by P. C. Cast
We will go forward carefully.
Anjo stepped into her ground-eating trot, a pace that was quicker than a walk, but one she could maintain easily without tiring herself—which was good after the exertion of crossing the lake, scaling the ridge, and conquering the suspension bridge.
They trotted on in companionable silence. Anjo kept a steady pace while River navigated, kneeing her mare to follow the marked path that really wasn’t a path at all.
The trees thickened into clusterings of cross timber lines, which meant that they had to pass through sections of post oak, willows, and scrub—all choked with underbrush—and then there would be wide expanses of prairie, only to lead into another section of cross timbers. Within the cross timber line the purple ribbons were scarce—only rough markers at the beginning of the tree line, somewhere in the middle, and then again at the end, which meant that each team had to pick their own path through the rugged underbrush.
“Whoa, Anjo. Hold up,” River said as they entered the second clump of cross timbers.
The mare stopped instantly, turning her ears to catch all of River’s words.
“This section is filled with goathead brambles. They’ll slice your legs. You can even get trapped in them. We need to slow down and choose our way carefully. I might need to walk in front of you to be sure none of the bramble vines catch your hooves. That’s okay, because we can make up time sprinting between the timber sections.”
As if she’d evoked trouble with her words, the squeal of a mare in pain echoed from somewhere in front of them, in the middle of the bramble thicket.
“Can you tell who that is?” River asked her mare.
Blue. She is caught. So is Luce.
“Okay, you stay here. I’m going to help them.”
Anjo hesitated before replying, but finally her words rang through River’s mind.
It is the right thing to do—the Lead Mare Rider thing to do. Help them, River.
Blue squealed again and River took the knife from her saddlebag, as well as some of the strips of clean cloth bandages she’d packed.
“I’ll hurry.”
Do what needs to be done. I will wait and watch for who passes us.
River jogged to the beginning of the next bramble thicket and then she slowed, picking her way carefully around clumps of sticky bushes. Goathead thistles were the worst kind of bramble in Wind Rider territory. Each thistle was small and covered with knife-sharp thorns. The goatheads dotted the viny branches of the brambles that whipped out, tentacle-like, with long, reaching arms that were sticky, like spiderwebs. Many of them rested against the ground, waiting to wrap around horse or human, and trap them.
Often packs of yoties, the ravenous little canine-like creatures who ran in huge packs, made their dens near goathead groves so they could feast on prey that became trapped or weakened from blood loss. Yoties were experts on using the natural world to catch prey for them, and as River picked her way through the bramble thicket she kept watch for clusters of small, beady eyes and sharp teeth.
Another shrill scream from the mare drew River to the right and up a little rise. From there she looked down on a pitiful scene.
Blue was on her knees. Long arms of goathead vines had wrapped around the mare’s legs, holding her in place just as surely as if the vines had been knife-tipped wire. Bright splashes of scarlet ran down Blue’s legs, painting the vines with blood. Luce was just a few yards away from Blue, struggling to disentangle herself from two vines—one wrapped around her arm and the other around her thigh. Blood flowed from both wounds and River could hear Luce speaking to Blue, trying to keep her calm and still.
“Luce! I’m coming! Hang on!” River shouted before she started down the little incline, careful to step over the vine traps that lay all around her.
As River reached her Luce looked ready to collapse with relief. “River! Oh, thank the Great Mother Mare! Blue and I were going too fast. We didn’t see the goatheads until it was too late—then they were wrapped around Blue’s legs so badly that she fell, throwing me into them. I–I’ve been trying to get free so that I could reach my saddlebag and my knife, but the goatheads kept cutting my hands and then the scent of so much of my blood spooked Blue, and she started to struggle because she was trying to help me.” Luce broke off, crying as she held her mangled hands against her chest, causing blood to spread across her tunic.
