Will

That evening we went deeper into the wood and settled at the foot of an oak. I browsed the thin, tough grass that grew amongst its roots, and Will brought his pack to me and dug corn from it, holding it in his cupped hands for me to eat. I licked the loose grains from his palms, tasting the salt of his skin. His face was close to mine, and I felt his breath upon my muzzle. I ate all he offered, browsing his skin for the last stray grains, until his eyes met mine and I stopped a long moment with the touch of his palms on my nose.

He would not groom me that night. Still, he tended me. He took out the little jar of salve, nearly empty now, and touched over me, seeing how the lash cuts had healed. They were much recovered, unsightly weals but well past tenderness. I felt no pain, only the slow stroke of his fingers as they traced each one, smoothing the salve upon the skin. When he had soothed the last of my scars, he took up my feet. His slow, stroking touch lingered down each leg, and I shivered with the content it brought to me.

Yes. There was pleasure in it, a comfort. It moved me. Yet each moment drew sharper my misery and despair. This would end. Tomorrow. We would come to other men. All kindness would end, and I would be property once more. Whether he broke me himself or gave me to another, the end would be the same, and more bitter now than if I had never known that a man's hands could be gentle, and his heart kind. To have died in the breaker's yard, hating and hated by all around me, would have been a hard thing, but to see those gentle hands take up the whip, to feel the body that had lain warm against mine force me to the heavy durance of the saddle – this would be a torment worse than any.

The twilight thickened. I gave myself to despair. When he had seen to my hooves Will turned without looking at me and sat down beneath the tree with his back to its trunk. He was weary and filled with sorrow, but my heart was bitter with the betrayal that I knew must come, and I would not go to him. I paced, pulling at clumps of rank grass and listening restlessly to the last calls of the hawks as night came on. At last, quietly, Will began to speak. He had told me stories, sung songs, and talked lightly of people he knew and things he'd seen. But a heavy mood was on him that evening, and at last he told me a tale of himself.

Will had done a thing dangerous amongst men. He had killed a deer and given it to his people to eat when the winter weather was cruel. They prospered; he killed another, and grew a poacher. The word was strange to me, and the crime itself. I knew that men killed animals to eat; I had seen pigs butchered. Why it should be a crime to kill one animal and not another, I did not know – but accepted. Men are strange. They hold it a sin to kill one another, a fate they spare no other creature – yet they do kill men, for there was a place for it in the center of the town where I was born, and I had seen one day, from the crest of the hill, the small far away image of a man hanged from the gallows. Witches, too, were killed, burned or drowned men said, though I never had seen such a thing. I had thought hard upon it, to be sure, for such as I was certain to be thought a witch's creature, and their tales frightened me.

Having transgressed once, Will took deer again, when his mother and siblings were in need, or those who dwelt by them in hunger and privation. At last he was caught coming home with the take of his hunt, and sentenced to be hanged. He fled and joined others like him, who grew hungry for food but saw it taken by cruel lords who oppressed these people and stole the fruits of their labors. They joined together to fight them, and to take back what the tyrants had stolen.

Thus Will spoke. My heart was moved as he told of his family with the cold of winter upon them and no food nor warmth to see them through it. The tears came to his eyes, and I could not but feel pity. Yet I was angry with him as well. He spoke of a fate no worse than any member of my race would face each day, and better than most. He at least had liberty to walk the road alone, to move without his body bound to a captor, to live amongst his family and not be sold at the block. I pitied him for his suffering – but I hated him that he made me pity him. The least of his race held a tyrant's grip on the best of mine, and it angered me to weigh his sorrow against our own.

Yet he had much to fear. He had come south some weeks past to aid his family, driven from their home by those who sought him yet. They at least were well; he had brought them money, stolen with his band of comrades from those who lived upon their blood and sweat, and used it to see them safely out of reach of his enemies. When they lay secure he had turned to come back, and with some money left to him had thought to buy a horse to speed his return. And then, he said with a rueful smile, he had found me.

