The Horse Dreamer

by Marc Secchia

  “Get the Prince!”

  Prince? That self-important, prancing ninny? Figured.

  Wolf-creatures swarmed the ropes dangling from Jesafion’s neck and wings. He torched them with his fire, kicked and speared multiple bodies with his horn, but their tough, stringy adversaries hung on like grim death, giving up only when beaten into unconsciousness or killed.

  Storm! Picturing the boiling blackness of the storm-steeds she had seen in her dream, Zaranna entreated the butterflies to weave their magic. She had no idea how it might work, but desperation was a harsh taskmaster. An icy wind stirred her mane. Immediately, the battle fell silent. A tremendous pressure crammed into her ears, making every hair on her body stand to attention. She quailed. What had she done?

  Hooves thundered across the sky, a mighty drum-roll that struck terror into the heart of every living creature.

  “Great dancing – down!” yelled Jesafion. “Get down!”

  The Darkwolf Clan broke with panicked howls, scattering to the winds, but it was already too late. Zaranna ducked her head and wished for nothing more than to pull a boulder over herself for protection as the storm thundered over a nearby low rise. Shrill whinnies mingled with the basso rumblings of the tempest. An avalanche of furious hooves stampeded all around her, miraculously skipping over her quivering body, trampling the ground and every living thing within sight as the monstrous night-black storm-steeds powered onward. The earth trembled and leaped beneath her knees. A sharp scent of ozone mingled with singed fur and the unmistakable, coppery tang of blood.

  Zaranna wriggled upright. She found herself staring down over a small valley carpeted in what appeared to be violet heather. A stream ran through it, beginning with a pinkish waterfall surrounded by olive-green fern brakes to her left … and a swathe of churned-up destruction ran into the distance, up the far hill, where it vanished near the crown. She saw the ground ploughed like a freshly tilled field. Here and there, bones and bits of fur stuck out of the sea of mud and stone, as if planted in mute testimony to the wolves’ demise.

  She stood, and vomited.

  No, she did not dare to turn and look at Jesafion. Was he dead, or alive? She knew she had wreaked this. Loosed it – the storm. She had wished for storm-steeds to bludgeon her enemies. Her heart turned over as she heard a hoof strike stone behind her.

  Jesafion spluttered, “By the Ancestors, who are you?”

  Zaranna gazed over an unfamiliar land. Hills of purple stretched many miles to an abrupt escarpment or mountain range, where improbably jagged burgundy peaks gnawed at a turquoise sky, the colour of Cape Town’s oceans in the summer. Beneath the march of blue-green cloud-horses across the vast vault of blue, waxy trees with cotton-puff boughs bowed over the river like old men hunched over their canes. Unfamiliar scents and spices carried upon the breeze to her sensitive nostrils. She had never seen the sun as a ball of orange fire, so close it begged her to reach out and touch it, ruddy and warming rather than blazing and impossible to look at directly.

  Where was she? A place so deeply evocative, so … what was this feeling?

  She glanced back at Jesafion. “I –”

  Wind gusted sharply. A shadow descended. Zaranna staggered beneath a forceful blow against her back. Suddenly she was airborne, gripped about the torso by a pair of powerful, scaly paws. Huge red wings stirred up a squall, propelling her away from the Pegasus and up into the sky.

  God, no, not the Dragon …

  Rhenduror tightened his grip, causing her ribs to creak. “So, daughter of the –”

  Zaranna screamed, “Jesafion! Heeeeeellllp!”

  Chapter 6: Swamped

  THe RED Dragon’s laughter was a volley of horrid gurgles, as though he had a dozen horse bones stuck in his throat and was struggling to expectorate them. Zaranna had to shut her eyes against the spectacle of the ground first receding, then rushing by with increasing speed as the Dragon’s serpentine body stretched out above her, undulating with each powerful wing-stroke. She prayed with quiet desperation in her heart, mostly for courage.

  How could this be a dream? The mind was an amazing instrument. No scientist could claim to have plumbed even a fraction of its mysteries, but this? Vivid dreams had been part of her growing up since her youngest years. But dreams were somehow softer. Less hard-edged, less filled with realistic pain and terror and unfamiliar sights and smells. Less rife with sulphur-breathing Dragons whisking prey away to their Masters’ torture chambers for sessions of leg-sawing recreation. This was insane enough to be real – the irony almost forced a chuckle – but she was too unnerved to laugh.

