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Harper Alexander - Whisper (html)/text/part0000.htmlWhisper

Harper Alexander

Copyright April 2012 by Harper Alexander.

All rights reserved.

No part of this product may be reproduced

without prior written permission from the author.

Original cover images courtesy of:

LadyAyslinn.deviantart.com

mizzd-stock.deviantart.com

RavenMaddArtwork.deviantart.com

Cover design and art by:

Laura Gordon (dormantparadox.deviantart.com)

Prologue:

A man named Godfrey Wilde once told me that there is something latent inside everything. Some sleeping quality just waiting to be awakened. As dormant trees draw from their roots again in spring, so does this 'thing' turn green in its own season. It spreads forth, unfurls with a breathless realization. Sometimes, it may be so sudden that it comes as a shock, and may even wreak havoc on its very own host.

This was the case with the earthquakes.

Godfrey Wilde was a horse whisperer. A man of a lost art, in our evolving society that boasted more horsepower in its ecosystem than any of the live beasts that he preferred. For a long time, I did not understand the implications in Godfrey's words, but I suppose 'understanding' was the latent quality inside them. I see that now. At the time, it took the earthquakes to inspire the budding of my belief in his theory. The great fits of the earth that exploded from within, a nasty dual personality emerging when no one was prepared to ride such a thing out. We had thrived upon what no one suspected was the cocoon of our planet; only the earth itself knew when it was ready to evolve.

The renditions were devastating.

We, revealed simply as the parasites to a much greater beast, were left in those days seeking desperately some new piece of homeland, and some new way of life itself, to latch onto. Thus was born our age of wreckage, of picking up the pieces of a ruptured society. As technology failed and roads crumbled, the people reverted to the ways of the horse.

If Godfrey had survived the quakes, he would have been in heaven. As it was, he was one of many that went down that day, lost beneath the rubble.

He was right, though about his theory. Years later I would understand that his knack with the horses was the latent thing he had sheltered inside him, awakened and in its place.

It wasn't until I was caught unprepared in a canyon frequented by wild horses caught there when they descended like a dam breaking and thundered through that gulley, and the dust cleared and I was left standing that people began to realize I had it, too.

Me, Godfrey Wilde's daughter.

A horse whisperer.

One

A clatter rang throughout the camp, accompanied by the thundering tremors that sometimes made us brace for a quake. It was only the clamor of hooves, though, as another trainee got loose.

Shouts echoed in the wake of the escape-artist equine, but he stomped them into dust with his mischief-dancing hooves. He was a stocky buckskin, the beautiful image of golden-bodied glory contrasted by soot-dark mane and tail a walking eclipse of night and day colliding, head held high to keep his trailing rope from tangling with his feet. I straightened from my task, spine cracking, ready as he came my way. The blood rushed from my head, leaving me feeling light and airy and somewhat euphoric as my encounter with the animal approached.

The euphoria was something I had gotten used to, always keen on painting the encounters like fantasies.

The buckskin approached with a wild look in his eyes. All horses have that look, somewhere inside. It seemed like a game to him, prancing just out of reach when someone got near enough to catch him. Jay emerged from the sidelines always emerging from the woodwork, it seemed to try his hand at intervening. He got closer than the rest.

As the buckskin evaded him, I stepped down from my pile of rubble. It was one of many we were still working to excavate, to smooth out and enlarge the boundaries of the camp. The buckskin perked his ears at the sound of rubble shifting beneath me, slowing slightly as I descended to stand in his path. I held out my hands, palm-up in offering, and his gait faltered completely, his nostrils flaring at the blood on my hands.

My lips parted with a flow of crooning words. People asked me, often, what it was that I said to the horses, but I could never really recall. I could not say if it was nonsense, or poetry, or motherly lingo that poured out of me. Only that there was a language, in those moments, that spoke through me.

The buckskin's heaving ribcage began to issue softer breaths, and his eyes were just starting to glaze over when Jay caught up. His gray gaze flashed up to mine as he sidled up next to the animal, breaking the trance I shared with the horse. My own attention flitted down to where he was retrieving the gelding's rope, a protest rising to my lips.

I can take him, I said.

He'd only render those completely shredded, Jay replied, indicating my hands. I glanced down, taking stock of the nicks. Turning the buckskin, Jay finished over his shoulder, the very subtle drawl in his voice monotonous as always, You should wear gloves.

He was a man of few words, which made it all but pointless to argue with him, so I did not bother to remind him I wouldn't have used the rope. The buckskin would not be led astray in his care, so I let it go.

Jay had been what I liked to call an endearing thorn at my side 'at' being the key word since the beginning. We had all but grown up together, when his father became a ranch hand at the small operation my father had run. The two of us had run a little wild together, getting under the horses' feet until we were old enough to lend a hand. Jay spoke little as a child and even less once he had the horses for company, but our love for the creatures and the work that went with them had sustained the bond between us over the years. It was only reinforced after the earthquakes ruined my home and claimed my father, and Jay's parents took me in. I had been seven at the time, and Jay an older-brotherly ten.

Times were difficult after that, as the extent of the destruction was realized and the notion of recovery put into perspective. America was a shambles. Unrecognizable. Any regular means of survival paled into an irrelevant game plan, and the shelter I found with Jay's family quickly expired into the necessity for every able-bodied person to help pave the way for longevity. As horses became the most practical means of labor and transportation across the wrecked land land now known collectively as 'the Shardscape' Jay and I were able to find small jobs here and there until Tara had hired us on officially at her training camp, thanks to Jay's apparent salesman-worthy pitch on our behalf. I would never know what he said to her behind closed doors in her office that day, but it had done the trick. Thereafter we had aided in training and providing horses for the masses, if our clientele could be called that. Business was well enough, but there still weren't crowds lining up at our gates. The population, as yet unmeasured, had clearly been decimated from its previously thriving state.

Not a one of us could be sure the extent of what or who was out there. It was all we could do to pick up the pieces in a small region and glean little bits here and there as word of mouth brought them. Communication was just one of many things reduced to the cumbersome ways of old. Everything was broken, ruined, or otherwise shorted-out, and we could not seem to rebuild to any erstwhile relevant degree due to the recurring aftershocks that shook the planet.

Ten years had passed, and still the world held its breath and waded through the aftermath.

I tucked a strand of dark hair behind my ear and wiped my sullied hands across my tunic. Even our clothing was crude in those days, fashion a dead art in an industry suddenly based on survival. I remember, when I was little, dressing up in my mother's clothes, trying on the single pair of beautiful mother-of-pearl stiletto heels she had for special occasions, dreaming of the day I would stock my own wardrobe as every little girl does. That day had remained a thing of childhood dreams, though, like so many other things tied to that distant world I was born into. As for the mother I so vaguely remembered, even less than I remembered my father, well...

Unfortunately, that latent thing inside my mother had been fate. She died in a vehicle accident an evil hardly relevant to our world anymore. In fact, her death was one of the early factors that contributed to my familiarity and comfort in an old-fashioned world. Following the accident, my father delved even deeper into his preferred lifestyle with the horses as he developed a special hatred for the modern world.

Climbing back atop my pile of rubble, I heaved another piece of debris into the waiting cart. The muscles in my arms burned, but only as I neared the end of a full morning of the task. I could pack a punch with those arms if I needed to; a valid skill if I were to encounter any of the one-man-for-himself-ers that scavenged the wreckage taking advantage of who and what they could. I hadn't had to employ such methods as of yet, but I liked to know that I could. Jay didn't like to admit it, but he liked to know it, too.

He was protective that way.

Of course, he would just as soon protect me himself, but in desperate times it would not do to leave any one person devoid of defensive means should incidents prove inconvenient in when and where they chose to fall. Incidents had fit many adjectives in my time 'convenient' had rarely been one of them.

I liked to point out that people wouldn't soon mess with me, anyway, for other obvious reasons the most prominent being the array of tattoos I now sported across my body. I looked hardcore. Most of us did, thanks to a new method of vaccine going around. With the mass-deaths came unbridled decay, and with that, disease. In the early days when resources were yet to be depleted, a series of new vaccinations were created, crude because of demand but decently affective for the most part, once you got over being rather ill for a few days. The vaccines came in dark, inky substances, affective when placed just beneath the flesh, and so was born a custom of administration via tattoo gun. Naturally, people began to opt to have it administered in art form, and a trend of honoring things dead and buried began. A lot of people had the names of their towns or states buried places that would not be likewise forgotten or of loved ones killed in the quakes, beloved names immortalized on our skin. Names from how things used to be, and of spirits of loved ones we could not let go, protecting us against what had come to be. They were still with us, doing their part. I sported the name Virginia on my back. Godfrey on my wrist. Enduring guardians of old.

