When next the soldiers marched, I watched him go by in the parade – a terrible mix of pride and heartbreak swelling in my chest. And then he was gone.
They were all gone. I had not been in the empty camp for so long, left behind with the select few who had the honor of staying to hold the shell of a place together, to hear their voices echo across the vacancies, to loiter in the loneliness wondering if the rest of them would come back. It was dreary. Timeless. A depressing, aimless prison. Uneventful mornings stretched into lazy afternoons, and quiet evenings by the fire. By night I even got bored looking for sleep in my tent, and roused myself to go for moonlit strolls, or to sit on the useless corral fences, just to make sure the pattern did not stretch on too long. It had to be broken at regular intervals, or we would all go insane. I was sure of it.
Cambrie spent so much time with Jay that, while for once I couldn't blame her, I found myself truly and thoroughly jealous. I would not have been so ready to admit jealousy any other time – even to myself – but with every other avenue of entertainment cut off, it drove me mad having my best friend occupied by another. The only excuse for a companion I boasted was the white stallion that flitted through my dreams.
As my henna tattoos faded away, so was my spirit whittled down a little bit more every day, until the only fantasies I could conjure were gray, wistful daydreams. The kind one might find standing on an overcast beach, looking out over the musky pane of the slate-gray ocean, as the colorless wind lapped at their too-thin sleeves, leaving them cold, desolate, and un-inspired. The only color was the blue that seeped into my numb fingers, the rosy tinge that spread across my chapped cheeks.
Yes, Jay, I thought. I can hear the ocean – it's like a huge pot of static, bringing nothing but the empty shells of dead things to the shore, the tide a recurring drone that harasses the tranquility any noble body of water ought to idolize.
It echoed like a thousand lost whispers churned into tatters. A restless, mangled sound that failed to speak to me.
I lost a beloved, paramount voice of insight that day. Lost it to that great abyss itself which had somehow lost its erstwhile charm.
*
There was only one stubborn patch of henna lingering on my flesh when the seasons changed in earnest, and new patterns dawned in the hand we were dealt. Celtic tattoos gave way to charred patterns scarred into the ground of Safeguard – as an awe-inspiring prize was brought back with the return of the men. A prize in the form of a furnace on legs, with teeth and claws and a carnivore's temper.
Yes, they had brought one of them to Safeguard. Captured it and brought it here. A demon horse in the flesh.
The thing bellowed as it was hauled in, muzzled and controlled by a tether lashed to each ankle. Its cries drew all of us out of the woodwork, our interest piqued to behold this wonder. This horror.
The poor soul of a spectacle.
I trailed to a halt outside of my tent, looking on with a mix of fascination and dawning pity. The thing fought with everything it had in it, labored snorts of smoke issuing out through its muzzle, blood running from the tethered areas about its ankles. The rest of its charcoal coat was matted and sweaty, caked in places by dried blood and crusted, clotted mud. A gaping wound, concentrated and deep, left a painful-looking hollow in the creature's side.
Struggling with the spirit of the thing they had on a leash, the men wrestled it through the gates and down the arena fence. The beast fought them every step of the way.
Curious, I followed them to the pen they intended to hold the creature in. Half-pulling, half-cramming it through the gate, they slammed the barred door shut behind it and sprang from its company, leaving it to take its temper out on its new confines. Tethers, muzzle and all.
I knew they only meant to duck out of its perilous range as swiftly as possible, but I found myself pitying the thing as it rushed the fence with its neglected restraints still intact. Those had to be a grievance like none other.
“We found this one wandering the battlefield after it was all over,” the Lieutenant spoke beside me. “Lost and flitting aimlessly about in the smoke, prancing from one body to another.”
I couldn't find words to address him. He was amazing, and yet...terrible. Tragic.
