The Princess and the Horse (The Princess and the Hound)

by Mette Ivie Harrison

  There was no tent to pack away this time, and the princess did not demand that anyone get food for her breakfast. She picked at some berries for herself, and bent over a stream to drink water and leave it dripping off her chin. If she was hungry or thirsty after that, she said not a word of it as they walked briskly south.

  Fierce walked at Red’s side, thinking how good it was to be with him. Then she saw his stump and felt a wave of shame that she had not remembered it for that moment. How dared she forget what he had given up for her?

  “It still does not hurt?” she asked.

  “No,” said Red. “But it pulls at me.”

  “I don’t understand.” She felt inadequate again, at simply being human.

  “It is as if the hand is still there, and it tingles with the sensation of the Xaon.”

  “You mean you want to go back to the fissure?” Did he want to send all of himself into it now? What could she to do prevent him this time, if he were determined?

  “No. Not that one. Or at least, it is a very dull feeling. It is the fissures ahead of us that pull me forward. And—I think the worms themselves.” He turned with a jerk and then pulled himself back.

  Fierce thought carefully. “What happened to the white creatures from the fissure that you closed?” she asked.

  “Gone,” said Red. “As if they had never been.”

  “What if we find the white creatures and throw them back into the fissure instead of a part of the Naon? If the princess does not use her wild magic again, will the fissure close up on its own, as the Naon closes over naturally?”

  “Possibly,” said Red. His eyes gleamed.

  “Then I will go find it,” said Fierce. “You stay with the princess.” That seemed fair to her.

  “What if they separate into different directions?” asked Red.

  “I can track them,” said Fierce.

  “Can you? All of them?”

  “It must be done,” said Fierce, wishing that he would stop speaking. The time for language was finished. A hound would understand that. It was time for action.

  “Yes, it must be done. But not alone.”

  “I can—” she began.

  He interrupted her. “Are you any different from the princess? You think that you have done everything on your own?”

  That was not what Fierce had meant.

  “You need my help. You need me to sense where the white creatures are. And you will need me when you attack them. There is no point in you dying if you might live. The white creatures will only come after the princess and then there will be one fewer to help her fight them.”

  Fierce made a low grunting sound of assent.

  “Does that mean that you agree with me?” asked Red.

  “It means that you are right. Two will fight better than one.”

  “Even one with only one hand?” asked Red.

  Fierce turned swiftly to him. “You will be more valuable to me with one hand than any other human I know with two hands,” she said sincerely.

  Red smiled at her. “Thank you,” he said.

  Or any animal, thought Fierce to herself.

  There would be many white creatures to fight, and Red said this was not a large one. They could see what happened, and report back to the princess. They would be more prepared for the rest.

  So Fierce and Red slipped away from the princess and her entourage sometime before noon, and began to go west. Their prey took them in circles and there was no scent that Fierce could follow. She was soon exhausted from the long chase, but she would not give up or admit defeat.

  It was Red who called a halt when it was dark.

  “The white creatures?” asked Fierce.

  Red turned in a circle. “Quiet now, and still,” he said after a moment. “Perhaps they are trying to imitate sleep, as well.”

  He felt around until he had managed to find a large stone to prop his head up against. Then he sat down and Fierce slid herself next to him.

  She could not relax enough to sleep however.

  “What is it?” asked Red.

  “I am afraid,” said Fierce. She was afraid of the white creatures and the danger they posed, but she was also afraid of herself. And of Red. She was afraid of how she had changed, and how he might yet change, and how the world would change, as well.

  Red moved closer to her.

  Fierce could feel his heat and she could hear his breathing. It was fast, as if he were still in a chase. Perhaps he was.

  “I cannot tell you not to be afraid of them,” said Red. “That would make little sense.”

  “Of course—” said Fierce.

  Red touched her arm and silenced her. “But I will do everything in my power to stop them, and to keep you safe. Though I have only one hand left to do it with.”

  “I trust you,” said Fierce. Did he think that she wished someone else had come with her?

  “Hunter or Loyal—” said Red.

  “Would be more interested in the hunt than in the result of it,” Fierce finished.

  Red laughed. “You know them so well,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think that one of them might wish to remain human?” asked Red.

  “Never,” said Fierce.

  “If given the choice, I suppose not. But if they were not given the choice, they would have to make the best of it. They are not such bad humans, and for someone who has an affinity for hounds, they would make good—friends.”

  “Good friends, yes,” said Fierce. “But to see them would be a reminder every day of what they were missing. It would be painful for all of us.”

  “I see,” said Red. He leaned back against the rock and pulled Fierce down so that her head was against his chest.

  Fierce told herself it was easier to sleep next to another warm body. She did not know if it was true for humans or only for humans who had once been hounds, but she yawned once, then turned her face to him and wrapped her arms around his chest.

  Fierce did not remember anything after that until it was dawn.