Jay returned momentarily, ascending my pile and beginning to toss chunks of the stuff into the cart. I paused, frowning at him, but the heaving muscles of his back were turned on me, so I was forced to speak.

What are you doing?

Saving your appendages.

Render...appendages... He may have been a man of few words, but he never failed to make sure the ones he did scrape up were well-versed, speaking well enough for his vocabulary by themselves.

This is my pile. Get your own. There are plenty to go around, I said. My appendages will be just fine.

You can't calm horses with the smell of blood, Willow.

I just did, I reminded him, obstinate. It was hard to be obstinate when he called me that, though. It was a nickname that had evolved in my younger days, when my obsession with horses peaked and he began to find me in the stalls as filthy and sweaty as any man, my hair an unmindful disarray that fell in my face. Look at you, he would say, brushing the draping locks out of my face. You're like a willow.

It had stuck, and he had rarely called me my respective Alannis since.

I was almost finished, I protested once more, but he was giving no sign of discontinuing his unsolicited rescue mission.

Almost finished with a pile reminiscent of Everest, he denounced. Reminiscent...

Really, Jay.

Mm.

With that, it was settled. It was how he settled most things. I might have glared at him for good measure had he presented me with the chance, but there was only the un-acknowledging side of his head for addressing, focused to keep his short, light-brown hair the only feature turned to me.

We worked together filling the cart to the brim, and then he hopped down and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm. His black sleeves were rolled up, exposing lanky but muscular forearms.

What, do you expect me to thank you? I asked when he stood there, though he seemed only to be admiring our work.

He said nothing, indifferent to my existence as he turned to leave. But I knew such indifference wasn't valid, because he had bothered to help me in the first place. It was our way. Brotherly love, some might call it. I was somewhat of the brother he never had, except that, sometimes, he proved more of a gentleman to me than a brother figure would warrant. He had to remember I was of the female species sometimes, I supposed, and reminding me had to go along with it.

I was not certain what the latent thing inside Jay was in those days. He was a hard one to figure out. It would come to me, though, I knew it would.

Breathing in the smell of settling dust for the day, I turned toward the heart of camp and left those edges to be taken up again the next day. One of our labor steeds would be hitched to the cart to haul the debris away, and the camp would expand ever outward, growing with business.

That was, if it wasn't pulled up short by the raids.

Two

When the first raid came, we were lucky enough to have some semblance of warning via one of our scouts. Of course, 'lucky' meant only that we had warning. It did nothing to prevent the raid from serving its purpose.

We stood in Tara's office as the news was broken, surrounded by her musty furniture and salvaged treasures, which stood about her desk and atop a makeshift mantle as a collection of broken, tarnished trophies. The set of red leather chairs that stood behind Jay and I both sported large gashes slashed into the material, tearing open the cushions as if someone had taken knives to them. That was how most things came out of the rubble. Whole, un-mussed entities were rare, prized artifacts, like the miraculously preserved relics archaeologists sometimes found buried in the ancient grounds of their digs, and met with near the same level of enthusiasm.

What are we going to do? I asked after the scout relayed his message. The glance he gave me was rueful, in the way someone pity's a child's naivety. The look Tara gave me was more stony, as was often her persona of choice. She was a hard woman, never mind her sweet honey-colored hair and sparkling blue eyes. She never left home without her stern mask of practicality and famous stomach of iron.

This is a raid, Miss Wilde orchestrated by what little government we have left.

So we just let them come?

This was never a black market operation. The law can still have its way with us.

There is no law, I protested.

There are wars being fought, Miss Wilde. Please don't make anyone's job harder with your sentimental two cents.

Sen

Shut up, Willow, Jay urged quietly, doubtlessly for my own good. I snapped my mouth shut, feeling slapped.

Feeling slapped by it all.

How far out are they? Tara was addressing the scout Rolph, I thought his name was. But I couldn't be sure; I had the tendency to pay more attention to the horses than the people.

A few hours. They will be here by nightfall maybe sooner.

Tara placed her hands on her desk, leaning into them slightly. She did not show her weakness for long, though. With a ruthless straightening of her spine, she resigned herself to it. Ready the horses, she gave the order.

Ma'am someone else interjected, and a wave of gratitude washed through me that someone else was on my side.

Let's not fight the good guys here, men, Tara responded, practicing her authority. I had to imagine her ruthlessness was as much to keep her own protests under wraps, for it could not be easy for her readying the entirety of her equine stock for seizure upon someone else's whim. I refused to believe it was easy for her to just do that.

But Fly, I objected again, my panic rising as the worst of the impending seizure occurred to me. Fly was my personal mount, the beloved steed that had been with me since I was a child. A gift from my father. He's too old for war.

Tara spared me a glance then, but her face was hard. The dust seared into the lines of her face looked darker than ever. Too old for war, Miss Wilde? she challenged ruefully. No such thing. You can never be too old to die. It was the hard truth, a terrible piece of logic.

Unbidden desperation welled up in me as the cruelty of the coming event painted its premonition in my gut. I was not prepared for it, could not fathom simply offering up my beloved Fly for an unforgiving fate of certain death, not just like that.

It seemed Tara could see as much on my face. I cannot have any of my people inhibiting a raid, Alannis. You will not stand in the way of this.

It was an order, but one I could not readily cope with. What good was following an order if I would not want to live with myself the rest of my life? I couldn't conform to that. But, as my desperation was an open book, Tara proceeded to invest in further measures. Drastic measures.

I know that look, she divined relentlessly, but she had turned to Jay. Please ensure Miss Wilde does not leave the confines of the Dorm-wing while the raid plays out. I cannot allow her interference.

Jay nodded, and the betrayal doubled. It was ironic how the world could turn the tables on a dime and transform all the people you trusted most into people you suddenly hated with a passion. They could be ruthless, in a pinch. I had never given them the credit they were due. No I had given them too much credit. How could I have not seen they never really had my best interests at heart? How had I believed anyone really cared about me, really had my back, when survival was key in this world?

Jay I objected, hurt, unbelieving that he would gang up on me in such a way. He only cast me a glance, and began to herd me from the room. Tara had turned back to the chart on her desk; no sympathy there. The others were shuffling to see to their orders. I did not envy them. I could not believe them.

Jay took me by the nape of the neck once we were outside and steered me toward the Dorm-wing our name for the barracks just off-set from the center of camp.

Jay, I tried again, my voice breaking as soon as it was just him and me. You know Fly won't last a minute on the battlefield.

Fly has never been anything but a good, solid horse, Willow. You can attest to that. Give him some credit there's no reason to assume he'll be so easily bullied out of good form in the face of a little war.

It was more than I expected him to say to me, but I could not credit him for it, because he was wrong. 'A little war' was a gross injustice to what Fly would be facing out there. We had all heard the stories; we knew what the present armies of conquest sheltered in their ranks.

He's all but retired, Jay. He can't even go out on the rubble without coming home lame.

Stop.

He had exhausted the reserves he kept for conversation, then. Reasoning with him was pointless, at that point. But I couldn't help it. Who else would fight for Fly? He was supposed to be put out to pasture in his state, to live out the rest of his days in peace and indulgence. Not be recruited for war. There could be no career for him there. His career was behind him.

I skipped to keep up with Jay's brisk pace, lest he drag me into the ground in his purposeful wake. His grasp had not left me. I suppose I was not to be trusted.

You can't do this. You can't let her do this. Fly will be useless to them; a complete waste of a life.

Jay said nothing, relentlessly towing me onward. To my surprise, he steered me into the men's panel of the Dorm-wing. The whole thing had been constructed out of slabs of debris and pieces of structure salvaged from the wreckage, and he led me clear to the back where a door had been re-plastered to some makeshift wall pieces, creating a storeroom of sorts where the men kept some of their personal gear. He retrieved a key from under one of the bunk-stacked mattresses and unlocked the storeroom, holding the little token in his mouth while he thrust me in.

