Equus

by Rhonda Parrish

  He rolled his eyes. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty, to make up for the dumb.” And he hit her.

  The blow caught her in the temple and her vision blurred. She tried to step back with it, recover and raise her arms, all the movements trained to unconscious fluency in a professional fighter, but even her good arm felt thick and slow. Her feet moved but did not stay beneath her, and she fell to the rocky meadow.

  He went down with her, pressing, pushing, pinning.

  No no no no no no

  Her injured arm was not strong enough to throw him off, and all her movements came too slowly. The realization that he had drugged her came slowly too, and she was pinned by the shock and hurt atop the drug. “Rue!”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I knew you’d like it if you gave it a chance. Keep calling my name, girl.”

  Her limbs were growing heavier even as her fear burned hotter within her, and she felt her movements slowing further. She could not feel which way was up as she looked at Rue and the sky. She could not fight him off.

  She could not stop him.

  He left her on the rock-strewn grass. He spoke to her as he re-tied his trousers, said something to which he clearly expected a response. She wasn’t sure what words he used.

  “Hey! Are you listening?”

  She did not answer. It was hard to concentrate.

  “Pretentious bitch.” He spat on the ground. “You weren’t even that good. Glad I’m getting paid for this.”

  Galyne stared at the sky, the white clouds, the blue space, the sky which looked just the same as if nothing had happened.

  Rue left her lying there.

  She lay still and watched the clouds move across the sky. The sun had crossed her and started toward the Scapian camp before she began to cry. Slowly the deadening pressure faded from her mind, and what replaced it was worse.

  She rolled onto her side and wept.

  Not me. Not me. Not me.

  The words ran through her, poured out of her, punctuated her ragged breath. Not me. She hadn’t meant for it to happen, hadn’t wanted it, hadn’t stopped it. Not me. She couldn’t work with it, couldn’t go to Nova or Reaver or any of them.

  Not me.

  She could not go back to the barracks, could she? But where else could she go? She carried only a few coins. All her possessions were in her room. She had to return, even just to collect her things and to go and—

  —and to tell Trainer Isabel that she was going. She could not vanish without an explanation. Trainer Isabel deserved to know one of her trainers was leaving.

  For some reason this brought fresh sobs and she cried anew at the thought of telling her respected superior that she was going. That she needed to go. That she could no longer work with her beloved unicorns.

  She choked and cried and pushed herself off the ground.

  The walk down the mountain was cool and lonely. When she reached the town, the market was already starting to clear for the evening, and few gave her more than a glance as she passed. Still it somehow felt as if they knew, as if they could see it and turned away out of avoidance rather than busyness.

  She went directly to Isabel’s office at the end of one of the stable buildings, but she could not make herself knock. She stood outside, heart racing, throat closed against air, squeezing her eyes closed.

  “Galyne? Come on inside.”

  The muffled voice made her jump, and she opened her eyes and stared at the door. Then she fumbled at the latch—fingers thick now with fear and shame rather than drugs—and went inside.

  “Finally,” said Trainer Isabel. “I saw you through the window. There’s no reason to stand outside and work yourself into a lather. I know why you’re here.”

  Galyne’s heart froze. “You do?”

  “I do. And I’m sorry to lose you, but I understand. You’re certainly not the first.”

  Galyne stared at her, unable to breathe, unable to speak. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t want—”

  “I suppose we should have expected it, putting guards so close with our trainers, but it seemed a risk we needed to take.”

  Galyne began to cry.

  “Now, there’s no call for that,” Trainer Isabel said, not unkindly. “Brandon and Erda were sad to go as well, when they decided together. It’s a change, sure, but you knew it would be. Time to go forward and—”

  “How did you know?” Galyne sobbed. It seemed suddenly important.

  “Know? Rue came by this afternoon and told me.”

