To Augment the Bond, page 19
I admitted to Pildon.
“She should be fine.” He heaved a sigh of relief as he slid down onto the beach and leaned backward, hands on hips, to stretch his back. Good idea, I thought. Extending my front legs, I leaned forward and dipped my back, then pulled my forelegs back under me and arched as hard as I could. Crackling sounds rippled down my spine. Next, I dropped and rolled, scrubbing the sand into my backbone, scratching away the itchy sweat. Back on four feet, I shook, dousing Pildon with sand.
“You could have warned me!” He slapped me on the shoulder, then strode to the water and dove in.
Swimming did not appeal to me. I said.
With everyone beat, we settled early to sleep, not bothering to set a guard since the island was deserted. We’d found a trickle of fresh water, little grass.
Our instructions had us heading northeast for another long day, but supposedly a larger island with a population awaited. Clouds appeared, a breeze chased us the entire way, and the flying was slightly more comfortable with the tailwind. We’d spotted our goal when a herd of merlyn appeared racing toward us. Belle started talking immediately, using Coch’s words of greeting from Ddu. The herd broke around instead of slamming into us.
A burly bay stallion separated from the others and approached Belle. Although I found it difficult to understand his words, delivered in a raspy deep tone, Belle replied clearly. She spun the story we’d prepared and he invited us to land and meet his lead mare.
As we got nearer, I realized the island was long and narrow; the ocean, easily visible on the far side, stretched away to the horizon. Nevertheless, we found plenty of water and grass to make up for the dry camp of the night before.
These merlyn knew about don and reeth, as had the others we’d met, but carried no hatred or anger toward us. They welcomed us with friendly camaraderie; I found everyone but the bay stallion easy to understand. That night they pelted us with questions about our continent and shared what little they knew of the one we were headed for.
Overly tired from two hard days, Belle decided to retire early; she and Kera left the rest of us still telling stories, Pietro especially soaking up every bit of information he could wheedle out of our hosts. I heard a grunt, then a squeal followed by a heavy thud. Racing toward the sound—it was Belle’s voice behind that squeal—I came upon a bizarre scene. My mare had the bay stallion pinned to the ground with both front hooves; Kera stood to the side aiming her rifle at the bay’s head. From the muttering I caught, I realized he’d been attempting to persuade my mare to lie down by nipping at her forelegs so he could reach her to breed!
Belle snorted with rage.
The lead mare rushed into the scene filling my head with apologies, although it seemed to me she was contemptuous of my mare for turning her lover down. Belle let the stallion up and the head mare drove him away with her teeth and wings. The rest of us closed ranks, circling Belle and Kera. With all of us attempting to soothe her, it still took a half hour for Belle to calm down. I ran my muzzle down her neck, nipping gently along her topline to release the endorphins she needed to relax. Once she was breathing normally and her nostrils had lost their bright red flare, I ventured a comment.
I said softly.
The warm chuckle I’d hoped for didn’t come. I wheedled.
She finally sounded calm. She rubbed against me, her muscles relaxed, and we lay down together, putting the incident out of our minds.
Emotions were strained the next morning as Bajjerd asked the lead mare for instructions to the next island in the chain. Belle and I stayed in the background.
the mare said, She looked at Bajjerd with a vindictive gleam in her eye. Her ears flicked our direction. The picture she projected proved her advice was sound, even if she seemed up to something. We conferred; none of us could sense what was wrong with her instructions, so we decided to follow them.
Belle and I set off once again to the northeast. Around noon, the sky began to darken with heavy clouds massing and the wind rising. Pildon and Kera pulled on their raincoats although they didn’t help much; when the rain started, it came from in front, driving into our faces and whipping under their collars and hoods. We spotted the outcrop before two. Getting to it was difficult with flying into the wind. Landing was almost impossible; it seemed nothing but jagged rocks. For a moment, I wondered if we’d really found the right stopping spot, but it looked just as the lead mare had pictured.