“Hey, it’s okay. It could’ve happened to Anjo and me, too. I have my knife. Hold still and I’ll have you cut free in a second, and then we can work on Blue.” River used her knife to slice two long, thin strips from one of the bandages she’d brought with her. “Let me wrap your hands first.”
Luce offered River her hands. They were shaking badly. Blood ran freely from stab wounds in her fingers and palms. “I’m sorry. I know I’m causing you to fall behind.”
“Don’t be sorry. You’d do the same for me.” River gently held Luce’s wrists. “You need to calm down so that Blue calms, too.”
“I know. I’m trying. I just—I just can’t. It hurts so much, and I can feel Blue’s pain, too,” Luce sobbed.
River touched the center amethyst stone in her grandmother’s necklace, feeling it warm instantly. She imagined a purple bubble surrounding her, as well as Luce. “Breathe in—one, two, three, four; and out—one, two, three, four.”
“O-okay. I can try.” The trembling of Luce’s hands quieted as the crystal began to stabilize her.
“You’re doing great. Now close your eyes and concentrate on breathing while I wrap your hands and cut you free.” The purple crystals were all warm now, spreading that heat across River’s chest. She imagined the healing properties of the stone filling Luce. The girl nodded—almost sleepily—closed her eyes, and began breathing in and out to a four count.
River wrapped her hands, and as she did she met the gaze of the agitated mare.
“It’s going to be okay, Blue. Look, Luce is fine. You can feel that she’s calming—you need to calm, too. That’s how you can help her.” While she spoke, River coaxed the image of the purple bubble of warmth to encompass the mare, too, and was relieved when Blue stopped struggling and rested on her knees, breathing hard with her muzzle on the ground as her blood pooled around her.
River cut the last of the vines away from Luce and pulled them from her ankle. “Okay, open your eyes.”
Luce’s eyelids fluttered open. She appeared unfocused and confused for a moment, as if she’d just awakened from a sweet dream—then she sucked in a huge breath and started to bolt to Blue, but River stepped in front of her, blocking her way.
“Hey, we have to be smart about this. Look down.”
Luce did, spotting the entrapping vines where they lay against the earth, waiting to wrap around her feet again.
“River, I’m so sorry. I feel stupid.”
“Don’t. You’re in a lot of pain and Blue has lost a lot of blood. Of course you’re not yourself. Let’s do this together. We’ll get her free.”
Carefully, River picked her way to the fallen mare as Luce walked in her footprints. When they reached Blue Luce went to her head. Even the mare’s muzzle was lacerated and bloody, and Luce pressed her forehead to Blue’s, sobbing and saying, “I’m so sorry—I’m so sorry” over and over.
“Luce, keep her still. I’ll work around her, cutting these vines and unwrapping them. But she needs to hold still. The more she moves, the worse she’s injuring herself.”
Luce sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of the bloody bandage wrapped around her hand. “I can do that. Blue, sweet baby, just be still. I’m here. River is here. She’s going to cut you free. River can do it—you know she can.”
Blue nickered, sounding exhausted but a lot calmer, and River began working her way around the mare. First she’d cut a section of the vines, and then—in one motion—she’d pull it free from the mare’s flesh.
“That’s a good, brave girl, Blue,” River said as she worked. “You’re doing great.”
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�You hear her? You hear our River? She says you’re doing great. We’ll be just fine. It’s okay sweet baby—it’s okay…”
Luce continued to speak soothingly to her mare as River worked—and all the while River cut and disentangled the knife-edged thorns from the mare’s skin she also communed with her grandmother’s stones, calling on them to blanket Luce and Blue in serenity.
Finally, River freed the last strand of the deadly vine from around Blue’s rear hock and the mare got shakily to her feet, whinnying softly and nuzzling her Rider.
“There! Do you have any bandages in your saddlebag?” River asked Luce.
“No. I was too arrogant to believe Blue and I would need them, and that makes me feel like a complete fool now.”
“That’s okay. We can cut the rest of these up and bind the worst of her wounds.” River started to put her knife to the remaining bandage strip when Luce’s hand on her wrist stopped her.