A loud clang rang out – the result of one of its claw-hooves striking the fence. The 'claws' were the effect of what appeared to be steel, cloven hooves – cloven to the point where the split had encouraged two separate, very sharp points to take form. They had grown to extend further than a regular hoof, but only by a little; no talons, by any measure.
The beast wove back and forth at the fence line, then circled toward the center of the pen. With a great, feisty change of heart, though, he rounded back and threw himself through the air – a frisky, flailing arc that saw him land and slam sidelong into the bars of the fence.
They bent out at the point of impact.
A shuddering bang reverberated all down the corral, and the men who had already distanced themselves took a further step back. My eyes widened, a prickle of goosflesh spreading over my body. We intended to contain this thing? As I observed the creature's antics, such a goal became an increasingly ambitious notion.
“What are you going to do with it?” I inquired.
“Study it,” Sonya replied. “It's time we gained some insight into what these creatures are made of; what the hell makes them tick.”
*
I couldn't help it, of course – I conducted my own study apart from the 'official' one that took place surrounding our new, spirited guest. I slung my arms over a rung in the fence on my off-time and watched him – backing away whenever he charged.
It was during one of these observations, as I considered that deep wound in his side, that something clicked. A hunch stirred in my thoughts, and after the initial moments of ridicule that accompanied the theory, I allowed it its chance; pushing myself away from the fence, I went to retrieve the horn contraption I had fashioned for Char. As he was back on temporary recovery with the rest of them, the item was stowed in his designated spot in the tack room.
Taking the thing down off its rack, I held the horn between my fingers and considered its proportions. Deciding there was only one way to find out, I turned on my heel and toted it back out of the barn to the pen that housed the demon mount.
I did not dare get close enough to actually test it out for size, but I compared it as best I could from a distance. As I did so, a dreadful seed of insight was planted. The proportions of the creature's wound matched very closely to those of the spike. And judging by the area that the wound existed...
I could hardly believe the implications. Confident about what I had stumbled upon, I went to find Sonya. Moments later, the Lieutenant strode beside me, accompanying me back toward the pen.
“From the manpower it took to control this thing when you brought him in,” I was saying, “I got to wondering how Gabriel's men aspire to control them. I mean, they actually ride these things, right? Without all the muzzling and tethering and... Well, anyway – I was noticing the wound this guy has in his side.” As we reached the fence, I drew the Lieutenant around to a side where we could see the injury in question on the animal within. “It matches this,” I said, handing her Char's bridle by the horn. “I found it on the battlefield when Toby and I were looting around. We thought it was some kind of weapon. But it's not.”
She considered the spike, searching out the mark it had made on the animal.
“There's another one, more healed and less apparent on the other side,” I informed her, and then turned back to her and the token she held with the revelation that had come to me: “They're spurs.”
*
“So that's how they do it,” Sonya confirmed, after running the theory by a few others and consulting the medic that had treated my symptoms of acid-contact upon discovering the horn. “Unthinkable spurs. Coated with some combination of acid and kerosene – concocted to be specifically provocative to these fiery beasts.” She shook her hea
d, appreciating the inhumanity of it.
“How come we've never noticed them?” one of the present privates wanted to know.
“Because,” I said. “They stab them clear into the horses' sides.”
“That explains those raucous cries,” Sonya contemplated. “Why they surge forward with such anger and ferocity like they have some inherent vengeance. They're cries of anguish.” Not the assumed cries of pure, unnatural viciousness.
I closed my eyes in a moment of dismay, uselessly angered by the knowledge of such treatment. It made sense, though – how else would Gabriel keep these wild, anomalous creatures in line except with the mastery of abuse? He surely could not win their allegiance.
“Good work, Alannis,” the Lieutenant congratulated me as she turned to dismiss pursuit of the issue for the day – but her tone suggested it was not on behalf of any great triumph. She didn't like it any more than I did – if for no other reason than that it was not a discovery we could use to our own advantage.