I hung my head, then swiftly hid the gesture in cropping at the moss below the trees. There was rebuke in his words, though I did not think he meant it. Speed was of use to him; he must reach his friends to lay in safety. Yet he had broken his journey, shown his face, and slowed himself considerably to aid me. He said none of these things, but I felt them; he had risked himself for my sake.

Now we drew near his companions – but the danger was worst here. The lords of the lands near about sought him, for he had preyed upon them and taken their money. Too, he was known to dwell in this place; those who had missed taking him when he went unto his people were sure to look for him here. In two weeks' journey there were many routes he might follow, so that he was a difficult man to find when once away from the land of his birth. But to reach his comrades, he must pass this town that would come before us in the morning. He would hold to the wood all he was able, but the town bestrode a river with but few places to ford the stream. Here, if his enemies were wise, they would seek him. Here he lay most open.

So he spoke. I turned it over in my mind as I stood beneath a beech tree, watching his outline fade in the falling dusk. He was tired and sorrowful, and I pitied him, though my heart scalded me with the thought of how this life would end in the morning. Then he spoke again. The sun was set now, and the darkness near complete; I could barely see the shape of him as his words came to me.

"And now, Shanglan, you know all there is to know of me."

In the quiet after his words, his silence opened and spoke to me, calling me to fill it with a secret of my own. I took a step toward him. He sat motionless in the dark, and in my heart I saw one image: his hands upon my neck and nose, his lips pressed to my muzzle. I stepped again.

A hawk cried out overhead, a last wild call to the fading light. I awoke. I had been lulled by his tale; I had pitied a man, and in my foolishness thought to give him comfort. But there could be no comfort between us. I was not of his kind. Will faced a hard road, but there was hope for him; he might win through to his people. For me, it was all the same, whether he or his enemies took me in bondage. There was nothing to be won.

I turned from him, and at last he drew his cloak about him and curled up to sleep. I paced beneath the trees, my heart sore within me, until slumber came at last. Yet even in my sleep, I was troubled by this: I stayed.

The next morning we walked in silence, each sunk in a separate gloom. He feared what might be; I dreaded what must. Yet I walked by him, and this troubled me worse than all other things together. I could not bring myself to believe anything but that he brought me to his camp as the breaker had brought me to his yard: that he might have time and tools with which to force his will upon me. But something bid me walk with him, through my heart raged within me and my eye sought the gaps in the trees through which green fields and sun-lit glades might be glimpsed. I struggled with this compulsion, angered that I yielded to him. Yet I followed him.

It was an hour or more past noon when I heard the river. We had skirted the town, swinging wide around it though Will's pack was limp with want of food. He faced a hungry night, but no doubt thought it better to eat a scanty supper than swing in the noose. We slipped though the forest, shying from tracks and trails until we were near enough the water to hear its rushing course. At last we paused atop the wooded ridge of a hill and looked down to a faint path beaten toward the ford. Will murmured to himself, troubled.

"'Tis passing full for this time of year. Rain in the highlands, and something fierce. We'll have no easy road of it."

He stopped a long moment, scouring the landscape for signs of trouble. It lay silent, green, and empty. At last he took the lead rope and started down the rocky hillside that lay between us and the track to the ford.

It was the scent that told me. They were quiet, though once I knew to listen for it, I could hear a hoof tap, a faint clink of metal. But it was the scent that first came to me – horses, leather, men unwashed for some days. As Will started down the hill, I knew suddenly what he walked to. I pulled back on the rope, a swift, hard haul that brought him in close reach of me. I did not let myself think on this action; I knew in my heart how utterly it betrayed me. Instead I took his shirt in my teeth – and got some of his shoulder, for it would bruise mightily – and dragged him back amongst the trees. I pulled us both behind the screen of bracken, then stood breathless to hear if they had caught our noise.

For a long moment Will stood utterly still. His quick brown eyes looked up to me and held for a long heart's beat in wonder, recognition, and behind that – relief. Then his gaze turned sharp again as he nodded and looked back down to the trail. I saw his thoughts as clearly as if he'd spoken them. This was, in truth, a wondrous thing – but there were those below who would kill him.

