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I’d never seen so many horses in my life, horses and Zaldi. They thundered about in a pounding, screaming, writhing mass. I could barely make heads or tails of them and scrambled back on my hands to avoid getting caught up and trampled.
The Zaldi were so much like horses it was disturbing; but they were taller, their limbs slimmer, and they had much shorter fur. Like serpents trying to be horses.
They were demons, so that was a real possibility.
I could only watch as the two herds scuffled, and then the horses fled. The first golden beams of the day’s sunlight warmed the earth, and in it the Zaldi seemed to glow.
For a few long minutes all I could do was gaze at them. They stamped and snorted and tore up grass like normal horses. But they weren’t normal horses. They were demons. Demons who’d had no problem stealing away my clan.
My hand tightened around my bow. I didn’t know if these Zaldi were, specifically, the ones that had taken my people. But, I reasoned, there couldn’t be that many Zaldi in the world, and certainly there’d be less in the general vicinity of where my clan had settled. In any case, getting rid of Zaldi could only help.
I crept forward as the world grew lighter, the sun adding a meager warmth to my limbs. There were about seven or so of the Zaldi, chomping at grass and bickering amongst themselves. Their colours were a bit off from normal horses, now that I could see better. The browns and bays were lighter, one had a reddish tinge, and one more of a yellowish ochre colour.
It wouldn’t be possible to take on all the Zaldi, but I could see that up ahead the ground grew rocky and uneven, with many crevices and runs that were perfect for hunting. I’d drive some where they had no place to go, and kill them.
I gave a shout and leapt out from behind the sedges. I raced down the hill as the Zaldi neighed and crashed into one another. Most took off faster than an arrow, but two pushed against each other and stumbled.
I yelled again, throwing a rock to drive them to the right. They skittered, teeth flashing at each other. I drew an arrow and shot. It streaked and sank into Zaldi flesh, and the scream sent a fierce rush of glee through me.
The one pushed itself free and ran after the others. The injured one ran in jerky bursts. I chased after it, trying another shot and losing the arrow as it moved wildly. I drove it towards a dead-end run, the ground hard under my feet.
Rock walls loomed large and cold, and the Zaldi’s hooves slid as it stopped. It danced around, voice thin and anxious, the one leg dragging. I stopped, blocking its exit, breathing heavily.
I nocked an arrow. “You shouldn’t have killed my clan,” I said savagely. Whatever tricks it had, whenever it tried to catch and drag me off, I would end it.
But the Zaldi never charged. It just danced back and forth, the eyes surrounded by white and rolling. I stared down the arrow shaft at it. Surely, any moment – it just wanted me to let my guard down – then it would –
The Zaldi’s head drooped. Foam flecked its mouth, and a trickle of blood dripped from where the arrow pierced its flank. Perfectly ordinary red blood.
Demons didn’t bleed, or if they did, it certainly wasn’t going to be red. And it wasn’t acting like an angry demon, or anything other than an – an injured –
An injured animal. That’s all it was. An injured animal.
Cautiously I lowered my bow. Still, the Zaldi didn’t charge me. “What have I done,” I whispered.
To kill, to kill thoughtlessly, to kill for no purpose, to never use your prey, was a grave sin. One didn’t kill just to kill. Animals had pure, good souls, and to kill and not use their bodies was to make a mockery of their souls, and possibly corrupt it and invite misfortune. I was already plagued by misfortune, I was sure, but I wouldn’t make it worse and kill like this.
I put my bow on my back. “I – I’m sorry,” I said to the not-Zaldi. “I thought you were . . . I’ll make this right.”
The not-Zaldi, or maybe just the weird-horse, would normally be a beautiful looking specimen, with a bay brown coat that seemed almost like it was forever touched with golden sunlight. I’d never seen another horse like it. Not that I’d seen that many horses in my life.
The weird-horse didn’t seem to be paying much attention to me anymore, the most movement being in the ears, with one pointed in my direction and the other flicking about. I stepped towards it cautiously. If I could just yank out the arrow . . .
