When the storm passed, they rode on, over the melting lumps of ice and the wet grass.\u00a0 Oktar\u2019s sheepskin, sodden with rain, hung over his horse\u2019s rump; he walked, leading his mount, his bare feet so cold from the ice he could not feel the bruises.\u00a0 His grandfather rode ahead, not speaking to him, but muttering continually to the horses, who bobbed their heads as if they understood.<\/p>\n
Home was too far behind to imagine, that cold night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two days later, they topped a rise to see far ahead a herd of animals grazing on the plain.\u00a0 His grandfather stood up on his horse, shading his eyes.<\/p>\n
“See pole?\u00a0 See colors?”<\/p>\n
Oktar had no idea where to look, but in trying to follow his grandfather\u2019s gaze, saw a flash of color that was not grass or rock: red. Fluttering.<\/p>\n
“Is ours,” his grandfather said.\u00a0 He threw back his head and let out a long, wavering cry, then another, then barked like a dog four times.<\/p>\n
“What is\u2014”<\/p>\n
“Quiet.\u00a0 Wait.”<\/p>\n
Oktar looked around, seeing nothing but grass blowing in the wind, hearing nothing but wind hissing in the grass.\u00a0 The herd was mere dark specks against the tawny grass, moving slowly away from them.<\/p>\n
Then–between one turn of his head and the next–someone appeared, not four horse-lengths away.\u00a0 Man and horse, the man sitting as Oktar\u2019s grandfather sat, as if his backbone grew from the horse’s back. The same dark hair, but unstreaked by any gray, hung in braids adorned with beads and feathers.\u00a0 A horsefolk face, wide, the color the townsfolk called saddle leather, high cheekbones under ruddy cheeks, black eyes like his grandfather\u2019s and his own.\u00a0 The same clothes, with the same pattern woven into the pants and shirt-sleeves, the long shirt belted, the vest over it open in front, showing a red lining.\u00a0 On his head a twisted scarf, red and yellow, with one end hanging down behind.\u00a0 And on this man\u2019s feet, knee-high boots whose soles were embroidered in brilliant colors, set with chips of bone or shell.\u00a0 The man had pulled his toes up, as if to make sure they saw every detail of the intricate design.<\/p>\n
How did he walk on those, Oktar wondered.\u00a0 He must, but how?\u00a0 The colors were bright, undimmed by dirt.\u00a0 He glanced at his grandfather.\u00a0 For a long moment, his grandfather did not move or speak.\u00a0 Then his grandfather tipped his head up toward the sky and began chanting in the horsefolk tongue.\u00a0 The other man said nothing, sat motionless on his horse.\u00a0 His grandfather paused in the chant, and gestured at Oktar, then fell silent.<\/p>\n
The man looked at Oktar.\u00a0 He had the same beady black eyes as Oktar\u2019s grandfather and father, with the same tattoos in swirls and dots covering the heart-hand side of his face, and the same expression on it: contempt for the boy who didn\u2019t measure up.\u00a0 The man opened his mouth and said something short and emphatic.\u00a0 Oktar couldn\u2019t understand the words, but the tone confirmed the eyes: contempt.<\/p>\n
His grandfather rode forward, held out his withered arm, and shouted, as loud as Oktar had ever heard him, right in the man\u2019s face; the man\u2019s horse pinned its ears and pivoted away.\u00a0 The man jerked the rein, brought it back around.\u00a0 The two men stared at each other a long moment, silent.<\/p>\n
Then the man uttered another phrase, in a completely different tone, turned his horse, and the horse picked up a brisk trot.<\/p>\n
“Come!” Oktar\u2019s grandfather followed the man without a backward look, only that one word, and Oktar rode after him, his stomach clenching.<\/p>\n
These were “his people?”\u00a0 This man, of the same tribe as his grandfather and father, this man who disliked him on sight, as the horsefolk back in town had, as everyone<\/u> had?\u00a0 Would he ever find anyone who would give him a chance?<\/p>\n
For the first time since leaving home, the hateful voices in his head drowned out everything around him.\u00a0 The boys at the grange, the horsefolk adults, the Marshal, the market judicar, everyone he had ever known: they all hated him; they always had.<\/p>\n
He glared at his grandfather\u2019s receding back, at the other man.\u00a0 He hated them–the way they sat their horses, the way they looked at him, the way they rode on paying no attention to him, despising him.<\/p>\n
He yanked at the rein; his horse threw its head up but stopped.\u00a0 The distance between him and his grandfather lengthened.\u00a0 Fine.\u00a0 Let him go on.\u00a0 Let him go back to the tribe; they were not Oktar\u2019s people.\u00a0 Not now, not ever.<\/p>\n
He pulled his horse\u2019s head around and booted it in the ribs; it turned a tight circle, shaking its head.\u00a0 It wanted to follow the others.\u00a0 But he did not.\u00a0 He would go back–not to the same house, to his father\u2019s anger and his mother\u2019s scoldings and the town that hated him.\u00a0 He would find another town.\u00a0 There must be one somewhere.<\/p>\n
He tried again to turn his horse, this time using the few words he now knew, and the horse wiggled its ears, and took a few hesitant steps before trying to swing around again.\u00a0 He said the words again, louder, kicked with both legs, and the horse moved on the direction he meant. \u00a0He sat back against the trot, kicked again, and it picked up a canter.\u00a0 Behind him, he heard a yell, the sound of hooves.\u00a0 He kicked, kicked with each stride, until the horse was galloping, then leaned forward.\u00a0 He had no thought left but escape, no thought of the days traveled, the food he did not have, anything but away, escape, freedom.<\/p>\n
