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Outside River Camp, summer, Third Age 2981
Life was already skittering sideways and took a sudden jerk when Tolby’s horse went down. Snapped its front leg, damn badgers digging holes all over. Tol was tossed straight off into a tree and as I jumped off my horse and ran to him, was laying so quiet and still I was afraid he was dead. I ran for my horse, but it spooked and bolted off.
I was alone. Never been alone not even a single day in my life. The horse was thrashing and making awful, miserable sounds and I didn’t know what to do and damned if it wasn’t gonna call the orcs and hai straight to us.
“Tol!” I ran over and dropped to shake him. Hard. “Tol!”
His eyes rolled open, but the blood was all over his face by then and I knew he wasn’t seeing me because he started muttering about his sister and his ma and I shook him again. “Tol! C’mon! I don’t know what to do!”
It took a minute. A minute that stretched out long and terrible and I thought he was dead. Then, “Screaming?”
“Your horse. Broke its leg and tossed you and –“
“Mercy it!”
“I can’t!”
His hand snapped up and grabbed my shirt and for a moment I thought he was gonna hit me. Da always did when he was mad. I flinched and waited for the smack. “Not my ear, don’t hit my ear,” I pleaded. Da always did hit my ears. Laughed when they bled. He likes to see things bleed.
Tol froze. Went total still so I thought for sure something was behind me and I tugged free of his hand to whirl, heart pounding.
Nothing there. “Tol,” I pleaded as I turned back to him. “I don’t know how to mercy a horse. I…” Then I saw the angle of his right arm, and how he was protecting it from jostling with his left. “Your arm is busted.”
“Yeah.”
We were both quiet. I knew it meant he couldn’t do it for me. Tol would’ve. He knows I got a soft spot for horses.
“Got your knife?”
“Yes, but no…I can’t. I can’t!”
“Then he’s going to scream and thrash until the Hai hear and come with wargs and we all die.”
I felt like puking at the thought, but the anger in his voice made my hands shake and I stood slow and turned. His horse was on its side, breathing hard, so hard I could hear it like some dwarf machine all huffing. It kept struggling to stand and would make these awful little noises and I couldn’t stand it and ran over to kneel next to it.
“Where?”
“Right where the bottom of the bridle goes, under the ear. Where the cheek meets its neck. Feel for the vein. Cut fast and as deep as you can.”
I was gonna puke. Couldn’t see, had to wipe my face on my shoulder and blink hard. “Sorry, Blaze,” I whispered. I couldn’t look in those eyes, big and brown and always so trusting. Ican’tI can’tIcan’tIcan’t…. Hands shaking too hard, oh please….wake up. Wake up, let this be a nightmare! But the horse was still laying there, and I closed my eyes and begged whatever watched over wretched animals and me to help.
I laid that knife on the brown neck.
And cut. Deep and fast and fell back as blood ran hot and fast and life ebbed from those brown eyes and Blaze laid that big, glorious head with its white star and snip down and …was gone.
I cried and then puked. Bent over, away from Blaze, and heaved my guts out and cried until snot ran down my face and I felt awful.
“Hey.” Tol’s voice. Calling me over. “C’mere, Wren. I know it’s awful. C’mere.”
I stood and staggered over, dropped the knife, dropped to my knees and buried my face in his chest as he hugged me one-armed. I don’t care if he mocks me all the days of my life for this. I don’t care. I just…. “Tol?”
“It’s okay. You had to do it.”
“Is his ghost gonna follow me now?”
“What? No. Wren, there aren’t ghost horses.”
I sat up and wiped my face on my shirt and looked at Tol. “You aren’t gonna die too are you?”
“Nah.” Slowly, he sat up. “Ugh….Birdy, help me here. I can’t see.”
Sweet stars. His face…nose broken and big old gaping wound on his forehead and his eyes were swollen shut, lips all swollen. Blood on his teeth. He spat to the side and slowly brought a hand up to feel a tooth. “I’m probably gonna lose that.”
“Tol, my horse spooked and bolted.”
He was quiet at that. We’d come half the way to get to the front, to the Bridge, but had at least another couple of hours by horse and I was sure he wasn’t gonna be able to walk that.
“All right.” He made a pained noise and leaned against the tree. “Is my head still bleeding?”
“Slower, but yeah.”
“Can you make a bandage out of something? Your shirt?”
It was filthy with my tears and snot but I tugged it over my head and turned it outside facing then did my best to fasten it around his head and cover that big gash. I tied it tight. “Does that hurt?”
“Nah.” He was sucking in big breaths and then held out his hands.
“Help me up.”
Tol is a tall kid, way taller than me, but I stood and tugged on his hands to help him up and he stood shaky, one hand on my shoulder, one on the tree trunk. “You break anything?”
“My head and arm.”
I didn’t laugh and he squeezed my shoulder. “I’m just joking, Birdy.”
“You can’t walk.”
“Sure I can.”
“Not far.”
