by Lisa Maxwell
Chapter 6
It was mid-summer and they were hacking lazily back from a ride that had taken them out of the shallow end of the valley, when they came upon the mare so suddenly neither of them had any warning. As they crested a rise, Lark's head snapped up and he stopped abruptly, jarring Is from her day dream.
Not twenty yards away the mare's head jerked up in response. Both animals stood frozen at the unexpected sight of each other while Is sat equally immobilized. In an instant she took in the mare's refined head, her expressive eyes and fine bones. She was a dark bay, with black mane and tail – much too fine to be the horse of a Blueskin or a berserker. This mare did not belong here in a way that sent Is's heart racing.
She wore no bridle, and though she wore a saddle it had slipped off to her left side as if she had thrown her rider and run loose.
Lark lowered and raised his head several times, trying to focus the mare better. It was odd, the way she seemed unwilling or unable to move as though her leg, or the dangling stirrup, was caught in the scrub juniper that blocked Is’s view.
The mare broke the deadlock by nickering. To Is it sounded like a plea for help. Lark lowered his head and Is felt him relax. He made a soft wuffling sound of reassurance as he walked forward.
Lark was reaching out his neck to sniff noses with the mare when Is saw the man. She wanted to jerk the stallion's head away, and flee, but it was too late. The man would have already seen them. In the next instant Is realized he was not lying in ambush. He looked dead. He lay sprawled on his face, one arm thrown out and the other under him. His body was turned at the hips and his foot twisted in the stirrup. He must have resisted falling, clutching the saddle so hard he nearly dragged it off with him. Whoever had trained the mare had obviously instilled in her a trust so deep that all she could do with this terrifying situation was wait for help. Is's heart went out to her. She was gallant, and beautiful, and in trouble.
Is had to step over the man to position herself where she would have enough leverage to get the girth undone. The mare stood like a statue while Is struggled with it. But the moment the saddle was off she stepped carefully away from the man and began to graze. By then Is had taken in enough clues to realize the horse had stood like that for hours, maybe a day or more. Everything she could reach without dragging the man had been eaten. She was starving to avoid stepping on him.
It took an incredibly talented trainer, and a special horse, to achieve that kind of trust. The man who was lying at her feet could be that trainer, but such a horseman wasn't likely to have a fall like this. More likely this man had stolen the mare from some very expensive stud. She was certainly a quality animal.
On the other hand, the mare was wearing no bridle and there were no broken pieces lying around. The inescapable conclusion was the man had been riding without one. That was no rookie horsemanship.
Is had been so caught up in the mare's plight, she had ignored the man. If he was not already dead, he was probably so badly hurt she couldn't help him anyway. She didn't really have any intention of trying. Whoever he was, he was dangerous to her. But the thought that he might be the horseman who had trained this incredible mare made her hesitate.
She knelt by him and gingerly touched his check. It was warm. She jerked her hand away, heart racing. She knew she should try to help him, that was the right thing to do, but she was terrified.
She stood, marshalling her courage. The two horses were grazing together like old friends, the mare tearing frantically at the grass and Lark grazing sedately beside her. The scene helped to calm Is. Someone had trained the mare to go without need of a bridle even in the rough terrain of the Boundary. If it was this man he must have a kind nature for no one could train a horse to that degree by using forceful or cruel methods.
Is freed the man’s foot from the stirrup and rolled him over. If his back was broken, he would die anyway. She wasn't concerned about doing further harm. It might be best if he did die. Kind or not, he was going to be trouble for her. He was either an outlaw who had stolen the mare, or he was someone high ranking in the Alliance, for only they could ride horses.
One side of his face was caked with dried blood and mud. His skin was pulled tight from dehydration making his face look like a skull. His hair was blond almost to the point of being colorless. Behind their closed lids his eyes looked sunken, like the eyes of a dehydrated horse. The skin around them was dark, almost bluish, and bruised-looking.
Is watched his chest rise and fall. His breathing was shallow compared to hers, but regular. She started to feel for broken ribs and then stopped. She had to decide whether to try to help him, or not. She could just ride away.
If he hadn't stolen the mare, he had to be some sort of government official because no one else could have such a quality animal. He wasn't wearing a Trooper's uniform, and Is had never heard of a bridle-less school within the government, but that didn't mean there wasn't one. If he had found her, she should be getting away before others followed him. Is glanced around nervously, and her eyes came to rest on the mare. If she tried to leave, the mare would probably follow. But if this was the horseman who had trained the mare, she belonged to him in a way that made taking her seem like stealing in a way that taking Lark had not. If this was the man who had trained her.
