Excerpt…

Lyons and environs, late fall, 1325

North Wind had had a trying few months. He had been force marched over the Alps from Milano to Lyon with no chance to stretch his legs in a race. In Lyon he had been imprisoned on a farm, where, to add insult to injury, when a mare came into season no one had availed themselves of his superior services. His human had gone away and left him for an unconscionable amount of time, the longest they had been separated since leaving Cambaluc. Behind a fence even he couldn’t break down and it wasn’t for lack of trying.

He’d just got her back, and now she was screaming. He’d just gotten her back and someone or something was trying to hurt her. Enough.

Before Florian or the spearmen or the boys or Ambroise himself could react, North Wind yanked up his picket, which had been knocked only loosely into the ground to begin with, and sounded a thunderous challenge.

Anyone who had ever seen him race would have recognized the standing start that was his signature. One moment he was standing still, looking half asleep, and the next he was charging forward at full speed. He roared a challenge that could have been heard back in Lyon, terrifying the rest of the horses, theirs and Ambroise’s alike.

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Dana sez–

I’ll say it one more time:

Do not. piss off. the horse.

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