I finally got down, placing my feet carefully between stony spikes. Pildon slid off and spread a ground cloth; Belle landed and lowered herself onto it, lying on her right side with Kera tucked between her legs. By the time I’d maneuvered myself onto my left side, facing Belle with my legs pulled close to my body, the rain had stopped but the sky had turned an ominous dark green.
“I’m afraid we’re in for a bad storm,” Pildon said.
The rain came again, beating on the tarp Pildon and Kera crouched under. Although Belle and I had ducked our heads under with them, we still felt the sharp stings of hail. Wind tore at the tarp, anchored under my hip; waves broke against my back soaking me to the skin. I screamed to Belle to brace her legs against the rock as I was doing. Her eyes went wide as she looked over my shoulder. I stiffened my legs straight out, ramming my hooves into crevices in an effort to hold on as a massive wave erupted over me, threatening to shove me off the rock. For moments, I struggled to breathe; we were engulfed in water.
Coughing and choking, Pildon and Kera clung to each other between Belle and me as our tiny outcrop was submerged by wave after wave, leaving us only seconds between to catch our breath. Shivering with cold, I felt my leg muscles quiver with exhaustion. My mind went numb.
Belle’s voice trembled with fear.
I pleaded. Another wave hit me.
It seemed like days. I don’t know if I lost consciousness or fell asleep or what but suddenly I could hear again. The raging wind, the roaring, pounding waves, had stopped. Belle was there, across from me, her eyes closed, her nostrils slightly moving as she breathed. I heard Kera crying, Pildon mumbling endearments. Raising my head, I opened my eyes wide and looked around.
The water was calm. We were alive! I called urgently. Her eyes fluttered open, then blazed with the realization that the storm was over.
After the raging tumult of the afternoon, the nighttime quiet seemed unreal. The sky, dotted with multitudes of stars, was obviously clear. In the dim light, I saw that our rocky outcrop was somewhat larger than I’d thought while fighting for air during the storm. My right shoulder and wing, pinned beneath my weight, cramped severely and I became aware of tiny pain points running from my neck to my hip.
I told Pildon.
He nodded and scooted across the ground sheet, pushing Kera between himself and Belle’s stomach. He ducked his head and covered it with his arms, arching his back toward me. Carefully, I flexed my extended hind legs, then pulled them beneath me to push. I only made it halfway in that first effort. Sitting on my rump, my front legs straining to hold me up, I rested, then tensed and shoved hard to scramble onto all fours. Pain shrieked from my entire right side. Swinging my head around, I saw blood seeping from a hundred small pricks; my right wing felt numb, the feathers bent in strange directions.
I shuddered. Pildon jumped up and carefully worked his way around my head to see my far side. “You must have held us on these rocks with your flesh impaled on the shards! Kera, get me the first aid kit!” Starting at my right ear, Pildon swabbed and dabbed Lareina all the way to my hip. Each tiny point throbbed with pain for a second, then went numb. All of my legs, down to the fetlocks, were scraped and bleeding from where I’d braced. “You kept us alive with your blood!” he exclaimed.
When he started to gently comb the feathers of my wing, I stopped him. She’d rolled up and was resting on her left foreleg, the others tucked up close. Her head drooped and although her eyes were open, they were dull with pain.
“But your wounds!” Kera cried.
Pildon boosted her up, then swung up behind. The Lareina was doing its job, deadening all my tiny jabs.
As if dazed, she raised her head and stared at me. I begged.
A gleam of determination appeared. She gathered herself, then pushed upright with much more grace than I’d managed. When she swayed on her feet, I stepped forward and braced her with my left shoulder. Kera and Pildon slid off my injured side, tearing open a couple of wounds according to Pildon.
They scrambled around to her far side and, sure enough, she had similar cuts and abrasions along her left shoulder and flank although her belly was clear. Also, her legs and hooves, more slender than mine, had escaped serious damage. Fortunately, the waves struck from my side and just washed over her.
I shivered again, the cold suddenly penetrating my awareness. Flexing my wings, I extended and contracted them to stir up body heat, then marched in place, working out muscle kinks. As soon as Pildon was finished daubing Belle with Lareina, she copied me.