Then his horse skidded to a sudden halt, Oktar’s fingers and legs lost their grip, and he slid off the horse\u2019s back, right over its lowered neck, onto the ground.\u00a0 Again.\u00a0 He wanted to sink into that ground before his grandfather arrived, before another humiliation.\u00a0 The ground did not cooperate.\u00a0 He blinked, opened his eyes, and saw in front of him two dark hooves, and between them a dark muzzle.\u00a0 His horse?\u00a0 He looked up, into the face of a horse he had never seen, a peculiar yellowish color, with a long dark forelock, and two astonishing dark eyes looking into his.<\/p>\n
Whuff!<\/em>\u00a0 Its breath smelled of the grass and herbs under his face.\u00a0 The nostrils quivered, coming nearer.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Without thinking, he breathed back into them, lifted a hand to touch that muzzle.\u00a0 The horse’s upper lip extended a little, touched his hand, then the horse sniffed up his arm, finger to wrist to elbow to shoulder\u2026and the next thing he knew had gripped his shirt in its teeth and lifted him as if he weighed nothing, setting him on his feet.\u00a0 Then it let go and stepped back.<\/p>\n Nearby, his horse stood, watching not him but the other horse.\u00a0 The new one, he could see now, had a body all that golden yellow color with legs dark to the knees and hocks, a dark mane and tail, and a dark stripe down the back.\u00a0 And–even he could tell this–it was a mare.\u00a0 Every story he\u2019d been told brought a sudden chill down his backbone, weakness to his legs.\u00a0 This was a dun horse–a dun mare–a daughter of the Mare of Plenty, a mare among mares, the herd\u2019s wise leader.<\/p>\n The mare cocked her head, then reached out and took his hand in her teeth. Her big square yellow teeth closed very gently around his fingers, then tugged just a little.\u00a0 He took a step forward.\u00a0 She released his hand, nodded like a human, came closer and butted him with her head.\u00a0 He stumbled back; she turned sideways to him, lowered her head to the ground and ripped up a mouthful of grass.\u00a0 One of those big dark eyes watched him; the ear on that side pointed to him.\u00a0 When he did not move, she gave another loud Whuff!<\/em> and stamped the near foreleg.<\/p>\n He knew what she wanted.\u00a0 But it was impossible.\u00a0 If she was the Mare of Plenty, consort of the Windsteed, mother of all the herds of the horsefolk, no human dared mount her.\u00a0 She was not to be ridden.<\/p>\n The mare swung her hindquarters closer to him, and her tail lashed him.\u00a0 Then she presented her neck again, this time looking at him with both eyes, both ears pricked.<\/p>\n Get on, fool of a boy.<\/em>\u00a0 Clear as if she had human speech.<\/p>\n Would she run away with him?\u00a0 Would she buck him off?\u00a0 Trample him?<\/p>\n Only if you stand there.<\/em><\/p>\n It was hard to take that step, hard to lift his leg and step over that lowered neck, hard to imagine what it would be like–and as he thought that, the mare jerked her head up and he found himself sliding right over her low withers and onto her bare back.\u00a0 She stood motionless a moment, then walked toward his grandfather and the other man, both of them now only a few lengths away, staring at him in a very different way.<\/p>\n His horse\u2014the one he had been riding\u2014trailed alongside, its head near the mare\u2019s flank.\u00a0 As the mare walked toward, and then past, his grandfather, the two men turned their horses to ride one on either side.<\/p>\n “You were run away.”<\/p>\n His grandfather sounded scornful, as usual.\u00a0 But no familiar surge of anger came; he could scarcely recall what he\u2019d been doing, or why.\u00a0 Under him, the mare\u2019s back swayed, and from her emanated a sense of comfort and safety he had not felt since early childhood, since the days his mother had carried him, had protected him from the older children, before he knew that who he was, who she was, who they all were, made any difference.<\/p>\n “What means you?” his grandfather asked.<\/p>\n He had no words to answer he thought his grandfather would understand.\u00a0\u00a0 “She came to me,” he said.<\/p>\n The other man laughed, and said something to his grandfather that made his grandfather laugh.<\/p>\n “She knows horse from ass,” his grandfather said.\u00a0 “You are son\u2019s son after all.”\u00a0 He reined back, moved alongside the horse Oktar had been riding, and scooped up the trailing rein in his withered arm, grabbing it then with his good hand.\u00a0 He moved back up beside Oktar.\u00a0 “You take rein.\u00a0 I go.”<\/p>\n Oktar took the rein his grandfather held out; the other man said something emphatic to his grandfather.\u00a0 The words hissed and clicked; all three horses pricked their ears.<\/p>\n “It make trouble, I go there,” Oktar\u2019s grandfather said to him.\u00a0 “I not go.\u00a0 He want, give me food.\u00a0 I stay here, but only tonight.”<\/p>\n “You\u2019re leaving me?\u00a0 I can\u2019t talk\u2014”<\/p>\n “You learn.\u00a0 You learn, son\u2019s son.\u00a0 You horse-folk.\u00a0 She<\/u> says.”\u00a0 He pointed his elbow at the mare; she flicked an ear.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I don\u2019t know\u2014who is he?\u201d<\/p>\n “Family,” his grandfather said.\u00a0 He waved his hand; the other man nodded, and kicked his horse forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When the storm passed, they rode on, over the melting lumps of ice and the wet grass.\u00a0 Oktar\u2019s sheepskin, sodden with rain, hung over his horse\u2019s rump; he walked, leading his mount, his bare feet so cold from the ice he could not feel the bruises.\u00a0 His grandfather rode ahead, not speaking to him, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,102],"tags":[28,39],"class_list":["post-2619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-story-2","tag-snippet","tag-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2619"}],"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=2619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2620,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2619\/revisions\/2620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}