We watched. In a moment men came up the path, out from the trees and boulders near the river's edge, casting about sharply. They'd heard the noise of our retreat. We crouched silently, trying not to give them notice of our presence. In a moment they were on the trail on horseback, one giving direction to the others as they began to fan out in search of us. I saw him pointing, sending men every way – and soon he pointed up the hill, toward us.

They were mounted. Though we move as silently as owls on the wing, there was little chance we would evade them with Will afoot. As they started up toward us, I met his eyes. They were wide, and frightened, in truth, for his enemies drew their net about him. He looked at me long, then reached up. I thought he saw the only answer I could find, but no – he chose another. He slid loose the strap and drew the halter from my head.

"You have served me well this day," he said quietly. "I would not have you lose your freedom. Go. They will not know to look for you."

His eyes met mine. That moment made my decision. Though I had hesitated, at heart I knew what I wished; his choice but made it the more clear to me. He had released me from my fate. I would not leave him to his.

I bent my foreleg and stooped. He had no saddle nor reins to cling to, and so he must have this aid to mount. He stood for a moment in surprise, and if I thought on it – I tried not to – I was no less stunned myself. But there was no time. With a look of earnest gratitude that sank into me, he took my mane in his grip and swung onto my back. Even the desperation of the moment could not altogether still my body's instinct, a swift shuddering prance of terror. But I ground my teeth and mastered myself, and moved off swiftly and quietly, through the trees in sudden flight from the ford.

Even then, I had time to mark this: the feel of his body on mine. When I had suffered the agonies of the breaker's yard, it was the saddle I had chiefly felt, the hot, heavy weight of wood and leather, the pinch of the girth and the heat of the rank cloth beneath it. This was different. The weight of him was there, and when he first mounted it still drove the old panic through me. But as we went I felt more the sense of him, his legs around me, his body bowed low upon mine as we scraped under tree limbs. He put his arms along my neck, reaching nearly around it, and lay close to me and warm. My terror began to ebb, and it was replaced by something I had no name for. It held a fear of its own, a frightening sense of power. I wanted him there.

But I troubled on that longer another time. At that moment my mind was busy with our flight. As I picked my way quickly through the wood, he murmured low, as near to my ear as he could stretch himself.

"They've set their men all out to search me. There are few enough left by the river; they'll not have the numbers to mind it above and below. Can you strike to the east? The upper ford is deep in the flood, but I think you can cross it. If you would, Shanglan?"

He asked my will. It was not like a man. But there as no time to ponder it. I turned to the river, striking out over the crest of the hill and down the other side. Behind us I heard the men enter the wood, but their voices were still tired and careless as they called to each other. I thought they had no wit of our passage.

Looking out from the wood's edge, I saw the path we must take and marked the danger of it. The wood came down near to the upper ford, but not near enough. There were a hundred yards and more of open ground to be covered, and a field of boulders and loose stones by the river where anyone might lay in wait unseen until we were nearly upon him. I hesitated, but hearing the riders in the bracken behind us, I knew we had little choice. They were moving toward the hill's crest; if we did not cross now, and swiftly, they would see us when they came over the ridge. I glanced back to Will. He nodded grimly. He slipped the lead rope around the base of my neck and gripped it tightly, then crouched close to my body. I leapt from the wood and sped over the open ground for all I was worth.

It was the stones that undid me. I had never tried so loose and slipping a surface, and I struck it at a speed too great for purchase. I might yet have managed, but a man started up from behind a boulder – a guard, startled but ready, with his sword bare in his hand. I dodged and suddenly the stones were sliding out from under my feet. I threw myself forward, landing hard on my knees and shoulder to save Will from being crushed against the ground. He leapt free and ran to my head, heedless of the man who came on with naked steel as he tried to help me to my feet. I struggled up, but the guard came on in a rush and laid the edge of his sword to Will's throat. Will stepped slowly back, raising his hands as the other man smiled.

"You're a canny man, Will Fletcher. Pity to see you undone by your horse. But you'll dance as nicely in the noose, however you're taken."