  There was a light mist in the forest, for the ground was warmer than the morning air and it seeped upward all around them. Fierce did not move immediately, though Red was drooling into her hair. His eyebrows were furrowed, and he had his arms around Fierce tightly, as if protecting her from some unseen foe.

  It had been many years since Fierce had felt so much for someone else. Becoming human had taken many things from her that she regretted, but it had also given her Red. She must tell him everything, she thought.

  But now there was something walking toward her in the mist.

  A human, Fierce thought, squinting at the shape. A human woman.

  She smoothed one hand down Red’s arm and whispered into his ear, hound words for calm, sleep, easy. He had already lost too much to the white creatures. It was her turn to fight now.

  She did not try to move quickly, but waited until he released her and slumped to one side.

  Then she moved her torso away from him, and each of her limbs, one after another.

  She looked up again. The mist made it difficult to see the face, but it looked familiar. Was she wrong? Was it not a white creature? That was the shape of the princess’s nose.

  What was she doing here?

  It was not until Fierce saw the whiteness of the shape that she realized it was not the princess, after all. It was what she had thought at first, another white creature—this time in the shape of the princess.

  Fierce felt her heart squeeze sharply in her chest. The princess must have had contact with these worms recently. In the night? Or before that?

  Was she still living even now?

  The princess-creature had its mouth open, but there were no words in it. Only whispering, hushing sounds

  Fierce thought for that one moment, of what Red had said about the creatures of the Xaon. They had no words, no purpose, except to live. No shape to guide them. No rules to forbid them.

  She had always thought humans so di
fferent from animals, but when she looked into this completely foreign face, it made animals and humans seem so much the same.

  Language, for one thing. All animals, no matter how small or insignificant, had it. They might have only a few words, but they were there. Even the trees and the bushes, the grass, the stones, the water, could speak in a certain way. Just as humans did.

  And animals and humans had a path to follow, instinct, purpose, a meaning to their existence beyond simply existence itself. All worked together to create a community.

  Humans might be called selfish for their way of living separately, but it was never really true. Their homes could never be impenetrable to rats or mice or insects, to the scent of the air or the season of the year. They were part of the cycle of life, whether they wished it or no. And many humans came back to the forests. Or they lived with pets, or with livestock.

  The princess-creature put out a hand.

  Fierce tried to duck under it, but it moved in ways she could not anticipate. It caught her in a moment, as if she had never tried anything.

  She felt the cold burn of the fissure again, this time on her neck.

  Fierce told herself that she must not make a sound, that she must do this without waking Red. She would not endanger him again. But when she felt herself dying, she let out a small sound, not the words of a human. At the last, she let out a call of a hound for help, a dying plea.

  The burn swept through her.

  She shook against it, every muscle in her body reacting in terror.

  And then Red was there.

  He yanked her away, and put himself between her and the princess-creature. It was very like what the horse had done for the princess, thought Fierce.

  Then Red took out a knife she had not seen that he had, and thrust it with his good hand at the princess-creature’s throat.

  The creature did not bleed. Its neck opened, but not enough to stop it. Then it held tightly to Red and began to change in color from white to tan. It was like when the princess’s wild magic had been bled from her, but paler, as if Red had not as much to give.

  Red made a low sound like a bleating pig as he began to crumple. Fierce could see his eyes go dull. The fissure had taken his hand before, and now it wanted more.

  But Fierce would not let it have him.

  She grabbed the knife from his outstretched hand and slashed at the princess-creature’s arms. She had enough strength that one of her thrusts cut off the lower arm entirely and the creature stepped back in surprise.

  Fierce stared at the ground as what had been a human-like arm turned back into tiny worms again.

  Then she knew what her task was. She thrust with the knife again and again at the creature, cutting at arms and legs until it could no longer move, but had not given up the face of the princess.

  Then the knife slipped from her hand as sweat, not blood, made her skin slick. Red took up the knife rather more methodically and with a look of thoughtfulness, cut the creature up until there was nothing left of it but the worms that lay on the ground.

  He leaned back, gasping, on all fours.

  Fierce put a hand out to touch him, in thanks.

  But he jerked himself upright again. “The worms! We must take them to the fissure, press them back to the Xaon.”

  Of course! Fierce threw herself to the ground, grabbing as many of the worms as she could, scooping them into her gown, and then reaching for more. She held them tightly so they could not escape again.

  Red did the same.

  They did not get them all, but when Red saw how many Fierce had he put his forehead close to hers, and smiled. “You are better than a princess,” he said to Fierce. “A princess of power, of the forest.” Clearly, he expected her to think of this as a compliment.

  Instead, Fierce stiffened at the words and pulled away from him. She was not a princess and she had no wish to be one. Being human was too much as it was.

  Chapter Seventeen:

  “The princess and the others are at the second fissure,” said Red, leading through the forest with the sense of Xaon from his missing hand.

  “Is she closing it?” asked Fierce.

  “She is doing something,” said Red. “But I do not know what the effect will be.”