Pildon returned to my right side. “Hold still a second. Let me straighten out these feathers.” While he worked, I continued moving the left wing even though he griped at me to quit.
Belle and I were soaked, everything in Pildon’s supply bag was wet, and we were all shivering. With plenty of light to fly by, we debated whether to head toward Canol or wait until morning to continue onward.
“I thought that lead mare said this rocky outcrop was the only stopping spot before Canol and that it was closer to Tywod than Canol.” Kera was wiping Belle with the heel of her hand, swiping small sheets of water off Belle’s hide. “With all these injuries, do you really think we should try flying there in the dark?”
Before either of us could respond, Belle and I heard Bajjerd calling. he asked, worry lacing his voice.
I answered, then cringed at the exhaustion I heard in my tone.
Anger flooded me, momentarily sweeping away the chills.
he continued.
Within minutes we were on our way.
Chapter 32
Lillair
The archipelago was a life saver in my opinion; we spent three days there resting and healing, even after Carryon and Bajjerd joined us. Plenty of water, glorious sunshine, lots to eat. I even found a pool at the bottom of a waterfall to swim in and rid myself of the crusty salt from the sea. With eleven islands of different sizes, all within a half hour’s flight, I thought it paradise and wouldn’t have minded living there the rest of my life.
Belle enjoyed it as much as I did, but on the third day, she was anxious to leave. She glanced around nervously.
She had a valid point. We left that afternoon for an easy flight to Canol, which we’d actually seen in the distance while flying around the archipelago.
The merlyn of Canol were welcoming and very friendly. And we learned their society was much like ours, with lifelong marriage and family care of the young. Their leader, although a mare, was not a lead mare as in the other populations of merlyn we’d encountered. Broc was old, highly respected, and comfortably married with grandchildren and even great-grandchildren living by her side. She laughed when we told her our story of the obnoxious bay stallion of Tywod.
Broc shook her head.
I felt a slight quiver run down Belle’s neck. she whispered.
Although Canol wasn’t large and it had a fairly substantial population, Broc invited us to stay two days and share what they had. We decided not to take her up on the offer, not willing to leave them hurting in the future, especially when a much larger island was only two days away.
The positioning of landing spots forced us into three short days to Craig rather than two long ones. We’d been traveling northeast since we’d left Ynys and when we approached the broad shoreline on the western side of the island ahead, I was shocked to see snow frosting the rocky cliffs rising starkly behind the beach.
“We’re farther north than we were on Ynys,” Pietro commented dryly.
“But it’s so warm here,” Kera said. “It’s strange to see snow after all these days of sunshine.”
“I’d guess those cliffs are much higher than they appear from this distance.” Pietro pulled a compact telescope from his backpack and studied the shoreline.
“Let’s go around to the south.” Zoedon suggested. “If we go up high enough to clear the cliffs, it’ll be too cold. We’re not prepared for snow!”
In agreement, we swung to the south and rounded the cliffs to discover a vast grassy plateau behind them. No one came out to challenge our approach and as we got closer, we saw a heavy forest backing the cliffs. Between us and the forest, small herds of merlyn moved through the grass, their varied colors stark against the brilliant green background. We were close enough to hail the first group before a head popped up to look.
A deep golden, rather plump stallion trotted toward us, not a trace of fear or aggression showing in eye or body. Three younger merlyn pranced and cavorted after him, snorting and kicking out at each other in playfulness. Belle called as she landed and waited for the golden one to reach her.
the stallion answered in a mellow bass voice that seemed to soothe any tension I might have had.
Not a Welsh name! I thought. Only then did I realize the stallion had spoken in our language, not the language of the merlyn from other isles.
A chestnut filly, built just like her father, pranced up to me and stood right under my nose staring up at me. I had to laugh at the awe in her voice.
she said with a firm nod of her head. She ducked and trotted easily under my belly. Flicking an ear back toward my face, she asked,
Pildon slid down and extended a hand for the little one to sniff. “My name is Pildon. Since I can’t fly, I ride my friend, Lillair, when we travel.”