  He was not carrying her off without a fight. She twisted, fought and wrenched against that prodigious grasp.

  Coming from behind she spotted white wings, flapping awkwardly, but clearly gaining. Jesafion! But how could a Pegasus hope to fight a Dragon?

  Her struggles caused the Dragon to lurch through the air. He cursed luridly, using many expressions Zaranna neither knew, nor wanted to know. Rhenduror’s talons clamped like hot metal shackles about her ribs, making her picture a horse trapped in a python’s fatal, suffocating coils. He growled, “Stop fighting, you fool, or I will see how well you fly without wings.”

  “And then your Master will punish you.”

  Her protest was timid, but it goaded Rhenduror into a fine rage. “I am my own master!” he thundered, shaking her like a hapless rat. Choking billows of fire and smoke gushed out of his throat. There was that smell again, sulphur shot through with an incongruous hint of jasmine. Zaranna had the impression that the Red Dragon was not the sharpest tool in the shed. Truly? She had always conceived of Dragons as shrewd, magical and incredibly noble beasts. Rhenduror was a dimwit and a thug.

  But she could not breathe. “Please …”

  “Ah, she begs. Sweet music to my ears.”

  Ugh. But she was not too proud to seize any advantage, any sliver of hope. “Ooh, you’re so strong,” she wheedled. “You must be the strongest of all creatures.”

  His Monstrous Redness practically purred with pleasure. The talons eased their grip.

  Meantime, she cast about. Where were they headed? She could not even tell if the sun was rising or setting, but its low rays illuminated the rolling hills she must have landed upon. Rhenduror flew toward a spectacular range of mountains, all spiky, snow-tipped spears bristling against the pristine horizon, range upon range of differing shades of purple and brown receding into the distance as far as the eye could perceive. When she was not coughing at the Dragon’s sulphurous exhalations, the air she breathed was the sweetest and purest of nectar, making her feel giddy. Twisting to look to the sides, she saw that they flew up what appeared to be a valley many miles long, a green, curving space scooped out between flanking ridges, thickly bearded with forests sporting an array of improbable colours – dizzying sprays of baby pink and bottle-green and violet, yellow and ruby and silver. At intervals, forest giants towered above the canopy, forming foliage-turrets and castles of unbelievable dimensions.

  She had never imagined such a place. Was she even on Earth anymore?

  She had legs. Sweet God in heaven, was this a beautiful dream or a cruel mind trick? Zara had an uncontrollable urge to run just for the sensation of feet or hooves striking the ground. Should she have the chance, she would run forever.

  Minor issues first, like escaping from a hostile Dragon. Zaranna asked, “Who is this Master you speak of?”

  Rhenduror chuckled, “Soon enough, Wizard-Daughter. Soon enough. He does not believe that I sniffed you out and summoned you hence, with dreams and visions, and pure draconic cunning. Know you not that names convey power? You spoke mine; I came for you. Now be silent. I must outfly that pesky Pegasus Clan mosquito.”

  So the chase continued, mile after mile. Jesafion flew uncomfortably, clearly injured, but he seemed at least able to keep up with the Dragon, the sweeps of his wide, swan-like wings powering him through the gold-chased sunbeams, and occasionally he would pause his flapping an
d appear to gallop along on thin air, his hooves sparking with what Zaranna jealously assumed was Pegasus magic. Above the forests she saw occasional flights of odd-looking, bright birds, but she was too far away to make out any details, even though the Red Dragon appeared to be drifting lower and lower, perhaps tiring of his burden.

  She watched the valley rise toward the mountains, before it ended in an abrupt slice-away of the land, an escarpment perhaps formed by a land-slip in aeons past. Beyond that sharp edge lay an eerie realm of gentle white clouds and rising mists lapping against the base of the mountains. Yet she sensed evil lurked there, or at least danger. Zaranna redoubled her efforts. Escape! She must not let this creature take her to the cloaked man.

  “Rhenduror! Stand and fight,” Jesafion’s voice carried thinly on the breeze.

  “Back, you insufferable do-gooder, or I shall brain this mare on the rocks!”

  “Let her go, you wingéd fiend of the foulest Earthen Fires. This dispute concerns the two of us.”

