The macaws and the parrots soon departed in search of nut trees. The jungle seemed silent without the clatter of their flight and their noisy squawking.

On the evening of the following day, it began to drizzle softly. The vegetation had thinned considerably, save for an immense banyan tree. Hold On thought that perhaps they were finally coming out of the jungle and he picked up his pace.

Suddenly, he caught a scent that made him and the two mares nervous. It wasn’t the heady fragrance of the jungle flowers, but a slightly metallic odor on the brink of rotting, mingled with something familiar.

“Horses!” Angela exclaimed.

Corazón inhaled deeply. “Grullo! My old friend Grullo!”

The two mares whinnied and broke into a gallop, tearing through a screen of vines that dripped from the banyan tree.

Hold On held up his head and peeled back his lips as if he were drinking in the night and the odious smell. There was something wrong. Under the scent of the Seeker’s horses was the rotting, metallic smell. Blood! he thought. Dead men.

“Wait! Wait!” Hold On bellowed. “Fools!”

He wheeled on Estrella and Sky. “We have to get them before it’s too late!”

Hold On, Estrella, and Sky streaked after the two mares. They caught up to them on the far side of a clearing where the mares stood stiff-legged and trembling. The jungle growth had been deliberately cut back here, and the ground was scraped bare except for a few large, broken stones that were wet with blood.

Hold On jumped sideways and screeched, and Sky began to stamp in place, his eyes bulging. Estrella felt a deep fear invade her.

There was blood, blood all around. She felt as if she were being dragged back to that white place in the middle of the sea, stained with the blood of her dam.

On one of the broken rocks, blood dripped down carvings of monstrous figures with faces like men and bodies like snakes or animals.

“Whose blood is this?” Hold On roared. They looked around wildly, but at first they saw nothing. No humans. No bodies.

The drizzle stopped and a frail wash of moonlight fell through the scrim of scudding clouds, illuminating their surroundings. What they’d taken for formless lumps in the darkness were actually the bodies of men and women strewn along the far edge of the clearing. Hold On spotted a red, meaty hunk placed on a stone with intricate carvings, and his eyes seemed to stumble in his head. Horror engulfed him.

“It’s a heart! A human heart!” Hold On felt his legs buckling.

“Hold On!” Estrella screamed.

The stallion managed to recover and his legs stopped quivering. In the pale moonlight, the horses could all see the body from which the heart had been cut. And there were other bodies as well, also with gaping wounds.

“That’s — that’s … a shoe print. Centello,” Angela said. “Centello has been here.”

“And Grullo, and Arriero … and Bobtail.” Corazón started naming the horses whose tracks she could identify. She walked slowly, still stiff-legged, and studied the hoofprints.

“But none of the dead are the Seeker’s men,” said Hold On.

“I don’t understand,” Estrella gasped. “Did the Seeker do this?”

“I don’t know, but this is not the work of a Shadow Eater. This is the work of men.” Hold On spoke in a voice he had never before used. “Men did this!”

The two mares seemed rooted to the ground. “No! No! The Seeker would never!” Angela insisted. “I heard about this on First Island. The Chitzen, they sacrifice their own to their gods.”

“I heard it, too.” Hold On shook his head. “But I never believed …” His voice dwindled as he looked down at the broken stones. There were stone heads and arms and legs of animals and men. These had been the Chitzen gods. The Seeker and his men must have smashed them.

Then a squeal pierced the air, a sound like nothing Estrella had ever heard, and she spooked. “That’s not a horse!” she cried.

“It’s a baby!” Hold On yelled as he wheeled about.

“A foal?” Sky asked.

“A human baby!” Hold On galloped down a path through a thin stand of trees, and the rest of the horses ran to catch up.

In the next clearing, a group of humans was gathered in front of a well, over which perched a rough-hewn carving of the Virgin. Not the Seeker’s men, but men of the New Land. One man in a long white cloak, his hair clotted with blood, held a baby dangling over the well’s dark mouth.

Hold On was confused. The white people’s God was here. But the Virgin does not take babies, he thought. Then it became clear to him. The horses had stumbled onto a war of gods. The Seeker had attacked the new men’s gods and now the men were frightened and trying to lure their gods back. They would give anything, even their babies.

The disgust Hold On felt that moment for humans rose like bile in his throat. He charged, and the man in white stumbled in alarm. A woman darted out and snatched the baby from the man’s arms, then ran away sobbing. The crowd screamed and scattered, cowering in fear as the horses ripped through the throngs.