The filly’s withers reached about midway up Pildon’s thigh. He squatted to look her in the eye and she sneezed in his face. her father said.
She wrinkled her upper lip and turned an innocent eye toward Pildon.
Stifling a snort of laughter, I heard Belle intervene before Miel’s father could yell at her.
Inquisitive green eyes focused on Belle.
Pedazo de Oro gently nudged his daughter with a shoulder.
An impertinent ear flicked at him, but she evidently decided not to disobey. Flinging her stubby tail in the air, she trotted away, motioning at the other two young ones to follow her. They looked older to me; she holds the power through sheer audacity, I thought.
“She should be fine.” He heaved a sigh of relief as he slid down onto the beach and leaned backward, hands on hips, to stretch his back. Good idea, I thought. Extending my front legs, I leaned forward and dipped my back, then pulled my forelegs back under me and arched as hard as I could. Crackling sounds rippled down my spine. Next, I dropped and rolled, scrubbing the sand into my backbone, scratching away the itchy sweat. Back on four feet, I shook, dousing Pildon with sand.
“You could have warned me!” He slapped me on the shoulder, then strode to the water and dove in.
Swimming did not appeal to me.
With everyone beat, we settled early to sleep, not bothering to set a guard since the island was deserted. We’d found a trickle of fresh water, little grass.
Our instructions had us heading northeast for another long day, but supposedly a larger island with a population awaited. Clouds appeared, a breeze chased us the entire way, and the flying was slightly more comfortable with the tailwind. We’d spotted our goal when a herd of merlyn appeared racing toward us. Belle started talking immediately, using Coch’s words of greeting from Ddu. The herd broke around instead of slamming into us.
A burly bay stallion separated from the others and approached Belle. Although I found it difficult to understand his words, delivered in a raspy deep tone, Belle replied clearly.
As we got nearer, I realized the island was long and narrow; the ocean, easily visible on the far side, stretched away to the horizon. Nevertheless, we found plenty of water and grass to make up for the dry camp of the night before.
These merlyn knew about don and reeth, as had the others we’d met, but carried no hatred or anger toward us. They welcomed us with friendly camaraderie; I found everyone but the bay stallion easy to understand. That night they pelted us with questions about our continent and shared what little they knew of the one we were headed for.
Overly tired from two hard days, Belle decided to retire early; she and Kera left the rest of us still telling stories, Pietro especially soaking up every bit of information he could wheedle out of our hosts. I heard a grunt, then a squeal followed by a heavy thud. Racing toward the sound—it was Belle’s voice behind that squeal—I came upon a bizarre scene. My mare had the bay stallion pinned to the ground with both front hooves; Kera stood to the side aiming her rifle at the bay’s head. From the muttering I caught, I realized he’d been attempting to persuade my mare to lie down by nipping at her forelegs so he could reach her to breed!
The lead mare rushed into the scene filling my head with apologies, although it seemed to me she was contemptuous of my mare for turning her lover down. Belle let the stallion up and the head mare drove him away with her teeth and wings. The rest of us closed ranks, circling Belle and Kera. With all of us attempting to soothe her, it still took a half hour for Belle to calm down. I ran my muzzle down her neck, nipping gently along her topline to release the endorphins she needed to relax. Once she was breathing normally and her nostrils had lost their bright red flare, I ventured a comment.
The warm chuckle I’d hoped for didn’t come.
She finally sounded calm.
Emotions were strained the next morning as Bajjerd asked the lead mare for instructions to the next island in the chain. Belle and I stayed in the background.
Belle and I set off once again to the northeast. Around noon, the sky began to darken with heavy clouds massing and the wind rising. Pildon and Kera pulled on their raincoats although they didn’t help much; when the rain started, it came from in front, driving into our faces and whipping under their collars and hoods. We spotted the outcrop before two. Getting to it was difficult with flying into the wind. Landing was almost impossible; it seemed nothing but jagged rocks. For a moment, I wondered if we’d really found the right stopping spot, but it looked just as the lead mare had pictured.
