Firebrand by Gillian Philip

its freedom.’
    ‘Like a binding,’ I said.
    Conal suppressed his laughter. ‘Not unlike it. But different. It’s a horse, for gods’ sake.’
    I glanced at him and grinned, but the horse can’t have liked me turning away from it. It gave an exasperated snort, shook its head, so that I looked back. Gently it tilted its head. It looked a bit like an invitation.
    ‘Find its mind, that’s the thing,’ said Conal. ‘Find its mind, stay there, stay on.’
    ‘Stay on?’
    ‘You have to get on it, of course.’
    I swallowed hard. ‘I have to get on it.’ I knew how flat my voice sounded, and I was ashamed of myself. What had I expected? To bridle a water-horse and lead it back tame to a stall in the dun? I found Conal’s eyes again.
    He smiled, swung the bridle lightly at his side. ‘There’s nothing like it,’ he said.
    * * *
    Smooth skin under my palm. The opalescent shine of its hide as I drew my hand across its neck and the hairs flattened, then sprang back. Warm blowing breath on my neck, the tickle of its muzzle as it nipped gently at my cropped hair. The cry of a night bird.
    Its heartbeat beneath my hand as I slid my hand down its shoulder to rest against its chest. The ripple of muscle, the quiver of flesh as I touched its withers. Its heartbeat, fast and strong. Another heartbeat echoing. Mine.
    Its warmth, leaning into me. My weight shifting, the sudden light spring and scramble, and then, for a moment, my arms around its powerful neck, loving the sheer strength and beauty of it.
    And then insanity.
    Nothing else on earth could have moved so fast. Night air swamped my lungs as it bolted forward, and I looped my fingers tightly through its silky mane, holding on in the sheer fear of death. I made myself pant out my breath, breathe in again. Impossibly powerful beneath me, the horse pelted for the hillside on the dark north shore of the black loch. If my heart beat any harder my chest would explode. Find its mind? I could barely find my own.
    The angle of the slope seemed to slow it hardly at all. Its strong forelegs ate up the hillside like a racetrack, and I could feel the strength of its haunches driving us forward. Gods, even if I died tonight I wouldn’t have missed this, not for anything.
    When the creature reached the crest of the hill, I saw the whole moor and the hills spread out beneath me, the jagged broken curve of the earth at the horizon. I couldn’t get off the horse. I didn’t want to. Plunging, swerving, it swivelled its head to enjoy my awe and my terror. Its jaws opened in a knowing grin, and the canines flashed again. And then, impossibly, it sprang down the precipitous slope, straight for the dark water and its lair.
    ~
Murlainn!
    Conal’s cry came into my head, crystal clear as the night. An unfamiliar name, but I knew it, I’d always known it. The joy of recognition drove the panic straight from my head, and instead of fighting the horse I clamped my heels into its sides and drove it on.
    I felt its utter surprise, its brief jolting hesitation.Then it was flying down the hill again and I was flying with it, both of us plummeting like a hawk towards oblivion. Its hooves scattered stones and earth and the scree rolled, but it kept its footing. For a wild moment I thought it had left the slithering, treacherous ground, that it was airborne. Tightening my grip on its mane I leaned forward to press my cheek to its muscled neck, and let my mind go. And in that instant I found the beast’s.
    I found it. I knew it. I recognised it. So much hunger, so much violence. Such inchoate longing.
I know you
.
    Its hooves slammed into the solid lochside ground and it lunged towards the silver line of the water, but I pressed my mind into the horse’s, turned it, slowly turned it. We swerved just as we reached the pebbled shore. It struck the stones like Raineach’s hammer on raw iron, noisy with sparks. Then we were back on the moor, and its hooves were dull thunder. I loved it. Its heart was