  Galyne’s knees went weak. “No…”

  “I was surprised, I’ll admit. I didn’t expect it of you. But—”

  Galyne reached to the wooden chair before Isabel’s desk and grasped the back for support. “What did Rue tell you?” she whispered.

  Isabel hesitated. “That you and he had become lovers and that you wished to leave the stables.”

  This was worse, this was somehow worse, and Galyne could hardly force the words. “He lies.”

  Isabel frowned.

  “He—” She could not say the words.

  Isabel pulled a cable on the wall and went to the door. She caught it before it could open fully, blocking any view of Galyne, and instructed, “Bring me the guard Rue.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Rue. “It’s beyond ridiculous, it’s offensive.” He faced Galyne. “If you think you can keep your position here by this, you’re wrong. You’ve already lost your virginity. You can’t get it back by sacrificing me.”

  Galyne shook her head, feeling as if she were drugged again. “That’s not why I’m saying this.”

  “Then why are you saying it? You told me you wanted me. I believed you. Now you lie and say I did something awful.”

  “You lie! You did do something awful!” She began to cry.

  Rue pointed at her. “You’re a trained soldier,” he said. “How would I be able to force you without at least a few bruises?”

  “You hit me,” she said. “Here.”

  “You fell on the mountain path,” he said, his eyes wide and hurt. “You laughed and said you were fine. And you are a soldier, aren’t you? I couldn’t hit you once and incapacitate you, and not without doing a lot more damage.”

  “You drugged me.”

  “Now it’s a drug instead of force? And I suppose you have evidence of that?” He threw up his hands. “This is ridiculous.” He turned to the two town guards who waited silently beside the door. “I came here in good faith, and I find town guards waiting to arrest me because a wanton girl wants to change her mind and keep her job. Can I complain against her sullying my name?”

  One of the guards shifted. “I don’t know about that. You’d have to talk to a magistrate.”

  Rue looked hard at Galyne. “Maybe I will.” He looked back to Trainer Isabel. “I’ve had enough and I think I’ve made my point. Is there anything else to this, or can I go now?”

  Galyne looked at Isabel, hope and fear welling in her and spilling from her eyes, shaming her again.

  Isabel sighed and nodded once, gesturing Rue and the guards from the office. They did not look back at Galyne.

  Galyne stared at Isabel, feeling her mouth gape but unable to care. “How—do you believe him?”

  Isabel sighed again. “It doesn’t matter if I believe him,” she said. “What’s done is done, and makes no difference to my responsibility here. However it came about, you are no longer qualified to be a unicorn trainer, and I must let you go and find a replacement.”

  Galyne could not move, could not speak, stunned for the second time that day by a blow from a trusted friend.

  “Go back to the barracks for tonight; we’ll release you in the morning. And you already know, but stay away from the stables. It may be upsetting to the unicorns to note the change, and that will affect their bond with their new trainers.”

  Galyne only shook her head. Nova… Reaver…

  Isabel pressed her lips together, and Galyne could tell she was fighting tears, too. She did not know
what to think, but she was upset because Galyne was upset. “Go on, then. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Will you believe me then? Galyne asked silently, but she knew it did not matter. Isabel was right. How it had happened or what people believed was irrelevant to the unicorns.

  She went out into the twilight.

  The royal stables were surprisingly lightly guarded. The complex itself was gated and patrolled, of course, to keep anyone from creeping inside to set fire to the stables or work other harm. But once one reached the buildings themselves, there were few eyes or gatekeepers. Fully-trained war unicorns tended to be their own security.

  So no one saw Galyne, wrapped in the striped woolen blanket she had kept about her since first returning to her room, carry her fire-safe lamp toward Nova’s stall.

  Trainer Isabel was right. The unicorns would be unsettled to find one of their trusted own suddenly something other than what she was. Even now she was moving fast down the aisles, passing stalls before their occupants could wake and recognize her.

  But Galyne could not just walk away from the stables without looking back. She would miss all of them, but Nova especially. Nova had come for her when she was wounded in battle. Nova would not turn away from her now—would she?

