Demeron: A Horse's Tale (The Disinherited Prince Series) Read online

  Demeron: A Horse’s Tale

  A Disinherited Prince Novella

  By

  Guy Antibes

  Demeron: A Horse’s Tale

  Copyright ©2017 Guy Antibes. All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the permission of the author.

  ~

  This is a work of fiction. There are no real locations used in the book, the people, settings and specific places are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to actual persons, locations, or places are purely coincidental.

  Published by CasiePress LLC in Salt Lake City, UT, March, 2017.

  www.casiepress.com

  Cover & Book Design: Kenneth Cassell

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ~

  I ran into a problem when I finished A Sip of Magic. Demeron, Pol Cissert’s Shinkyan stallion, had run off. There really was a story there, and I wanted to tell it, but the rest of the Disinherited Prince books are all in Pol’s point of view. Inserting Demeron’s Story just wouldn’t work, in my humble estimation. So I decided to write a side story.

  Demeron: A Horse’s Tale is a novella. Novellas are short novels. This one is about sixty pages in print or about 20,000 words. Rather than insert it at the back of a book, I am publishing this as a standalone story.

  So readers new to the Disinherited Prince Series aren’t left in the dark, I wrote a brief introduction to the story. Ideally, this novella is to be read some time after Book Three, A Sip of Magic, but before Book Five, The Emperor’s Pet.

  A word on the title. I came up with the title A Horses Tale independently of anyone else. I looked the title up on the internet and found that Mark Twain wrote the original A Horse’s Tale. My grandfather always boasted that Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens, was related to us, somehow. There are a string of Clemenses in my family history, but I’ve never looked to see if Mark Twain is connected to me or not. I added Demeron’s name to the title to make it my own.

  I hope you enjoy this little sidetrack adventure. As always, thanks to Judy and Ken in making this book work and to my wife, Bev, for putting another set of eyes on the manuscript.

  — Guy Antibes

  In the world of Phairoon

  Map of Southeastern Eastril

  (Contact Guy for a clearer map at www.guyantibes.com)

  Demeron: A Horse’s Tale

  A Disinherited Prince Novella

  Introduction to The Disinherited Prince Series

  Poldon Fairfield grows up a prince in the country of North Salvan in the Baccusol Empire. The Baccusol Empire shares the continent of Eastril with a reclusive race called the Shinkyans who live in their own country. The Shinkyans have an extraordinary breed of horses who have the ability to speak to humans with magical ability. Pol, at the end of the first book in the Disinherited Prince Series, gains possession of Demeron, a Shinkyan horse. To keep it, he receives a special dispensation from the Emperor even though Shinkyan horses are not to be sold to Imperial citizens by treaty.

  Pol is a magical prodigy and has his own adventures. The one pertinent to this story is where he was been asked to infiltrate a monastery. (This story takes place contemporaneously with A Sip of Magic, Book Three in the series.) Pol must leave Demeron in the care of his companions who are secretly staying outside the monastery, waiting for Pol’s reports. It is here where Demeron begins his story.

  Demeron: A Horse’s Tale

  Demeron, a Shinkyan stallion, heard horses moving up toward the camp he shared with two humans, Valiso Gasibli and Darrol Netherfield. His nose told him that men crept up in advance of their mounts.

  If only his bonded human, Pol, remained with his two companions. Then he could have spoken to Pol, and Pol could have warned them. Demeron whinnied instead. He felt a wave of magic that stopped him. Demeron shook his mane while he struggled to free his legs from the spell, but before he did, the invaders bundled up Valiso and Darrol and left the camp.

  His friends were gone. Demeron looked at the trail, easy enough to follow, but the spell made him pause. He didn’t want to be caught in a strange human’s web again.

  He vaguely remembered being spelled when he was taken from Shinkya for Pol’s brother, King Landon of Listya. The horse stealers, for that was what they were, freely used their whips on him. He still shuddered at the treatment.

  He had to find Pol and tell him that his friends had been abducted. Demeron gave one last, lingering look down the trail. He couldn’t bring himself to follow Valiso and Darrol, so he headed to the monastery to tell Pol what had happened to his friends.

  The trail that he used was easy enough to see in the moonlit night. He ignored the odd branch that reminded him where the trail wasn’t, and soon he approached the walls of the monastery.

  Demeron could usually find Pol easily by thinking of him, if he was close enough. He tried the courtyard, knowing that there weren’t many places inside the monastery that were within the range of their mental communication. Pol had to have slept soundly. He waited patiently until dawn. The monks usually practiced with their weapons early, now that they were going to war, but this time he didn’t hear a thing. Maybe they were outside on the practice field.

  He kept within the thick woods, waiting and watching, but no one walked out to the empty space beyond the monastery walls. Demeron couldn’t hear any of the usual hubbub of the monks. He poked his head from behind a tree and saw the open gate leading from the monastery to the field.

  This was a decidedly odd situation, and Demeron couldn’t wait any longer. Pol was good at finding trails, but Demeron didn’t know if Pol would be able to find his friends so long after they were taken. He walked along the edge of the open space to the gate. He pushed with his nose to open it wider.