Hooves clattered and the weird-horse skittered away. For a brief second, I thought teeth snapped. I flinched back. “I’m trying to help!” I complained.
The weird-horse didn’t seem interested in my reasons. I watched as it tried to step away, but its balance wobbled and it picked its hind hoof high. My hands dropped to my sides.
It couldn’t walk. A horse that couldn’t walk, couldn’t run, was nothing but prey, even if it was a weird-horse. If it died, it’d be my fault. I couldn’t walk away now, to let the weird-horse meet its unnatural fate and risk being haunted by the soul of a not-Zaldi. If the guilt didn’t eat me up first. If I could just get the arrow out.
“Alright,” I said. “Just . . . stay there for a minute, I guess.”
I climbed up the rocks boxing the horse in, scrambling up to the top and scanning the horizon. The grasslands stretched on in one direction, the forest still a green smudge to the northeast, but to the west where the ground twisted and rolled and was sparse, I could see a lush cut where a creek ran. I couldn’t see the rest of the weird-horse herd.
I glanced down at the weird-horse, but it didn’t seem inclined to move. I called down, “I think your friends are gone. Don’t go anywhere, and I’ll be back.”
It didn’t take long to get over to the creek. I topped up my waterskin with as much as it could hold, then headed back to the weird-horse, keeping an eye out for flat stones or wide pieces of bark. I found a few and carried them back.
The weird-horse watched me dully as I used the stones I’d found and the natural curves of the rocks to create a little pool. I poured half of my waterskin in. I stepped back from it. “Here. Water,” I said.
For several minutes, I thought maybe the weird-horse didn’t want to drink, or didn’t understand, or was simply ready to die and haunt me. Then it took laborious step after laborious step, leg jerking up in pain, towards the slowly trickling-away pool. It drank.
In the moment it drank, I lunged forward and snatched at the arrow. The angle was bad, and the flesh tore more than a little, but then it was in my hand and the horse was screaming and a hoof cracked against my leg.
I scrambled away on my hands, but the arrow was out. Now, the wound could heal cleanly.
The weird horse gave a decisive snort and went back to drinking and I rubbed at my thigh. The skin was already darkening with a bruise. “I just helped you,” I grumbled.
The weird-horse finished drinking and limped away, water droplets falling from its mouth. At least there was no more foam around its lips. Blood no longer seemed to be oozing out from the wound, its path growing dark and crusty on its fur.
I sat back, studying it. The weird-horse took a few more experimental steps, but it still couldn’t walk properly. I gave a great sigh. “You’re definitely going to haunt me if you die.” I rubbed my fingers over the ends of my hair. “I don’t know where your friends are. You’re on your own now. I know how that feels. It’s not so bad, you know. It’s manageable.”
The weird-horse paid me little mind and lipped at the ground. It gave a soft nicker. “Oh, are you hungry? I guess I’m hungry too, now that I think about it. Do you eat like other horses, or is your diet more like the Zaldi after all?”
There was no response, which was probably a good thing.
I stood up. “Well, I guess I can get you something to eat for today. I’ll make sure nothing comes along and kills you, at least. You’ll probably be mostly better by tomorrow.”
I went back to the grassland, used my knife to cut free an armful of long grasses, and carried it back to the weird-horse. It perked up a little after I set the grasses on the ground and backed away. It was a good sign it still had an appetite.
The two of us took our time finishing our meals. The weird-horse, a mess of snapping teeth and clomping hooves and flattened ears if I made even the slightest move towards it, made its limping way out of the rocks. It was painfully slow progress. I could take a casual stroll faster than it could walk.
Still, it wasn’t like I could stop it.
“I guess one good thing came of this,” I said to it, “now I know your kind aren’t Zaldi. Or – maybe you’re half Zaldi. Is that it? Was one of your parents a wild horse, and one a Zaldi?” The weird-horse, again, didn’t speak back. The closest I got to a reply was it exhaling nosily.