  If she did, Galyne did not know what she would do.

  Without the unicorns, what would she be? A soldier, yes, but one trained to fight alongside war unicorns, not in the regular infantry. She might find a place in a support squadron.

  And watch forever the beloved unicorns she could no longer handle working with a different trainer as Galyne went through foot drills at a distance.

  She pushed the thought savagely away. There would be time for plans later.

  She slowed as she neared Reaver’s stall, and the big sea-dark unicorn was already awake and watching her approach. She hesitated, shifting the light to spare his eyes, and extended a hand toward him.

  He laced his ears back along his neck and tossed his head with a squeal. The heavy half door shook with the resounding impact of a front hoof.

  She drew back, her breath catching in her throat. Reaver was new, he did not know her so well, he was not familiar with night visitors or the lamp—

  But they were all excuses for her ruined presence.

  She almost did not go on to Nova’s stall, but her charges were stabled together and she was already there.

  Galyne set the lamp down in the center of the aisle, casting shadows over the stalls and grotesque parodies of unicorns on the rear walls of the stalls. Nova snorted. Galyne faced her, remembering the townswoman who had tried to pet the unicorn, remembering the bloody horn and the woman’s scream and the panicked run for a doctor.

  She had worked her entire life toward becoming a unicorn trainer and then becoming a better one. Rue had taken her integrity, her work, her life from her.

  She reached for the latch and let the heavy protective door swing open. “Go on, then,” she said. “Tell me.”

  Nova snorted from the back of the stall, the whites of her eyes visible in her dismay. Her ears alternated between flattened and pricked, and her breath whuffed through her nostrils. She pranced in place and then stepped forward, gingerly, as if the floor might shift beneath her.

  Galyne felt the floor was unstable beneath her as well. She clenched her fists and made herself rigid so that she could not flee.

  Nova gave a little squeal and lashed out with a foreleg, but it came nowhere near Galyne. Then the mare took another step and extended her neck, stretching toward Galyne from the greatest possible distance.

  Her soft dark muzzle was so close, nostrils flaring wide and snorting out the offensive scent of her defilement. Galyne could reach out and touch it, feel the velvet warmth one final time. But fear kept her frozen in place, waiting.

  Nova stepped forward, lifting her head high and dropping it so that her throat rested on Galyne’s shoulder. She pulled, forcing Galyne to stumble into her muscular neck and chest.

  Galyne stood frozen, hands against the sleek warm hide, and then she leaned into the mare. “You…”

  Nova nickered and sang the low song of an equine greeting.

  “Do you understand?”

  The woman’s voice made Galyne spin, her heart pounding. It was the sorceress, the woman who might have been Trainer Isabel’s sister, the one who drew unicorns from the sea and sky.

  “What are you doing here?” Galyne demanded defensively and pointlessly. The sorceress had more right than she did at this moment.

  The woman came down the aisle with slow, even steps. “I thought you might come,” she said evenly. “Isabel told me there were accusations…”

  Galyne did not want to discuss this again, not now and maybe not ever. “And you came to watch if the unicorns would reject me? Would kill me?”

  “Not exactly.” The sorceress nodded toward Nova. “Do you understand what she says to you?”

  “I know she has embraced me when she should not have.”

  “It is true she has embraced you, but it is not true that she should not have.”

  Galyne stared at her. “But—but unicorns accept only virgins. I know it matters, I’ve seen—”

  “It matters,” the woman agreed. “But not in the way you think it does.”

  “But I’m—I’m not—I’m not a virgin, not now.”

  “You are what you do. You are not what is done to you.”

  Galyne stared at her. Nova’s head pressed heavy across Galyne’s upper back. Galyne’s hand slid across the mare’s shoulder and ran over the knot of scar tissue. Her heart seemed to jump in her chest.

  The sorceress nodded.

  “But what about Reaver? He…” The words hurt, to describe how he had thrown his head and struck at her.