Sorry, Willow, he said around the metal of the key, and then he pulled the door closed in my disbelieving face.

*

When the raid fell, I heard it through the crude walls of my confinement. Horses whinnied as their order was disrupted, calling to each other as they were separated. I closed my eyes against it, not wanting to recognize Fly's voice among them. I did not think I could bear it.

The tears of betrayal had dried on my face, tasting like salt and leather on my lips. The leather was a comfort, a fond sentiment throughout my past. I ran my hand over the suede seat of a saddle that kept me company in the storeroom, appreciating its texture. It offered a sort of solid tenderness there in my moment of disheartenment, something I desperately needed.

Oh, Fly. I'm so sorry.

That was all there was for it, and it left me in a state of brokenhearted resentment.

Stern voices could occasionally be heard among the disoriented cries of the horses, but they were incoherent, just disembodied assertion in the fray. Clang and clatter detailed the event, ringing throughout. I tried to imagine what it would be like to emerge to an empty stable, devoid of all those endeared animals we had come to know, having to start fresh, from scratch... Tara would do it there was nothing else for it but I found it devastating.

What would I do the following day? Cast about listlessly with everyone else? And the day after that? The only measly scrap of livelihood left to my routine would be climbing the trees just beyond the camp's boundaries and collecting the robin and blue-jay eggs that were produced there. With limited amounts of trees still standing, nests could be found in abundance. It was not the most comforting of tasks, though not plagued by the factor of recognizing the key component of these nests more and more commonly as human hair. Harvested from the rubble. And as for the task itself it was no rewarding thing taking from a struggling species, especially when I could sympathize. I certainly could not feel good about cleaning them out after we had been likewise raided.

When the action died down in the camp and someone came to let me out, I was surprised to find that it was someone other than Jay. The one I thought was Tawney maybe Tony stood there, one of the other young manure-muckers of Tara's camp. He looked in expectantly, ignoring the tear streaks on my face.

Alannis, he greeted in a neutral fashion. You can come out now. He held the door wide, and I stood shakily from my sentence and stepped free of the provisional cell. Unlike the others, I thought a wave of sympathy touched his face as he stepped aside and granted me back my freedom, but I ignored it. It was useless to me, by then. Too late. If I were to acknowledge it, I would just as soon resent him for it, for bothering only when it no longer mattered.

Where were you when Fly needed someone to care? I allowed myself to fancy, and then I stowed the thought, lest morale be allowed to become even uglier in the wake of what had befallen our livelihood.

With my freedom returned to me, I might have hurried from my prison had there been anything to hurry toward. But I knew what awaited me out there, and had no great enthusiasm to take stock of those empty stalls, the quiet barn, the gate of the training corral hanging open on its hinges. I may have pleaded with the non-existent sentries at my cell door to let me out, while I was imprisoned, but now...for what?

I trailed out of the Dorm-wing, numb with dread. They were all there, those people I couldn't name, standing around, not knowing what to do. Nameless and useless. But what was there to do? Purpose had decidedly drained from their bodies; bodies meant to work, used to laboring until day's end. The idleness was uncomfortable, uncanny. Proper etiquette evaded them.

I could find nothing for it, either. It was all there; the vision I had feared. We had been cleaned out in less than an hour.

Fly was gone with the rest of them.

An ache, albeit an angry one, sent its pangs through me as I stood before Fly's pen, gazing in at the emptiness where he used to be. Should have been. I could have screamed at Tara. Could have throttled Jay.

Except where was Jay? I had not seen him, standing with the others. My anger flared. He had the gall to lock me up and allow what I loved to be torn from my grasp, but not the guts to face me afterward? He was supposed to be there for me when my world crumbled. Who else was there to be with me when everything was reduced to rubble? It was him, always him. How could he have done this thing, and then abandoned me to the consequences?

I hated him.

I loved only Fly, and he was en route to his doom.

Dolefully, I climbed onto the fence and pulled myself atop the highest rung, finding a comfortable vantage point for living out my misery. I stayed there as night fell, numb to the cold, gazing into nothing. Wallowing in the absence that was contained there.

It was an unsolicited intrusion when someone approached and cast about at my peripheral awareness. Um Alannis?

I was loathe to acknowledge him, but, grudgingly, I did. I'm sure my gaze was not a pleasant sufferance.

Jay is leaving.

They were not words that I expected, and, even hating him, something in my heart stilled.

What? I said after a moment, my voice raw.

He's gathering his things. If you spring now, you might catch him.

Hardly able to process what he could possibly think he was doing, I peeled myself from the bar that was branding itself to my backside and hopped down from the fence. Jay was the last person I wanted to see, right then, but, inconveniently, he also happened to be the last person that I might wish to leave.

I wove my way through the camp, eyes peeled for any signs of him and his leave-takings. He couldn't just do that, could he? Not as swiftly as the horses had left us, and on the same eve. It was the second thing that day that he couldn't just do. That must have been some kind of record. I had never been without Jay since acquiring him near the tender beginning of my life.

The camp was already ripe with nostalgia. I felt as though I walked through a place from my childhood, returned to it after years had passed and it was not the same. Yet it had only been an hour. An hour since life was good, and now I walked through a ghost-town fog. My feet scuffed through the dirt, Jay's desertion the only thing drawing through that fog.

Near the camp's south boundary, I spotted his black-clad, lanky form, pushing its way through the idle-stricken horsemen that loitered there, his pack slung across his back.

Jay! I called ahead before he could get away. He glanced over his shoulder, slowing when he saw me. His face was unreadable, and he waited as if humoring me. What are you doing?

A moment stretched like the silence after a bad joke before he responded. When he did, it was a simple, Leaving. As if I could not see that. Frustration at the empty response bubbled up in my already upset stomach. I cast my arms wide in question, at a loss, pressing him. Jay was not one to be pressed, though.

Why? I was forced to demand.

I'm retiring from Tara's services.

I shook my head, not understanding.

She let me go, Wil. Sometimes, 'Willow' was shortened to Wil.

What do you mean, 'she let you go'? This is your home.

Was.

Stop it, Jay. Tell me what's going on. I had little patience for his conversing style when explanations were in order.

Tara doesn't have need of us all, with the horses gone.

But... What was I trying to say? I didn't understand what was going on, but it didn't make sense, him leaving like this. Why you?

He pursed his lips then, considering me.

Why would you be the first to go? I finished softly, confusion and loss making me pitiful.

Some fragment of discretion halted whatever answers had been hovering just shy of his lips, and he silenced them forever. It's for the best, he said, and I saw the doors of his compliance close to me.

My frustration peaked, and helplessness wracked me. It was inconceivable, that he could do this, but there he was, doing it.

Don't go, Jay, I whispered, knowing it was pointless. When Jay made up his mind about something, there was no dissuading him. I had just never thought it would come to this.

With a small nod that was little more than acknowledgment, Jeremiah Alistair turned to carry out the deed in spite of my most pitiable protests, shouldering his pack and pushing through the sober onlookers I had created a scene for.

Jeremiah Alistair my Jay a stranger to me that day, abandoning me to the confining nothing I suddenly had left.

Three

In a cloud of dust jarred from the woodwork, I burst into Tara's office, demanding she present an explanation for Jay's actions. The entire world didn't get to betray me without answering for it. It could not be everyone's destiny to betray Alannis Wilde. There had to be some rationale in there somewhere, and I couldn't carry on like a compliant simpleton until I made the effort to demand what it was. They at least owed me that courtesy. Even if I wasn't worth much more than the stuff I cleaned up every day.

Tara looked up from her work, as if she had work to do with all of the horses gone.

Mr. Alistair knows what's good for him, Alannis, she said to me, as if that explained his departure.

What is that supposed to mean?

It means, Miss Wilde, that I find myself in need of pruning my staff following the unfortunate events that this day saw unfold, and I am inclined to start with those that are a liability to me.

I stood on the other side of her hulking, authoritative desk, blinking, trying to absorb the implications.

And that means, she continued, in case you haven't heard, that your Jay did an incriminating thing today, acting on your behalf instead of following orders. He may have locked you in that hold, but that did nothing to stop loyalties from making themselves known. So, while I am sorry to say it, you will be pleased to know when the raid rolled in making its demands, Jeremiah let your beloved Fly go.

