Chapter 1

Through fields of snow they ploughed

The worst parts to cross are the open meadows. With little or no protection from the raging wind, it might have been the heaviest part of our journey. The wind that blows right through your sore and stiff legs, the storm that drains your every power. We saw nothing but the blackness of our failing eyesight. We heard nothing but the high-pitched sound of whistling wind. We felt nothing but the frozen warmth of our raw, insensible skin. We knew nothing but the same milky-white horizon we had been chasing for days. Santos, the black silhouette before me, was moving on in the steady, unstoppable pace he was known for. But Flame, with an open wound testing her swollen knee, failed to catch up. She was now nothing more than a blurry red blotch, banned to the corner of my eye. I myself was seriously falling behind, too. It wasn’t really tiredness slowing me down, though. After so many miles, the walking had become a mindless automatism. Welcome to the machine.
Maybe I wasn’t surrendering to the walking enough. Santos and Flame obviously were. I admired their ability to blindly follow the course that had been set, no matter if it was for better or worse. I just kept seeing troubles everywhere I went, with every new direction Santos moved us into. Flame and I assumed that Santos knew his way across these fields. Well, Flame really did, but it wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted assurance. But who could give me that, in a situation in which nothing was certain, not even if this try to elude our doom would keep us alive. The only thing the three of us knew for certain, was that not running away meant ending as the glue little toddlers in kindergarten played with. And so I bit what was left of my tongue, and bravely pushed my chest harder against the wind. No matter if it was going to help me, it was the only chance I had.

I know that if you are reading this, you must be human. What other creature has ever devoted itself to the arts of verbally transmitting information? To us horses, if I may speak for all individuals, you are a somewhat weird animal. We usually don’t tend to trust humans. The tragic examples of horses that did, are classic. Black Beauty does to us what Macbeth does to you. We don’t really talk about humans. We try to avoid them or live with them and make the best of it. Not really surprising humans always think us horses such unintelligent creatures. We do have our own culture and habits, and are perhaps even more sensitive than your human brains, polished by the internet and drugs. When ridden, we hardly protest. Physically we might be stronger than humans, we know very well you are capable of making our lives a hell to live in. The abusive nature of your race is unintelligible to most horses. The numerous cases of horses hurt or mistreated by humans, the humans they trusted the most, speak for themselves.
To the few humans we had met on our journey so far, we were just anonymous nothings. Even less than faces in the crowd. Horses have no soul, they say. Some of them might not even have noticed us, which is good for us. Horses or ponies that ran from their owners are usually caught and returned. Which was the ultimate thing we wanted not to happen. We stayed the night in meadows that we shared with other horses, mostly happy they could contribute to the journey of fugitives. Few horses dare to escape, but the ones that do got every other horse’s compassion and support. No matter where on this planet you meet a horse, if you tell them you’re a fugitive, they’ll help you the best they can. But running away themselves? Most of them dare not. But to most of them, it won’t make the difference between life and death, like it did to us.

But it was a high prize we paid for our lives. Crossing the open grasslands on the snowy, gusty day it was, was already a test big enough to my taste. Worse luck, enormous clouds began to seal the heavens above our heads, looking dark grey and not too friendly. I knew they had a huge load of snow in store for us. Santos knew it too, as he pushed his pace and heaved his head, encouraging Flame and me to move forward. And we tried, I swear we tried. But Flame’s wound and my lack of endurance were now really getting to us. Flame had now disappeared from the corner of my eye, her presence only given away by her desperate whinnying. I passed the whinny on to Santos, begging him to look behind him, to stop, so exhausted Flame could catch up. But Santos gave no reaction at all. He just kept on going, a stray tress of ropy black hair tossing from his one shoulder to the other with every forceful step he took. Our legs tried the same, but with every step they failed a little more. Normally I would have thrown my body against the wind in order to break it, but with this level of energy it was out of the question. Staying in Santos’ slipstream would be the best idea, if I could keep his pace of course. For Flame, even staying behind me asked too much of her. I knew her pain had to be terrible. We had been walking for five hours non-stop, plagued by the whistling wind and freezing cold air that rode on it. Our bodies were numb, our raw skins rasped dry. At this point, death seemed rather pleasant even. I didn’t permit that thought to grow stronger, but it was unavoidable. It already surprised me Flame hadn’t given up hours ago, when Santos told her we wouldn’t slow down because of her inflamed knee, and that if she couldn’t make it she had to stay with the other horses in this meadow. Santos was being terrible. But I understood that if we didn’t want this journey to fail, we had to be strong at will. I guess Flame has always been stronger-willed than I.
Just when I thought I really couldn’t take it anymore, Santos bended his head backwards and called for us. My attention was immediately drawn. Had he finally listened to our begging? I caught a glance of Santos eyes. Those bright pools of chocolate amber were whipped to tears by bursts of wind. They seemed inflamed even. He was suffering that much, too. From his trembling lips I could hear one word, a sole, blissful word: ,,Barn’’.
I looked across his shoulder and indeed, a big, black building stood erect in the white, foggy lands. It looked as if it could be a barn, too. It looked quite deserted. And it was only a few miles away…