“Mayst thou have what’s best for thy new nest,” the lad said appreciatively, again in that lilt. Then I noticed what I had not seen before: a pile of vines, perchance the refuse of some farmer’s harvest, too long and tough to be ground for fodder. Peg went to them as though she too had only now become aware, tugging one out with her teeth, delighted. This was ideal fiber for her nest. She neighed again.
“She says the Snow Horse is moving toward its fastness in the White Mountains, and will be there by dawn tomorrow,” the lad said. “For us it will be a ride of more than a day; we shall have to camp the night.”
‘Thou dost understand the language of horses?” I asked, remembering how he had seemingly conversed with the stallion of the herd, too. There was so much I knew not, then!
He nodded. “How could I love them as I do, and not converse with them? Who is better company than a horse?” And of course I could not gainsay that. We mounted and rode north. It was noon, and we had far to go; we slanted north and west, wending toward the white range. We halted for an hour when we came across a grove of apple trees; we fed ourselves and our steeds on delicious apples. The Hinny ate from my hand, and how I wished she could be mine for life, but I knew she was only on loan. I was not sorry this quest was stretching out; I wanted to save Snowflake, but I wanted also to be a little longer with the Hinny, and to experience more of the magic of the interior wilds of Phaze.
In the early afternoon we halted again, for our steeds had to graze and rest. The blue lad found raspberries growing on a slope, and a streamlet with freshest water, and some ripe grain. He gathered dry wood and made a small fire; from his saddlebag he brought a pot. We boiled the grain until it was tender. I did not realize then that he had used magic to facilitate things; the farthest thing from my mind was that he could be Adept. He was only, after all, a boy!
He brought next from his saddlebag—he had a bag without a saddle, oddly—some material that he formed into a canopy for me beside the fire. I lay down to sleep feeling quite safe, for few wild creatures brave the fire, and the two horses were grazing near.
But at dusk, as I was nodding off, glare-eyed little monsters erupted from a trapdoor in the ground and swarmed toward me. They were goblins, huge of head and foot, vicious, out for human flesh. They feared not the fire, for they used it in their subterranean demesnes. I screamed. The Hinny was nearest me, for I had been placed in her care. Now I discovered what that meant. She squealed and charged, her hooves striking like dubs, each strike crushing a goblin’s head, while I huddled beside the fire in tenor.
The goblins fought her, for they liked equine flesh almost as well as human; they scrambled up her tail, clung to her mane, and tried to grab at her feet. There were so many! I saw one get on her head, and open its big frog mouth to clamp its sharp alligator teeth on her sweet soft gray ear—and suddenly I was on my feet and there, my hands on its grotesque rat body, hurling it off her and away.
Then the blue stallion arrived, his hooves making the very ground shudder, and he bellowed a battle-challenge that nearly blasted the hair from my head and I cowered in terror though I knew it was not me he fought. The goblins panicked and fled, the stallion pursuing; where his foot struck, the broken body of a goblin flew twenty feet across the flickering night and dropped like a clod of dirt. The stallion’s eyes flashed like blue fire and the snort from his flaring nostrils was like tempest-wind and the sheen of his great muscles danced about his body as he plunged and reared and kicked. In a moment the last living goblin had vanished down the hole, and the trapdoor clanged shut. The stallion stomped it again and again until naught save rubble remained. It would be long before the goblins used that exit again!
I collapsed in reaction. Never in my life had I been so horrified, except perhaps during the episode of the trolls, for goblins come not into the villages of the man-folk. The Hinny came and nuzzled me, and I was ashamed for that I had let her 5ght while I did naught. But the blue lad told me: “She thanks thee for casting the goblin from off her ear; she knows what courage it required of thee for that goblins terrify young ladies.” Then I felt better, though by no means proud, and resolved to be less squeamish in future. I stroked my hands over the bruises and scratches and bites on the Hinny’s body, helping to heal them and abate the discomfort, and she nudged me with that so-soft nose and everything was nice.
The goblins came not again—and who would have, after tasting the wrath of the blue stallion? I slept safely until dawn. The blue lad was up before me, and had found ripe pears from whence I knew not, and we ate and mounted and were off again. I thought I might be sore from the prior day’s riding, but the Hinny’s gait was so gentle I suffered not at all. I wondered what the winged horse’s gait was like; what was the cadence of footfalls in air?
In due course we came to the White Mountains that bound our land ill the north, and ascended their foothills. The way grew steep, and there was hardly any easing as we crested ridges and drove on up. For the first time the Hinny’s gait became rough, as she labored to carry me on swiftly, and even the blue stallion was sweating, his nostrils flaring and pulsing with the effort. We climbed slopes I would not have cared to navigate on foot, rising into the mountain range proper. The air grew chill, and wind came up, and I gathered my cape about me, shivering. The blue lad glanced at me. “May I speak bold?” he inquired melodiously. “Thou art not cold.”
“Not cold,” I agreed bravely, for I knew that if we desisted this quest now, never would I find Snowflake, and evermore would I curse myself for my neglect. And, strangely, I no longer felt the chill; it was as if my clothing had become doubly insulative. It was of course his magic, that I did not recognize. I was so young then, and so innocent! We climbed on into the snows, and there in a cave half-hid in the white we found the lair of the Snow Horse. He stood there awaiting us expectantly, a fine albino stallion whose mane and tail resembled glistening icicles and whose hooves were so pure white I could hardly tell where they left off and the packed snow beneath them began.
The lad dismounted and walked to the Snow Horse. I made to dismount too, but the Hinny swung back her head, warning me “no” with a backward glance, so I obeyed her and stayed put. I was learning already that here in the wilderness the final word was not mine. In a moment the lad returned. “The Snow Horse did lure thy foal,” he said to me. “He thought her of his kind, for her color, but when they reached the snow she was cold, and he knew she was no snow filly and he let her go, never intending harm to her. But the snow demons came and took her ere she could return to thee.”
“The snow demons!” I exclaimed, appalled. Never had I heard good tidings of that ilk.
“Pray we are in time,” he said.
“In time?” I asked blankly. “Snowflake is lost forever! We can not brace snow demons, even if they have not yet eaten her.” I felt the hot tears burning mine eyes. “Yet if there is a chance—“
“A white foal they will save—for a while.” He mounted and led the way along the slope.
We made our way deeper into the snowy region, and the breath plumed out from the nostrils of our steeds, but still I was not cold. Then the blue stallion halted, sniffing the snow, and pawed the slope. I knew we were near the lair of the demons, and I shivered with fear, not with cold. Al-most, I preferred to let the foal go—but then I thought of the demons devouring her shivering flesh, and horror restored my faint courage.