*

The gates cracked wide against the walls of the camp, lying open like broken wings in my wake. In a sense, that's all Tara's camp was to me, at that point. It was an alien concept, abandoning a place that had been home so abruptly, but all at once there was nothing for me there. I could stay on and help Tara rebuild, but without Fly or Jay I may as well go elsewhere, and I felt as if I had left things on bad terms with Jay, even though we had parted on the terms that he chose. After learning of what he had done for Fly for me I couldn't just let him walk off into the world, exempt from what we had together because of his fool nobility. Guilt at what I had thought about him drove me as well, as if I had to redeem myself from it. Never mind that I had not actively done anything with it.

What he had done for Fly was more than just save him from the horrors of war. I did not know how much of a chance Fly stood roaming free at his age, having to scavenge for survival, but he had a better chance than going up against the Demon Mounts that marched in the aspiring Empire Armies. One heard tell of fire-breathing, fanged beasts, coats stained with blood and soot, hooves cloven as often as not, sometimes splitting off into respective claws entirely. As far East as we were, we had not been immersed in the fray of the North-Western conquests to see the evidence of those features, the extent to which the rumors were true. But those rumors came heavy as loaded dice which was to say, they always showed the same numbers, always told the same thing.

Speculation surrounding the Demon Horses was ripe and hushed in those days, the center of many grave, superstitious, or fearful issues taken up in conversation. Some said the creatures had risen from the lava-spewing recesses of our earth when it was cracked open; others, that their unnatural features were the result of exposure to radiation or other toxic matter released when our society and all its operations, factories and labs were torn asunder. In other words: symptoms, not features. Along those lines, others still speculated that the horses suffered from viruses and diseases running rampant in our death- and toxin-tainted, medically failing world. It could be anything, really. But it was real, and terrible, and being harnessed instead of cured. I suppose it was inevitable that, while most of us focused on picking up the pieces, there were those opportunist types who saw the world's weakness and disorientation as their chance, and chose then to rally a conquest.

If the stories were to be believed, the conquest was led by a man named Gabriel, who was said to shelter visions of expanding a great empire in this new age. It seemed like overkill, to me, going to war to gain what was left of our world, but apparently that was how he wanted it a place he could rebuild entirely.

All that was still mostly fairytale matter to us in the East, but it was the reason for the raids, for our straggling government gathering horses for its defensive army, so there had to be a decent amount of truth to what was taking place out there. And if they were beginning to raid the East, that could only mean Gabriel's Empire was becoming reality, or that his army was simply a wicked, wicked thing indeed, requiring as great a defense as could be mustered. Either one did not sound as if it boded well for a nation already struggling with recovery.

I heard the sound of someone closing the camp gates behind me as I cast out across the open land. I could imagine the look of dismay on their faces: What a shame. The Shardscape was unforgiving, and it was obvious enough that I was bailing out of that place of shelter off a whim. Impulsively immersing myself in the richly-sabotaged landscape without looking back. It would not be the first time I had done something impulsive, though. That tendency had debuted around the same time I began to revel in the art of taming wild horses.

It was dark across the rubble, hampering my attempts at locating Jay. I skittered up onto one of the mounds, finding my balance in the unsteady mess as I surveyed the countryside for his shrinking silhouette. There were too many forms, too many textures vying for relevance throughout the territory. It was the sound of him, rather, that clued me in to is whereabouts. The faint gravelly evidence of his progress chaffed across the quiet, glancing over the surfaces of The Shardscape and echoing in its pockets. Then, I pinpointed his figure, all but camouflaged in spite of its motion. It flowed steadily Westward, making swift progress of the territory.

I pushed off after him, skittering down my pedestal of rubble and hastening to navigate my way across the natural obstacle course that stood between us. The copse of trees that I harvested wild bird eggs stood on my left, its black spires flashing by as I scurried after my expiring companion. The beady eyes of a thousand nesting birds watched me go.

Jay turned before I reached him, my pursuit too blusterous to go unnoticed behind him. I could not guess what his reaction would be to my tagging along, and getting close enough to make out his features in the dark did nothing to tell me. He was as unreadable as ever.

I rested my hands on my legs when I reached him, panting. I may have been a strong rider, but that used very different muscles than covering distance on foot especially the manner of distance we boasted in the wake of the upheavals.

Jay eyed me, saying nothing as I recovered, waiting for my explanation. He could wait out a stopped clock, that one, and emerge with his patience intact.

I straightened, searching for words, realizing I hadn't prepared any. One did not think of preparing words when prompting an exchange with a lifelong friend, but, facing him, I found myself at a loss. Perhaps it was the pressure of his gaze, steady and waiting and... really rather unsympathetic, if you didn't know him. Maybe even if you did. Shifting awkwardly, I wrung my hands out, trying to think of the best way to make my case. The smell of lavender soap mixed with horse grime crushed forth as I did so.

Tara told me... I began, managing to meet his eyes, feeling like a stranger. Twin discs of steel looked back, his nostrils flaring at the smell of my stimulated unease. ...You freed Fly. I did not know what stating the obvious would gain me with him, but I didn't know what else to say. He didn't respond, either, leaving me to search further. His silence was the only confirmation he gave. I... Thank you. But what are you going to do now, Jay?

He shrugged, his shoulders ever a casual, unruffled pair of hackles. Better me than you out here, that's all. You wouldn't have lasted a day.

I was locked in a closet, I reminded him. I couldn't have done the deed to get myself thrown out.

To that, he reverted to his ways of silence, giving me nothing. He could never admit to doing something strictly for me, certainly not for the compromising possibility that he cared.

Well, whatever it is, I'm coming with you, I said.

No.

You don't get to say no, Jay. You lost any measly scrap of authority you held over my head the moment you walked out on me for the rest of the world. Namely: five minutes ago.

You have a good thing here with Tara.

Nobody has a good thing anywhere. If I have to start from scratch, I'd rather it be with you.

Great.

Yeah, no offense, Jay, but I'd rather it be with you, I revised wryly in conjunction with his attitude. Scarcely reunited for two minutes, and we were already bickering like the good old days. Fine with me. I knew how to handle him giving me a hard time. A horse hasn't gotten me off its back for three years, Jay. You'll be hard pressed to do what they can't even do. So don't bother wasting your breath, I finished, pushing past him to start off. It may have been a pointless command, in hindsight Jay never wasted his breath but it served its purpose well enough.

Without another word, Jay picked up where he had left off, strolling after me. I only ought to be thankful he was a man of few words, I thought, or else he might have had a great deal more to say about it. I kicked a piece of debris out of my way, wrapping my arms about myself

So, where are we going? I repeated after he had caught up and fallen into step beside me. He may not have volunteered any welcome, still, but his signature long, lanky strides were not exceeding the range of my own, so I took the accommodation as an encouraging sign.

Didn't even grab your coat, he uttered in a disapproving fashion. Honestly, Willow, where do you expect? We're going back.

Back?

You won't get far on skin and bones. Sometimes I wonder if you have any common sense at all. Then I remember: you only have horse sense.

With that, he grasped me again by the nape of my neck and steered me back around toward camp. The very same land we had just traversed looked completely different from this angle.

Do you think Fly will be alright? I inquired with fresh concern, the issue of charming my way back into Jay's company already dismissed from my mind.

Just get your coat, Willow, he said, and the matter of our coexistence was reborn.

He waited outside the gates while I retrieved my coat and other few belongings, but I was too accustomed to getting my way with him to have the presence of mind to appreciate this extension of loyalty. Maybe loyalty was all it had ever been, and all those years I had naively and with great self-gratification misconstrued it as always getting my way with him.

It was all the same to me, though, as I exited those gates a second time and joined him for earnest, already taking him for granted again even as he took me as I was.

It would always be Jay and me. There was too much security in that to pause for appreciation. When something was a given, pausing to speculate could only open the doorway to changing its dynamic. So I didn't.

We fell into step aside one another and pushed off once again into the wilderness. I was already glad I had my coat. Memories from our early days of scavenging for work came back to me, and I revisited the notion of joining the circus, or the gypsies, or inventing the means for one of the two. I could scarcely navigate the tricky parts of The Shardscape, though, let alone perform great feats of tight wire or trapeze prowess, and I possessed no musical ability beyond the lullabies I sometimes caught myself singing to the horses.