I nodded, trailing off in the other direction. I ended up back at the demon horse's pen, unable to curb the train of thought attached to the discovery of this creature's plight. Watching him, a new perspective took root inside me. One entirely more based on sympathy. Compassion.
The beast had to eat, and so it was with much finagling and deflecting ado that the men finally went in to remove its muzzle. It was like watching a bullfight – all the distracting and dodging and nearly getting mauled a dozen times over before they managed their goal. Then they were out of there as quickly as they could manage, the muzzle a trophy in the brave hands that had succeeded. Almost as an afterthought, they tossed the hunk of meat that had been hunted and skinned over the fence for the animal.
I shook my head in undying wonder at the fodder of choice. It was like feeding a tiger.
After the terrorizing trio of men was good and gone, the animal put its smokey muzzle to the ground and sniffed its way closer to the offering, hunger making it curious enough to risk an inspection. After thoroughly looking the raw slab of meat over, it flipped it over with a nudge of its nose and took a great, hungry bite.
It was like watching a tiger eat, to boot. Hard to believe.
My mind wandered as the thing went about devouring its lunch, contemplating the times I'd observed tigers and their cousins at the zoo, on TV, and the other places the great cats of the wild showed up, misplaced, in the spectrum of humanity besides. Exotic pets for the wealthy. Lions in the circus. Beasts out of their intended habitat, fulfilling roles they were never intended to fulfill. And yet...
There were lion tamers. Those that could cheat the natural order of these things, given the opportunity. Could be good at it. Could bring things into balance to keep the status-quo thriving.
Surely the first lion tamer had been thought crazy. And maybe he was. But it hadn't stopped him. And now two incompatible things could coexist just because someone had had a crazy ambition.
The lion in my mind's eye dissipated, morphing into a treacherously different model of interpretation. It took on longer legs, a more elegantly elongated neck, a longer face... The eyes moved to the sides of its head, the ears becoming pointed. The mane extracted itself from around the creature's face and took to running down its neck instead. Its tail filled out, its paws became hooves. The mangy gold of its fur glossed over into a burnt, charcoal coat, which glowed here and there in the shadowed crevices of the creature's physique where some inner fire shone through.
As the transformation completed, a loud bang brought me out of my imaginings. The demon horse had finished its snack, and was striking at the fence with a hoof, wanting more. When no one heeded its demands, it turned its tail to the fence and kicked out with both back hooves, and the entire enclosure rattled.
The reverberations went through me where I leaned on the rail across the pen. My bones sang with it, my healed rib complaining at being so directly jostled.
I had to question the ambition stirring inside me, as I stood there ringing with the violent spirit of this creature. But it was an ambition that was also entirely too great to ignore, to dismiss as if it had no potential.
Jay would kill me, if he knew the thought even existed in my mind. But it wouldn't be the first time, and I had faced decidedly more than Jay when he was angry, as of late, so I risked letting the thought take form. But I didn't exclude Jay's relevance in the matter completely – my thoughts turned back to what he'd said to me, the last time he'd confronted me about my role in matters. This is a God-given gift, Willow. Use it as such. You don't need all that other stuff.
Maybe he was right. Maybe all this war required of me was applying my raw talents. No gimmicks. No embellishments. Just good, old-fashioned horse whispering.
With the idea unleashed into the 'refinery' region of my mind, I turned from the pen to gather inspiration for my perilous new muse.
*
That night, more intentionally closer to midnight, I slipped free of my collage-style hut and made my way toward the demon horse's cage. Forsaking my dreamy white stallion for this dark, blood-thirsty alternative. I did not flit about this time, though, giddy and whimsical. This was no quaint dalliance to enjoy. It was a matter of much graver execution.
One thing that I didn't have to worry about, this time around, was making any sound. The demon horse was creating enough of a racket all by himself – a continuous ruckus that rang throughout the camp. He was intent on letting everyone for miles know about his discontent. Nothing that I did would compare to the noise he was issuing, and everyone had resigned themselves to ignoring his antics and trying to shut out the constant cling and clatter. We had all become jaded to it, by now.