The five horses ran as if they were still in the thick of it. They could not run hard enough or fast enough to get away from the awful killing place. When they finally stopped, they were all sweating heavily. They had left the jungle behind and emerged onto a high flat plain, each full of the terror of the heart dripping blood on the stone and the baby held over the well.

“I don’t understand. I just don’t understand what was happening back there.” Estrella was breathing heavily. It hurt to speak, but she had to know.

“It was the strange new men who did that,” Angela said.

Hold On looked at her. What was she really trying to say?

“Yes, it was the new Chitzen,” Corazón concurred.

“But did you see the prints of Centello, Arriero, and dear old Grullo?” Angela asked.

Estrella couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She flinched and felt her withers tighten up, her shoulder muscles contract. Something made her nervous about the way the old mares were talking, and it was obviously disturbing Hold On as well.

“Angela, Corazón, listen to me,” he said harshly. “It wasn’t only the new Chitzen who murdered back there. It was Ibers as well. Men like the ones who curry you, who bring you water and grain. Who put bits in your mouth and saddles on your back!” Hold On was roaring now. “Men who call themselves masters. When they cannot master, they murder!”

Corazón and Angela were still for what seemed like a long time. There was a wildness in their eyes, as if they’d been spooked by something inside. They began to paw the ground, snorting and wheezing in renewed agitation. Angela curled her neck in tightly, tucked her muzzle close to her chest, and began to take small mincing steps in place. But she seemed unconscious of what she was doing. It was as if her mind had fled from her body. The motions were unthinking, automatic.

“She’s doing the threshing step!” Hold On whispered to Estrella. Corazón began to make the same dainty steps. “Poor things,” he murmured. His head drooped and he gave a mournful whinny.

“The mares.” His voice seemed to break. “They … they are caught between two worlds — the Old Land and the New.”

Then he turned to the mares. “Listen to me. Your masters are gone. You’re not in a wheat field. There’s no need to thresh. That work is over. You’re free, Corazón. Free, Angela.”

Angela stopped in place. “Angela?” she said in a soft whispery voice. Her large dark eyes swam with confusion at the sound of her own name. “I like my old name.”

“Fea?” Hold On uttered in disbelief. “You liked being called Ugly?”

“And I liked mine, La Vieja — Old One,” Corazón cut in.

Hold On shook his head. They are hopeless. Even after what they have just seen, they are hopeless, he thought.

“What are you, loco?” Estrella blurted in a loud snort.

“We want to find the others. Grullo, Arriero,” Angela replied. “We’re too old to learn these new ways and to forget the old.” She glanced at Estrella. “They didn’t treat us poorly, the Seeker and his men.”

“They threw us off the ship!” Estrella said.

Corazón stepped forward. “But remember, the blacksmith said that we were strong and that we would make it to land and we did! We made it! They’ll be happy to see us. And we will serve them well, as our sires and dams have and their sires and dams before us. It is in our life chain. It is in our blood.”

Angela drew herself tall and once more arched her neck so her chin groove nearly vanished.

Hold On blinked. It was as if Angela had a bit in her mouth. Why did the two mares want to go back? What was there to go back for — combat, the burden of a fully armored soldier and his sharp spurs? A trip across an ocean in a sling? He did not know what exactly to do in this new land, but he sensed that the filly did. Perlina hadn’t been simply a smart horse but, like so many pale horses, was said to have an “old eye” or “an eye of time.” It was an eye that could see back to the ancient dawns when the horses first ran on this earth. They ran! Free in their own coats, their necks stretched out as they were meant to be. And these two mares wanted to go back to the Seeker! Age was no excuse. He was old, older than Angela and almost as old as Corazón, and yet he wanted to go on!

He turned to the mares. “You want to go back to the Seeker and to all that? To the Ibers and the Chitzen and all that blood?”

Both the mares’ heads drooped. Angela nickered so softly, the others could hardly hear her.

“What did you say, Angela?” Hold On asked.

“I want a world with no Ibers and no Chitzen. Just … just … animals. I’d even prefer crocodiles and Shadow Eaters to the Ibers and the Chitzen!”

“So you’ll stay with us?” Estrella asked.

Slowly, both Angela and Corazón nodded.

The horses moved on. The hoofprints of the Seeker’s herd grew fainter and less frequent as the day waned. Estrella was waiting for darkness to fall. She needed to find the stars.

North. North. The only thought in Estrella’s mind was north. It wasn’t enough to have the scent of the sweet grass lingering in her head. Sometimes the scent was quite strong, but other times it faded until it was only an elusive taste on the wind. She needed the guiding star, the star that never moves. The words of her dam came back to her as clearly as if Perlina were whispering in her ears. You know when the groom comes and puts the water in our bucket how he takes that cup, a dipper? There’s a star picture that looks like that, and the cup points directly toward the star that never moves. The men call it the North Star.

