grain just harvested in the fields.
“I don’t want a human to be able to catch me.”
Demeron hadn't even given a thought to his own reins.
“I’ll bite yours off, if you do the same to mine,” he said, but before he got an answer he came up close and began to gnaw the leather. In a few minutes, one side dropped to the ground, and soon the other did.
Amble tried to do the same to Demeron, but her teeth weren’t up to the task.
“I failed,” she said.
Demeron didn’t like the dejected thoughts and spoke to comfort her. “It’s all right. Maybe the opportunity will come again,”
“You will take me with you?”
“If you know the way to Tishiko.”
“I took my Mistress there a number of times. We will have to be careful,” she said. “I don’t want to be caught by my master. I fear I’ll be killed.”
“It looks like your Master has been working on that for some time now,” Demeron said. “Can you jump over the fence?”
Amble projected a confident emotion and ran along the fence, and then shot across the corral. She easily leapt over the top railing. Demeron didn’t have to run at all, but just trotted to get his legs spaced right for his jump.
“Show me the way!” Demeron said.
“Don’t be so positive,” Amble
said. “We are going to get caught, you know. It will only be a moment’s freedom, yet that is enough for me.”
~
The two horses stopped at a signpost. Demeron looked at it and wondered what the writing meant. Pol had taught him quite a few Imperial words, but he had never been properly taught Shinkyan.
“What do the words mean?” Demeron said. “I suppose I forgot how to understand Shinkyan words and Shinkyan writing.”
Amble snorted and tossed her head. “I suppose I can teach you. My mistress told me that I was exceptionally smart for a horse, something her husband never believed.”
“I think you are smarter than the other horses I’ve tried to communicate with on this journey,” Demeron said.
But he didn’t think she was over the abuse her previous owner had given her. He didn’t think fear ruled her, but some other emotion that he couldn’t understand. Maybe he needed to learn more than the Shinkyan language.
“You help me, and I will help you, right? I can protect you. I’ve fought humans before and won.” Demeron didn’t tell Amble that he had always fought on Pol’s side and with other men, but she didn’t need to know that.
He had fought other horses and won, and he felt he could always back up his claim with his story fighting the wolves. Men feared wolves, and Demeron had successfully defeated a small pack.
“I don’t suppose I have much choice. We will depend on each other. Not a very horse-like thing to do, but these are unhorse-like circumstances. I had never thought of escape until you came along,” Amble said.
“So let’s get started with that signpost. What does it say?” Demeron looked at the post. The writing didn’t look at all like what Pol used.
“It’s picture writing,” Amble said.
“I don’t know anything that looks like that.”
“The humans call it ‘stylized pictures.”
Demeron thought he understood. “The writing represents pictures, where Pol’s writing represents sounds a human makes?”
Amble turned her head and looked at Demeron. “You are smarter than you look. I really didn’t think you would be able to figure that out.”
He laughed inside. “We Shinkyans are smarter than other horses, so let’s just assume I can learn as fast as you can teach.”
Amble showed him each of the words and what the pictures represented. “I understand all these, but when you get to Tishiko, there will be a lot of writing that won’t make very much sense. There are a lot of pictures that don’t mean what they look like. You need to make inferences and know other concepts.”
“That doesn’t sound very simple.”
Amble glared at Demeron. “I didn’t say it was simple. It’s probably more complex than that Empire writing.”
“Probably,” Demeron said, not wanting to give Amble the point. He repeated the meanings of the pictures and committed them to memory. As he thought of the characters, he began to remember more of what he had learned before he was quickened by Pol’s magic.
“Probably isn’t the right answer. Yes is the answer,” Amble said.
Demeron neighed. “Yes, then. So, which way to Tishiko? That sign doesn’t tell us.”
Amble looked at Demeron and then laughed inside. “Of course it doesn’t. We aren’t that close to Tishiko, so follow me.”
Demeron watched Amble walk off the road, so he headed after her. She waited for an oncoming cart stacked high with hay to pass, and then she returned.
“We will want to stay away from humans. They all want to be masters of unattached horses.”
Demeron watched the cart slowly move past them. “So we need to avoid humans wherever possible?”
Amble nodded her head and shook her mane. “That is exactly right, but when we reach Tishiko, we will have to find the right human to ask about directions.”
“What will you do once we arrive at the capital?” Demeron asked.
“Find a way to get a new Master. What else can I do?”
“You can come with me to Deftnis Monastery. They treated me very well, and the magicians are nicer.”
Amble stopped. “You’ve only had one Master. How do you know?”
He had to think for a moment. “I don’t, I guess. But any of the magicians I know would be better than your last master.”
“There is that. Let’s see what happens in Tishiko. We need to get there first.”
~
In the afternoon, the traffic on the road increased so much that they decided to travel cross-country. A few horses foraged in a pasture. Amble and Demeron easily jumped the fence.