“No, I can do that. You get back to Anjo and rejoin the Test. I’ll finish bandaging Blue, and then we’re going to walk slowly back to Bitter Creek and raise my white flag.”
“You’re quitting?”
Luce nodded. “We are. I realize now that Blue and I are not the best team. Remember what you said earlier? That I would’ve done this for you?”
River nodded slowly.
“Well, I’m not sure I would have. But I am sure of one thing. You are the right choice for Lead Mare Rider. Blue and I would follow you anywhere. Now get back to Anjo and win the Test. Your Herd needs you as much as Blue and I just did.” And then Luce bowed to River, crossing her wrists over her heart in the traditional Herd salute to a Lead Mare and Rider.
River’s heartbeat was pounding in her ears, but she returned Luce’s salute by bowing her head in respectful acknowledgment of tribute paid by a member of her Herd, just as she’d watched her mother do for a decade.
“Make your way back slowly,” River said. “You have a water skin, don’t you?”
“We do,” Luce said.
“Drink plenty of it, and share it with Blue. If you brought mash, give her some, too. Both of you have lost a lot of blood. Be safe.”
“You be safe, too. Be strong—be wise—be fast, and I will see you after you cross the finish line—victorious,” Luce said.
River didn’t wait any longer. As quickly as possible she retraced her path back to Anjo. As she rejoined her mare, Anjo snorted and tossed her head.
You bleed!
River wiped her bloody hands on her pants. “Most of it isn’t mine. Luce and Blue were in a bad way, but they’re free now. They’re quitting the Test.”
Anjo snorted. Hurry and mount!
“Not while we’re in the cross timbers. I think it’d be faster if I jogged ahead of you.” River searched around them and quickly found a long, fallen branch. “I can move the vines out of your path with this. When we get to the clearing between the cross timbers I’ll mount and we can sprint.” River pointed into the goathead thicket, which looked deceptively like the quickest way through this section of cross timbers. “We’re definitely not going that way.” River started jogging in front of Anjo, the mare following close behind. “How many teams passed us?”
Many, but we will catch and pass them. We are stronger.
“Did none of them even pause to be sure you or I weren’t hurt?”
Willow’s Gontia asked me if we were well. I told her yes.
“Well, at least she asked. How many others passed us?”
I saw three other teams—Skye and Scout, Daisy and Strawberry, Keira and Gypsy. I heard at least two other teams pass, but could not see them.
“We have to catch up with them.”
Do not fret—we will.
River’s plan was a good one, and in the clearings between each of the cross timber patches they caught and passed a team—first Keira and her white mare, Gypsy, and then to River’s surprise another team from her own Herd, Cali and her beautiful sorrel mare, Vixen. As she and Anjo sprinted past, River could see that Vixen was favoring a bloody left rear hock—probably another victim of trying to pass through the cross timbers too quickly.
Finally they were through the cross timber obstacle and the purple ribbons marked the trail to the left, which was a deceptively open stretch of prairie—so open that River could see purple ribbons beckoning them forward in the breeze.
“Finally! A chance to run and catch the rest of them!” River leaned in, cuing Anjo to take off, but the mare resisted. River immediately heeded her mare’s intuition. “What is it?”
Many-colored grass that should be the same.
River stood in the stirrups, studying the flat prairie before them, and seeing what the mare noticed. The late spring grasses had reached a height of about Anjo’s knees, and they should all have been a brilliant bluish-green, but in small clumps the grasses appeared shorter and were already turning summer brown.
“Gopher holes,” River said darkly. Where the rodents built their dens into the fertile dirt of the prairie they also disrupted the grasses, dislodging roots and breaking their water supply, which caused them to wilt and discolor.
If I run through them I may break a leg.
“Not if we stick to the green patches,” River said. “I’ll guide you. You pick how fast we go.”
