Wurring began to hop after her on three legs.
It was as though the coldness of winter gripped her, but perhaps he could manage to get through those boulders.
The other two fillies followed also. Ilinga nearly turned round to chase them away, but realized in time that this would only do harm. She knew that a stallion always had more than one mare, and as she felt Wurring near her, she also felt quite certain that she would only need to call him, as she had done ever since she was a foal, and he would be hers - perhaps he was hers forever, anyway.
She waited and listened before she stepped out of the last of the trees. She could hear something - a muffled scream of rage. Perhaps it would be wiser to wait for a moment or so, to wait till she knew what was happening. It had sounded like the iron-grey. Then she heard the sound of galloping, pounding hooves that seemed to be going away.
Quickly she led Wurring across the open grass. The two fillies followed. While they were out of the trees the snow fell gently on their backs, their necks. Ilinga felt flakes catching in the long, sensitive hairs of her ears - those hairs that had tingled when she rubbed her head against Wurring’s. For a moment she felt almost happy. Wurring was with her: she had found him. Accident, almost more than memory, had led her to the place where she knew he must be - and he was there, and now they were together.
Her feet touched the sand of the cave entrance... softly, softly... and there was no more snow falling on her back. Without thinking she went a little faster, hooves sinking into the sand. Not much further and they would be almost safe, but Wurring could not keep up.
She looked back, waited. Wurring was making a great effort. Even after this small distance and in the cold of falling snow, she could smell his sweat. He must get through the boulders. She touched his nose again, her own soft nose moving up his face, encouraging him. When she went on, she did not go so fast, always feeling for Wurring close behind her.
Yet she was so glad at his closeness that she could barely keep her hooves from dancing.
They were into the tunnel: the hard floor would be easier for Wurring. She felt his nose near her flank, but also felt the unevenness of his gait as he hopped on his three sound legs.
Still he kept up - and unfortunately those fillies were close behind him. It had not been in Ilinga’s mind that any other filly would be with them. Wurring had not turned them back, so how could she?
In fact Wurring was so torn between happiness at her arrival and anxiety as to how he could possibly escape on three legs, anxiety that the iron-grey should catch Ilinga too, that he had forgotten those fillies even though they had led him to the best grass near water, and often kept him company.
All the way along the smooth floor of the tunnel, he managed to keep up.
Then they came to the boulders. Ilinga climbed over the first few, and they were rough, cold, damp. Immediately the touch of Wurring’s nose at her flank was gone. Then she heard his hooves scrabbling on the rocks. He was beside her, gasping for breath. She led on and he followed her painfully over a few more boulders and then there were some that were higher, smoother.
Ilinga found herself sweating too, sweating with fear for Wurring and with knowledge of his pain - and also with desperation. She knew that he could go no further, even before he stopped. She knew he was exhausted by effort and pain. There was still a long way to go through the boulders. He would not be able to do it: she would have to lead him back.
Something told Wurring that she must not go back with them. Everything would be lost, he knew, if she were caught by the iron-grey. Gently he touched her nose, her ears. The softest nicker was the only sound he could allow himself to make... softly, so softly... to tell her that she must go, that he would come to her when his shoulder was mended, that she must go, or the iron-grey would take her.
Ilinga stood in misery. She could feel Wurring’s dejection and also his anxiety. He had to get out of the boulders and out of the cave before the iron-grey found him. Ilinga knew that it would be the end of Wurring if the iron-grey came into the cave and followed their scent into the tunnel while they were still there.
They must go, both of them, each their own way, and quickly. Ilinga was straining her ears for any sound of a horse entering the tunnel. She waited for a moment while Wurring followed the other two fillies over some of the boulders, and then with a feeling of utter desperation, she turned and went back the other way.
By the time she had got through all the boulders, she could hear no sound from the other direction. She was completely alone in the tunnel - and this time she did not have the feeling of going forward to meet Wurring. She had found him, only to have to let him go because he was far too badly hurt to escape with her.
She felt stupid with misery, but she had to hurry. There were other fears in her mind, too. She was not certain that she could get out of the hole into which she had fallen, below that cliff - and she was afraid of the amount of snow that was falling. Then, as she thought of the snow, she wondered what would happen to Wurring if very heavy snow came. She went faster and faster. She had to know if she could get out.
For a little while she forgot any caution: she even trotted along the smooth floor, and the tunnel echoed with the thud of her hooves, the sound filling her head, building up her fear. Fear seemed to beat off the dark walls and the dark roof. She wished the bats would return. Bats could make her nervous sometimes, but these bats were friendly and had helped her so far. Their company would be far better than the company of fear.