  Fierce tensed, sure that when they arrived, she and Red would find the princess had grown angry enough to throw in the animals, or despondent enough to throw in herself. She was not sure that the princess would give the Xaon what Red had, however. It might still remain open.

  Did she care if the princess died, if she also ended up closing the Xaon and fixing what she had done with her wild magic? Fierce found that she did. For all the princess’s superiority and manipulation of others, Fierce cared for her. She was a strong woman, and she loved that horse. And Fierce also wanted to know more of what had made the princess who she was. Was it only curiosity or something more?

  In any case, she ran as fast as she could go, in bare feet with her skirt squirming with worms around her waist. Red had a distant look on his face, as if he could not hear her, but only the fissure ahead of them.

  They passed through a thicket and then beyond that was the fissure, and the princess. The other animals were in a bunch some yards away from the princess, most of them with bristling fur and wide eyes and trembling limbs. Loyal and Unbroken and Hunter were at the side of the princess, encouraging her.

  “Kill it!” shouted Hunter.

  “Make it beg you for its life,” said Unbroken.

  “Its eyes. You must look into its eyes,” said Loyal.

  But there were no eyes to look into, as far as Fierce could see. The fissure itself had only a few worms trailing out of it, and the princess held them bravely on her arm as they must have burned her terribly. She used her wild magic on one at a time, turning one into a mosquito which flew away and another into a beetle which Loyal snatched at and devoured.

  Could she not see that this was exactly the wrong thing to do? Hadn’t Red and Fierce explained the Xaon to her and how her wild magic worked to open the Naon up to it? Fierce waved a hand and tried to call out. Red did the same. But the princess and the others were too intent to hear them.

  After eating the beetle, Loyal began to writhe, threw himself onto his forelegs, and vomited.

  What came out of him Fierce could not see, but the princess leaned over it and used the wild magic again.

  Loyal reached for the new creature, but Fierce was close enough to shout out, “No! Don’t touch it.”

  Loyal looked up at Fierce and her eyes lit up. “She’s back,” she announced. “And the other one, too,” she said, as she caught sight of Red, behind Fierce.

  “I smell death on them,” said Hunter. “They kill but refuse to let us do the same?”

  “It doesn’t work on the white creatures,” Fierce explained. “That’s why we’ve come to try something else.” She knelt down beside the edge of the fissure, her head spinning, though she could not tell if it was from the memory of what had nearly happened before, or because she was even more sensitive to the call of the Xaon than she had been before.

  She felt a steadying hand from Red and began to unknot the skirt of her gown, where the white worms had been held as she ran.

  “Get his worms, Hunter, Unbroken, Loyal,” said Fierce. “We are going to throw them back into the fissure.”

  “And what makes you think that will work?” demanded the princess.

  “Have you had success with your own methods?” Fierce asked her in return.

  “Not yet,” admitted the princess.

  “Then accept that you are wrong and help us,” said Red.

  For a moment, the princess looked ready to argue, but then she lowered her head and reached for Fierce’s skirt. “Throw them back in?” she asked. “That is all?”

  Fierce realized that she did not know what else. She turned to Red. He was the one who had intimate experience with the Xaon.

  His eyes were closed and he seemed to be deep in thought.
r />   Fierce hesitated, wondering if she should wake him. Perhaps she should let him be, and do this on her own.

  But then he said clearly, “Press them all the way in, no part of them allowed to touch the Naon of this world. I think that without that to sustain them, they will give up and return to the Xaon. But they must be held in the fissure until then.”

  “How long?” asked Fierce.

  “I don’t know,” said Red, rubbing at his eyes. “These may be more willing to wait, since they have already tasted the Naon. I think that if it were a newly created fissure, they could be more easily controlled.”

  “I will do it,” said the princess. “I will put my hand over them and hold them inside the fissure, if that is what must be done.”

  Fierce stared at her. She did not trust the princess to stick to the task when it became difficult. When she felt the sting of all of those worms against her skin, what would she do?

  “You think I am used to having everything my own way,” said the princess, looking into Fierce’s eyes.

  “Are you not?” said Fierce.

  “I have spent all my life searching after a horse that would not stay with me.”

  “And then you found him,” Fierce reminded her.

  “And I let him go again,” said the princess. “I know pain and endurance better than any of you. I have lived longer than any of you, and I have not given up.”

  Fierce thought over this, and then nodded her head. She would give the princess a chance to prove herself. But she would stand directly behind her.

  Loyal, Unbroken, and Hunter came forward with Red’s worms. They pushed them into the fissure handfuls at a time, then two or three, then the last few one by one, picking them from their skin and shaking them off into the fissure.

  The princess, for her part, grabbed the wiggling worms away from the sides of the fissures and pushed them back to the center. She shook her hands in pain only once that Fierce saw, and kept her focus by biting hard on her lower lip.

  When the other three were finished, it was Fierce’s turn. She came forward and flung open her skirt. Then she bent down and carefully herded the worms into a single stream down into the fissure. Each time she touched one of them, she felt the sting of their burn, but far worse was the dark call of the Xaon.