'Don't you have a pony?' she asked.
The sobbing woman shook her head.
Talsy sighed and glanced at Chanter again. 'Wait here.' As she headed towards the stallion, he walked away. 'Wait, Chanter.'
The Mujar ignored her, and she ran after him and grabbed his tail. Still he continued to walk, dragging her along. She dug in her heels, but he towed her until she tripped over a rock. She slid on her chest, hanging onto his long tail.
'Chanter, please stop!'
The Mujar snorted, and she released his tail to lie despairing in his wake before she jumped up and ran after him again.
'Please, let's help her. She'll die alone in that hut!'
The stallion laid back his ears and kept walking. Talsy ran alongside and grabbed his mane, trying to stop him with brute force. He shook her off, and she floundered into a snowdrift. Spitting snow, she clambered out and ran after him.
'Please change. I want to talk to you.' She groaned when he ignored her. 'Damn it, Chanter, don't prove my father right!'
The Mujar stopped and turned to gaze at her with sad eyes, then raised a foreleg. She climbed onto his back, and he set off down the trail again. Talsy cursed, thumping him. He gave a little buck, bouncing her, and she clung to his mane. She looked back, thinking of the woman they had left to die with her starving children.
'She had children, you know. Helpless babies. You won't kill, but you won't help either, will you?'
The stallion laid back his ears and bucked again, forcing her into reluctant silence.
They had travelled about three miles down the trail when they found the dead hunter and his frozen kill. Chanter would have walked around them and continued on, but she slid from his back, twisting her ankle. She glared at him when he stopped a little further on and turned to look at her. Hobbling to the corpses, she found that the hunter had been gored terribly, and died struggling to drag his kill home to his family. Saddened by his noble, futile efforts, she looked at the Mujar.
'If we take this back to the house. The woman will have enough food to last the winter if she uses it sparingly.'
Chanter pawed the ground, arching his massive neck.
Talsy hobbled to him and fell to her knees. 'Chanter, please! Surely our clan bond means you'll help me if I ask? Will you help me to take this bog boar back to the house? Is that too much to ask?'
Chanter sighed twin clouds of steam, his head sagging, then walked past her and stood beside the bog boar carcass with a hangdog air. She hobbled after him and pried the rope from the dead hunter's frozen hands, tying it around the stallion's neck. The Mujar walked back along the trail, towing the frozen boar while Talsy hobbled in his wake.
By the time they reached the house, she gasped and her ankle throbbed. At the sound of their approach the door flew open and the woman ran out with a glad cry.
'I thought you'd left us to die!'
Talsy smiled. 'Sorry, I had trouble catching my horse. I found your husband down the trail, with this.' She indicated the carcass. 'It should feed you for the winter.'
'Thank you, child, and bless you!' The woman untied the rope from Chanter's neck, and the three children emerged to stare at the black stallion.
'You're very kind,' the woman chattered, 'I knew he was dead after two days had passed. He was a good provider, even to the end.' She smiled at Talsy as she pulled the rope free. 'You have a lovely horse, child, though he seems to be asleep.'
Chanter's eyes were closed and his head drooped. The woman patted his neck, and Talsy cringed inwardly.
'Beautiful animal,' the woman went on. 'Mind no one steals him. Why doesn't he open his eyes?'
The woman was far too curious, and Talsy said, 'I must be going; got a long journey ahead.'
The woman nodded, scrutinising Chanter. A child stumbled into his hind legs, and he opened his eyes. The woman shrieked and jumped back.
'Mujar!'
The children screamed and ran for the house as the woman bent to pick up a rock. 'Damned Mujar scum!' She hurled it at Chanter's head, but the stallion bolted into the woods.
Talsy grabbed her as she scooped up another stone. 'Stop it! He helped you!'
The woman turned to her. 'What are you doing with a Mujar? You stupid girl! Do you want to be damned forever?' She grabbed Talsy's arm. 'Stay here with us, for your own good!'
Talsy wrenched free. 'Leave me alone!'
Evading the woman's grasping hands, she hurried after Chanter as fast as her injured ankle would allow.
The woman's screams followed her. 'You'll be sorry! He'll break your heart! They have no feelings! They're not like us! He'll leave you to die in the wilderness! Mujar scum!'
Talsy sagged with relief when she found Chanter waiting further down the trail. He lifted a foreleg, and she scrambled onto his back, leaning forward to hug his neck.
'Thank you.'
At dusk, the stallion stopped beside a massive tree. She dismounted, giving a choked cry as her ankle sent a shaft of pain up her leg. Pulling off the bag, she took a deep breath. The world froze as the icy surge of Earthpower clamped down, forcing a moment of utter stillness before it vanished as swiftly as it had come.
Talsy threw her arms around Chanter and pressed her cheek to his chest. 'I'm sorry.'
He shifted, patting her shoulder. 'What for now?'
She released him and stepped back. 'For that dreadful woman, throwing rocks at you.'
He shrugged. 'That's okay. I've had worse things thrown at me.'
'Is that why you didn't want to help?'
'No.'
Talsy turned to unpack the bag. 'The same reason you'd have left me to die with a broken leg?'
'Yes.' Chanter settled on a rock. 'She hadn't earned my help, and nor would she have wanted it if she'd known what I was at the outset. Most Truemen hate Mujar.'
She looked up and sighed. 'I noticed. But you don't have to owe a person something to help them if they're in trouble. If you gave your help freely, people would like you far better.'
'Finish your chores, and I'll tell you a little about Mujar.'
When the tent was pitched and a pot of stew bubbled on the fire, she turned to him. 'Well?'
He glanced at her with a slight smile. 'It's not as interesting as you seem to think. Quite simply, it's forbidden for Mujar to help any who haven't earned it.'
Recalling her father's explanation, she asked, 'Why?'
'I can't tell you that. Mujar obey the laws and accept the consequences, which are sometimes unpleasant. Our ways have made Low – Truemen hate us, but they never really liked us in the first place. We're different, and your people dislike those who are not the same as them. When we first came amongst you, your people tried to enslave us. That's how they learnt of our powers, when they put iron chains on us. They thought us inferior, because we were not Truemen. Yet we don't hate them for throwing us into the Pits, or for reviling us.'
'Then it's true, you don't have any emotions.'
Chanter shook his head with a rueful smile. 'We do, but hatred is not common for us, nor does it consume us as it does you. Truemen expect us to hate them for what they've done to us, and sometimes we do feel it, but it's a fleeting thing. You're mortal, so death may take you at any time. Mujar have the gift of life for a hundred years. Thus, we're different, and our ways are different too.'
'I don't understand. My father forced you to help me by sticking that arrow in you, just as I did. Why help someone for pulling out the arrow they hurt you with in the first place?'
'We forgive the harm that's done to us, and are grateful for the end of the pain inflicted. By removing the arrow, you helped me, even though you were responsible for shooting me with it. You didn't have to pull it out, and had you not, I would have continued to suffer. More than that, I can't tell you. It's not always like that.'
