Free The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett Page B

belonged.’
    ‘Got him taking a saddle and reins, though,’ Jon noted, ‘but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Back then, you were just the crazy tattooed Messenger who saved my boy. Now I hear tell you’re the ripping Deliverer!’
    ‘Ent,’ Arlen said. ‘I’m Arlen Bales out of Tibbet’s Brook, and I just got more sack than sense, sometimes.’
    ‘So you have a name, after all,’ a woman said, coming out from the ranch house. She was plain, but had the vigorous look of one used to hard work. She wore men’s clothes – high leather boots, breeches, and vest with a simple white blouse beneath. Her hair was brown and braided back much like Jon’s.
    ‘Don’t mind the boys,’ she told Renna. ‘Ent gonna talk about much else when there’s horseflesh about. I’m Glyn.’
    ‘Renna.’ Renna shook her hand, then clenched her fist as the woman embraced Arlen. Was it the magic that made her resent another woman touching him?
    ‘Good to see you again, Messenger. Can you stay for supper?’
    Arlen nodded, showing the first warm smile Renna had ever seen him give another person. ‘I’d like that.’
    ‘What brings you out this way?’ Jon asked. ‘Ent just for the shoeing, I’d guess.’
    Arlen nodded. ‘I need another horse. A filly I can breed with Dancer.’
    He looked at Renna and gave her a half smile. ‘Startin’ a family.’

    Mack Pasture, who lived up the road from Renna’s father’s farm, had been a horse breeder. Renna visited his ranch often when her mother was alive. It was a good deal smaller than Jon Stallion’s, but it worked much the same. After Dancer was brought to the farrier, Jon led the way towards a great fenced field where dozens of horses grazed under the watchful eyes of mounted ranch hands and barking dogs. On the way, they passed thick, heavy corrals, too high for even Twilight Dancer to jump in daylight, used for training and quarantine.
    In one of these, Renna saw a giant black stallion cantering by itself, watched by two nervous ranch hands with ready whips. She stopped short.
    ‘Ay, that’s old Rockslide,’ Jon said. ‘Dancer’s sire. Caught him on the plain with half a dozen mares and young Dancer. Call him Rockslide ’cause that’s what it felt we’d been through when we finally herded him into a corral.
    ‘Big bastard won’t do a lick of work, but he’ll kick holes in the barn all night long, you let him. Mean as a demon, and too smart by half. City breeders’ll tell you wild horses ent smart because they won’t follow commands, but don’t you believe ’em. Mustang got their own smarts. Enough to survive the naked night, which is more than most folk can say. Rockslide liked to throw anyone that tried to mount, then trample them into the yard. Retired him to the breeding pen when we got tired of bone setting.’
    Renna looked at the magnificent animal, and felt a profound sorrow.
You
were
a
king
out
on
the
plains, and here they have you running circles in a pen and mounting mares all day.
She had to suppress an urge to walk right up to the gate and set him free.
    ‘Good foaling this summer,’ Jon said as they made their way out onto the field. ‘Lots of fillies to choose from.’
    ‘Your choice, Ren,’ Arlen said. ‘Any one you want.’
    Renna looked out over the herd. At first glance, Jon’s horses looked little different from Mack’s, but as she drew closer and took in their scale, her eyes widened. The foals looked juvenile next to the mares, but even they were bigger than some of the stallions Mack kept. Jon had yearlings big enough for a grown man to ride, and there were no poor specimens. Demons had culled all but the strongest strains, and the remainder were giants, sleek and dark-coated.
    There were a number of strong-looking fillies, but Renna found her eyes drawn instead to a grown mare who stood apart from the herd. The mare had a blotchy coat of brown and black, and stood a hand taller than the others. She had a surly look about her,