And I was counting on that.
One might normally bring along a carrot, or peppermint, or sugar cube to begin the coaxing process with an unruly equine. But I brought along my portion of meat from dinner. One small hunk of rabbit, smoked and herb-seasoned. I hoped the beast liked rosemary.
I halted at the pen opposite of where the animal was throwing its tantrum, gazing in at him, considering his antics. He kicked the fence. Tossed his head in agitation. Reared and disgorged a spew of flame toward the sky. Heat waves glowed and roiled about his head, and then he cut off the breath, came back down to earth. Sparks issued out with his breaths as he huffed and puffed, frustrated, on all-fours.
He was not to be underestimated, I knew, but I looked in on him with my perspective transformed. You're just a victim, aren't you? I thought with newfound empathy.
Composing myself for the session, I parted my lips and clucked softly to get the creature's attention. He ignored me at first, consumed by his frustrations, but when I dinged a fingernail against the cold metal of the fence, the effect grated on his nerves just right. He whirled to regard me, snorting obstinately, glaring across the darkness at me.
“That's right,” I murmured, loud enough so he could hear. “Look at me.”
He let out a fiery squeal, incensed at the sound of my voice. How dare I address him. The squeal turned into a huff, which progressed into an agitated snarl. He lowered his head, made his body a predatory battering ram, and then came at me. It was a trot, at first – a slow, deliberate speed with which to aim – but by the time he crossed the center of the pen he was cantering, his cloven hooves eating up the ground.
He wrenched to the side just shy of running headlong into the bars, and the side of his body crashed against the fence instead. It caved briefly toward me, warped while his weight was against it, but sprang back as his mass fell away.
He pranced around, a proud, haughty force of nature, gloating – but only until he saw me still standing there, un-intimidated. Where the men had scattered farther back from the fence upon him executing the same trick, I stood my ground and didn't blink. We knew for a fact by now that the corral would hold him. It may end up mangled, beaten and bruised, but it would hold.
His prancing fell still to regard me – the anomaly that I proved to be, standing unflinching
outside his example-riddled lair, a target unmoved from his statement-boring path. Everyone else he bored down on had undoubtedly taken the hint, and retreated. I doubted he had ever had to make that statement twice.
You're not going to get rid of me that easily.
While he was holding still enough to notice stimulus unrelated to his own making, I slowly unfolded the piece of meat I had brought from its napkin. He caught wind of it immediately, his nostrils flaring to take in its bouquet.
“This is for you,” I murmured. “When you deserve it.”
A sound of vexation escaped him, at my insolence for standing in the face of his threats, and the nerve I demonstrated bribing him with delicacies. He would have none of it, his attitude told me. And to prove it, he grew provoked again, rushing the fence a second time and rearing up, clawing at the bars. His hooves slipped through – once, twice – punching at me. When that failed to deter me, he opened his soot-stained jaws and clamped right down on the top rung, shaking it like a wolf shook prey by the throat. His fiery eyes looked into mine, very personally threatening me.
The thought occurred to me: I had my hands full.
But nothing about my mission changed, looking this devil straight in the face.
Failing to impress upon me his impregnable ferocity a second time, the beast extracted himself from the bars after abusing them a bit longer for good measure, and dropped his weight back to all-fours.
“Good,” I said. “Now that we've been introduced, maybe we can move on.”
He snorted at me, though, spewing sparks in my face. I coughed at the hint of smoke emitted with the breath, and brushed the sparks off my shoulders. Safely delivered, I took a moment to consider him, up close. His eyes reminded me of the marbles I had played with as a kid – glassy orbs with fiery twists and swirls suspended inside of them. But these were dark, instead of clear, and the fire was alive. A churning pit of lava trapped in a crystal ball that bared the soul.
“You're not so terrible, you know,” I said softly, as if I could convince him.
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