  No monks. He walked into a deserted monastery. Demeron had never been in such an empty place before. Not a single person walked the grounds. Pol had left him.

  Demeron stood in the middle of a large courtyard and smelled a stable. When he found it, there were no horses and no tack. He took advantage of some sweet-smelling hay and helped himself to what was left behind. He found a battered bucket of oats, and that was a treat.

  After drinking from a half-filled trough, he walked back out to the main courtyard and looked at the closed main gate, still not seeing a single soul. Pol always looked at tracks on the ground, so Demeron did the same. What did his friend see? He stared at the ground and looked at the horse hooves, human footprints, and cart tracks, all heading out the main door.

  The monks had left their home. A pall of uneasiness fell on Demeron. He couldn’t remember such a feeling before. He had always been around other horses or humans but now he felt isolated.

  Nothing could be gained staying in a human habitation. Once he had eaten all the hay, all the monastery could give him was a bit of protection, not that Demeron felt the need for such a thing. He had spent lots of time on the road with Pol.

  Curiosity drove him to walk around the monastery grounds, wondering if anything left behind would help him choose what to do. Demeron had to decide where he would go and what he would do. The uneasy feeling became stronger, and suddenly he felt a little fear.

  He hadn’t had many occasions to be afraid in his short life. He never liked traveling over water, and he had had to calm his own fears when he made the boat trip from Deftnis Isle to the town of Mancus on the coast, but Demeron would rather be standing next to Pol, crossing the sea that separated the two places, than standing on dry land, alone in the deserted monastery far, far away from Deftnis.

  A cold wind blew and swirled the dust. Demeron started when he recognized the s
cent of humans not far away. He refused to be caught within human-made walls and trotted out of the monastery. He ran through the practice field to take refuge in the woods.

  He turned and stood among the trees, while two humans, Shinkyan humans from his homeland, walked hesitantly onto the practice field. They soon disappeared through the same gate that Demeron had exited, but they had tied their mounts to trees not far away.

  He slowly walked towards them, keeping out of sight, should they return.

  “What happened?” one of the horses said to Demeron.

  Neither of these horses, both mares, were true Shinkyan horses, so he wouldn’t be able to find out much from them. They couldn’t communicate very effectively with their riders, so Demeron didn’t have to worry about being discovered.

  “The humans are gone,” Demeron said.

  “No humans? The Sister is gone?”

  Demeron didn’t know what kind of sister the horse meant. “Sister?”

  “Royal Sister lives with humans to learn.”

  So the Shinkyans had a spy in the monastery, too. They must be worried about the monk’s army, just like Valiso and Pol were, Demeron thought.

  “Your sister is gone,” Demeron said. “No one lives there right now.”

  The horses nodded.

  “How do I leave the mountains?” Demeron said. He didn’t want to go into South Salvan where an army was roaming around. To him, an army meant a very large group of humans who had no desire to treat other humans and animals, including horses, well. Not well, at all.

  “There is a trail you can take, if you head up into the mountains. Look for a low spot on the highest ridge. Our humans call it a saddle.”

  The horses were smarter than Demeron thought, if they understood some human terms. Demeron could read human writing.

  “What is on the other side of the mountains?” Demeron asked.

  Both of them sounded excited when they said ‘Shinkya” simultaneously. Demeron didn’t remember much of his homeland and didn’t share in their excitement, but he didn’t know where else to go.

  “I will go to Shinkya.” Demeron nodded his thanks and took off through the woods. He wanted to return to the camp to see if Pol had returned, but he didn’t want to be caught in a spell, either, if the nasty humans were there.

  A stream provided a cool drink in the woods. He found a trail that humans might use and headed up towards the peaks above him.

  Except for low-hanging branches that would impede his progress, the trek wasn’t difficult for Demeron. He didn’t encounter any other humans and didn’t smell any horses in the mountains, not that he expected free horses roaming around. At least there were meadows with plenty of grass and streams.

  He slept far from the trail that night, but woke to an angry smell. Demeron opened his eyes to find three wolves standing at the edge of the meadow. He rose to stand.

  “Can you understand me?” Demeron said.

  He didn’t expect a reply. Few animals could communicate with Demeron.

  The biggest of the wolves snarled at him.

  Demeron whinnied and pawed at the ground. He raised up on his two hind feet and let his forelegs crash to the earth. The wolf backed away to stand between his companions.

  They reminded him of groups of humans that he had fought before with Pol. Demeron tried to remember what Pol had done. The wolves were getting ready to separate, and they reminded Demeron that Pol tried to separate his enemies as he fought.

  He would have to try the same tactic. These wolves wanted to fight. He knew what they wanted, horseflesh, and Demeron wouldn’t let them taste his.

  He couldn’t be the defender. The wolves would rip his flesh if he did that. His own mouth pulled back, and he whinnied at them again. That was a pure reaction that Demeron had no control over. He began to paw at the ground again and then attacked!