In all likelihood, we would drift into another camp that dealt in equine business and find ourselves doing exactly the same thing that we had just left behind. It was all we had going for us.

Between the commencement of our journey and that inevitable end game, however, mucking stalls would surely begin to gain in appeal pertaining to a means of survival again. For, looking out over the hazardous darkness that dipped and dived and rose all around us, it was clear we had a long, cruel hike ahead of us.

Four

I dreamed of horses galloping over the Shardscape. They spilled across the broken land in a great flock of unity, powerful and sweeping, an aerial view giving me the impression of an ocean-like wave rippling over the ruined face of the earth. The foam of this wave was done in the dull gray, brown, and charcoal manes of the creatures, billowing in the wind of their passing. And as a wave carves smooth its path, so did the horses wash away the debris with their passage. It was left cut to the quick and sanded down, a barren wasteland polished by their hooves, the ruins converted to plains.

The stallion that drove the herd was a frothy white beauty. Rare was the horse that was actually white beyond an illusion; an underlying feature of gray skin typically canceled the sentiment out and rendered the classification gray. But this one, with its albino pink skin and blue eyes, was officially and undeniably white clear through to his soul. He was fantastic, and caught the eye of my dream awareness like an angelic beacon. He drove the other horses off the edge of the stage that hosted the dream, so that it was just him and me, and I focused in on his rippling form, regaining my own feet in the dream and following him across the Shardscape.

The herd, at that point, was nowhere to be seen, even as I was returned to a distance-gleaning position upon the ground. The stallion was a mere lone drifter, picking his way over the destruction. But his ribs were nowhere near showing, and his fair coat was immaculate. Where was he going, this mysterious untouched creature, and from whence had he come? Intrigue pulled me after him, accompanied by a sense of perseverance that only dreams could inspire. Was I taking up a position in his wake only to follow him to the edges of the earth? It didn't matter.

His hooves clopped over the wreckage, sure-footed and confident in their direction.

I became so absorbed in following the stallion himself that I lost track of the landscape, until suddenly I realized we were traveling no longer through ruined cities but the wrecked chasms of what I could only guess had once been the legendary Grand Canyon. The brightly painted walls of the canyon, like crumbled layers and layers of petrified fall leaves in every shade imaginable, bowed and erupted around us, a wrecked battleground as vast and many-sided as I had ever seen. Surely there had never been one so colorful, either, even covered in the blood of people and animals alike. Only the death of summer was ever so colorful.

Noticing my pursuit, the stallion strutted a tight half-circle to regard me. He looked curious, more than alarmed to discover my presence, but all the same I trailed to a halt to eliminate the possibility of posing a threat.

I smiled at him, replete with an irrational happiness just for getting to look upon him. Dreams will do that turn things into irrational fantasies.

But even as I stood there on irrationally good terms with the beautiful creature, something else frightened him. His ears perked toward something behind me, and he blew once through his nostrils before growing antsy and turning to trot away.

I glanced behind me to see what had scared him off, but there was only the long, winding throat of the canyon, occasionally interrupted by a fallen shelf or gaping crack.

When I turned back to appreciate the last few moments of the stallion's company, he was galloping into the distance, his tail like a great white flag, kicking up dust with his heels as he went.

*

I woke to a woman in a faded camouflage uniform shaking me awake. Immediately, I knew she had been the one to scare the stallion away. Groggy eyes wide, I sat up, trying to put together what was happening. It took a moment to remember that Jay and I were traveling cross-country, which explained why I awakened among the rubble, but it did not explain the woman that loomed over me. She wore a leather waist-cincher with numerous varieties of knives sheathed into it, as well as various bands about her limbs and large brown patches sewn into her faded uniform.

Get up, she ordered, and I couldn't help but feel her voice sounded vaguely familiar.

Struggling up, I caught my balance on the uneven ground and blinked at the twilit world to get my bearings. It was hard to get your bearings when everything was in a disarray, though. Jay was up and leaning casually against a pitched slab of concrete, unperturbed. Another uniformed figure aside from the woman stood at attention, in case he was required. The look on his face was indifferent, while the woman's smooth features showed more purpose. Where I knew I earned every bit of my nickname upon awakening, she looked remarkably pulled together for that early in the morning, her caramel skin pulled taut by a sleek black bun. She smelled slightly of starch, a last effort lent toward the respectability of her uniform, no doubt. Indeed, the only toll of life evident across her person was the faded hue of the well-worn garment, the jaded lilt of her eyes, and the dirt under her nails. Everything else was professional to a T.

You two have been following us, the woman stated, clearly intending to draw some guilty truth out of us.

We I began to deny, confused, but ended with a questioning glance at Jay. Were we following them?

Clearly, Jay's disinclined nature to talk had already established me as the culprit for interrogation. Nobody looked to him for answers, which I found funny, since he was really the respective leader of the two of us.

Um, I said. I don't know where we're going.

Don't you, she speculated doubtfully. Her eyes were unyielding dark piercers. She was a harder woman even than Tara, from the looks of it. Taller, too. Nobody casts out across this wilderness without a target or some semblance of destination. It's suicide.

Oh, and I suppose that means if we happen to come within ten miles of your location you absolutely must be the focus of our attention, I retorted, grumpy that early in the morning. People thought they were so important. I had never had the greatest opinion of them.

Jay shook his head at my antics in the background and pushed himself away from his slab to intervene after all. We're just looking for work, ma'am. You left a trail to follow that beat blindly blazing our own.

I glared at him, feeling slighted for not having been informed. We are following them?

He spared me only a long-suffering flick of his attention. I suppose I should have been flattered.

Are you some manner of tracker, sir? the woman asked him. We don't leave trails, if we can help it.

That's hard, with the number of horses you've got.

She looked at him a moment, gauging her response. Indeed.

Horses? Suddenly, I thought I remembered where I knew her voice from. I had heard it, locked away in my temporary holding cell during the raid.

You're the one who raided us, I concluded, drawing her gaze back to me.

You from Tara Casting's camp?

I nodded. Were.

Trimming down her staff, then, she made a conclusion of her own. Swift of her. Well, if you're the first two to go, then we certainly have no need of you. She turned to leave then, apparently satisfied we weren't a duo of throat-slitters haunting her company's shadow. The starched fabric of her uniform swished slightly with her steps.

I glanced to Jay; of the two of us, he had proven the best at securing us positions with potential employers in the past. But he did not appear much motivated to pursue this particular opportunity.

Wait, I piped up, halting the military woman at the edge of our nestled little campsite. I can pack a mean cart of manure. And Jay can do anything. Escort us as far as one day's journey? Just let us piggy-back on some of the mounts? We know the horses anyway, and we'll be out of your hair after one day. I hoped to gain more, of course, but even if additional bartering did not pan out, one day on horseback would boost our progress tremendously.

She glanced between us, considering. I wondered how customary it was for them to take on stragglers like us, hoping it was their way to take pity on civilians.

One day can make a world of difference, I put in; hopefully the icing on my charity cake.

I take it you two were not the first to go because you couldn't ride worth squat? she wanted to make sure.

Please, Jay said wryly. You don't squat on a horse.

Or anywhere near them, unless you're keen on getting trampled during a spook, I put in, aiming to boost our credibility. It's all in the waist. Bend, don't squat.

It was hard to say if it was amusement or mere acceptance that crossed over her face, but either way it seemed a favorable sign. One day, she granted. But you answer to me Lieutenant Sonya and you pack manure as well as Private Damon over here can pack a punch. And trust me, you don't want to learn how well he can pack a punch, so you just do as you're told and stay out of the way, and we can do our small part and part on good terms. Are we agreed?

I nodded, and the ducking of Jay's head served well enough.

Good. Then fall in. We have a lot of ground to cover in a day. Count yourselves lucky.

*

The dreams had frequented my unconscious doorstep ever since the day Jay found me in the ravine that marked my debut as a horse whisperer. It was as if that day had gone to my head, tattooing a fantasy in my mind. It was gratifying to create similar scenarios, to envision myself and the horses in a whole new light.

Jay had not spoken to me of the incident as he had witnessed it that day, but I knew he could testify to it.

Jay, did you see that? I had breathed, incredulous, as he pulled me out of the chasm.

I saw it, he confirmed, but he looked none too pleased by the phenomenon. If anything, there was concern on his face, but really even that was an ambitious assumption.