I decided that, until I got evidence otherwise, this had to be a half Zaldi. It simply looked too odd to be just an ordinary horse, but it also clearly didn’t have much in the way of demonic powers. If it did, then it would’ve given me worse than one bruise by now.
The half Zaldi took a meandering, limping path and I trailed after it. Before I knew it, the rest of the day had whiled away, and while the horse didn’t lie down, I saw its eyes close, and I curled up under a shrub.
I awoke to the glow of sun hitting my eyes, my shoulders and neck feeling sore and awkward. I rolled them to try and work them loose and cast a look around. The half Zaldi was gone.
I jumped to my feet, a mixture of anxious and relieved pumping through me. If it was gone, that had to mean it was recovered.
I spotted it just on the other side of a hill, munching at the grass and stumbling along. I could see from here that its leg still wasn’t right. I grumbled and strode after it.
I got quite close before it noticed me, whipping its head around and snapping its teeth. With its ears flat back like that, it really did look snake-like. I wondered if the Zaldi maybe had different forms in the world of demons, and if that form was of a snake. People talked about the world of demons being a terrifying place, so perhaps demons tried to take on more familiar forms in our world, to better hide and wreak havoc.
I really didn’t know much about demons, and it had been many generations since the Zaldi had last been seen, so a lot had been forgotten. Trying to remember things was like hearing the voice of birramona, as everyone called her, without being able to make out her words. I didn’t think she was anyone’s actual great-grandmother, but she’d been as kind and knowledgeable as one.
So many clan memories had been lost along with her. Along with everyone.
The crushing feeling was back, making me gasp, and I shoved it down again to focus on the half Zaldi in front of me. It snuffled through the grass calmly enough, as long as I didn’t move. My stomach grumbled.
Deciding to ignore the gnashing teeth and such, I scoured a bare spot on the ground and conjured up a small fire, feeding it bits of grass. A thin bit of dark smoke rose into the sky, and for a moment, it was like it filled my nose and throat and I couldn’t breath. Then the half Zaldi made an angry sound, jarring me back to the present.
I carefully heated up the water in my waterskin, just enough to make it lukewarm, and then poured it into a curved rock I’d found, that kind of worked liked a bowl. I added some of the grains I’d gathered, letting them soften and warm.
It was rather soupy and bland, but it was warmer than something foraged, and the cinders radiated heat to my toes, so I was satisfied.
The half Zaldi had wandered away again by the time I’d finished eating and buried the fire. There didn’t seem to be any predators around, but there was a lone carrion bird winging circles around the sky, which I didn’t think was a good sign.
Once, as a child, I’d seen a carrion bird eat an injured rabbit, even though the rabbit had still been alive at the start of it. For a carrion bird, all that mattered was blood.
The half Zaldi was much larger than a rabbit, but I still didn’t like its chances. I could hardly leave it alone now.
I packed everything up and walked after the half Zaldi. It snapped at me some more with its serpentine head.
After that, things started to get blurry again.
The days were all alike, with the half Zaldi wandering about at a shamble, with me trailing in its wake. In a strange way, it was almost relaxing. At least, as long as ghosts didn’t whisper on the wind after nightfall, nearly stopping my heart. With each passing day, the half Zaldi let me get a little bit closer. Sometimes I fetched water for both of us, or got it grass when it went onto rocky areas.
It was just me and the half Zaldi, and the rest of the world seemed to drop away.
One afternoon, I was munching on a roasted rabbit, and the half Zaldi folded its front legs and dropped onto its side. It lowered its head to the ground. In alarm, I raced over. It had been fairly energetic, and eating and drinking – it couldn’t be dying. It just couldn’t!
Its ears went back, and it flicked it’s tail so the hairs stung my cheek, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t biting or kicking, and that was good enough for me. I felt along its wound. Its flesh was hot, but the fur was fine and soft. Its leg twitched a little, but it wasn’t a violent movement.
The wound didn’t seem swollen, nor was it oozing cursed puss, but it wasn’t clean, either. I trickled a little bit of water over it, and used my fingers to gently get rid of dried blood and mud and bits of grass and seed that had stuck to it.