  Zaranna rolled her eyes. Honestly? Jesafion needed to work on his lines, and definitely on his penchant for trying to act the gallant knight saving a helpless maiden. But his silver fire spurted past them now, spraying across the outer third of Rhenduror’s left wing. The Dragon bellowed in pain, wobbling violently before correcting himself with a series of vigorous flaps that caused them to outpace Jesafion for a moment. The Pegasus flapped bravely, accelerating as he swooped in to harry Rhenduror. The Dragon’s long neck snaked about, spitting globs of fire at the agile flying horse, but Jesafion either avoided his shots or blocked them with what appeared to be bubbles of a translucent substance that emanated from his horn, neutralising the Dragon’s fire.

  Impressive. Rather unlikely by any law of physics she had studied in her sixteen years, but Zaranna was not about to argue, neither with serendipity nor with the power of this incredible, graphic nightmare. She returned to bucking her body furiously.

  The mountains and the sky swapped places as the Dragon swerved and jinked, trading shots with the Pegasus. Releasing one paw, Rhenduror swiped at Jesafion, opening two awful gashes in his muscular left shoulder.

  “Moronic lizard!” howled Jesafion.

  “Flying rat!” roared Rhenduror.

  Pegasus-fire slammed into the Dragon’s flank, seizing up his muscles. Zara yelled as the ground lurched closer. The Dragon recovered instantly, belting Jesafion squarely in the chops with his hind paw. The Pegasus spat blood but followed with renewed determination.

  Zaranna jerked this way and that, seeing mountains, now sky, now the ground whizzing beneath her hooves. So close! She raised her legs instinctively, but her right knee cracked against a boulder just as they tumbled over the escarpment’s edge. Pain? She had lost her legs. She knew pain. She twisted her neck sharply, and sank her teeth into the Dragon’s wrist.

  The Dragon vented his discomfort and fury in a gush of fire. “Blast you with Earthen Fires, Wizard scum!”

  She was not about to trade insults like children scrapping in a playground. As they whistled into the foetid mists, dropping lower by the second, she flexed her jaw and set about trying to grind the Dragon’s bones out through his bitter-tasting hide.

  Rhenduror rocked beneath a renewed assault from the Pegasus, yet the Dragon managed to keep on flying, indefatigable. Zaranna rattled about at the force of Jesafion’s blasts. Suddenly they were slapping against broad, wet leaves. Gobbets of thick, astringent-smelling green sap splattered her body. The Dragon’s dangling fist exploded through a rotten tree trunk and she spun free, catching a brief glimpse of the Pegasus pounding away at the Red Dragon as they vanished into the mists. She fell, punching through layers of soft, field-sized leaves and bouncing off another soft, rotten trunk, and finally slammed so hard into a freezing mud-pool that the breath gushed out of her lungs in a single, pained gasp.

  With a startled burble, Zaranna sank.

  * * * *

  The water was so thick with bitter organic muck, she felt as though she were thrashing her limbs in treacle. Nor did she know a great deal about swimming as a horse. Zaranna strained upward, seeing anaemic light filtering from somewhere overhead, wishing above all else that she could borrow a couple of those butterflies and ride a storm-steed to safety. What she saw was several bubbles drifting slowly down past her nose. Downward? No, she was upside-down underwater! Nitwit.

  She was halfway to rights again when she became aware of a firm pressure growing against her side and back. Abruptly, she rose through the muck, pressing it aside – oh no, was this a swamp beast? Whatever the case, the powerful force shoved her to the surface. Pop! She flew several feet into the air in an explosion of mud and air that stank like rotten eggs, and landed again with a wet splat! Perfect belly-flop. Well, perhaps swamp gas came in handy for something after all. She watched another sizeable bubble surface and forgot to duck. In the blink of an eye, she was wearing a goodly part more of the swamp. How did one wipe one’s face without hands?

  Wonderful dream. Better by the minute.

  And she was sinking again, already hocks-deep in a field of delightful grey-brown ooze. Zaranna tried to step out onto a firmer-looking hillock, only to discover that her right knee would not bend, nor did the hillock appear to take too kindly to the idea. It hissed at her and ambled off a distance. She stared at her muddy knee, which had already swollen to resemble a melon on a stalk. Having tangled with a Dragon, she should be grateful to have both knees intact. All four knees. She only hoped Jesafion would be safe.