  “Yes, Reaver. What did you expect? He is new, and if you had come any night with a lamp in the middle of the night, he would have been skittish and wary. And what has been done to you—of course he knows, and he is repelled and he hates it. But he is repelled by and hates what was done. Not you.”

  “Not me,” Galyne repeated slowly. “Not me.”

  She looked toward Reaver’s stall, and in the dim reach of the light she could see his head over the stall door, watching her and Nova, ears forward. She looked back, and the sorceress was walking away, silent and finished.

  But her words remained. You are what you do. You are not what has been done to you.

  Galyne traced the spear-scar. You are what you do.

  “Survive,” she said aloud. “Fight.”

  Galyne waited for Trainer Isabel early in the morning in the cobbled yard outside her quarters and office. All around her trainers, grooms, and tradespeople watched and went about their business and returned, curious, but Galyne ignored them all and waited. Eventually the stablemaster would come outside and see Galyne mounted on Nova without tack or harness, with two more unhaltered unicorns flanking on either side. And she would understand.

  They waited, and people filtered through the yard in an endless stream of morning activity. Then Nova shifted beneath Galyne, and she tightened her seat. On either side of her the unicorns snorted or stirred restively. Galyne twisted a hand into Nova’s mane and looked to each of them. “Easy,” she called. “What is it?”

  Reaver stamped and tossed his head. She followed the direction of his gaze and saw Rue.

  He was staring at them all, disbelief and anger mingling in his expression. He had needed to ruin her, and he had not.

  But he had angered those nearest her.

  Reaver launched himself into the air with a furious warning buck and an angry squeal. Rue blanched and started backward, but he could never be fast enough.

  “Reaver!” Galyne shouted.

  But the unicorn was already in motion, pounding after Rue who turned and fled in frank terror. Onlookers shouted warnings or screamed as Reaver’s head snaked out and seized the man’s shoulder, lifting him and flinging him hard to the side. Rue flew flailing through the air an
d sprawled on the ground.

  “Reaver, no!”

  The unicorn hesitated, just long enough for Nova and Galyne to reach them. Nova’s shoulder slammed into the other unicorn, knocking him aside. Galyne half-slid, half-fell to the ground to drag Rue away from them.

  But Nova wheeled back and, pinning her ears to warn Reaver away, drove her horn down and forward.

  “No!” Galyne threw herself against the mare’s chest, trying to push her backward with her own inadequate weight.

  Rue screamed in terror—but not in pain, because the tip of Nova’s horn pressed the hollow above his collar bone and then stopped. Galyne looked down and back as she leaned against the unicorn.

  Trainer Isabel had burst from her door and was already running toward them. Others were gathering tentatively around, trying to decide whether approaching would push Nova into the final stab.

  “I’m sorry,” whispered Rue hoarsely. His eyes never left Nova, did not so much as flick to Galyne. “I’m sorry.”

  “Step back,” Galyne told Nova, pressing the mare’s shoulder, looking away from the terrified man on the ground. “Step back.”

  Nova’s ears flattened and she snorted her protest, but she took a long step backward and raised her head.

  Rue might have survived if he had stayed still. One of the other trainers was already reaching toward him. But Rue pushed upright and rolled to his feet.

  Reaver screamed his fury and thrust.

  His tremendous power and Rue’s own momentum pushed the horn deep, and Galyne saw the instant Rue died.

  “Reaver!” she screamed.

  The sea-foam mane rippled as the unicorn struck off the deadweight with a front hoof and threw his head. Snorting, he gave another indignant buck and then cantered across the yard, scattering spectators.

  Two bystanders knelt beside the discarded Rue, checking for life, but Isabel turned her eyes on Galyne and Nova. Galyne stared back in dull horror. She clenched Nova’s mane as if it were a line keeping her above water. She felt as if she should be crying—she wanted to be crying—but her body refused to cooperate. “I didn’t mean…”