Anjo snorted her agreement and then kicked into a slow lope—a gait that was easy for her to maintain as she changed directions according to River’s leg pressure. They loped on and River had just noticed that the sun had gone past its midday zenith and was beginning to travel down the western sky. She cued Anjo to stop, and quickly fed the mare the energy-rich sweet mash packed in the saddlebags as well as herself the apples her sister had reminded her to eat. Not long after their short break Anjo’s words echoed in her mind.
Rider and mare ahead—someone is with them.
“You look. I’m going to keep guiding you through these holes.”
Anjo cantered past. River wanted to look—to stare—especially after Anjo said, It is Daisy and Strawberry—the mare is injured. There is a Councilmember with them.
But River steeled herself and didn’t so much as glance their way as Anjo cantered past.
“She has help. They don’t need us,” River said. “How badly is Strawberry hurt?”
Badly. They were racing through the holes.
Then Anjo wouldn’t say more, and River knew that meant what had happened was too awful for the mare to share. River pushed away her sadness. There would be time for that later—after she and Anjo were safely across the finish line.
The course curved to the right as the land lifted, becoming rougher and rockier. They topped a rise to see a ravine before them. It split the earth like a giant had taken a hatchet to the prairie, slicing into it. To the right it met a thick cross timber line, and River could clearly see thickets of goathead thistles clustered in the underbrush.
To her left the gorge spread probably a mile or so, before it tapered back down to the grassy prairie.
“Is the ravine too steep?” she asked her mare.
I cannot tell from here.
“Okay, let’s get down there and check it out.”
Anjo galloped down the side of the hillock to where the prairie flattened and then broke open. She stopped at the lip of the ravine, studying it.
There are two teams down there. They attempt the ridge.
“If they can do it I know you can,” River said.
But Anjo still didn’t attack the ravine as River would have expected. Instead her nostrils flared as she tested the breeze lifting from within the slash in the earth.
I scent yoties.
“Ugh.” River grimaced. “A whole pack?”
I scent their dens. That is not the safest way to go.
“Then we take the smart, safe way because you are fast enough to make up time. Let’s go!”
Free of the gopher holes and goathead thickets, the powerful mare ran, stretching out her long stride and eating up the distance it took to
go around the dangerous ravine.
River spotted the next purple flag, waving from halfway up the side of a rise in the prairie, and guided Anjo toward it as she nudged the mare into a slower gait.
I can run more.
“Save your strength. You’re already sweating a lot. The sun is heading down, but I’m guessing we still have about ten miles left to go—and the very end is a race.”
I can beat Doe.
“Not if you use up all your strength before we get to the race, you can’t.”
Anjo snorted, but slowed to a canter. The course curved sharply to the right and down to open up to a large patch of the prairie where the grasses had been shorn close to the ground. Throughout the area were obstacles situated in a circle, and a Councilmember was seated atop a gray-muzzled mare in the center. Leaving from the far end of the circle were Skye and Scout—and beyond them River could see a flash of buckskin amidst the dust Doe kicked up as she galloped away.
They are all that are still ahead of us.
“Then let’s nail this course and catch them. You can outrun both of those mares.”
Can you outrun Alani and Skye?
“Skye for sure. And Alani is a decade older; I can outrun her, too.”
“Next team!” the Councilmember shouted.
Anjo galloped to the opening to the circular course. River looked at the old woman, waiting for her cue to begin.
“You are being judged on speed and confidence,” the judge said. “Points will be deducted if you do not successfully complete an obstacle. When you step within the circle your time begins.”
“Anjo, I see a water jump and a set of log jumps—not tall but close together. You’ll have to pace yourself through them.”
What is that wooden thing?
River followed her mare’s gaze and saw a long, wide plank. One end of it was touching the ground. The other was lifted into the air—and there was a round log resting beneath it.
“You have to walk over it. Looks like the plank will move down after you get halfway.”
I do not like it.
“It can’t hurt you. No more than those branches hanging from those poles can.”