  He went after the smallest wolf. It was fast and nipped at him, but Demeron had fought humans with his hooves before, and he crushed the wolf between his two forelegs. He felt pain in his flank as the big wolf jumped on his hindquarters and bit into his flesh.

  Demeron ran and bucked, but the wolf held on. That will never do, Demeron thought. He ran towards a tree and slammed his hindquarters against it.

  The wolf howled as it relaxed its bite, and fell to the ground. Demeron rose up to the smash its head, but he felt a sharp pain and realized the last wolf had jumped up on his back and was biting into his neck. Demeron tried the same tactic, but the wolf wasn’t on his side like the last.

  He felt a warm trickle down his foreleg. Demeron began to prance and then threw himself this way and that. He rose up on his two feet and then pounded the ground. Then he rolled over on the wolf, and heard the animal whimper.

  Demeron rolled over again and again, until the wolf disengaged. He didn’t want these brigands following him all the way to Shinkya, so he ended their lives as he had the first.

  The battle had worn him out. He felt nagging pain where the wolves had bitten into him, so he followed the stream to a small pond where he rolled over and washed the blood from his coat. He wanted to rest in the meadow, but if there were other wolves around, the fight might have lured them to the spot.

  He found the trail again and headed up towards the mountains. The forage began to thin, but Demeron could no longer see the peaks, now that he was so close. He continued his ascent until he saw a thin trail of smoke just above the trees ahead. More humans.

  If they were camped, maybe he could learn something from them as they talked. He approached, but smelled a Shinkyan human in the woods before the camp. Demeron didn’t want to be discovered, so he slipped past the human and approached from a different direction. He lay down in a thicket and stayed still so he could hear.

  The humans didn’t speak the same language that Pol did, but it seemed familiar. As he continued to listen, the words became more familiar. He had learned a bit of Shinkyan before he had been stolen and sold to Pol’s brother.

  He still didn’t understand all they said, but he gathered that they were on their way to Tishiko, wherever that was. They talked about what it would be like to fight an army of humans that did exactly what their commanders said. Demeron thought that all armies did that, and he didn’t see why the Shinkyans would be alarmed by a force of other humans.

  He realized that he didn’t know enough about the situation and maybe didn’t know enough about humans. He waited for dark and left them eating a cooked dinner. The smell made Demeron a little queasy, as cooked meat always did.

  He waited for the man in the woods to return, and then Demeron traveled through the night over a wide, flat part of the trail and descended down the other side of the mountain. He snorted as he stopped for the night and rested at the edge of another meadow. This time he wouldn’t be in the middle of the meadow as enticement for wolves.

  ~

  Demeron felt an increase in the air’s temperature. He noticed that the trees weren’t as close, and the brush seemed to grow little spikes on this side of the mountain. He wondered if he had done the right thing heading west rather than east.

  He stopped at a stream and bent his head down to drink.

  “What are you doing here?” That was a question from another horse, a quickened Shinkyan horse, just like him.

  “I need to travel to Deftnis Monastery,” Demeron said. “Do you know where it is?”

  A brown horse walked from the shadows out of a copse of trees. He looked worn, with a shaggy, scratched coat.

  “How would I know such a thing?” the horse said. “Is it in Shinkya? It doesn’t sound like a Shinkyan name.”

  Demeron nearly shook his head as if he were communicating with a human. He smiled inside. “No, it is in the Dukedoms, to the west, I think.”

  “No. Has your master been killed, or have you run away like me?”

  “Run away? Why would you do that?”

  “My mistress didn’t treat me well. She tried to punish me by not feeding me, but what
a stupid human. Don’t they know that there is feed just about everywhere? It doesn’t taste as good as grain, but grass keeps us alive. I told her so.”

  “And what did she do?”

  “Shrugged, and said ‘Starve’. That’s when I ran away. I’ve been gone for a long time. At least three seasons.”

  Demeron didn’t know how to deal with a runaway horse, but as he looked at the horse take a drink for himself, Demeron realized that he had run away, too, or better stated, his friend, since he didn’t count Pol as a Master, had run away from him.

  “How does one live as a runaway?” Demeron asked.

  The horse nodded. “In the Northeast there are herds of Shinkyan horses. I will join with them when I am tired of being in the mountains. You can join me. We can start our own herd once we steal some mares. You would do better than I in a fight, but I’ll be there when you need help.”

  “Fight other horses? Why? I’ve been content living in a stable.”

  “You’ll find it’s a hard life by yourself. I’m not quite ready to find a herd, but I’m close. Horses aren’t meant to live alone.”

  Demeron could sense the wisdom in that, but he had no desire to run around with a herd of horses. He wanted to get back to Deftnis, but he needed to find the way.

  “I will travel to Tishiko to find the way. I wish you well. Do you have a name?”

  “Seeker,” the horse said.

  Demeron snorted. “You’re not the kind of Seeker that I know about in the Empire. My human name is Demeron.”

  “You’re from the Empire? I’ve never heard of such a thing, but then I haven’t heard of much. My Mistress kept me at her ranch with her common horses. It wasn’t stimulating.”

  “I guess not,” Demeron said. “Perhaps our paths will cross again.”