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

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

Please don’t let me die!

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

Get me away from them!

*If I go faster, you will fall.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I won’t let you get overheated and die!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But 1—”

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

“How easy for you to say—”

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

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

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

“Garva! He’s just a boy—”

“Quiet, Glaze!”

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

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

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

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

Capitan Sebastian della Verruca stood with the reserves outside the bam watching in disbelief as his men were pushed out. It must be a tactical blunder, he thought disgustedly, as if Sergeant Lopez could conceive of tactics. He decided on the garrote for the cowards who had complicated such a simple assault.

He was not prepared for the sight of his men turning and running from the barefoot peasants, more than one of whom had captured weapons in their hands. In the dancing yellow light from the burning thatch, the brown men and women seemed positively gleeful. Capitan Sebastian heard the moist crunch as a huge man lunged forward, the short broad blade of his partisan piercing a soldier’s skull.

Praying that his own neck might escape the embrace of the garrote, the capitan shouted orders and commands, his razor-sharp saber aloft in his white fist. The uniformed men fell back to a ragged formation, and instantly it was trained troops against a rabble, and the briefest pause in which the momentum of the horde drained away. The huge man in front frantically looked around and saw death in uniformed ranks before him. The peasants wavered.

With a storm of sparks and a thump, the roof collapsed inside the adobe walls, and everything became darker. Terror welled up again; the peasants turned to race into the safety of obscurity. It enraged the capitan that such mice had routed the men he had trained. The mice weren’t even dropping their hastily captured weapons. Those had to be collected. They must! The capitan ordered his men to charge after them.

Running, slipping and falling and scrabbling to foot again, down the lanes of the little village, through alleys the invaders couldn’t know, breathing so hard the ribs grated one against the next, sharp pains in the chest, hollows in the gut, rivers of sweat, a glimpse of some others far away, the tramping of booted feet, the death screams of the caught, yells of triumph, and more running and running, searching in the dark for the little cranny where the deadly eyes of the soldiers couldn’t reach, reaching in with humiliated, furious hands, and then red steel in the gut, or the stakes planted around the makeshift castle, dreading tortures, running harder and faster, running, running . . .

Juan Carlos had built the grandest dwelling in the village, with three steps up to a wood floor; naturally he had been the first killed so that the Prince might have a decent place to sleep. A small orchard provided shade during the summer months and gave a small amount of fresh fruit for the crude fortress which the soldiers had erected beside it. There, between the foundation posts of the old home, as far from Lon Farrier’s bam as he could safely flee, went Krai Raus-son, darting from tree to tree until, out of sight of the sentries, he could creep to the crawl space unseen. He pushed himself in, pulling his long legs after. Then he could be still at last, and as his panting slowed, he began to shudder with weeping. A calloused hand slapped over his mouth.

“Quiet, or we’re dead,” whispered a familiar voice. “Garva!”

“We wait, and get out of here when we can.”

“Where’s Glaze?”

“I don’t know.” The big man moved, trying to settle himself more comfortably into the muck. “There’s nothing to do now except wait, and try to rest.”

Krai listened as Garva’s breath became slower and deeper. How could he rest? Or sleep? Krai made a pillow of his hands and tried to listen for the soldiers. Eventually he heard a single tread, running toward the building and up the steps. A fist pounded on the door, and several voices muttered and shouted together. Locks clicked and the man was admitted. “Your highness! Your highness!”

“Sergeant, get this man some water—”