Copyright 1998, Mary Mannon Reeves. No part can be used in any way without written permission from the author.
A Wee Shock
By
Mary Mannon Reeves
" 'A wee shaggy beastie,' he said," Tamyin groaned. " 'just a pony gone a bit wild,' he said."
I hid a grin as I worked my way to the top of the paddock's makeshift gate. Tam was new to the Talon Ranges and their manner of speaking was as alien to her as a Morihar suicide chant. In the Talons, a "wee dram" was enough liquor to drop a bull in its tracks, and a "bit o' a wind" could flatten castle walls.
The timbers shuddered beneath my legs as Tam's "wee shaggy beastie" slammed into them again. Easily 18 hands, the screaming banshee of a horse looked and acted like a living thunderstorm. In the weirdling light of mountain dusk, it seemed as though flames were tangled in its mane and sparks briefly etched its tracks. Blue veins flickered across its satiny black hide like tongues of lightning. It paused long enough to pin me with its yellow eyes, then started screaming and lunging again.
The fence groaned, but a rail of straw and cobwebs would have held the animal in, as long as it was garlanded with ironweed. Ironweed, it's vivid purple blooms glowing in the sullen light, was known in these parts as mage bane. It couldn't harm a creature of Other, but it could hold it for a day or two. No matter what the "wee shaggy" looked like, it was truly a beast of Other.
"Raporin.." Tam joined me on the gate. "Why do you think the old goat wanted it caught? We can't hold it much longer, and it's not like he could ride it...Even my meek little Cat wouldn't let him near."
"I don't know." The question had bothered me as well. "It would help if we knew exactly what sort of ghoulie it is."
"I don't think even you could ride it..."she murmured, the taunt as gentle as the dare.
Again, I hid a grin. My fame for riding the unrideable horses was as great as hers for catching the uncatchable ones. In fact, that was how we found each other, drawn by our own reputations. Now, well matched and mated, we were first called in the horse hunts.
"A nightmare,perhaps? " I said, changing the subject.
"Not even. It's not white, and not remotely a mare. Which also rules out the Gray Mare."
I shuddered. The Gray Mare was little more than a living skeleton that carried plague like ribbons in its sparse and brittle mane. Most of the horse spirits were a nasty sort, with the exception of my Goddess, Epona, and the Red Horse of Cym Llawyrnedd. Whatever eldritch clan our captured thunderstorm claimed, I doubted it was a pleasant one.
"I wish we knew a little more about the locals, " I said. "They must know what it is..."
"Now that..." she slapped my thigh "is the first good idea you've had since we rode into these goddess deprived hills. Why don't we trot down to that little holt we passed on our way up. I could stand a "wee dram" and you, love of my life, could stand a bath."
Easy for her to say. Her part in catching the horses is singing them away, like the Rat Piper. My part was slaving over the bloody paddock.
Our own horses were more than happy to put the beastie behind them. My Shadow, a steady little Plains Walker, fairly leapt down the path, suddenly as sure footed as the mountain goats we startled. Tamyin's spotted Cat moved like his name, quietly and quickly.
Once away from the penned "horse", our mares settled down, filling the eerie hillside silence with soft hoofbeats and the jingle of their bits. Plains bred myself, and used to the rowdy laughter of the Tribes, the quiet rested uneasily.
"What did the old guy look like?" I said, hungry for any voice, even my own.
"What old guy?"
"The one who commissioned us to catch the horse, Tam. Who else?"
"Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about Wee Shaggy. Something doesn't feel right. To be perfectly honest, I don't remember what he looked like. I think he was short and dark, but then I remember him as being tall and fair. He had a cloak...no, a great coat. A tunic? That was dark blue, with a silver clasp. The clasp I remember, because it looked like a hunting knife."
"A what?" Shadow grunted a protest as I hauled her to a stop. Before Tam could answer me, screams split the darkness, and the sound of steel grinding against steel.
"Raiders," I hissed. Shoulder to shoulder, our horses raced to the sounds of battle.
Fire lit the way, raging in the thatched roofs of the little holt. Shadow lurched into an awkward jump, nearly unseating me and narrowly missing the body at her feet. I could hear Tam charge into the battle, preceded by that blood-freezing war cry from her western Tribe. Her hooked sword, more of a scythe than a true blade, flashed dull orange, then crimson as she decorated it with the raiders' blood.
Then I had no time to watch, for the fighters were upon me. My own blade, as straight and true as a Plains road, dipped and sliced and speared the ragged shadows that surrounded it. I kicked my way free of the horse and joined the fight on foot, back to back with a holtwife and her bloody hoe.
I like to think Tamyin and I turned the tables on the bandits with our unexpected arrival, but Holt-on-the-Tor boasted of excellent warriors. Whether they fought with a spear or a shovel, they fought well. The raiders retreated, leaving a full quarter of their numbers behind, bleeding into the stony mountain soil.
Without pausing for breath, the fighters dropped their hoes and grabbed buckets, forming a brigade from the well to the burning houses. Tam and I joined them and by the smoky, weary dawn, the last ember was doused.
"I don't understand it," Tam dropped to he ground in exhaustion. "They fight so well, they're obviously used to this kind of thing. Why didn't they have a guard posted, to give them more time?"
"We have a guard." A tall, angular woman with steel-shot hair, joined us. "A guardian 'tis better called, mayhaps. The Shock warns us of danger hours before it comes, but it didn't tell us tonight. Pr'raps we've offended it."
"What's a Shock?" I asked behind a yawn.
"A beast of t'Other," she answered. "A wee, shaggy beastie."