by Guy Antibes
One of the men stood in his stirrups. “There are more lined up fifty paces away. They are all Shinkyan horses, I’ll bet.”
“Devil horses,” another man said and spat on the ground. Demeron didn’t like the human’s emotions behind his words or his action.
Demeron snorted and shook his mane.
“They are set up like an army. Must be a couple of hundred. If we stampede them, we should be able to cut a few of them out,” the first human said. “Never rode a Shinkyan before.”
Demeron wrote again in the dirt. He backed away, so the words could be read.
“He wrote ‘Don’t try it’, ” a human said. “He knows what we’ve said.” The human stared at Demeron. “Look at his coat, it’s covered with scars. He’s been in fights before. Shall we risk it?”
“They’re only horses,” the first human said. He raised his rope and began to twirl. Demeron attacked the horse and the circle of rope collapsed as the human’s horse backed away from Demeron. “He’s smart, but he’s still a dumb animal.” The human dropped his rope to the ground and pulled out his sword. “Needs to be taught.”
The rest of the humans drew their swords, but even without the ability to see human spots, Demeron could see signs of unease in the humans’ faces. He rolled his head around, an instruction to circle and converge.
The horses surrounded the men. Now Demeron could smell their fear as they began to struggle to control their mounts. Demeron nodded to Lightning, who took his group and withdrew, leaving an opening in the circle.
“Leave,” Demeron wrote in the dirt. “Now.”
He gave the humans’ horses the same instruction and let them go. Three groups followed the humans over a rise and made sure they left.
“Now we can run,” Demeron said, leading his charges west.
~
The tableau repeated itself twice more with smaller groups of humans before the herd reached the wetlands the old magician-healer had told Demeron about. He has wondered if the old human might have led them astray, but here was proof that he didn’t. He led them to the north edge, and the herd continued west. The forage was thicker, and the herd found plenty of streams. Humans began to show up more and more, but it appeared they had come to see the herd. Demeron thought there might be up to fifty or sixty humans setting up camps to watch them pass. None of them followed or made any threatening moves.
They stopped one day after they reached a large lake. Demeron could hardly make out the far side. A few of the horses were spooked by the vast waters. Demeron told them about the barge that would take them to Deftnis Isle and that he had made the trip a number of times. They wouldn’t like riding on the sea, but the goal was at the very end of their voyage.
Two days later, when they arrived at the ocean, a band of many humans approached behind them. These were all Shinkyans. Mud caked their legs. Demeron thought they must have come through the swamplands.
“They are all men,” Amble said. “That means few will be able to quicken any of the herd.”
The horses broke into tight groups as they had done before. Demeron approached the Shinkyans with Amble. He thought of the shield he had used before to stop the magic of the old magician.
“You shouldn’t be out of Shinkya,” a human male said, but Demeron could tell the voice was female.
Demeron shook his head and found a patch of dirt. “We are no longer Shinkyan, woman. We are ourselves.”
He backed up to stand next to Amble.
“Preposterous. You are owned by the Queen of Shinkya. All of you are.”
Demeron could hear the frustration in her voice. He tried to divine her emotions with the color spots, but humans had only appeared as a uniform gray, and these Shinkyans were no different.
“No. We are going to another place,” he wrote. He looked at Amble when the pressure began to build up in his mind.
He projected his mind at the human, thinking of a pattern that included an image of the human’s ears. We are going to Deftnis Monastery. You will not stop us. Cease the spell or we will attack you, Demeron projected with his mind.
The Shinkyan woman held her hands to her head. “Stop it!”
You stop it, Demeron said.
The spell ceased.
You have plenty of Shinkyan horses in your country. We have lost our masters or have been born in the wild. No one owns us. We know how to fight as an army and will defeat you, Demeron said.
“Impossible!” the Shinkyan woman said.
You are a Shinkyan woman who is disguised. We have stopped your attempt to control us. Don’t you think that makes you an enemy, no different from a pack of wolves? We are thinking horses. If you want to leave in peace, we will gladly say goodbye. If you want to try to recapture us, you have been warned.
“Can you hear him?” the woman said to another woman disguised as a man.
“We can, Grand Master,” the other Shinkyan woman said.
She looked out at the horses split into groups. “Do you believe him?”
“How can we not?” the other Shinkyan said.
Demeron heard the mounted horses echoing the woman’s words.
Demeron felt the pressure return to his head. He shook his head and advanced on the Shinkyans, his teeth bared. Not only will you die, but your mounts will be destroyed as well.