Neither of the horses in the pasture had been quickened, nor were they pure Shinkyan stock like Amble and Demeron.
“We are on the way to Tishiko,” Demeron said. “Can you give us any information?”
One of the horses swished his tail indicating he had nothing to say. The other nodded and snorted. “Nothing that useful. Humans will catch you and sell you off. That is for certain.”
“They won’t catch me,” Demeron said.
“You’ve been quickened. I can tell,” commented the horse that hadn’t said anything at first. “You know what Masters are like. I wouldn’t go to Tishiko, but find a wild herd someplace.”
“In northeast Shinkya, that’s what I was told,” Demeron said. “I want to go to Tishiko first and then find directions to the Empire.”
“What is the Empire?”
“My Master lives in the Empire. I will return to where we bonded.”
Amble whinnied. “Human on a horse,” she said, pointing her head to Demeron’s right.
“Thank you for your thoughts,” Demeron said to the two horses before taking off towards the southwest.
Amble joined him. The other two horses just watched them go. Demeron looked back, seeing the rider veer from them towards his other horses.
“We didn’t learn anything,” she said, once she jumped the fence on the far side of the pasture.
“Sure we did. Even horses this far south know of wild herds in the northeast. The worst is the closer we get to Tishiko, the more likely humans will want to capture us. I haven’t been thinking about that.”
“I have,” Amble said. “I’m just looking for a better place to live.”
“I found an ideal one and want to return.”
They continued towards the southwest, keeping to the fringes of the fields where humans had over-seeded the grain in places that they didn’t bother to harvest. In some areas Demeron and Amble just lopped off the tops of the grain.
Demeron had wondered if he would find enough forage, but that wasn’t a problem at all.
Amble knew when they were approaching a village or a city better than Demeron, so he gladly let her lead. As they traveled, she led him to signposts, and when they traveled at night into villages and one small town, she taught him more about Shinkyan picture writing.
A few weeks later, Demeron saw the irregular smudge of a large city in the distance. The sun hadn’t quite risen in the sky.
“Tishiko,” Amble said, when Demeron pointed it out. “That is where we will go our separate ways.”
“What will you do?” Demeron asked.
Amble shook her head, waving her mane about. “I’ve always been to the capital with a Master directing me. I succeeded in getting here, and now I feel a little fear about surrounding myself with humans, again.”
Demeron nodded and snorted. He could hear a touch of amazement and trepidation in her voice. Perhaps it surprised Amble that she had actually brought him to Tishiko. “You did well. How will you find a suitable Master?”
“There is a place where magicians are trained. I will try to find where that is and let myself be taken close by. Only magicians can bond, so my hope is to find a powerful female magician.”
“My friend Pol is powerful,” Demeron said.
Amble smiled inside. “No man is a powerful magician for long. They all die young. I’ve heard that many times.”
“Not so in the Empire,
but Pol was very sick. I helped him on his journey to find a human healer that saved his life. He is no longer weak and sick. He once worried about his health, but no more.”
“That is a tale and not the truth,” Amble said.
“How can you possibly think that? I saw him improve and brought him and the healer who saved him back to Deftnis.”
Amble shook her head. She obviously didn’t believe Demeron. He could sense a stubbornness about her, so he didn’t think his words would convince her otherwise. She would have to see Pol, but also she would have to see Pol grow into a man and maintain his health.
“I will listen and hopefully be able to communicate with a human who can tell me the way to the Empire. Once I’m in the Empire, I think I can find the way.”
Amble snorted. “You wish, you hope, you think. Wishing, hoping, and thinking are not things horses do. Find yourself a Master who will take you to Deftnis.”
“And then what? Why would a Master want to ride me to Deftnis Monastery and then leave me here? No. A Master will want me to return to his stable and keep me. I’ve been admired by many humans. I don’t think any Shinkyan would want to give me up.”
Amble had nothing to say and walked ahead of him. She turned around. “With the scars on your coat, you are no longer pretty. No one will admire you.”
“Scars?”
“From the wolves. There are lots of scratches and bite marks in your flesh.”
Demeron stopped and turned his head. He could see some still-healing flesh where the wolves had clawed his black coat and large scabs where one of the wolves had sunk his teeth into his flank. “That makes a difference to humans?”
She nodded her head. “It does to some. My Master’s wife used to talk a lot to me when she groomed me herself and loved to run her hands along my flanks. She wouldn’t find your marks very pretty.” He could hear pain in her voice.
After sneaking another look at his skin, he looked at Amble’s coat. She had scars on her shoulders, something that she probably couldn’t see. He decided not to say anymore. He didn’t want to lose her openness by pointing out something unpleasant just to make a useless point.
She trotted ahead of him, and he let her lead, as he usually did. The city on the horizon became larger, and now it had a profile. Towers became more defined. Demeron determined that he had never been to Tishiko before, or he would have noticed the round towers and the square towers. Each level looked like it had been smashed on top of the other, with a roof jutting out at every level.
