by Darryl Fabia
“He is wild and beautiful,” Danai said softly, shaking her head. “You should free him.”
“Nonsense,” Rush said. “We’ll train him and sell him, and make our ranch proud.”
“I will train him,” Hashal said. “You rest, my father.”
Rush’s spirits seemed to sink, but Hashal’s mind wouldn’t be changed. He had brought the stallion and he wanted to see through to training the beast without hurting his aging father. He locked the stallion in the stables that evening with the other horses, every step being a struggle, and he listened to the animal huff and whinny through the night. “Go on and tire yourself,” Hashal said. “Tomorrow, you’ll wish you’d slept.”
On the first morning, he dragged the horse into the yard again to begin breaking the beast. Climbing onto the stallion’s back took ten minutes, and was the easiest part of the morning, as the animal rushed all over the yard without clear direction, heeding neither the rope at his neck nor the kicks of Hashal’s jagged riding boots. He slammed into the fence, bruising Hashal’s legs, and he frequently reared up on his hind legs, threatening to dump Hashal into the sand and crush him under hoof. At the end of the day, both survived, both worse for wear, and Hashal felt no closer to breaking the horse.
“Let me have a chance,” Rush said when Hashal entered the house that evening.
“You’re too old,” Hashal said. “That horse will break you instead.”
Rush left the room quietly and Danai sidled up to Hashal. “Let him help you in some way. You act like he’s useless and you’re breaking his heart. A broken man is hardly a man at all.”
Hashal said nothing. He would let his father help with the next horse, one that was less wild, and less special. On the second morning, he awoke to the sounds of a horse’s whinnying and a man’s shouting. He rushed up from his bed and out to the front of the house, where he found his father clinging desperately to the side of the red-gold stallion. The horse galloped to the fence and slammed his side into the thick wood, crushing Rush’s chest between beast and barrier. Hashal hurried to the yard, and the horse smashed into the fence a second time. Blood dribbled from Rush’s mouth.
When the stallion spotted Hashal, he rushed after his captor, stomping his hooves to crush the man’s legs. Hashal flitted behind the horse, grabbing the rope around his neck, and yanked hard. The stallion changed direction, slamming his side and Hashal’s father into the fence one more time, and then calmed down as Rush fell into the sand. Hashal hurriedly lifted his father’s upper body and dragged him out of the yard before the wild horse could regain his temper.
“I told you, you’re too old,” Hashal said, wanting to smack his father. When he touched the old man’s neck, he felt no pulse, and no breath escaped Rush’s face. Hashal’s anger turned to the horse, and he shrieked and cursed until his mother emerged from the house in tears. They grieved for much of the day, and then wrapped Rush in cloth to be brought to the town for the fire priests to care for. Then they grieved a little longer.
Hashal’s grief turned to rage again by the end of the day. The red-gold stallion had been left in the yard at the mercy of the sun’s heat, but that was out of neglect, not retribution. Hashal fetched a whip from the barn and climbed into the yard, onto the stallion’s back. Then he beat the beast’s back, the horse-hair whip cutting away long stretches of the horse’s skin. The horse huffed and galloped around the yard, against Hashal’s commands, but not once did he whinny or shriek.
“Don’t you understand what a horse is?” Hashal shouted, his arm growing tired and sweat pouring down his face. “You’re not for killing! You’re for riding and carrying, and serving!” When he couldn’t lift the whip anymore, he dragged the stallion back to the stables with all the struggling he’d felt at the end of the last two evenings, while the horse seemed fine, as if he’d just arrived. “Do you see the others?” Hashal growled, pointing at the obedient, broken horses in the stables. “That is how a horse should be!”
When he returned to the house, his mother had dried her eyes and composed herself. “You must free that horse,” she told her son. “He is too wild to ever be tamed. He will not live as a broken horse—he will be a horse entirely, or not at all. You’ll kill him before he submits to you.”
“Then we’ll be even,” Hashal said.