What if he was a thief who had stolen the horse? Maybe he had murdered the mare’s rightful owner.
But he had been riding without a bridle. That was not something a horse would do for just anyone. The mare must know this man well and trust him.
If he recovered he'd be trouble for her. He’d try to take her in, or report her at the very least. Or if he was a criminal he might try to steal Lark. Enslave her. Nothing good could possibly come of helping him.
While her mind ran through all that, and her body begged her to run, Is watched the horses and knew she could not take the mare and leave the man to die.
She rigged up a travois, using pieces of her tack, pieces of the man's tack, and two small trees. The mare quietly accepted the harness and the strange contraption of poles with a rope hammock tied between them. Although the man wasn’t very tall, it was hard to move his dead weight. Is gave up on trying to be gentle and dragged and wrestled him onto the travois any way she could. Maybe the man would have the good grace to just go ahead and die. Or, maybe the mare would take off galloping and kick the whole thing to splinters, the man included. Is didn't have any idea how to control her without a bridle except to lead Lark and expect her to follow. That arrangement seemed fine to the mare. She followed along, nibbling a few bites of grass here and there.
The man didn't die on the trip. So Is dragged him to the back of the stall. She couldn't have gotten him up into the loft if she'd wanted to. She felt funny going through his stuff, so as soon as she found his sleeping bag, she stopped. It was a marvelous bag, thicker and warmer than her makeshift one, but not a third the weight. Only a very important man, high in the government, would have something like that. Is berated herself for bringing him here and trying to help him. But here he was, and he would die of dehydrated if nothing else, so she rigged up a stomach tube to get water into him. He choked and gagged as she forced the tube down his throat but he didn't vomit. When she blew into the tube, he didn’t cough, so she guessed it had reached his stomach, not his lungs. She dribbled a little water down it and that didn't kill him either.
That wasn't the worst of it. The worst came a day later when his bladder started working again. Is gave up on modesty and wrestled all his clothes off, then rigged up a tube to that end of him too. Getting the tube on, and getting it to stay on, were no easy tasks. She was thoroughly disgusted with the whole thing until the next time his bladder let go and it ran down the tube and out of the stall, and she didn't have to clean it up. Then she was sort of proud of herself.
Other than the fluid, and a general cleanup of the man's cuts - none of which seemed serious - Is didn't know
what to do for him. She wasn't going to try to feed him. If he was that far gone, let him die. She'd done her part.
The mare settled happily in with the stallion. Over the next few days, Is spent a lot of time watching them. She imagined the colt they would produce, and thought about where the mare had come from, and about where to bury the man, who didn’t appear to be getting better. But she didn't let herself think about what she'd do if he lived, took the mare and left.
On the fourth day the man started having convulsions. They terrified Is and she was sorry she'd ever gotten involved. She hadn't done him any favor. He would have died of exposure by now if she'd left him. That night she had nightmares about him suddenly rising up out of the bed and attacking her, or the horses. She planned ways to defend herself, while she knew it was all quite illogical.
The next morning she decided to go through the man's saddlebags. The clothes she found were high quality Alliance material. She recognized packets of dehydrated food. And then she found the tools. She couldn't even guess their uses. Common people had axes, shovels, picks, things like that. His tools were sophisticated, smooth things with no apparent purposes. If he had stolen them as well as the horse he must certainly be a wanted criminal.
The convulsions lasted, on and off, for two days. Then the man seemed to sleep differently, unlike the stillness of a comatose state except it went on and on. Three days later he woke up.
Is had come into the stall to get Lark's bridle. Halfway across the room, she felt the man's eyes on her and froze, afraid to meet those eyes. Every berserker she'd ever dealt with flashed before her vision – their cold, deadly, unreachable eyes. She knew this man wasn't a berserker. He wasn't built like one. But it didn't matter. She was afraid his eyes would be like that. She had to force herself to turn and face him.
He wasn't what she expected at all. His face looked much kinder with his eyes open. His expression was soft. "Beatific" was the word Is thought. He looked as if he'd opened his eyes on heaven. She couldn't quite look away. If dying was like this, she'd never fear it again.
His eyes closed and the breath went out of him like a sigh. Is stood frozen, watching for the sleeping bag to move to tell her he was still breathing. She was hoping very hard, but wasn’t sure what she was hoping for, that he would breathe again or that he wouldn’t. After a moment the man's chest began to rise and fall again, and Is breathed too. Her legs felt rubbery as she walked the rest of the way across the stall. Her hand shook as she reached for Lark's bridle.