Demeron’s words had an effect on the horses as they began to buck and shy. The horses in the front backed up, despite their humans’ attempts to control them.
Finally, the Grand Master raised her hand. “We will leave, but you haven’t heard the last of this,” the woman said as she signaled to the Shinkyans behind her to turn back.
Demeron watched them go. He heard clapping and on a little rise to his left, a few humans from the Empire stood and applauded. Demeron gave them a bow and trotted with Amble back to the herd.
“I don’t trust them, so we will be hurrying on our way,” Demeron said.
As they picked up speed, leaving both Shinkyans and Imperials behind, Amble came up to his side.
“You are an impossibility,” she said.
Demeron laughed inside. We all are an impossibility!
~
The herd kept close to the coastline and had to divert inland to cross rivers and seek out flatter ground in places. Demeron now had a good sense of where they were going. Humans even came out and left fodder for them when they rested.
Demeron tried communicating with men and women, the same way he talked to the Shinkyan woman, but his efforts only succeeded with a few magical healers. He discovered that humans had to be in tune with the Pattern in order to understand, but he did succeed in having a healer show him a map of their way to Deftnis.
When they were by themselves, Demeron had the horses continue to drill. It kept them together and focused on their journey, now that they traveled in a foreign land. The stubble of fields had given way to winter grass, and the air was a bit colder, but it didn’t matter to the herd.
One day five mounted humans wearing the gray robes of Deftnis barred their way. A light rain made them put up hoods. Demeron couldn’t see within.
“Demeron!” one of them said and threw his hood back.
Demeron remembered that the monk’s name was Jonness. He concentrated on the monk’s ears. I have brought Shinkyan horses to live at Deftnis.
Joness blinked. “You talked to me!”
I did, Demeron said. I have a proposition for the monastery.
The monk grinned. Demeron felt elated at the monk’s expression. “For Deftnis? I should have coaxed Abbot Pleagor to join us,” Jonness said.
We want to live on Deftnis Isle. In exchange, we will offer our services as horses to partner with your monks.
Jonness’s eyes lit up. “The plain? You’re right! There’s room enough for our horses and you there. I will speak for the Abbot and accept!”
Demeron took a shuddering breath. Do you know where Pol is?
Jonness laughed. That was a good sign. Pol must be alive.
I am glad he is alive and look forward to reuniting with him.
“Demeron?”
Is that Darrol Netherfield? Tell him I am here and have brought many friends. Whatever trials Valiso and Darrol had faced, Darrol had returned to Deftnis, and that gave Demeron hope that Pol would return.
~
Demeron pranced on the familiar turf of the plain. He looked out at the herd through the morning mist. Even after they arrived on Deftnis, they tended to cluster into their traveling groups. He saw Amble walking with Seeker, whose coat had now been trimmed and groomed. They seemed to have become good friends on the journey. Seeker and Lightning now took care of the herd, and that became a relief to Demeron.
Lightning had bonded with Vactor, Pol’s magic instructor, but Seeker hadn’t found the right magician yet, and Amble refused to bond with a male human again. He didn’t understand why, but then he didn’t understand everything about the horses he had led.
Without Pol by his side, Demeron felt a little out of place at Deftnis. His friend still traveled the Volian continent. He noted that Vactor and Lightning approached him. Demeron had learned to talk to Lightning’s master.
“Lightning said that you have a secret you’d like to share with me,” Vactor said.
I do. I can tweak the pattern, as Pol used to say. I think I absorbed the magic of a Shinkyan Elder and have used it sparingly. I need a tutor to determine how much potential I have.
“Tweaking the pattern, as a horse?”
A Shinkyan stallion. I think some of it has to do with how Pol bonded to me. Perhaps we can give Pol a big surprise when he returns.
“That will be more than a surprise just for Pol. Won’t that be a tale to tell!”
Yes, a horse’s tale, Demeron said, looking forward to that very day.
~~~~
If you liked this story, please leave a review at the place where you bought it. This story is to be read before The Emperor’s Pet, Book Five in the Disinherited Prince Series.
A BIT ABOUT GUY
~
With a lifelong passion for speculative fiction, Guy Antibes found that he rather enjoyed writing fantasy as well as reading it. So a career was born and Guy anxiously engaged in adding his own flavor of writing to the world. Guy lives in the western part of the United States and is happily married with enough children to meet or exceed the human replacement rate.
You can contact Guy at his website: www.guyantibes.com.
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