  Zaranna soon found firmer ground of sorts, a bed of spongy plant matter which stopped her from sinking. Slowly, her panicked panting subsided. Alright, Zars. Ignoring the existential conundrum raised by her present situation and rather sorry – or soggy – prospects, she gave herself a firm mental pinch. Arise, Inglewood, and apply the grey matter. For starters, which way out? Out of this land, out of this nightmare which stubbornly refused to evaporate into a convivial reacquaintance with her duvet and pillows …

  All she could see in every direction, was grey-brown pools of rank water surrounded by marginally firmer-appearing fringes of grey-brown mud, in which a smattering of similarly grey-brown ferns and tree trunks grew, albeit apathetically. Many trees leaned over or lay half-buried in the blighted muck, either moulded and decomposing, or sunk most of the way into that state. The other dominant plant form was fungi, a botanist’s cabinet of luminously toxic colours and varieties dotting the putrefying trunks like a ghastly case of teenage pimples.

  “Charming spot,” said Zaranna, trying to cheer herself up. “No sun? Nope, too much to hope for. So, ignoring how insane one needs to be to imagine being a talking horse dropped into a swamp by a mythological beast – this way looks marginally less unexciting than the rest.”

  An unknown number of hours of three-legged hobbling later, she was weary, dispirited, freezing cold, feeling every one of her wounds and bruises, still plastered in sludge, and had just narrowly avoided stepping into a floral-decorated mouth that could have swallowed a house with ease. She had long since decided that this dream out-sucked a turbocharged vacuum cleaner. Now, if she could have been wandering around in this trackless, miserable mire in the company of the Master of Awesomeness himself, namely Alex … she paused. Oh. The swamp did change.

  A wide body of soupy water cut across her intended path at this point, liberally decorated with floating globs of what resembled nothing so much as fresh vomit. Regurgitated pea-soup, to be precise, which her dear brother Charles had once introduced to the entire family, one memorable Easter meal at Aunt Altosaurus’. Dotted about in the water, looming through the ever-present, clammy mists, were trees that she likened to giant mangroves, for the tangled, far-reaching roots anchored trees whose main trunks began to grow ten to twelve feet above the surface. Their man-sized, trumpet-shaped blossoms hung almost down to the water, and were the first splash of cheery colour she had seen in the swamp. Yellow. Bright, sunshine yellow.

  Was it her imagination, or had t
he light begun to fade?

  Zaranna eyed the waters mistrustfully. Just then, she heard a soft sound behind her. The sound of a very large body moving stealthily through the swamp.

  The memory of a draconic shadow and an unwanted ride to said swamp being foremost in her mind, she did not pause to exchange pleasantries. Zaranna flung herself headlong into the water. Just in time. A monstrous lime-green salamander nosed the spot where she had stood a second before. A gleaming orange, forked tongue flicked out to taste the ground. Her blood. The thing was tracking her by the scent of her blood, for she must surely represent lunch to a carnivorous amphibian. Tasty horsemeat. It could not enjoy fine dining a la horse too often, unless Rhenduror made a habit of dropping his victims off in this corner of paradise. Which might not be unlikely …

  Zaranna worked her legs frantically. Soon, the gap with the shore widened. The salamander cast about for her trail, squinting with its beady black eyes, its spatulate, webbed feet digging into the soft loam.

  Halfway to the mangroves, the motion of her body kicked up a small splash of water. The creature whirled and launched itself in the direction of that sound. It swam strongly, holding its head above the water to give her a perfect view of its numerous rows of short, sharp teeth set in a wide mouth easily capable of spooning tens of pounds of flesh off her frame at a time. Closer. Closer still. The salamander swam several times her speed. The only hope lay in reaching the mangroves, in hiding amongst the roots. She was bleeding freely in the water, each exertion wrenching her knee repeatedly – as the creature closed in, Zaranna collected herself. Right. She had an idea. One shot.

  Tipping forward to raise her hindquarters out of the rank, freezing waters, she waited for the salamander’s lunge. In that instant, she kicked backward as hard and high as she was able, making a bucking motion. She felt the connection, saw greenish blood surge from the creature’s throat. Then she gasped. What? Water punched her diaphragm. Something huge carved through the muck, slicing the salamander in half. All she saw was a long, beak-like jaw lined with inward-facing teeth, and a swirl of water where the unseen predator sounded. She kicked for the mangroves with dread-fuelled strength and scrambled up a mudbank, mud and swamp-filth sheeting down her flanks as she pulled strongly, trying a series of three-legged leaps to progress through water that was still two feet deep.