A Mischief in the Woodwork - By Harper Alexander Page 0,19

true thing of wonder. I always held the horses in high esteem, but I never knew they could fight a beast like a warrior, until I saw it with my own eyes.

“Serbae is a dry country. You know that. Dry and hot, for miles, two out of three parts of the year. The horses, always on the move, must drink. There is nowhere to go for it but the water holes and lagoons that keep the hippohs and the ghators. They know, but they must drink.

“I watched as a stallion came to the water's edge, lowered his maw to the murky water. He swallowed once, twice, three times – and then in a great cascade of erupting water, a ghator emerged from the depths and lunged for the creature's throat. It caught the horse's neck, and my heart raced for the animal. I thought it was gone, chomped, just like that. But it bayed – a sound I had never heard before. A frightful, angry bellow, and it struck out with its front hoof. What happened next was a frightening blur, but the ghator was thrashing, and the horse kept bellowing and striking, its ears pinned against its head like a wicked thing.

“It fought off that ghator and stomped it into ashes, Vant. It was savage. It was stunning. The thing would not stop until it had pulped its attacker, rearing and stomping, rearing and stomping. Baying and gnashing its evil teeth until the ghator moved no more, dead on the bank, and then the triumphant creature grunted its approval and sailed away on prancing, bloody hooves, and the rest of the herd went to drink from those conquered waters.”

I stared in awe, imagining, my task completely forgotten.

Letta smiled. “You would like the horses, I think.”

“Aye,” I agreed. We had our own horses in Darath, but not around here, not anymore. I had certainly seen them when I was very young, in the rich circle I was born into. But the creatures escaped with the ruin of the city. There had been a year or so that we spotted them running free, picking and prancing around the rubble, but they had gradually run off into the distance. I had been sorry to see them go. They were beautiful. But, unlike Letta's horses, they were not spotted and striped – and they seemed to have been scared off by the wardogs.

Letta gathered her pile of harvest in her apron and rose to spirit it inside. I looked down at my own, shamefully smaller than her crop, and hastily shooed it into its own barely-respectable pile, gathering it quickly in my arms so Letta would not chide me over it. But my fumbling was enough to draw attention by itself, and she smiled in amusement at my antics.

“You are a dreamer, Vant,” she told me fondly. It seemed I was not in trouble. Still, I kept quiet as I followed her back toward the manor. “Let losing your lunch over daydreams be the first lesson; a dreamer's road is not easy. There are consequences to setting your heart on things. Things you must consider when you let your mind wander. But I would be so reckless as to hazard a word of encouragement where dreamers are concerned. I would hazard keeping dreamers around in times like these. I would guess they are rare these days. Mostly choked out. I don't see how they could thrive. Yes, rare and a thing of hope, as far as I am concerned.” She smiled at me as she held the screen door open for my passage. I ducked under her arm and into the interior of Manor Dorn.

I supposed it was a novel concept, now that she mentioned it; someone who dreamed in a time of darkness and despair. Others hoped and prayed the obvious, day in and day out: that things might get better, that the depression would stop. But a dreamer's prayers still held poetry. A dreamer still lusted over the thought of great things, still possessed the ambition to touch down on the rich soil of distant lands far, far from this sick trap. A dreamer still turned her eyes to the horizon as if she could see past the curve of the earth, rather than merely to check the perimeter for the dangers that made a habit of closing in from all sides.

Did others ask to hear about the wondrous spotted and striped steeds across the border, and the bravery that made