Estrella knew now what she must do — find the water dipper in the sky. But first they must get far away from the men. They’d left the tangled world of the jungle, and when darkness came, she would look straight up into the sky and see the starscape, the million bits of light that cut the night. If she could just find the pointer stars in the cup that showed the trail to the North Star. She stumbled.

“What is it?” Hold On asked.

“When darkness comes, help me find the star picture of the water dipper.”

“The water dipper?” Sky asked.

“We know the dipper,” Hold On and Corazón both answered together.

“And so do I!” Angela said.

“It’s grazing wisdom,” Hold On said.

“What’s that?” Sky asked. But Estrella felt she knew what Hold On meant. She remembered her dam telling her about the meadow.

“You see,” Hold On said to the filly and the colt, “in the Old Land, we were taught things like gaits, and then there were things we learned out in the meadows where we grazed. These were the things that humans could never teach a horse. We learned about the changing shape of the moon, about the motion of the stars. Where the best clover grew. When our saddles had been taken off and our mouths freed of the bit — that was when we tasted the life we were meant for.”

They did not have to wait long before the eastern sky darkened — “the sky we left behind,” as Hold On called it. The first stars of the dipper lifted over the dark edge of the night. The horses stood with their tails to the wind as they watched the seven points in the star picture climb. They burned with a bright intensity.

So these, thought Estrella, are the stars I was named for — these and a thousand other stars that will soon scatter through the night. She felt a kinship with all of them and at the same time she sensed that the light was very old, very ancient, and had taken a long time to reach the earth on which they now stood.

Estrella knew that, old as the stars were, the last herd must have seen their same light as well. They were all star-bound, both the last herd and the first herd. Once again, the scent of the sweet grass streamed through the filly’s mind and she felt her heart race. The stars at the end of the dipping cup pointed toward the blazing light of the North Star.

“We have it!” Hold On exclaimed quietly. “We know north for sure now.”

The scent of sweet grass became stronger still in Estrella’s mind. She saw Hold On peel back his lips and tip his muzzle up. He’s caught it! He’s caught it! He smells the sweet grass, too!

With Estrella in the lead, the five horses began trotting at a slow and steady pace north. As the dipping cup rose in the night, they followed the North Star, traveling farther inland from the coast. It was easier without the jungle to hold them back. The ground felt firmer beneath their feet and they could move more swiftly.

The countryside was very different. The dense green of the jungle had been swallowed up and the land stretched out before them, dusky and muted in the moonlight. In the distance, they could just make out the contours of low hills rising slowly against the darkening sky. The land seemed empty, a place of infinite solitude with only the sound of the wind and the occasional cry of a night bird rising in flight to disturb the peace.

When the moon was still high, they came to rest under the spreading limbs of a tree they had never before seen. There were no palm fronds to cast jagged shadows on the ground, but rather tiny, delicate leaves.

Angela turned to Corazón with delight in her eyes. “Corazón! It looks as if you are wearing the finest lace mantilla.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The way the moonlight shines through the leaves has spread a lacy pattern on your back.”

“Maybe it’s a dress rather than a mantilla. No mistress of mine ever wore her mantilla on her back. Only her head.”

Hold On snorted — Dresses! Lace! Will these old mares ever learn to forget?

Estrella could read Hold On’s disdain but tried to be gentle with the older horses. “I’ve never seen lace or a mantilla, but I think you look very pretty, Corazón. I really do.”

The nights were clear for several days as the horses followed the dipping cup and the North Star across the sky. They inscribed its path in their minds, so even when it rained and the stars were not shining, they knew the direction they must head.

Estrella had never forgotten that her dam was named for the color of the just before. She made a point never to fall asleep near the dawn, for that was the time when she felt Perlina’s presence most strongly. One morning, after the stars had vanished and the sky was just growing light with the pale pink of the dawn, a silvery glitter streaked the sky. Caught by the light of the rising sun, the streak turned bloodred and glared on the horizon.

“It’s a comet!” Hold On said, shaking himself awake. His ears flattened and he peeled back his lips and tipped his muzzle as if he were trying to smell something. Soon the other horses were awake and looking nervously at the horizon. An owl screeched and flew out from a tree, his white face caught in the reflection of the sun.

“It’s a bad sign, isn’t it? A vile star,” Angela nickered. Estrella looked to Hold On. He flinched from his shoulders to his withers. Five horses stood trembling in the dawn light, mesmerized by the “vile star” that Hold On called a comet. No one moved and no one dared to speak.

