Once a King Pt. 15

Part 15 : Verbosus

(thanks to My editor Kenji Sato)

"I have a silly name. Chatterbox...(whinny)..."

"What a name for a war horse...I should have a hero's name...like Hector, Achilles, Lysander...but, NO...I have a rider with a sense of humor...MY warrior sees me as Verbosus.

"He is a Bull of a man, very like the totem for all the warriors of our band. Arms like the branches of the oak, torso like the trunk of the oak, legs like...well, they are strong powerful legs, but he uses them subtly to tell me what he wants of me.

"My warrior, Eustathios, 'THE "WELL BUILT ONE', 'THE STEADFAST', 'THE TRUSTWORTHY' he was well named, his parents foretold his virtues...his wit they did not predict.

He has been my only rider, you...however, you are human? Reading my thoughts...you may or may not know, these men choose stallions as their war horses. Stallions are not gentle beasts, one rider may control us, or rather there is one rider we consent to being our partner. We ride to violence, we ride to feeding grounds, we ride to water, we ride to plunder, we ride to cover a mare, to dishonor a maiden. We ride to gather taxes for the Exarchos.

Ha! Yes we are legitimate thieves! We have great ones behind us. Whereas before, the Bull looted and raped only for the Bull; now, we loot and rape for the empire. Well the empire calls it taxation, but as tax collectors we are allowed our share, we get a percentage of the loot the empire gets the greater share of the loot we report.

The other thing? The thing that the simple people of the steppe refuse to name? Well, the Bull must refresh the stock of Bull calves and we will breed our own line of war horses...breeding with the small horses of the steppe produces a small warhorse, still my offspring are hardy and do not have my HUGE appetite for grain.!

Life for the Bull, the Men of the Bull, is evolving and their steeds evolve with it.

The men also have become smaller, the Men of the Bull breed with the women they find in the steppe...small, tough women, women of narrow hips, small rumps and tiny udders. Ugh.

They resemble their mares in no small degree. The stallions and the warriors of the Bull must make do with what the steppe provides.

The men and stallions of the Bull are restricted to the steppe and its borderlands by decree. We will be exterminated by the Royal Legions of the Exarchos if we stray from our territories.

So, we live. Some, those who have an easier way in the world, would say it is not an honorable way, but it is our way—a hard way, the Men of the Bull must take to live. We are not farmers, we do not hunt, we see what poor lives the hunters and farmers of the steppe have.

When we can, we camp at the edges of our territory out of sight of the Exarchos' fortresses. Places with wells...watering places. Places of shade from the brutal steppe sun. Places of elevation, catching what breezes come from the steppe. Places where we can see danger at a distance.

The warriors have speed, speed that we stallions give them; the warriors have power, the power of death and fear that come from their steel weapons and armor. Their armor is a burden for the stallions, but we, stallions, also carry protection; not as fine as the men, but then we are harder to kill; easy to hurt for we are large, but hard to kill for our muscle and bone are thick and tough...the puny arrows of the hunters hurt, but rarely kill, if they can penetrate our barding.

My rider and I left our watering place days ago. Rumor of a small clan of primitive hunters attempting raids at the fringes of our territory. Well 'rumor' is a strong word for the visions of the Sacerdotes; still, we were to spy out this band at the far reaches of our territory. The Exarchos would not be pleased to hear of anyone else attempting to profit from the poor beings of this mostly desolate place.

A large man on a heavy horse is not the best of scouts. The next generation will be small men on light horses, better suited for this sort of duty. But a large man and a large horse intimidate the peasants and that is far better than fighting and killing them. Dead peasants produce nothing to tax, no grain, no animals, no daughters to breed, no mares to steal.

Because we do not fear these people, stealth is not our priority; we need the knowledge of them, and the knowledge of the lay of the land...we move quickly enough not to be ambushed and move in devious directions so that our path cannot be predicted.

One pitiful group of hunters did see us...we counted their numbers and evaluated their weapons...but paltry. A handful of starving, ill-clad hunters, no horses, and weak bows and lances for weapons; adequate, I suppose, for small deer, but not for battling men, certainly not for standing up to our warriors.

A day's easy-and-wandering ride from the hunters was the camp of their women...mostly small females, guarding a clutch of breechclout-clothed children. One stood out, a tall, pale, golden-haired woman...she saw us not with her eyes...but with her mind.

My rider was disturbed...the Men of the Bull fear no opponent, save the warriors of the spirit world. This woman had some of that.

He uncharacteristically kicked me hard, to put distance between us and this woman. After an hour of cantering directly away from her, he turned me to skirt a wooded, hilly area... Eustathios relaxed...we found a shady spot near a small stream...not much but the water flowed from the hillside and was cold and clean. My rider was careful I did not overindulge in this treat. We had been drinking from muddy puddles for days...He opened the feed bag he carried behind him on the saddle and fed me some grain. He held my head, and I licked his face in appreciation, and he smiled. The witch was gone from his mind...but I felt a presence...a MAN who knew horses and he was in my thoughts!

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