Whether the man was an Alliance official or a criminal, if he lived, she would have to leave her safe little valley. She was mad at herself for having helped him, mad at him, mad at fate. She hadn't been doing anyone any harm. True, she'd stolen the horse, but damn it, she'd saved his life. The Alliance had lots of other horses. She'd been happy enough living with just Lark. Maybe that couldn't have lasted. Maybe because she'd known that one way or another it couldn't go on forever, she'd cherished every moment carefully. But there was nothing else for her.
The man woke again in the night. Is heard him trying to get up. She listened, holding her breath, almost holding her heart still. He didn't make it far. She heard him fall, then silence. She knew she should go down and see if he was all right, but she couldn't. For once fear won over discipline. She wasn't going down until it was light. She knew he couldn't make it up the ladder, and yet she couldn't sleep, fearing him and being angry at herself in turn.
In the morning Is saw that he had made it to the middle of the stall. He looked like a little boy curled up on the floor. His skin was even whiter than she remembered and his face was innocent in sleep, gentle enough to be the man who had trained the mare. He'd gotten the tubes off, and she wasn’t about to put them on again. He looked cold, nude, curled up with goose bumps on his skin. She got his sleeping bag from the corner, threw it over him and went out to the horses.
The horses were not far away. Is touched Lark’s neck in greeting. His shoulder towered over her. The mare raised her head from grazing and came over for some attention too. Is had come to love this mare for her loyalty and manners that were as delicate as her conformation. Is tried to imagine how leaving her behind would feel. But she couldn't go just yet. The man might still die, and Is was pretty sure she’d have to lock the mare in the stall to keep her from following Lark. She’d starve if the man wasn’t able to take care of her. Is put her head against the mare's withers and began to shake. By staying, she was giving up her own best chance to survive.
When she went back to the stall, the man was gone.
Adrenaline flooded Is while she fought for rational control. He was only a very sick, very weak man. He couldn't do anything. But she was out the door to check on the horses before she could convince herself. They were grazing as placidly as they had been when she left them.
She saw the man's footprints in the wet grass. He had gone around the side of the shed. Is took several deep breaths before she could put on her best sauntering, confidence-exuding walk and go after him.
The man was sitting with his back against the shed, legs sprawled in front of him, eyes closed. The morning sun on his face, lit his blond hair to white. Dark circles showed like bruises under his eyes. His cheeks were sunken and his ribs stood out. He looked frail and very much in need of her help. It had been so much foolishness to be afraid of him.
He heard her and opened his eyes. They were gray, like the mist on the mountains. Soft. He tried to smile, expressing his gratitude and apologizing for his continued need more perfectly than any words could. He reached his arm out toward her, asking for help to rise. Is knelt, put his arm around her shoulder and helped him up, surprised at how natural and easy it was to touch him like this. They began to walk back around the shed. He was as thin as a skeleton, and as light. He had to stop every few steps to rest, but he seemed completely unashamed of his nakedness, and so Is ignored it too. When they got inside, he collapsed into his sleeping bag and fell asleep instantly.
Is heard him get up again in the night and listened to his slow, staggery steps as he chuffed through the dried grass with which she bedded the stall. His steps stopped near the door, and after a while she heard him making water. Then he had to rest awhile before he could make it back to bed.
In the morning, Is took the forked stick she used for cleaning up after the horses and pitched out the straw he'd soiled. He watched her from his bed and smiled with a little embarrassed, apologetic smile when she looked at him.
"Don't worry about it," she said. These were the first words she had spoken out loud in a very long time. She realized that the man had not spoken to her at all and she wondered if he couldn't speak.
Over the next several days Is fed him broth and then the gruel she made for herself from the cereal heads of various grasses. By the third day he was strong enough to sit up at her fire outside. He never spoke to her and so she didn’t speak to him. She was used to silent communication with the horses and felt comfortable communicating the same way with the man.
Is remembered the food concentrates in the man's pack and thought they might help him gain strength. Again, she felt strange going into his things, so she brought the whole pack out to him. But he had leaned back against a rock and seemed to be dozing, so she decided to go ahead and have the food ready for him when he woke.
She had the water hot and was about to pour a packet of mix into it when she heard something behind her. She turned just as the man lunged for her. There was no time to get away. She struck him flat-handed against the chest in a reflexive action that all her years of handling the rude young stallions had honed, before she realized that he wasn't going for her, but for his pack.
Her strike knocked him back. He crouched on the ground, gripping the pack he had snatched from her, and started to say something. But the sound that came out of his throat was like the cry of a hunting hawk. Startling enough from a bird, it was
disturbingly inappropriate from the man.