I finally got down, placing my feet carefully between stony spikes. Pildon slid off and spread a ground cloth; Belle landed and lowered herself onto it, lying on her right side with Kera tucked between her legs. By the time I’d maneuvered myself onto my left side, facing Belle with my legs pulled close to my body, the rain had stopped but the sky had turned an ominous dark green.
“I’m afraid we’re in for a bad storm,” Pildon said.
The rain came again, beating on the tarp Pildon and Kera crouched under. Although Belle and I had ducked our heads under with them, we still felt the sharp stings of hail. Wind tore at the tarp, anchored under my hip; waves broke against my back soaking me to the skin. I screamed to Belle to brace her legs against the rock as I was doing. Her eyes went wide as she looked over my shoulder. I stiffened my legs straight out, ramming my hooves into crevices in an effort to hold on as a massive wave erupted over me, threatening to shove me off the rock. For moments, I struggled to breathe; we were engulfed in water.
Coughing and choking, Pildon and Kera clung to each other between Belle and me as our tiny outcrop was submerged by wave after wave, leaving us only seconds between to catch our breath. Shivering with cold, I felt my leg muscles quiver with exhaustion. My mind went numb.
It seemed like days. I don’t know if I lost consciousness or fell asleep or what but suddenly I could hear again. The raging wind, the roaring, pounding waves, had stopped. Belle was there, across from me, her eyes closed, her nostrils slightly moving as she breathed. I heard Kera crying, Pildon mumbling endearments. Raising my head, I opened my eyes wide and looked around.
The water was calm. We were alive!
After the raging tumult of the afternoon, the nighttime quiet seemed unreal. The sky, dotted with multitudes of stars, was obviously clear. In the dim light, I saw that our rocky outcrop was somewhat larger than I’d thought while fighting for air during the storm. My right shoulder and wing, pinned beneath my weight, cramped severely and I became aware of tiny pain points running from my neck to my hip.
I told Pildon.
He nodded and scooted across the ground sheet, pushing Kera between himself and Belle’s stomach. He ducked his head and covered it with his arms, arching his back toward me. Carefully, I flexed my extended hind legs, then pulled them beneath me to push. I only made it halfway in that first effort. Sitting on my rump, my front legs straining to hold me up, I rested, then tensed and shoved hard to scramble onto all fours. Pain shrieked from my entire right side. Swinging my head around, I saw blood seeping from a hundred small pricks; my right wing felt numb, the feathers bent in strange directions.
I shuddered. Pildon jumped up and carefully worked his way around my head to see my far side. “You must have held us on these rocks with your flesh impaled on the shards! Kera, get me the first aid kit!” Starting at my right ear, Pildon swabbed and dabbed Lareina all the way to my hip. Each tiny point throbbed with pain for a second, then went numb. All of my legs, down to the fetlocks, were scraped and bleeding from where I’d braced. “You kept us alive with your blood!” he exclaimed.
When he started to gently comb the feathers of my wing, I stopped him.
“But your wounds!” Kera cried.
As if dazed, she raised her head and stared at me.
A gleam of determination appeared. She gathered herself, then pushed upright with much more grace than I’d managed. When she swayed on her feet, I stepped forward and braced her with my left shoulder. Kera and Pildon slid off my injured side, tearing open a couple of wounds according to Pildon.
They scrambled around to her far side and, sure enough, she had similar cuts and abrasions along her left shoulder and flank although her belly was clear. Also, her legs and hooves, more slender than mine, had escaped serious damage. Fortunately, the waves struck from my side and just washed over her.
I shivered again, the cold suddenly penetrating my awareness. Flexing my wings, I extended and contracted them to stir up body heat, then marched in place, working out muscle kinks. As soon as Pildon was finished daubing Belle with Lareina, she copied me.
Pildon returned to my right side. “Hold still a second. Let me straighten out these feathers.” While he worked, I continued moving the left wing even though he griped at me to quit.