I had been charmed for days, until the incident caught up with me and left me shaken. Jay had watched me carefully, measuring my reaction to the horses that I knew, calculating the experimental nature of reintroducing myself to them. Intrigue easily conquered the scare, and soon I was developing my new gift with the horses.

He did not like to go out of his way to acknowledge it, either because it had manifested in a way that scared him or because he was not inclined to grant me a glorified rung above him in the world of horses or maybe simply in the same manner that he didn't like to talk about anything but it was enough for me to know that he knew. That we shared my secret heightened our bond.

It was a bond first hatched by dumping manure on one another in the stalls, being there for each other's first fall, competing over who could tame horses fastest and teach their own the most tricks, and riding double together to keep warm during the cold months. The only thing we didn't ever do was go for rolls in the hay. The thought was somehow preposterous.

I wondered, as we joined the raider group, if Jay knew I had more up my sleeve than to settle for a mere one-day piggy-back ride, that I contrived to use that unspoken gift of mine in our favor among them. I also wondered if it was better to clue him into the plan, or if he would only disapprove given the chance.

Pulling my coat tighter in the twilight chill, I lengthened my strides to keep up with the military duo. Unlike Jay, they did nothing to accommodate my shorter frame. They meant business, and we were not going to slow them down. My stomach growled, and I rubbed it sympathetically.

Yet, even with their focused trudging, it took longer to reach their camp than I anticipated. Sonya must have had the eye of a paranoid hawk to catch onto us trailing in her wake. I was impressed; also broached by the notion that I was perhaps grossly out of my element in the modern wilderness.

Squirrels scattered as we tromped on their dens. Even the occasional bird flew out of some odd cubbyhole. Glass crunched like snow beneath the Lieutenant's boots.

When I was beginning to wonder if this camp of theirs even existed, we wound about a dune, crested a lip, and saw it. It was nestled at the bottom of the slope, a neat, ambling collection of horses and their camouflage keepers. In a moment of irony, it occurred to me that, had I not insisted on Fly's incompetence in the ranks of this group, I would have been reunited with him that day. I may even have found a way to steal him back. As it was, I could only hope he was finding his way out there. Maybe he would wander back to the place he knew and end up in Tara's possession again, and all along it was reckless and premature of me to leave in such a hurry.

Jay nudged me in the back, and only then did I realize I had paused to take it all in and never come back out of the line of brooding. I picked up the pace again, and we skittered down the slope and into the midst of the Raiders.

The deep, throaty sounds of horses nickering met us as Jay and I were recognized by some of the animals. I could not help but break into a smile as their fondness touched me, as a small piece of how things had been before the raid disrupted them returned to me. Those animals were my friends. They had been my purpose in life for awhile.

Forgetting that we were under new authority and doubtlessly a new set of rules, I slipped right through the ropes of the closest makeshift pen and greeted the palomino housed there. Sunny, a well-tempered young mare. She put her large head over my shoulder and nuzzled my hands, and I stroked her golden face, taking comfort in the exchange.

In the pens beside her were Duke, a gray appaloosa; Cameo, a small bay; Ghost, a spunky flea-bitten gray; and Lake, an exotic-looking blue roan. They tossed their ear-perked heads and flocked around me the best they could from their separate pens, stretching their necks over the ropes to nuzzle my hair.

Well, Sonya observed. If we stick you out in front, we may get some eager, focused progress out of them, instead of their disoriented acting-up. You may be of more use to us as the carrot on the stick in front of our company, rather than picking up manure behind.

I smiled slightly, humbly, but secretly hoped the first stones were paved.

We're ready, Lieutenant! one of the keepers called over.

Good, Sonya decreed. Collapse these pens. Including us in her next issuance, she said, Tara's saddles are stacked and tied on the mules.

They had taken the gear as well. I bit back my criticism. Perhaps seeing my struggle, Jay spoke up on my behalf before I could say anything condemning;

She doesn't use a saddle, ma'am. And I'd just as soon not inconvenience your efficiency by untangling one for myself.

As you like. But we don't stop if you get tossed.

She doesn't get tossed, I fancied him saying next, but he wouldn't go that far.

I chose Lake as my mount, particularly fond of her gait. She had a smooth trot and a nice, rocking canter, and was sturdy for a good run if necessary. Her conformation was a little funny, but she was a good mount, and her markings and coloring made up for any beauty-related shortcomings. Jay mounted Sunny opting to at least employ the aid of a bridle, where I forewent gear entirely and the Raiders herded us into formation with the rest of the equine stock and drove us out of the camp.

The raiders all carried knives, I noticed. At their waists, thighs, and often even saddles. Where were the machine guns that the stories of old told about? Had ten years of survival without further production rendered the devices extinct? If equestrian-driven wars were raging, I realized that might very well be the case.

Crowding in, the horses bumped against my legs. We run a tight-knit operation, Sonya explained from the edges of the herd, apparently watching me. One gap, and these flighty guys are liable to split not to mention all of the opportunist creatures out there. We've seen horse thieves, large cats, bears...even the occasional gorilla.

Gorilla?

She nodded. And the large cats in question aren't merely your everyday mountain kitties. We're talking lions, tigers. Hybrids. Ever visit the zoo as a child? she asked.

It was my turn to nod.

You can bet they're not operational anymore. All those animals they're loose now. And they're hungry.

I hadn't thought about it before, but of course it was true. Any zebras? I asked, and she smiled.

We have a few of our own, actually, she confirmed. They may be small, but they're fierce little buggers. We have some ex-jockeys we're training to ride them. Perfect fit.

I smiled, imagining.

It's a bit of a circus, but we use what we can.

Got room for any more freaks? I hazarded, seeing an opportunity.

And what freakish ability do you claim to have on the market?

I can whisper to horses.

She considered me, seeing that I was serious, then shook her head. What was I just saying about opportunist creatures? And here we are with more of them in our midst than I thought. If you're a horse whisperer, why would Tara let you go so swiftly?

I left.

And your friend?

Jay. He left as well. He...does magic tricks. Makes things disappear. I might have snickered as I said it, making over Fly's disappearance to Jay's advantage, if guilt had not accompanied the confession. For indeed, it was only a confession in a jester's clothing.

Since I couldn't be that serious about our circus-worthy qualities, Sonya divined that there was more beneath my words. What does he make disappear?

I should never have opened my mouth. Oh, anything. But any self-respecting magician would get upset if their secrets were revealed, so... I wouldn't look at her after that, afraid she would see right through me and read my thoughts. I couldn't say what they would do if they learned of Jay's treachery, but I didn't imagine sabotaging government procedures was ever a very favorable crime.

The breathtaking country sky was now an ashen tapestry that hung over the land like a smothering cowl. In my younger days it had been spectacular, always a canvas for the most ambitious of painters, alive and fresh and teeming with bird life. It was that vast, free explosion all around, that made every adventure breathless, limitless. But there was no more galloping into the sunset after the earth was pitched into a dipping and diving disarray, after the volcano activity that spewed ash into the heavens, after the impromptu bomb explosions had blown all kinds of matter sky-high. Galloping at all rather hurt the lungs, in many areas.

We trod over windows and shingles and toppled chimney bricks, paintings and bird cages and all manner of things that should never have been underfoot. One of those things was the graffiti. In our time of fallen walls, all the graffiti now lay underfoot and the quakes had the uncanny tendency to turn the toppled statement blocks belly-up and showcase phrases like '&*$# The World' for all to see like some bad joke.

As we traveled I wondered what towns these places used to be, and how many bodies were trapped and buried there. But we moved through them and moved on, because the dead were dead and the ruins ruined, and reflecting on tragedy created a fog that was not appropriate for blazing our way across the Shardscape.

I became aware of the danger before the rest of the procession; I couldn't help it I felt it through my legs, in Lake's telltale body language. Her muscles grew taut, and her prance picked up ever so slightly. I watched her ears, ideal radars for danger, and scanned the ruptured earth to the east looking for the source of her distress.

Lieutenant... I spoke, and then she began to feel it, too. She held up a hand, halting the procession, and everyone grew rigid surveying the wreckage.

One gravelly warning was all that we had before creatures reminiscent of Sonya's recent tales launched from nooks in the debris and rushed the procession, cat-like blurs ripping across the ground with a deadly silence the kind that I imagined often made quick work of prey and left no evidence. But the company had encountered as much before, and they had weapons drawn and mounts staked tight in an instant. Man and beast collided, and steel went to work warding off tooth and nail.

