Elfleda Read online

  The energy of intoxication lasts a few minutes, and quite suddenly drains away as Hekate chases me through the trees. I stumble and slow; she passes me, calls to me, but when I do not follow she snorts and gallops away. I sink down in the soft cushion of pine needles, enveloped by a pleasant lethargy. While I doze, the gold-green nymph returns to me and curls up against my side, trustful among my hooves.

  I dream about Elfleda, but the dream dissolves as I am about to touch her, as she reaches for me. I half-wake and see her, real, before me, half-hidden by a growth of ferns. She does not know I am here.

  The ugly human boy is standing before her, head down, hair falling across his face as if to hide it. Elfleda says something to him that I cannot hear, and he looks up and smiles. All his movements and expressions are hesitant. Elfleda takes his hand. He reaches up, touches her breast, her throat, her forehead, her spiral horn. She touches its point to his shoulder and lifts her head again. Together they walk away into the forest. I shiver, close my eyes, and try to sleep again, making myself believe I never really woke.

  While it is still dark Hekate returns and lies beside me, back to back so we can lean on each other and have a little more comfort. I expected her to stay with the human.

  "Couldn't you find her?"

  "I found her," Hekate says. I wait; finally she continues. "She sent me away. I suppose she had something better to do." Her low voice is well-suited for anger, but not for disappointment. She mutters a few more words as we fit ourselves against each other for sleep. In the meadow, only the humans and perhaps a few satyrs will be stirring. I cannot understand what drew the human from Hekate; I would be offended, too, if one of the humans left me for one of the hairy creatures. Nevertheless we obey our masters as long as we are able, whether the orders are to serve or leave them.

  Obedience and the night are over for me; I am spent.

  The nymph snores and Hekate shifts and sighs in her sleep. I hear laughter, giggling, the command to

  hush, but the sounds pass over me like a breeze. It must be the humans, searching in a pack for something to entertain them, and I am beyond entertaining.

  We have few storms here, but when they come they are violent and long. We know now when to seek shelter, for the gentle wind that precedes them through the mountain peaks has a certain coolness, a certain flavor. My hair rises, all down my spine, for the storm-wind and the breeze of words are all too similar.

  I move my legs carefully so I will not hurt the snoring nymph, then lurch to my feet. Hekate stirs but does not wake. I am already stiff and sore, and my hoof aches fiercely. But I remember the direction Elfleda and the ugly boy walked, and I remember the way the humans crept after her.

  I follow the bruised leaves of their passing, too frightened to call out. Elfleda could be beyond the sound of my warning, and the humans could come back and silence me. I climb as fast as I am able. The ache spreads into my haunches and along the vertebrae strained by my unnatural construction.

  The trees end suddenly. Moonlight throws my long shadow against pale granite. The mountain peak is still far above, separated from me by ridges, flat sheets of rock, sheer walls.

  I climb the first ridge, my hooves scraping the bare stone. When I reach the top I can see Elfleda and the boy, gilt in the midst of shadows. His hands are twined in her mane and her arms are around his naked body. He moves against her.

  They are safe, and alone. I am spying on them, up here silhouetted against the sky, and I am ashamed.

  I will go back to Hekate's solid warm side--

  The moon reflects from ornament or weapon.

  "Elfleda!"

  As she throws up her head at my warning the humans rush her. The boy jumps away, surprised and embarrassed. The other humans are all around, yelling in triumph, holding nets and ropes to take back the defiance they gave her. The ugly boy looks from one face to another, confused, humiliated: at least he did not know what use they planned for his initiation. He sees the ropes, and strikes one angrily away. Elfleda rears and another misses her. She charges the humans, head down, and they scatter away from her sharp horn. She is trapped by the mountain and the waiting nets.

  I gallop down the side of the ridge. A noose settles over Elfleda's head, around her throat, and slides tight. She turns, flinching, grasps the rope and sets herself back on her haunches, pulling the human off balance. She tears the rope away and flings it to the ground, but another settles around her shoulders.

