Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

They crowded into the false back end of Lon Farrier’s huge bam, all who dared to ease through the afternoon under the noses of the patrols. Sheets of dusk’s red light slashed through the heavy louvers of the shutters to illuminate the desperate courage of the peasants. The older folk led the meeting.

“Who do we have who’s working at their stable?” Glaze asked.

A tanned and wrinkled man raised his hand. “We’re making the bricks and stacking them up,” he said. “They won’t let us near the compound. They threaten us with whips, but they haven’t beaten anybody yet. 1 think they’re afraid of

us.”

Garva spoke for all their hopes: “They’d better be!”

Glaze looked around, not trying to stop the murmur. As if we had weapons they might fear. In a moment they fell silent. “We have to get to the animals,” he said.

“The bastards don’t trust us.”

“Then who Speaks the strongest?”

All eyes turned to Krai Raus-son. “Not me!” he shouted. “The captain marked me today! They’re going to kill me! I don’t want to be impaled!”

Glaze put his hands on the boy’s shoulders to calm him, seeing the others out of the corners of his eyes: Thank the gods it’s him and not me, their faces said. “They’re going to kill us all if we don’t stop them,” Glaze said.

“But the captain marked me!” the boy wailed.

Glaze ignored it. “You Speak well with the horses?”

“Well enough to win the Harvest Race,” Garva muttered.

Krai tried to put the truth of it into words. “1 know Comet’s-son heard me,” he said.

Glaze had let the boy take care of Comet’s-son, and the young stallion gleamed from the boy’s brushing. The horse would jitter a bit when anyone else managed his hooves, but he always stood still for Krai.

The boy was afraid of the race, but Glaze had encouraged him. The mass of riders leaped forward when the flag was waved, and Comet’s-son pushed through the pack to the front. By the time they reached the great oak tree, a mile distant, Comet’s-son was in front. Krai was thrilled, a broad grin on his face all the others could see. He leaned over the left side of the saddle as Comet’s-son rounded the huge trunk.

A hoof hit a root, and suddenly there was terror as Krai’s feet slipped from the stirrups. Comet’s-son fought for his footing, head down, with a twist of his hard-muscled back. Krai bounced up and grabbed for the cantle as his mount finished careening around the tree, ending half off the broad seat, his legs gripping sweaty flanks, the powerful limbs of his steed hammering him, smashing him looser and looser until he barely had the strength to hold on, before falling beneath the crushing onslaught of a hundred galloping hooves.

He stared behind, trembling in terror, unable to pull himself up. / don’t want to die! shrieked out of his mind over and over.

Then, something happened inside his head, a thought that he did not think.

Please don’t let me die!

*You will not die. I will not let you die.

Get me away from them!

*If I go faster, you will fall.

Please! PLEASE! Take me away! And Krai knew that he was speaking to Comet’s-son, and that Comet’s-son heard him and understood.

*Hold tighter. I will run as never before.*

Ever afterward, people remarked that there was never such a race. The boy felt a surge of energy as Comet’s-son leapt forward, a dream-horse flying over the ground, sparks flying from his steel shoes against the flinty soil. Krai blinked and watched the rest of the horses and riders recede. Then they passed through the riband, the cheering townspeople, continuing on slower and slower, until Krai could dislodge himself.

*1—I cannot go on; you must—must let me—

No! You have to keep walking, let the heat leave you slowly!

Comet’s-son stopped, but Krai pulled on the bridle and kept the horse moving.

I won’t let you get overheated and die!

The townspeople came running and soon surrounded Krai and Comet’^-son. The horse was thoroughly lathered, panting, stumbling. Krai ignored them all, talking quietly to the animal which had saved his life. He let Comet’s-son drink only small amounts at a time, and soon was alone in the stable, currying him, watching him until he knew he was safe.

Comet’s-son never raced again. None but Krai could ever mount him, and he never again went faster than a trot. And though Krai could feel Comet’ s-son’s confidence in his care, he never felt the great horse’s explicit thoughts in his mind again.

“Comet’s-son knew that I was afraid,” Krai said. “I begged him to save me. He heard me, he—he spoke to me. You all saw what happened!” He looked up at the silent, staring faces, and blushed.

No one laughed or jeered. “We all believe you, Krai,” the old man said. “Can you do it again?”

“I don’t know. There’s other people here who can Speak with the horses!”

Garva stalked over to the boy. “Yes, but you’re the best.

My animals know me, they obey me, they—you know! But I have never Spoken with them.”

“But 1—”

“You cannot be afraid now. Not any more than the rest of us!”

“How easy for you to say—”

“Do 1 have a saber? Do we have pikes? They’ll butcher me too, if they get the chance. But my anger is greater than my fear, and I want to live as much as you, but if I’m to be killed, some of them’ll be joining me.”

He had seized the boy’s shirt and hauled him to his feet. Krai stammered; no words came out.

“We can’t afford your cowardice, you sniveling—”

“Garva! He’s just a boy—”

“Quiet, Glaze!”

There was silence as an ominous smell perfused the air. Garva dropped the frightened boy; stood, sniffing the acrid stillness. Suddenly they all noticed the haziness even in the dark.

“Fire!” Garva shouted, and everyone jumped for the door. “They’re trying to bum us out!”

As if he had given a prearranged signal, the thin boards of the door shattered into the room as the Prince’s soldiers crashed into the little space, the deadly partisans in their hands punching red holes into the nearest of the terrified peasants. Screams of pain and shrieks of fear, and above it all, Garva’s wordless bellowing. He wrenched one of the short spears away from a young bravo, swung the haft below the helmet into his jaw, and began to fight his way out.

The survivors shook off their startle, picked up the debris of furniture and waded into the uniformed men. Pressed up close, the troops couldn’t wield their weapons; they began to fall back. The peasants cheered with one voice, the sound of a beast of prey. Before them, a young man with his first beard gurgled his death rattle, his throat ripped by a splintered board, but he couldn’t fall; he stood, his white face lolling at the trapped villagers.