Calm the horses! Sonya's voice rang out, for the ones that were loose in the middle were not trained for this, and their ranks were pushing outward, panicking, wanting to flee in the face of the attack. The men herding the group pressed tighter inward, but crowding the animals' space did nothing to soothe them. Bodies pressed in against my legs, and horses held their heads high vying for space, jostling against one another. Lake reared slightly, erupting beneath me as someone's haunches backed into her. I sent a series of soothing clicks toward her ears, but the distress of the others was too much.

Casting about for an alternative that didn't exist, I resigned myself to it and slipped from Lake's back, down into the teeming midst of the herd, and began to hum.

Five

When it was over, they found me wandering among the herd, my eyes all but closed, running my hands over the horses' coats. A soft hum still murmured on my lips, barely a ghost of a spell.

Alannis, Sonya's voice cracked my trance, sounding as if it were not the first attempt. My eyes fluttered open, and I blinked, disoriented, my hand resting on a chestnut's soft side. The animal was breathing quietly, its eyes cracking languidly at the lieutenant's bark. That'll do, Sonya dismissed my efforts.

I left off, issuing a final pat for good measure, as much to cover my awkward recovery as anything. Where had I gone, that I had lost myself so?

A cold breeze stirred through the ranks of the horses, gently lifting their manes and tousling their tails. I shivered, my coat seemingly incompatible with the draft.

Under the gazes of the witness-curious raiders, I remounted and tried to temper the self-consciousness that I suddenly felt as I settled back into my designated position. As we moved off, the horses stepped wide around the bodies of the slain cats, and I caught a glimpse of them. Like cheetahs and lions bred together, lanky and spotted with cheetah faces, but duller in color and sporting mane-like ruffs and tufts on the tips of their tails. Hybrids.

We set out across the countryside once more, and the rhythm and feel of a horse beneath me, warm and steady and strong, lulled away my discomfort and eased me swiftly back into myself. The only remaining sign of the episode displayed itself in the way Jay would not look at me, and the suppressed dismay that I felt at him taking this part of me the way that he was.

*

At the end of the day, Sonya did not kick us out for cheetah fodder like our deal entailed. Instead, she called me into her tent.

Wouldn't you make faster progress without the tents? I inquired.

We get into some pretty toxic air, she responded. The tents help filter some of it out. Ashe, at least.

I stood uncomfortably, not sure what the little conference would hold. But her tent smelled horsey, her saddle and an extra pair of boots stowed in the corner, and that was homey to me.

Not sure what to do with my hands for the exchange with horses it was more obvious; you just petted them I tried to shove them in my pockets, but they didn't fit well. Retracting them, I opted to almost clasping them in front of me, playing with my ring finger as a married person might.

How do you do it? Sonya wanted to know.

Do what?

Do what indeed, Miss Wilde. The thing you do with the horses.

I did tell you I whisper to horses.

But how does it work? Is it science? Art?

It's hereditary.

So you just...crawled around under the horses' feet as a toddler and they bent to your whim?

It manifested later on. But it's from my father. And neither science nor art will describe it by themselves.

Can it be taught?

No, felt like the obvious answer, the one I wanted to give, but in truth, I've...never tried to teach it.

Do you think that you could? Try, that is.

To who?

I have a number of trainers in my employment. Experts, all of them. Their work produces some good solid horses. But we don't need solid. We need magic.

Magic doesn't exist, I said, but really it was only an attempt to lower expectation, to stay in control of the situation. For I knew what it felt like to harness a thousand pounds of wild muscle, to feel sweat-foamed mane in my face like the spray of the ocean, to outrun the wind and shake the earth to its bones as surely as any quake with the very hooves beneath me. I knew what it was like to feel coarse wild-mustang coats turn to silk beneath my stroking hands, to dance among hooves that could kill wolves, to breathe my carnivore breath into nostrils that channeled wind and freedom and see the eyes of these beasts of prey soften to me, open to me. 'Magic' was the only word for it.

Even still, Sonya said. It takes more than good training to prepare ordinary mounts to go up against Gabriel's Demon Horses. No practical training can properly reinforce a horse's mind with the manner of courage that is required to resist turning tail and running in the face of fire-breathing, fanged and clawed, carnivorous kin-like demons. If we could incorporate a method that went, shall we say, more soul-deep, our armies might find it in them to aspire to doing more than getting their feet wet in the blood left over from yesterday's slaughter.

My bond with horses does not thrive on the terms of duping them into running full-tilt toward their deaths, I said wryly.

Duping? Is what you do really so much of a sham?

Charming. Whatever.

And here I thought you were aspiring to charm your way into my operation, Sonya said, a little surprised at my resistance.

I needed to get my story straight. But I couldn't help being conflicted. For survival's sake, I was aspiring to what she suspected, but I was still raw over the incident with Fly. It was inevitable that I resented this operation as much as I saw a place for myself in it.

I ducked my head, not knowing how to smooth the dual-impression I was giving off. A lock of hair slipped from behind my ear and fell in my face, a single branch of willow veil bobbing in the draft of my thoughtful breath.

It's a hard world right now, Alannis. War is reality. If you don't claim to believe in magic, then good blood, sweat and tears are the practicality this age calls for. And if you really do subscribe to magic, you will have to stop living in a fantasy sooner or later. Gabriel's armies will trample whatever and whomever they encounter in their trailblazing. They are paving the way for a new empire, not pausing to appreciate the scenery or spare the innocent. And there is nothing beautiful enough in this world to be worth saving. It is to be all new. All his.

I looked up, my face grave in appreciation for what she was saying. How bad is it?

He has seized the Northwest outright and conquered a good portion of the Midwest. Unbuttoning the cuff of her sleeve, she rolled it up to reveal a vaccination tattoo of the initials C.O.; the territory that was once called Colorado. Many of the military personnel preferred the initials of the things they were honoring on their skin. Everything was code and abbreviation for them. According to this, I belong to him, she said; an indication he had taken the sector of land that used to be her state. Many of us are branded by land that is now his. Of course, he'll call it something else.

Like what?

Stupid things. The entire thing, he seems to be calling Reincarnation a painful play on words pertaining to the way he envisages the nation and his plans for it. Particular states are being deemed things that follow along the same lines. Washington, his home and first seizure, is now called 'Rebirth'. Oregon has become Revival. Nevada: Evolution. Idaho: Resurrection. Montana is 'Redeemed'. California, of course, broke off from the United States entirely in the first quake. What is left of it is being called Reach, or Reach Island. Arizona has become Ripen, and Wyoming he is calling something along the brainless lines of Transmogrification.

I guess he ran out of R's, I said gravely, a sad attempt at humor in the face of such devastating news.

Unfortunately, that seems to be doing nothing to stop him. He'll be happy to move right along with Transmutation, Distortion, and...Vicissitude.

There was Evolution in there anyway, I pointed out soberly, thinking. What was my role to be in this? Was my lovely Virginia to become Maturation? Augmentation? Some new made-up synonym for what was becoming of our nation that completed Gabriel's continental Frankenstein?

I looked up, meeting her waiting eyes. What about Jay? I asked.

If you can teach horse whispering to the rest of my staff, there's no reason he can't fill another pair of boots for mass-production of these creatures.

And if I can't? If it's just me?

You said he could make things disappear. Anything, Sonya reminded me. Maybe he could try his hand with Gabriel.

Though she had to be joking, her face was serious. She was offering us a chance both of us but as I prepared to accept, I also prepared myself for convincing Jay it was in his best interests to take up a serious hobby as a magician, and the excuses I would have to conjure up to explain why it had suddenly become necessary for him to do so.

Six

By the time we reached the official camp that hosted the East's defensive efforts, we were traveling with a great many horses. Two more raids had waited in the path of the return trip it made more sense, the Lieutenant said, to travel light as far out as they planned to raid, and only then start recruitment as they worked backwards, so they did not have to worry about driving and feeding and containing extra horses both ways.