Not far away in the City of the Gods, the Golden One, the chieftain of all chieftains, stood on a terrace on his palace in the middle of a lake, trembling in fear as he watched the comet. Two days before, lightning had struck the city’s highest pyramid. Sacrifices had been made — so many that the gutters of the temple plaza spilled blood — and yet the gods were still angry.

“The gods never sleep,” he muttered. And he, the most powerful emperor, could do nothing, absolutely nothing but receive all the dreadful reports from his scouts. His interpreters were busy trying to make sense of all the troubling signs. The first had been a startling dream the emperor had more than a month ago, a dream of a four-legged creature with feathers on its head and a neck like licks of flame. And was not this the year that the god who had deserted them promised to return? But astride this creature was a strange man in a helmet. They were one, fused, man and beast together.

Now there was not just one of these peculiar man-creatures, but many to the south and east of the city, and they had told his messengers they wanted gold. They had pranced along a beach in a mighty display. They had odd machines that disgorged light and fire and stones into the air. It was said they had a disease that could be cured only by gold, and their leader had sent a helmet that was to be filled with gold. Dutifully, the Golden One had done so. But the god returned again with his fearsome man-creatures.

The Golden One did not know what to do. He had ordered the priest to cut out the hearts of countless people. The altars in the temples reeked of blood, and yet the new gods kept coming. Kept wanting more gold, more gold. Every day they drew closer. He had no choice but to open the gates to these gods and their lust for gold. A war between the gods would bring ruin. Not only to his city, but to the universe.

For several days, the horses watched the comet appear each evening, often toward the end of the night in the time of the just before. Would it never leave? It ruined the pearl gray of the skies. In Estrella’s mind, it seemed to taint the memory of her dam and her lovely coat. The filly began to dread the dawn.

Infierno, Hold On thought one morning as they came to a crest. The red of the rising sun spilled across the valley below, like flames from hell. If they descended into this valley, that was what it would be — a hell through which they must pass. Hold On could see that there were human villages scattered throughout. They had to avoid them — there would be either Chitzen or Ibers, and the men would clash and blood would spill. The red streaks of the morning sun were simply a reminder that this quiet valley could turn to blood in an instant.

Still, Hold On believed they had no choice but to move forward. He could smell water in the valley, and the horses were desperately thirsty. Water had been scant the last two days.

The filly seemed nervous. She kept glancing toward the valley and then back to Hold On. All of them could sense that there was water in the valley, but the smell of men had them agitated.

“This way.” Estrella jerked her head. “We’ll go around the valley.”

Hold On blinked. Were Estrella’s large dark eyes, so like her dam’s, a mirror for another eye deeper in her mind, that storied eye of the time some pale horses were said to possess?

The way around the valley was long and would take them off their course. But the horses followed Estrella, followed her even as the country grew more arid, the grass shorter, and the lace trees and their shade fewer and fewer. They came to the bed of what had once been a river but was now no more than a braided strand of foul, shallow water on beds of sand. The water gave them cramps deep in their bellies.

At times, the way became rocky. Occasionally the land dipped into steep gullies that they followed onto parched sections full of cracks. The sun blazed down during the day. It was hard to think of the water they might have missed by skirting the valley. But Estrella was sure the valley would have yielded blood as well as water. Up on the dry plain, they often saw tendrils of smoke rising from the valley, from villages that had been razed.

The horses’ tongues hung out. Somewhere, they all lost the last of their shoes. Angela and Corazón did not seem to mourn. Their hooves quickly toughened and they felt a more direct connection with the ground and the subtle shifts in terrain and its textures.

Finally, a few days past the immense valley, they picked up the scent of fresh water and headed toward it. Soon they began to see forage — reedy grasses and stunted trees that nevertheless yielded sweet acorns and pine nuts. They came to a hillock and climbed it in hopes of spotting a pond or even a lake. Instead, they saw twin mountains in the distance, capped with snow.

“Meltwater!” said Corazón, and Angela and Hold On nickered in delight.

“Meltwater?” asked Sky. “What’s that?”

“It trickles down from the mountaintops, especially white-capped ones like those. That’s snow!” Corazón explained. The young ones had never seen snow.

Hold On was excited. “We can’t be far from water now.”

The horses kicked into a gallop and headed for the peaks.

After several hours, they spotted a streak of blue glinting across a vast swath of land.

“A lake!”

As they drew close to the lake, the wind shifted and an unmistakable scent assailed them.

“Centello!” Hold On snorted. “The stallion is near.” And so are the men!