There was a dark scab over where the arrow had been. On the whole, I judged the half Zaldi was healing. I moved a few paces away and sat down, meeting its eye. “I guess you’re just tired,” I said to it. “You never lie down. You take a good nap now. I’ll keep an eye out.”
There was no real glimmer of understanding, but after a few minutes, its eyelids drooped shut.
I looked up at the sky. Listened to the wind as it whispered, and the clouds spoke messages.
“I know,” I said into the sky. “I will avenge all of you. But I don’t think this is a Zaldi. I think it’s a clue. I’m the reason it’s injured and alone. I can offer it the kindness I can’t receive, at least for a while.”
The voices in the air continued to whisper, but I thought they were a little gentler. The clouds dissolved into curls of white and then nothing but blue sky.
After some hours, the half Zaldi woke up and rocked to its feet in a wild movement. It studied me with one eye, ears flicking back and over, back and over, and then it snorted and tore up some grass.
I rested elbow on knee, hand on chin, and watched it. “Was that ‘thank you’ or ‘you’re still here’?” I asked.
The half Zaldi didn’t answer me, but I did feel like I was a little closer to finding its thoughts.
As more days slipped past, the half Zaldi’s leg seemed to get better. I saw it putting weight on it more often, and sometimes it did experimental little hops. I expected it to run far away from me at any time, but it didn’t. It let me get quite close.
Once, I was bringing it some more grasses, and it walked right up and started munching on them out of my hands. I was too stunned to move, and the half Zaldi’s ears were still flicked back, which I had figured out meant it was unhappy, but it still ate.
Then, it let me touch its neck. Its eye remained fixed on me, as I did so, so I just gently stroked it, until it had decided it’d had enough.
It was strange. I was used to dogs, and our herds of aurochs and mouflon, but the half Zaldi wasn’t like any of them, but neither did it seem quite as wild as I’d always thought horses were. It was a strange being.
I was able to check the arrow wound a second time. It seemed to be almost entirely healed over, and the half Zaldi walked normal regularly, as long as the ground was relatively even. It watched me with angry eyes and flat ears, but it didn’t run away or kick.
“You’re feeling a lot better, aren’t you?” I said to it one day, combing my fingers through its mane. “Pity we can’t find your friends. The only horse tracks I can find are yours.”
The half Zaldi snorted, and lipped at my side. Disappointed to not find food, it went back to sniffing at the ground. I almost smiled, watching it.
This close to it, I had a new appreciation for the size of the half Zaldi. Wild horses, at best, came up to my lower chest. The half Zaldi was closer in size to an auroch, it’s shoulders around the same height as my own. Its frame was much different from an auroch, though, back being curved instead of having a straight spine.
It’d been a common pastime, as children, for us to try and ride the aurochs. We’d all taken turns scrambling up on backs and goading the auroch to walk around. It’d been fun, a soft memory of childhood I couldn’t get back; but succeeding hadn’t been comfortable.
Sitting on an auroch hurt. Less, if they were plump, but it was still a little like straddling a stick. I’d never been able to adjust my seat comfortably.
Looking at the half Zaldi, I thought – sitting on its back might not be so bad. I could picture a way to sit that might not be so awkward.
I glanced at its head, where it was still ripping up grass. It didn’t mind me standing here and touching it at all. It was almost like it’d forgotten about me.
Before I could rethink my choice, I wound my hand into a fistful of mane and pushed off the ground, swinging one leg up.
I landed on its back no problem. It jerked beneath me, pitching me forward onto the neck. The ground vanished and I stared at the sky and the half Zaldi screamed and gravity slid me down its back to thump on the ground.
My head banged into dirt and I saw hooves flash just above my eyes.
I didn’t move as the half Zaldi stamped and snorted. Only when it quieted did I risk sitting up. It was staring at me angrily.
“Okay,” I said, “you don’t like that. I think I was right, though. You would be more comfortable than an auroch.”
The half Zaldi snorted at that, gave a violent flick of its tail, and put its butt to me.
But it didn’t go anywhere.