On the third morning, he dragged the horse into the yard yet again and made for the whip first. This time he didn’t shout or curse. Hashal sat stiff as a statue and began beating the horse’s neck with the whip and his sides with his jagged riding boots, while the horse reared up or galloped circles around the yard. He paced the whipping so he wouldn’t tire his arm and kept two water skins on hand so he wouldn’t need a break, while the stallion endured heat, pain, thirst, and exhaustion.
After three hours, the horse’s gallop slowed. After two more, the stallion clopped along slowly. After one final hour, Hashal began directing the animal, first to turn right, which he did, and then to turn left. The beast obeyed.
Evening set in and despite his father’s death, Hashal smiled triumphantly as he led the red-gold stallion back to the stables. His father’s killer was conquered, and once trained, his sale would bring prosperity to the ranch. Other racers would buy lesser horses solely because they came from the same ranch and Hashal would have money to expand. In time, he would be ready to marry, so that future generations could tend to the horses while the family grew wealthier.
At the stables entrance, the stallion paused. Hashal jerked the rope once and the beast’s head bowed, but he wouldn’t move. “It’s over,” Hashal spit, pulling the rope again. “Join them.” He pointed to where the broken horses dwelled between slats of wood. When the stallion still wouldn’t move, he yanked the rope one last time.
The horse’s hair, skin, muscle, bones—everything slipped away in a limp pile, as if Hashal had ripped a blanket from the horse’s back. The flesh and bone thumped heavily into the sand, leaving a fiery form standing where the stallion had been. It reared up in a horse’s shape, flickering with flames against the reddening sky at dusk, and then sped toward Hashal with burning hooves.
Hashal ducked away just as the fiery beast lunged past him and flew into the stables. Smoking hoof prints scorched the sand, hay flickered alight at the fireball’s passing, and waves of flame spread across the stable walls and across the skin of the horses within. Their shrieks drowned under the roar of the wooden building’s inferno and the bellow of the creature that had emerged from the red-gold stallion like yolk running from a broken egg.
Danai emerged from the house at the sound of the horses’ screams and hurried into the yard. “Hashal, what’s happening?”
The explanation couldn’t form in Hashal’s mouth and he stared slack-jawed at his mother. It was as she’d said—the stallion could not be a broken horse. He would be a horse entirely or not at all. “I’m sorry,” was all Hashal could say.
The stables collapsed within moments of being set alight and the fiery horse form galloped through the wooden wall, past the yard, and plowed through the stone side of Hashal’s home. Flames erupted from the walls at the creature’s breakneck pace, and fire had taken the entire house by the time the creature burst through the other side. A red-gold streak tore off into the desert as the sun set, leaving fiery hoof prints in its wake, and nothing but ash remained where Hashal’s family ranch had been.
No Shelter
Winter came heavy and harsh one year, snapping like a mad dog at every man, woman, or child who dared set foot outside. It was a poor season for war, but the land of a lord in the western kingdoms seemed to suddenly have rubbed against the land of a baron in the cold lands, and so war briefly heated the fields and woods, with forges burning and clashing swords splashing the snow with sparks.
The final battle came in a field beyond a wretched wood, and the battle was almost as wretched, dying the snow red, black, and silvery with blood, bodies, and blades. Neither side routed, for messengers on both ends fell unconscious in the c
old winds, and so the battle came down to the last few sword-blows of proud men, until only three were left.
None of them knew each other and their clothes were so stained with blood and dented by weapons’ blows that they couldn’t tell who was on which side. “We’re all against the winter, I say,” said the big man, Remkar.
“And we’re all on the side of the living, which is better than we can say for our comrades,” said the quick man, Bahn.
“I could argue with that,” said the wounded man, Leo. A mace had shattered one leg and a sword had deeply cut one shoulder. He could barely count himself among the standing because the other two men held him up, and anyone who lied down in this cold was as good as dead.
“You’ll stay with the living if it’s up to us,” Bahn said.
“I hope so,” Leo said. “I prayed, and then I whispered, and then I promised, and I’m still alive, so it all must count for something.”