  One strikes her hind legs like a snake. Startled, she springs away, and the tension of the rope halts her in mid-arc and pulls her down. She lies stunned, a scarlet burn on her throat, blood trickling from one leg where the rope has cut it.

  Laughing, the humans close a circle around her as I near, my hoofbeats echoing on the stone. To our masters, this is adventure. Between them I see Elfleda raise her head. She tosses it, as a human approaches her, and her horn opens a deep wound. I reach the crowd and scatter our frail creators with my shoulders. I charge the human who holds the trip-rope; I pick her up and throw her down on the stones.

  Our masters have stopped laughing.

  Elfleda kicks off the loosened rope and pulls away the other, struggling to her feet. She menaces the humans with her horn and I with my fists, my hooves. They stand back, milling around us. We are all at bay.

  "Achilleus!"

  She bounds forward and I follow. The humans are raising nets, crying to each other to hurry. One snare drapes low, rippling and tangled. As it rises Elfleda leaps it. I gather speed, collect myself, and jump. The strands graze my forelegs-- they must entrap my hind legs-- but I kick back and up, the round cords scrape me, and I am free!

  I plunge after Elfleda's pale form. Our retreat to the park, where we could hide and hope the masters might forget their anger, is cut off. Elfleda flees toward the mountain and the impassable ridges.

  She starts to climb, hesitating when she no longer hears me behind her. "Achilleus, come on!"

  "But where will we go?"

  "Anywhere but back-- if we want to live. Hurry!"

  She reaches toward me in encouragement: she is too high above to actually reach me.

  "There's nothing out there for us."

  She looks beyond me. I turn. The masters are very near, now, confident of their prey.

  "Hurry!" Elfleda says again, and I put one hoof on the steep rock. This is desperation. I begin to climb. I scrabble on the stone, straining upward. My hooves are made for meadows and prairies. I can hear the masters just behind me. Trying to go faster, I slip and fall to my knees, crying out at the wave of pain, reaching with my hands to keep from falling. Granite soaks up my blood.

  Elfleda is almost close enough to touch me. Did she descend to help me climb?

  "I can't-- "

  "Try," she says. "Just try..."

  Shining in the failing moonlight, a rope slips over her head as she grasps my hand.

  Another noose falls around my throat and jerks me backwards. I fumble at it, struggling to free myself and climb. The rope jerks me again, much harder, pulling me down, cutting off my breath. My bruised hoof slams against a rock spur. The pain completes my disorientation. I stumble again, falling and sliding on the stone. I am lost.

  When next I am aware of anything I feel warm droplets falling on my shoulder. I open my eyes, and see the masters leading Elfleda back down the mountain. She is at the center of a web of ropes, around her throat, her arms, her waist, binding her hands, but she holds her head erect. One of the humans reaches out and pulls her black-tipped tail. She lashes out with a sharp hind hoof and half-turns toward him, but the other humans drag her around.

  I lunge up. The ugly human boy reaches out to stop me, too late. I scream and fall back, shuddering, panting, suddenly cold and wet with sweat. When I lie still the pain is only a great throbbing.

  "I'm sorry," the boy whispers. "I didn't know..."

  I push myself slowly up on one elbow, straining to see yet not move my hindquarters. Blood is black in the m
oonlight, but dawn will soon turn the patch beneath me scarlet. Bones protrude from my shattered leg.

  Elfleda and the humans disappear among the trees as I sink back to the ground. I can only see the paling sky and the single human. "Help me... please help me..." But he is wiping the tears from his cheeks, pushing the hair from his forehead. It must be the kind moonlight and dawn that make him appear less coarse, less uncertain. There is no magic here.

  "Elfleda," I whisper, and the boy gazes blankly down, as if he never knew her name.

  Behind me I can hear the footsteps of two more humans, as they approach me one last time.

  Published by Alexandria Digital Literature. (http://www.alexlit.com/)

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