He turned away with a harsh movement, and his fist slammed into the pack with a sound like a fist hitting flesh.
Is jerked in reaction to his sudden violence. She moved away from him, closing her hand over a rock. She had left her knife by the fire and was afraid to try for it now.
The man upended the pack and shook everything out. Then he scrabbled through his belongings and flung the food packets into the fire. The flames sputtered under the onslaught and turned green. A foul smell reached Is. Poison? Had he been poisoned? Was that why he'd had the fall? Why he'd been sick? Is wanted to ask, but she was too afraid of him now.
Even sick and weak he might be stronger than she was. And now he didn’t look rational. His hands shook and his eyes were wild. He started to restuff his pack, but his movements were jerky and uncoordinated. He seemed to be losing control of his body. After a moment he gave up and sank back on his heels gripping his head with clawlike hands as if he were in terrible pain. Torn between fear and pity, Is had to break the tension.
"It was poisoned, wasn't it?”
He spun on his knees to look at her, frightening her with the crazy wild mix of emotions she saw in his eyes.
Maybe the people from whom he had stolen the mare or the tools had hit him over the head. Or maybe they had tried to kill him with the poison. She couldn't imagine anyone trying to murder a high government official, so he had to be a thief.
He must have realized how frightening he appeared for he tried to give her a reassuring smile, but it was so filled with conflicting emotion it failed to calm her, apologize, or explain anything. He reached toward her with a conciliatory motion.
Is couldn't help herself; she drew back. The man attempted to speak. His mouth opened and his throat worked but this time instead of the hawk scream he began to laugh, a high-pitched, hysterical giggle. He twisted around so his back was to her but he couldn't stop the sound. It built higher and more frenzied, while he beat on the ground with his fists and kept laughing.
The noise jerked Is's nerves tight. She couldn't stand it. She got up and moved away from the fire, but it was too dark to go far and she could still hear his horrible laughter. When it finally died down, she couldn't go back to the fire.
She watched him all night, from a distance, unable to sleep. He eventually curled up by the coals and when Is was sure he was asleep she slipped in and retrieved her knife.
In the predawn light she walked by the stream and tried to think what to do. The man was crazy. If his moods could swing like she’d seen, and he could so totally lose control, she couldn't trust him. She had to get away from him, but how? Would he try to follow? And once she left this protected valley there might be Alliance troopers and Blueskins, and other horrors. She was sorry to the depths of her soul that she had saved his life.
She wandered farther than she had intended, thinking deeply. When she finally turned her steps for home, she had decided to take Lark and slip away that night. If the mare followed her that might be best, it would leave the man on foot.
She was only halfway home when she heard Lark's frantic whinny. She left the stream bed and cut across the open field sprinting at top speed. As she topped the rise she could see that the shed door was closed. She heard the thud of Lark's heels hitting the wood. Memories of war horses gone berserk raced through her mind, adding speed to her legs. But Lark was not a trained war horse feeling his berserker approach. The only explanation was that the man had taken the mare and left Lark behind.
Is flew down the hill to the shed, pounding over the uneven ground and leaping the small bushes. The man could have taken Lark too! She'd been such an idiot to leave Lark like that. She skidded on the gravelly ground in front of the stall, crashing into the door. With her hand on the latch, she took a deep breath.
"Lark. Stand." She put as much command and calmness into her voice as she could, out of breath as she was. Then she rolled the door open only enough to admit her, not enough to let the horse out. In his excited state he would go after the mare with no thought of Is. It was dark, even in daylight, in the shed with the door closed. Is found Lark's bridle by memory. He quieted while she tacked him. Then she ran upstairs and threw a pack together. She didn’t know how much head start the man had. Whether she found him or not, she better not come back here. If he couldn't talk, he could still lead the authorities back to her. Even if he was some sort of criminal himself, he might do that if there was a reward on her. She couldn't risk it.
She heard Lark pawing as she assembled her pack. It was easier than it had been last time. She just took everything she had.
She let Lark pick the way, moving off at a fast trot and then opening into a gallop. She didn't try to control him until they had crossed the valley and gotten onto rocky footing. The man had gone out the shallow end of the bowl toward the mountains. Lark seemed sure of where he was going, and Is occasionally saw hoof prints to confirm his conviction.
It might be just as well if they didn't catch up to the man, but Is wanted to know which way he’d gone. She expected him to turn back toward the Alliance lands but he kept going straight into the mountains instead. There was no way he was going to cross those jagged, snow-covered peaks on a horse. Was he just crazy, or did he know a way through?