As if to make a liar of me, he took couple of steps, all wobbly, then stopped and almost fell over as I grabbed for him. “Whew…. head is spinning all wild.”
“Told you.”
He was quiet a minute then sighed. “Can you help me back to the tree?”
I did and he sat, slow and making sounds like it hurt.
“Birdy, you’re going to have to go by yourself.”
“I’m not leaving you out here! No way, Tol! They’re going to smell … They’ll smell Blaze and they’ll find you!”
“We’ll go a ways away and find a good spot for me to hide then you have to go on and take the messages with you.”
“I can’t.”
“Wren.”
He was quiet a moment and I bit my lip, knowing what he’d say I would not want to hear. “No.”
“Those messages have to go through.”
“When they don’t get them they’ll know something happened. Riders every day. They’ll know.”
“They need them before then. There are important instructions in there.”
“I am not leaving you!”
“Wren.” He shook his head. “We took oaths.”
“I didn’t. Said I was too young. Remember? They only let me ride with you today because the Patrol had just gone through here.”
“You want to be a rider though. Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Worse than anything. “They won’t like I killed Blaze.”
“You mercied him.”
“Tol…please. I don’t want to do this. Stop asking me to do these things…”
“Birdy, this is important.”
He was my first friend. My only friend. Everyone thought I was stupid because I didn’t talk much and my ears are all weird looking from Da hitting me all those years and I have one blue eye and one brown and they call me hexed and cursed.
And worse than that.
It was going to be cold that night. I got up and went to Blaze. I couldn’t look at his head. Those sightless eyes now open to the forever. I loosened the cinches, pushed off the saddle and pulled the saddle blanket free, got the message pouch and cut off a bit of Blaze’s tail hair. Took only a few minutes to make a bracelet of the hair and then I went back and pushed it into Tol’s hand. “Saw one of them elves do that when his horse died under him.”
Fingers stroking over the braid, Tol was quiet a moment. “Thank you, Birdy.”
“I got the messages.” I took his hand, the arm that wasn’t busted, and tugged. “Come on. There was an outcropping back the way we came that might work to hide you.” He stood with my help and we walked away from Blaze, away from that spot to find him another before too much more light was gone.
And then I left him there. With the horse hair bracelet, with the blanket that still felt warm from Blaze. Left Tol behind and did what I done too many times to count. I ran.
And ran.
“I left him ….” I was frantic as I ran from hill to hill, looking for that outcropping. For Blaze. For the saddle. Anything.
I’d run all the afternoon before and my legs were wobbly, but I had to find Tol! It had been nightfall before I’d staggered into the camp and fallen in front of the sentries and laid there dry heaving until a medic came out and took me in and they hooked me up with needles and weird lines they said had fluids and I babbled about Tol until they knocked me out.
Pissed me off. I told them off the next morning and made them let me go. Go and look for Tol and they sent this guy in grey and an elf with me but ….
“Tol!” My voice echoed off the big granite boulders marching up the hill.
“Hey” The guy in grey grabbed my shoulder and spun me around with an angry look. “Keep it down!”
I glared but couldn’t help cringe away and he let me go with a surprised look. Then the elf was back and nodded. “I found the horse"
“Then he’s just over here!” I was off before the guy in grey could grab me, down the hill, around the thicket of scrub brush. Was that the right boulder? Up a slight incline to a shelf of rock, a small outcropping. “Here!” There he was, but he was so quiet and still and didn’t react when they pulled him gently out from under the outcropping and I thought for sure he was dead.
“Alive but barely,” the elf murmured and dug into his pack for something and pulled out a bag of stuff and began sticking Tol with needles and I started forward, but that guy in grey held me back again.
“Let Elrohir work on him,” he murmured and squeezed my shoulder.
“You can have my cloak if that helps.” I pulled it off and held it out.
The elf…Elrohir, did the guy say? He shot a quick look at me but shook his head. “Give me a minute here, bub.”
It felt like forever and I had the terrible, awful thought that they would mercy Tol like I had Blaze and I had to make myself remember the Oath to keep from blubbering all over these guys. I said it over and over and over and –
“Okay, he’s stable, but we need to get him back. He’s got a massive concussion and I’m worried about the brain swelling.”
“You wanna ride with him?” The guy in grey asked, then without waiting turned and went to get his horse.
“Will he ….” I swallowed my fear. “Is he going to live?”
“He is, yep.” The elf had weird eyes. Grey but kind of hard to look at. I made myself look. “You did a good job, bub.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Sure you did. You finished his job and got us back here to him.” He slowly stood, Tol in his arms as the guy in grey led the horses back to us. “You’ll be a good rider someday.”
Thing is, I’m not sure I want to after all this. Maybe I don’t want to ride messages and face having to kill another horse and leave a friend behind and hope they don’t die and maybe I’d rather stay somewhere and do something else a little safer.
Or maybe I will. Maybe I’ll talk to Tol when he’s better and see what he thinks. See if he loses that tooth or not. After all, good friends are hard to find and Tol, he’s the only one I’ve got, broken nose and no front tooth or not.