The three headed south into the woods, kicking away briar patches while the snow deepened around their ankles. Thick, black tree limbs grasped at their shredded clothes like a giant’s hands. Black clouds nearly blotted out the moonlight and instead showered them with white, frozen flakes, swirling so densely through the air that only the darkness of tree trunks told the men where not to go.
“The stench of death is steaming off of me,” Remkar said. “Off of all of us, like the battlefield wants to go with us.”
“All I smell is cold, like winter’s already frozen my nose and beard,” Bahn said, wiping tiny icicles from his chin.
“Some men of the cold lands say the two scents are the same,” Leo said wearily. “But I think Remkar has it right. I smell death, like it’s after us. I fear all my prayers and whispers and promises have only gained us a pursuer, longing to take me from the edge of death and into the reaper’s embrace.”
“That’s only the pain talking,” Remkar said.
Yet he felt the same—something was tracking the three through the woods. None could say what it was at the moment, only that the forest seemed filled with a great breath that overtook all the ground they’d already covered. And whatever it was grew with every heavy step.
“I see a little house,” Bahn said, and sure enough there was a small, stone house nestled in the trees, with frost covering its hay roof and ice filling the mortar spaces between its bricks.
The men knocked on the door and were greeted by a plump old witch. “No shelter for you here at the cottage called Grund’s Rest,” she crooned. “Not even for a wounded man. But take this pail of water. It will stay warm in even the worst of winter and never freeze, so as to warm your insides and preserve you to the forest’s end.” With that, she closed the door in their faces and left the men out in the cold.
“If she weren’t a witch, I’d break down the door and we’d take the house,” Remkar said. “As it is, I know her sort and she’d just as soon wring the water from our bodies to make more of the stuff.”
Remkar and Bahn carried Leo and the pail away from the house and went on walking the woods. The presence behind them grew larger, closer, and soon louder than the storm sweeping around the men. When they looked back again, they found the legion of both armies following closely, some riding dead horses, others slinging spectral weapons over their ghostly shoulders, and each man of each army looked as intangible and fierce as the winter that killed many of them.
“It’s our dead, come to take me,” Leo said. “I prayed to the heavens that I wouldn’t be alone in my dying moments. I’m to perish from this wound and join our old ranks.”
“They won’t have you,” Remkar said.
“They will if they mean to,” Leo said.
“They won’t if they can’t,” Bahn said.
He took the pail from Remkar and spilled it slowly in a line behind the men, so the liquid would run for a ways through the snow. As the water moved, it melted some of the snow around it, and a narrow stream formed. The great legion of ghosts that filled the woods behind the men stopped at the running water, unable to cross.
They walked a ways further, the cold nipping at their limbs and biting at their fingers. “Are you sure ghosts can’t cross running water?” Leo asked Bahn.
“Absolutely. Everyone knows that.”
“Then I feel something else following now.”
All the men felt the same—something was tracking the three through the woods. It didn’t fill the forest behind them like the army of ghosts, but seemed to creep, as if trying to sneak up on them. The wind howled, shaking all the trees, and the men thought they heard something answer the wintry cry.
“I see a castle,” Remkar said, and sure enough the trees ahead seemed to have grown from a mighty, forgotten keep, with only a large, steel door revealing the structure to be anything more than a wall.
The men knocked on the door and were greeted by a giant of humbler size than most. “No shelter for you here in Castle Duncard,” he bellowed. “Not even for a wounded man. But take this lantern which holds a child of the western wind. It will blow the snow from your path and make your journey easier.” With that, he closed the door in their faces and left the men out in the cold.
“If he weren’t a giant, I’d have slipped inside before he closed the door and taken the castle,” Bahn said. “As it is, I know his sort and the smaller giants are often the tougher kind, on account of having to survive all the bigger ones. He’d shove us into lanterns and he wouldn’t care if we fit.”
Remkar and Bahn carried Leo and the lantern away from the house and went on walking through the woods. The noises behind them grew into pattering paws in the snow, yips and snaps, and at last came the howling of a hungry wolf pack, gliding over tree roots in search of the men.
