As light revealed the land around them, Oktar knew they were north of the town, riding north, winterwards as the horsefolk said, and the reason he hadn’t been able to feel the rein was that he had none–his grandfather held Oktar’s horse’s rein as well as his own in his one good hand.\u00a0 The horses moved at a brisk walk, ears forward, alongside a stone wall with sheep on the other side of it.\u00a0 Oktar turned to look behind.\u00a0 Nothing of the town showed but a blur of smoke in the distance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eventually the stone wall turned away around the bulge of a hill, and nothing was in front of them but rolling land, grass with stones showing here and there, and clumps of trees in the hollows.\u00a0 Oktar no longer felt nauseated, but he was hungry and thirsty and all of yesterday’s bruises and scrapes hurt.\u00a0 So did his legs. Ahead of him, his grandfather’s back was straight, shoulders level, legs dangling easily.<\/p>\n
That posture signaled, as clearly as words, that the old man did not want to hear anything from his grandson.\u00a0 Not complaints, not questions, not chatter.\u00a0 As day brightened around them, Oktar heard a new noise–a droning sound that he finally recognized as his grandfather…singing.\u00a0 Singing in the horsefolk tongue, of course.\u00a0 Oktar did not understand the words, and whatever it was had no melody like the songs the townsfolk sang in the taverns or while working at their crafts.\u00a0 What it did have was rhythm, the rhythm of the horses, of their hooves and the sway of their bodies, the swish of their tails.\u00a0 Oktar found himself humming in the same tuneless way, minus words.<\/p>\n
They rode on through the morning, as the ground rose and lowered, but mostly rose.\u00a0 They passed through a wood where birds racketed away from them on noisy wings and out again onto a stony slope tufted with patches of reed.\u00a0 Oktar saw many trails beaten into the earth by unknown feet…some narrower, some wider.\u00a0 Sheep?\u00a0 Horses?\u00a0 Wild animals?\u00a0\u00a0 He had no idea.\u00a0 He had never been so far from town; he had never meant to be where he was, and it confused him.\u00a0 So much sky overhead; so wide a land; so empty of people.<\/p>\n
When the sun was high overhead, and they were riding alongside a narrow fast-moving stream, his grandfather stopped; Oktar’s horse stopped too, lowered its head, and blew a long rattling sigh.\u00a0 Now his grandfather turned to him.<\/p>\n
“Ah.\u00a0 You did not fall off.\u00a0 That is good.\u00a0 We rest horses, water horses, let them feed.”<\/p>\n
“We get off?” Oktar asked.\u00a0 He wanted to ease his legs, lie down on the grass and rest.<\/p>\n
“No!\u00a0 We are horsefolk: we ride.\u00a0 Watch and learn, foal.” \u00a0His grandfather nudged his horse into the water; Oktar’s followed, lowered its head to drink.\u00a0 His grandfather tossed Oktar’s rein back to him without warning; Oktar reached, but didn’t catch it, and almost fell off.\u00a0 The horse ignored the rein trailing in the water.\u00a0 “Dig your toes in the girth…lean forward, bracing on neck…pull up on mane behind ears.”<\/p>\n
Oktar managed this on the third try, clutching his mount’s neck, and the horse’s head came up from the water.<\/p>\n
“Now take rein,” his grandfather said.<\/p>\n
Oktar let go the neck with one arm, and reached.\u00a0 His horse swung sideways, away from his weight.\u00a0 He fell into the cold water with a splash.<\/p>\n
“Stupid,” his grandfather said.\u00a0 “Since already wet, fill water-flasks.”<\/p>\n
Oktar clambered up, fighting the pull of the knee-deep water, his wet wool clothes heavy with it, his feet flinching from the sharp edges of rock.\u00a0 His grandfather threw the flasks, again without warning; this time he caught one, but the other splashed in the water and immediately bobbed away.<\/p>\n
“GET IT!” his grandfather said.\u00a0 Oktar stumbled and slipped downstream; his socks were no real protection from the rocks.\u00a0 Finally the flask caught between two rocks and he grabbed it before it slipped away, then splashed back to where his grandfather sat on his mount.\u00a0 “Fill.”<\/p>\n
He started to dip the flasks in the water, but his grandfather growled.\u00a0 He stopped.
\n“Up there.”\u00a0 His grandfather jerked his head to indicate upstream.\u00a0 “Clean water.\u00a0 Not near horses.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As light revealed the land around them, Oktar knew they were north of the town, riding north, winterwards as the horsefolk said, and the reason he hadn’t been able to feel the rein was that he had none–his grandfather held Oktar’s horse’s rein as well as his own in his one good hand.\u00a0 The horses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115,102,5],"tags":[22,28,107],"class_list":["post-2608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-snippet","category-story-2","category-the-writing-life","tag-characters","tag-snippet","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2609,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions\/2609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}