Is would have been content to follow at a distance but Lark was desperate to catch up to the mare. It was the nature of horses to want company. It was their need for companionship, and their ability to live within a herd hierarchy that made them trainable. Is's company had supplanted that of other horses, and Lark was happy with that until it was tested against the real thing. Once Lark became convinced that the mare was gone, he would be happy with human companionship again. But for now Is needed to find out what the man was up to.
They climbed the first ridge and turned north, deeper into the Boundary. That was the wrong direction for the man to be going if he was planning to report her.
Lark was moving steadily now, not panicked, but determined. From the top of the first ridge she saw the man. He and the mare were halfway down the other side, moving at a steady walk. Lark called. Is wondered if the man would try to outrun them. Instead he turned the mare around and waited for them to pick their way down to him.
Is wasn't sure what to say or do. She let Lark touch noses with the mare. Both horses made small throaty sounds of greeting. The man sat like a sack of potatoes, not a horseman of the caliber of the one who must have trained the mare. And yet the mare wore no bridle, and he had gotten her to leave the other horse behind. Is was even more confused about him. He sat regarding her with those soft gray eyes in a face that was still hollow and sunken, and somehow too hard to contain those gentle eyes.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
He turned and looked north, and then back at her.
"Why north?"
He grinned suddenly, a harsh baring of his teeth that was not a smile at all. He made some small movement with his body and the mare turned and began to walk. Is let Lark pace them.
"Are you going to turn me in?" If he couldn’t answer the broader question, perhaps he would answer less general ones, but he didn't look at her.
She didn't know why she asked. If he did answer, she couldn't let herself believe him. The mare came to an abrupt stop. The man twisted around in his saddle, reached into his saddlebag, and came up with one of the shiny, metal "tools" Is had wondered about. He twisted the end of it, pointed it at a piece of deadwood lying several meters away, and the wood burst into flame.
Is stared at it. She had heard of wonderful tools like that. She had seen the cutters the lumbermen used to fell and split trees to make lumber for her barn. This was something like that.
Suddenly the man turned and pointed the tool directly at her chest. For a moment Is was too shocked to believe the threat, but one look at the man's eyes convinced her. They were wild. His lips were parted in a tight
grimace. His hand shook with emotion, but it didn't shake enough to make Is think he would miss. If he meant to kill her, he could.
Instead, he turned the tool away from her, gave it a twist to disarm it, and put it back in his pack. Is sat, stunned, while the mare started to walk again. When Lark began to follow, Is let him. Her mind reeled about like a drunk. The man could have killed her. But then he'd put the tool away. Was he trying to say he meant her no harm? Was he trying to tell her not to follow him? But he had done nothing when Lark started following again. Maybe he was just crazy. Is had never seen eyes like his, tortured and frightened and angry all at once. They couldn't be the eyes of the same man who had smiled his appreciation for her help, or an apology for his needs. They did not look like the eyes of the man who had sat stroking his mare's ears, even though the effort of lifting his hand that high had made his whole arm shake. Is had to know what she was dealing with.
She gave Lark a short pressure with her legs that sent him in front of the mare, and wheeled him about to block the man's path. The mare halted patiently. Is had the man's attention. His eyes questioned her, sane and rational, nothing like the man who had held the weapon.
"Look, I don't know who you are. I don't know where you're going. But if you take this mare into those mountains, there won't be enough grass, it'll be too cold, and she'll die this winter."
He took in her outburst without expression and just sat until Is felt foolish, then he gently steered the mare around her.
“There won't be enough grass," Is called after him. “She'll starve."
He kept riding.
"There will be too much snow. She won't grow enough coat. She'll freeze."
But he kept going.
"Damn you! She's too nice a mare. Don't do that to her." Is sent Lark in front of the mare again and blocked her. The man met her eyes. He tried to turn the mare aside, but Is made Lark block him again. The man's mouth worked as though he were trying to speak. The crazy look was coming into his eyes again. Is remembered his weapon. But he didn't reach for it.
His voice was high and strained. “Dread, thread, tread,” he said, fighting for each word and surprised at them as though he meant to say something else entirely. Then his voice broke into a high, hysterical giggle. His face worked as he struggled to say something. He seemed almost to conquer himself. His eyes were desperate with some emotion Is couldn't understand.
He threw his head back and shrieked laughter to the sky. Lark pinned his ears back and fidgeted nervously. Even the mare reacted, tossing her head in an uncharacteristic way. Lark's prancing moved him out of the way, and the mare began to walk again. Is let them go. The man was insane and dangerous in some way she could not comprehend. Lark pulled at the reins to follow but Is held him back. He fretted and whinnied as they watched the mare move out of sight.