“It’s the wolves, come to take me,” Leo said. “I whispered to the earth to end my pain and she’s sent her wild beasts to take my life. I’m to perish as they open many more wounds and devour my flesh.”
“They won’t have you,” Bahn said.
“They will if they mean to,” Leo said.
“They won’t if they believe they should be elsewhere,” Remkar said.
He took the lantern from Bahn, and instead of clearing the snow from their path, he aimed the lantern to the west and then let loose the wind from within. A thin howl sailed through the air, and then a mighty howl of wind answered back, far from the west, as if calling its child home. The wolves stopped in their tracks, as if they’d heard some great wolf spirit’s cry, and went running to the west, ignoring the men’s tracks.
They walked a ways further, the wind eating the last remnants of warmth from their skin and swallowing the feeling from their faces. “Are you sure the wolves followed the howling wind?” Leo asked Remkar.
“Absolutely. They can’t tell wind from wolf as a lion can’t tell a waterfall’s roar from his own.”
“I feel something else following now.”
All the men felt the same—something was tracking the three through the woods. This time, darkness filled the forest behind them, and yet it also crept like the wolves, only too forceful to be sneaking up on them. This pursuer cracked tree limbs and stamped heavily, while it seemed as formless as ghosts.
“I see—I don’t know what, but something lives there,” Leo said, and sure enough there was something ahead of them, a structure made of bowed trees tied together and of other trees nestling so close that they formed a dwelling around a stone door.
The men knocked on the door, though it hurt their knuckles, and were greeted by a thin man, nearly as tall as the giant, with great stag horns spreading from his head. “No shelter for you here in the trees of the old world, reborn in the new,” he said sternly. “Not even for a wounded mortal. But take this skin that was peeled from another man after his death. It is still warm from my fire and will keep your blood running despite the chill of this night’s most mischievous of winds.” With that, he closed the door in their faces and left the men out in the cold.
“I don’t know what he
was,” Leo said, draping the human skin over his good arm. “But I wouldn’t have dared taken his home even if I did.” The other men agreed.
Remkar and Bahn carried Leo and the skin away from the tree cluster and went on walking the woods. The stomping behind them grew louder, and closer, and when they looked back, fiery eyes glowed from the darkness and a man’s figure breached the trees. He had different horns than their last benefactor, more like a goat’s than a stag’s, and the white flakes of the storm vanished against his red skin, like blood drenching a snowy battlefield.
“It’s a devil, come to take me,” Leo said. “I promised him my servitude if I could only live to leave the battle and now he’s come to take my will and soul. I’m to do evil in these lands and suffer wounds on my conscience greater than any given to my body.”
He waited for the others to say it wouldn’t have him, but neither man said a word as they went on walking. The fiend stalked after the three on hooves as black as the sky and snapped tree limbs away with fingers as quick and mean as the chilly air. Leo couldn’t help looking back as the devil loomed closer and closer, and then finally he decided to let it think he’d kept his promise.
He tore the cloth away from his shoulder and rubbed the human skin given by the antlered man against his wound until it came away splotched with blood. Then as the men passed a low-hanging branch, he tossed the skin up over it, where it hung waiting for Leo’s hunter. When the devil reached the dangling skin, he pounced and tore into it, ripping and shredding and tumbling in the snow, madly wrestling with the thing as if it were fighting back against him.
The men walked a ways further, over a snow bank, their legs weakening and toes stiffening. “Are you sure that skin will keep the devil at bay?” Remkar asked.
“No,” Leo said.
“Because I feel something following now and I believe it’s the same.”
Leo looked back and saw a shadow following them. It came closer and closer with each step, as if its stride was much greater than that of the men who carried him. The skin he’d abandoned walked behind them, like another soldier who’d survived the battle, only now lean muscles filled its limbs and torso, horns protruded from its head, and bony claws stretched from its hands, tearing through where fingers would have been. A hideous screech ripped through the woods and sent the warriors cringing as they moved forward.