Belle and I were soaked, everything in Pildon’s supply bag was wet, and we were all shivering. With plenty of light to fly by, we debated whether to head toward Canol or wait until morning to continue onward.
“I thought that lead mare said this rocky outcrop was the only stopping spot before Canol and that it was closer to Tywod than Canol.” Kera was wiping Belle with the heel of her hand, swiping small sheets of water off Belle’s hide. “With all these injuries, do you really think we should try flying there in the dark?”
Before either of us could respond, Belle and I heard Bajjerd calling.
Anger flooded me, momentarily sweeping away the chills.
Within minutes we were on our way.
Chapter 32
Lillair
The archipelago was a life saver in my opinion; we spent three days there resting and healing, even after Carryon and Bajjerd joined us. Plenty of water, glorious sunshine, lots to eat. I even found a pool at the bottom of a waterfall to swim in and rid myself of the crusty salt from the sea. With eleven islands of different sizes, all within a half hour’s flight, I thought it paradise and wouldn’t have minded living there the rest of my life.
Belle enjoyed it as much as I did, but on the third day, she was anxious to leave.
She had a valid point. We left that afternoon for an easy flight to Canol, which we’d actually seen in the distance while flying around the archipelago.
The merlyn of Canol were welcoming and very friendly. And we learned their society was much like ours, with lifelong marriage and family care of the young. Their leader, although a mare, was not a lead mare as in the other populations of merlyn we’d encountered. Broc was old, highly respected, and comfortably married with grandchildren and even great-grandchildren living by her side. She laughed when we told her our story of the obnoxious bay stallion of Tywod.
I felt a slight quiver run down Belle’s neck.
Although Canol wasn’t large and it had a fairly substantial population, Broc invited us to stay two days and share what they had. We decided not to take her up on the offer, not willing to leave them hurting in the future, especially when a much larger island was only two days away.
The positioning of landing spots forced us into three short days to Craig rather than two long ones. We’d been traveling northeast since we’d left Ynys and when we approached the broad shoreline on the western side of the island ahead, I was shocked to see snow frosting the rocky cliffs rising starkly behind the beach.
“We’re farther north than we were on Ynys,” Pietro commented dryly.
“But it’s so warm here,” Kera said. “It’s strange to see snow after all these days of sunshine.”
“I’d guess those cliffs are much higher than they appear from this distance.” Pietro pulled a compact telescope from his backpack and studied the shoreline.
“Let’s go around to the south.” Zoedon suggested. “If we go up high enough to clear the cliffs, it’ll be too cold. We’re not prepared for snow!”
In agreement, we swung to the south and rounded the cliffs to discover a vast grassy plateau behind them. No one came out to challenge our approach and as we got closer, we saw a heavy forest backing the cliffs. Between us and the forest, small herds of merlyn moved through the grass, their varied colors stark against the brilliant green background. We were close enough to hail the first group before a head popped up to look.
A deep golden, rather plump stallion trotted toward us, not a trace of fear or aggression showing in eye or body. Three younger merlyn pranced and cavorted after him, snorting and kicking out at each other in playfulness.
Not a Welsh name! I thought. Only then did I realize the stallion had spoken in our language, not the language of the merlyn from other isles.
A chestnut filly, built just like her father, pranced up to me and stood right under my nose staring up at me.
Pildon slid down and extended a hand for the little one to sniff. “My name is Pildon. Since I can’t fly, I ride my friend, Lillair, when we travel.”
The filly’s withers reached about midway up Pildon’s thigh. He squatted to look her in the eye and she sneezed in his face.
She wrinkled her upper lip and turned an innocent eye toward Pildon.
Stifling a snort of laughter, I heard Belle intervene before Miel’s father could yell at her.
Inquisitive green eyes focused on Belle.
An impertinent ear flicked at him, but she evidently decided not to disobey. Flinging her stubby tail in the air, she trotted away, motioning at the other two young ones to follow her. They looked older to me; she holds the power through sheer audacity, I thought.
