Fear: The Horse and His Boy

Chapter 3

After they had travelled on for weeks and weeks past more bays and headlands and rivers and villages than Shasta or Alvina could remember, there came a moonlit night when they started their journey at evening, having slept during the day.

They had left the downs behind them and were crossing a wide plain with a forest about half a mile away on their left. The sea, hidden by low sand-hills, was about the same distance on their right.

They had jogged along for about an hour, sometimes trotting and sometimes walking, when Bree suddenly stopped.

"What's up?" Shasta asked.

"S-s-ssh!" said Bree, craning his neck round and twitching his ears. "Did you hear something? Listen."

"It sounds like another horse—between us and the wood," Alvina said after they had listened for about a minute.

"It is another horse," Bree said. "And that's what I don't like."

"Isn't it probably just a farmer riding home late?" Shasta said with a yawn.

"Don't tell me!" Bree said. "That's not a farmer's riding. Nor a farmer's horse either. Can't you tell by the sound? That's quality, that horse is. And it's being ridden by a real horseman. I tell you what it is, children. There's a Tarkaan under the edge of that wood. Not on his war horse—it's too light for that. On a fine blood mare, I should say."

"Well it's stopped now," Alvina said.

"Whatever it is," Shasta said.

"You're right," Bree said. "And why should he stop just when we do? I do believe there's someone shadowing us at last."

"What shall we do?" Alvina asked.

Shasta lowered his voice to a whisper. "Do you think he can see us as well as hear us?"

"Not in this light so long as we stay quite still," Bree answered. "But look! There's a cloud coming up. I'll wait till that gets over the moon. Then we'll get off to our right as quietly as we can, down to the shore. We can hide among the sandhills if the worst comes to the worst."

They waited till the cloud covered the moon and then, first at a walking pace and afterwards at a gentle trot, made for the shore.

The cloud was bigger and thicker than it had looked at first and soon the night grew very dark.

Just as Shasta was saying to Alvina "We must be nearly at those sandhills by now" the hearts of both children leaped into their mouths because an appalling noise had suddenly risen up out of the darkness ahead; a long snarling roar, melancholy and utterly savage.

Instantly Bree swerved round and began galloping inland again as fast as he could gallop.

"What is it?" Shasta gasped.

"Lions!" both Bree and Alvina said. Bree didn't check his pace or turn his head.

After that there was nothing but sheer galloping for some time. At last they splashed across a wide, shallow stream and Bree came to a stop on the far side. Shasta noticed that he was trembling and sweating all over.

"That water may have thrown the brute off our scent," Bree panted when he had partly got his breath again. "We can walk for a bit now."

As they walked Bree said, "Shasta, Alvina, I'm ashamed of myself. I'm just as frightened as a common, dumb Calormene horse. I am really. I don't feel like a Talking Horse at all. I don't mind swords and lances and arrows but I can't bear—those creatures. I think I'll trot for a bit."

About a minute later, however, he broke into a gallop again, and no wonder. For the roar broke out again, this time on their left from the direction of the forest.