Will looked up. His eyes sought mine where I stood behind his captor. There was something in his expression half-beseeching, half resigned, as if he spoke to me in his quiet voice and said, "Go. Take your freedom." His hand opened, and the rope he'd clung to in our wild flight fell to the ground.

The guard turned as he heard my movement on the stones. As I reared, he brought his arm up to shield himself. It did not help to him, for I was poised to bring all of my weight down into the blow. But as he cowered back under my hooves, he did the one thing fatal to us: he cried out. My hooves struck home and he fell to the ground senseless, but from up the hill we heard the halloo of his comrades and in a moment the sound of their horses coming on at a gallop.

Will ran for the ford. It was deep, the water running swift and high, and as he plunged into it he struggled to keep his feet. He looked back at me, fighting the current that strove to sweep him away, and desperation showed in his face. He cried out, panting with the effort.

"Run, Shanglan! They will be here 'ere I cross. There is no need that we be taken together."

I hesitated. He cried his last word urgently, almost angrily.

"Run!"

I did. I plunged into the water, feeling it bite where the stones had scraped my skin. It was cold, born in the mountains, and ached where I had taken the brunt of the fall. I could run further than he, my weight and four feet giving me strength to fight the current, and as I surged forward I gave him my shoulder, standing downstream of him to steady his stance. He gave me a look, then, that I shall remember all my life: a look of deep and earnest gratitude, of thanks and promise. There was a power in it, a depth that I could not fathom, and I tried not to think long on what it might mean. I had done with hope. Yet there was that in his eyes that spoke to me as no man ever had.

I had brought him the rope, snatched up in my teeth as I ran for the ford. Now he threw it about my neck, low down near my chest, and clung to it. As we pressed deeper the current swept him against me so that he could barely keep his feet. Then I was pulling him, and he clung to the rope behind me. It was a hard struggle at the midstream; the water rushed over my back, and I felt my feet begin to lift from the stones. But it was a short distance, and we were swept only a little way down the current before I had swum the flood and felt ground again beneath my hooves.

As my footing grew firm I strained hard, hauling us up from the suck and race of the water and toward the bank, back up the distance we had lost as we were swept downstream. Will got to my back and clung there, panting and spent, and I fought to stand steady and keep him to me. The freezing water sapped the strength from my limbs, and I ached to stand resting when at last the water fell back to my shoulder and then to my knees. I stood a moment gasping in the shallows – but then I heard the shouts of the men behind, and leapt up the bank.

The men had come to the water, two of them on horseback. One hastened from the saddle to the side of the fallen guard. The other urged his mount to the flood, eager for the chase. His mare balked at the swift race and danced nervously on the edge. Will nodded to me then, and I wheeled and flew up the path on the far side, hoping that my poor witless sister might shy at length and so delay them.

We fled fast and far. There was pain, soon enough, in my knees, where the stones had gouged when I fell upon the bank. But I pushed myself onward. To stop now was to lose all for which I had made my sacrifice – not the pain of my flesh alone, but that other ache that trembled in my heart. I had taken a man upon my back. I had taken his rope and his riding and made myself his servant, even unto fighting to keep him on me in the race of the flood. Had I found at last the proof of men's words: that we were a servile race, fit only for the use of their hands? Had I not bowed to him, and gone willingly to him from every chance to flee? I flew down the path half-blindly in a long ache of pain. I had feared that the man would betray me this day; how could I have known that I would betray myself?

Sunk in despair even as I bolted for all I was worth, it was some moments before I noted Will calling in my ear as he tugged urgently at the rope.

"Shanglan! Shanglan! Will you turn here? If we take the forest path, we will come sooner to safety."

I pulled back to halt, so suddenly that I fell nearly to my haunches and felt Will slide and struggle to keep his seat. I saw the path he pointed, barely visible amongst the trees, and took it. I kept to a canter as we threaded the tall trunks, Will crouching low over my neck as I took the narrow trail at a pace wholly reckless. I wanted that ford behind us, and not only for what followed at our back. I would not think on that field of stones and scree, nor the hilltop behind, and on what I had left upon them. It was not only my blood on the stones.