Tara's camp had been just inside the ruptured border of what used to be Kentucky, respectively. It was hardcore horse country or had been and I was not surprised that two more raids were carried out in this part of the Shardscape. Both of the operations were salvaged-white-picket-fence compounds, with lots of Thoroughbred blood in their ranks. Thoroughbreds America's racehorses. Tall and hot-headed and bred with the desire to be turned loose. I had my hands full, quickly deemed their keeper. Do your thing, Sonya had said, and suddenly I had a whole herd of racehorses under my newly-promoted wing.

Camp Safeguard lay in what was left of Missouri. With boundaries so toppled and skewed, it was all the same to me, but it still hit home, imagining. Imagining that this place used to be defined, as my Virginia was defined. That it used to be its own body, before demon seizures had taken over, before disease had scarred it beyond recognition.

Safeguard was encircled by an impressive reconstruction of walls, various towering slabs salvaged from the Shardscape that were pitched upright and reinforced by a lining of tree pillars. Fallen trees that had been hoisted vertically again for the purpose, restored to a partial state of glory. It was dormant glory, but it was at least better than leaving them to rot on the ground, enduring entities of great heights defeated underfoot.

We rode through the gates, our entrance wave-like and lengthy. The camp reverberated with our arrival, drawing onlookers. They appeared used to the procedure, standing with hands resting casually on their hips, merely curious as to the result of the harvest.

At close range, I could see that some of the wall panels were actually asphalt, the interrupted yellow lines of faded paint running up their lengths announcing them as pieces of street. I could even make out potholes, bitten into them. What a world we lived in, I thought, when streets ran straight up into the sky.

The interior of the camp was arranged so that the stables were a round formation in the center and the tents all circled about the edges. Many of the tents were beige or brown or faded green, or camouflage altogether, but some of them were beautiful patchwork masterpieces. I did not get enough of a chance to study them before we were being whisked into the big arena at center, and then it was a sea of horses churning all around me. Finally freed of the constant direction divvied out by the drivers, the horses unleashed themselves to test their new boundaries, prancing about and sniffing the ground and trotting up and down the fence panels. Jay was already on the ground removing Sunny's bridle, and, with a pat and a fond thank-you whispered in Lake's flicking ears, I swung off to let her do her thing with the others.

Sonya showed us to the tack room more like a tack hut where Jay stowed Sunny's bridle, and then he was moving on to helping the military men unload the rest of the tack from the pack mules. We hadn't even gotten a proper tour yet and he was already hard at work. I supposed that was good, though, since he needed to secure his services. Perhaps he would do well enough without magic. And really, Jay was one of the best horsemen that I knew. Surely he would have no trouble impressing our new hosts. He may not have whispered to horses, but he could make no secret of communicating well with them. I had seen his handiwork many times. It was beautiful. If anyone could fake horse-whispering, I was sure it was him.

Sonya was caught up momentarily in some piece of return business or other, and I took the opportunity to survey what I could see of the encampment while my companions were occupied. It was dirt and pipe corral and vertical pavement, but really rather colorful with all the varying shades of horses and those patchwork tents. There were flies, of course, but they were green. Iridescent. Probably toxin-tainted. I wondered if their bite was corruptible to the horses in any way.

Ready for the grand tour? Sonya inquired at my side.

She led us through the stables first, since that's where we started, showing us where everything belonged and functioned. There were two barns, a number of sheds, and round pens between everything.

There are a couple makeshift pens at the back of camp as well, behind the tents, the Lieutenant informed us, and with that our attention was led to the outskirts. Military personnel fill the boring tents. They're what we came in. If you need one of us in the dead of night, you can be sure to find us in one of them. Lady Alejandra, however a resident here has allowed us to expand. She's somewhat of a gypsy, came to us from the Shardscape. Survived there on her own until pitching us a deal. She makes tents out of salvaged paintings and curtains. You can see her handiwork - she gestured to some of the patchwork entities as we came upon them - Quite something.

Who are they for?

We have a couple refugees on hand. But also, they make it possible for those of us who used to share to split and have some privacy.

I marveled at the contraptions as we passed, at the overlapping array of artwork that each was. I recognized the works of Thomas Kinkade and Claude Monet, but there were many, many others who had unknowingly contributed to these masterpiece shelters. Sometimes panels of curtain were secured over the tops like pleated hats, and sometimes they were trimmed and put across the entrances like respectable curtains, patterns that contrasted or complimented the kaleidoscope of canvas art. It was a fascinating medium to come out of the rubble.

This one is vacant, the Lieutenant pointed out, indicating a shelter that was heavily done in the works of the first artist I had recognized. And to think: I had always fancied I might live in a Thomas Kinkade house. I was charmed.

The charm was dampened, however, as the Lieutenant pointed out another availability to Jay, a few tents down the line, and I inquired after the previous occupants.

They're dead, the Lieutenant said curtly, despite the trace of regret that diluted itself in her eyes.

And I was reminded again: this was war.

*

When it was dark in the camp and we'd had a dinner of rabbit in herb dressing, the uniformed division began to retire to their tents. I had to wonder how many of them were horsemen and how many of them knew nothing but combat drills and survival tricks and how to be resourceful when it was required of them. I noticed only one man not dressed in military camouflage, and assumed he was one that was originally a trainer. My eyes only followed him a few moments before the drooping of my lids got the better of me, though, and I rose to find my way to my own tent. Jay's silhouette was already moving about inside his, projected onto the mottled canvas by whatever light source he had scared up.

Pushing aside the cream-and-blue floral curtain that fell across the entrance to my shelter, I stepped into my shaded new quarters, squinting my bleary eyes so that they would adjust. I scuffed about the floor with my boots, searching for blankets, wishing I had attained a light source like Jay. It quickly became apparent, though, even through the numbing walls of my boots, that my floor was barren of all luxury.

I was back outside my tent momentarily, auto pilot taking me to Jay's shelter three tents down. I paused where his silhouette was projected onto the canvas, blinking at it, feeling the urge to caress the paint strokes of the ocean that were painted there. They were like rippling blue muscles on the shadow of his back.

Wondering abruptly where such an urge had come from, I shook my tired self out of it and moved on to the flap of the tent. The instinct to knock quickly found me feeling foolish standing there with my hand raised, and I tried a little harder to focus, putting my arm back at my side where it belonged. Jay? I called instead.

His silhouette straightened from where it seemed to be arranging bedding, and he stepped over a bundle of some sort and came to the entrance. Pushing back the flap, he stepped out into the fresh bite of the spring darkness. My breath made a cloud in his face.

I don't have any blankets, I announced.

Another time, he might have told me I'd be fine and sent me back to bed, but seeing my sleepy disorientation, he chose to humor me that time. You can have mine, he said, ducking into his tent to grab them.

In my compromised state, I still managed to notice that he seized the single article that he had to his own name. Jay no, I protested rather pathetically, all but slurring my words. I could only hope my frown spoke for itself. You'll freeze.

He scoffed at me, lightly, but I couldn't divine if it was to defend his fur-skinned manliness or actually because my sleep-addled worries were amusing. He deposited the bedding into my arms and turned me around, pushing me back the way I had come. I was determined to be stubborn, though, not one to tolerate him pushing me around just because I was drowsy and easy to take advantage of. Never mind that giving me the means to keep warm did not really fall under the category of one human being taking advantage of another.

I turned back around, my frown deepening. I didn't come to take your own blankets.

No? Then what did you come for; just to complain?

I...just take them back, Jay. I have my thoughts to keep me warm.

His eyebrows cocked slightly at that, as if I'd volunteered information he didn't necessarily want to know. I couldn't imagine what he thought I had said, though. For that matter, I didn't know what I was saying. But I cast the blankets at his feet. He retrieved them with his brows still lingering in that funny position, though now it might have been more from amusement.

Thanks anyway, I finished before he could throw them back, this time likely in my face, and I turned back toward my tent. No bundle of relentless good will thwacked me in the back or parachuted down over my head, so I returned to my tent triumphant, irrationally smug, and cold.

I was sleepwalking before I got there, however, and the thoughts that kept me warm turned out to be schemes of spiriting myself to the stables in place of my tent, where I let myself into the arena and lay down with the horses. I was just sinking to the perfumed depths of my nightly euphoria when a pair of hands slipped into the waters of my dreams and hauled me out by the shoulders. My eyes fluttered at the interruption, seeing only the dark forms of sleeping horses, but I could smell Jay's pine soap and hear the murmur of his quiet voice at my ear, coaxing me up.

Not tonight, Willow, I heard him say gently, which for some reason