She tried to quieten her feet, quieten her own heartbeats, but she only went faster and faster. What stopped her at last was the sudden thought of the tumbled rocks that came quite a long way into the tunnel from the entrance. It would be fatal to race straight into them. She stopped just in time.
In only a few more steps she was feeling her way through the first rocks, and then she was climbing up and over them, finding it all much more difficult, going in this direction, than it had been coming down.
She knew, then, that Wurring could not possibly have got up to the entrance on three legs. At last even she came to one great boulder which she could not climb. She remembered slithering down it, when she came through: now it seemed completely impossible to surmount. She tried over and over again, each time slipping back, each time becoming more exhausted. At last she had to rest - and she had to think. If she could not get up it at all, then she had better get right out of the tunnel and away before daylight. She knew she was getting very hungry.
After she had rested, she tried to find some way around, nervously creeping into cracks, backing out when they started to get at all tight. She thought again of returning to the valley, but what if the iron-grey were already there, already following the scent of her in the cave and in the tunnel?
She must get up the rock. She felt a shelf to one side of it, and a pile-up of boulders. She began to climb - haunches straining... and she was up. She stood trembling, but she decided to go a little further on before stopping to rest, just in case that iron-grey came. Surely the big rock would stop him.
It was soon obvious that the worst of the boulders were over. The tunnel was rough, still, but she was sure of being able to make her way to the hole beneath the cliff. She stood, getting her breath. It was then that she heard a sound down the tunnel. All the sweat went cold on her back. Undoubtedly there was a roar of rage, echoing and rolling in the tunnel, magnified a hundred times, till it was terrifying.
She should have gone on, but all she could think of was Wurring. What was happening to Wurring? She waited. There was no other roar, no other sound for a while, and then she could hear a noise of hooves on rock, a rattling noise. After a while that sound stopped. Then there was a roar after roar of fury, deafening reverberations. The big rock must have stop- ped the iron-grey, at any rate temporarily. She had better go.
After only a few more yards she felt fresh air against her. She must be nearly there. She stumbled over some more rocks, slipped int
o a pool at the side of the creek. Then there were splashes of spray going all over her. She was there. Round one more rock, and ahead was the last climb. After the pitch darkness of the tunnel at night, it was easier for her to see, and the white rocks caught what light there was.
It did not take long to learn that the final climb, off the sloping bank of mud and up the undercut earth sides of the hole, was perhaps impossible.
After several attempts, each of which finished with her sliding down the wet earth on to the rocks, Ilinga knew she would have to wait till there was a little more light. The more she slid, the more difficult it would be to get up. She stood shivering in the cold spray, her back whitened by the snowflakes that came spiralling down into the hole.
The wind was getting up again. Presently she heard its eerie cry around the cliff above. This was just something else to add to her misery. Wurring was far behind her, now, possibly in danger from that bad-tempered stallion, and she still had to get out of this hole and then, all alone, find somewhere safe to spend the winter.
No horse likes to be alone. Ilinga was very afraid.
12: A Scent, a Fragrance
As soon as the iron-grey got near the cave again, the bats flew at him, but before they closed around him he got the faintest whiff of a scent that drove the thought of anything else - even bats - away.
Ilinga had been there, she had gone into the cave. He made a wild rush, shaking his head, trying to drive off those bats. Her scent clung even to the cold sand, even to the walls. There were other scents too - Wurring’s and those two fillies. He must, indeed, have seen three fillies with Wurring, under the trees.
He rushed on, following the scent, into the tunnel where he had never dared to go before. He hated bats and he hated to be so enclosed. Now there were bats everywhere, and dark walls pressing close, but he was certain that he was going to find Ilinga, and not even a cloud of bats would stop him.
As the tunnel narrowed he went slower. Even above the smell of the fluttering bats, he could smell the scent of Wurring and the two fillies very strongly. He stopped, his head slightly raised, trying to sort out the various scents. The fragrance of Ilinga was still there, but the other three must be very close.
Then he heard movements. He took a few careful steps forward, and the other sounds stopped. A few more steps, and he was sure he could hear breathing. He moved on through the tunnel, the feeling of being enclosed and the horror of the bats forgotten in the excitement of knowing Ilinga had at last come to his valley.
Something that was not a bat moved up against him. One of the fillies had been unable to stay still when he got really close. He brushed against her, for the tunnel was not very wide.
He brushed past the second one, and hurried past Wurring.
There was no one behind Wurring.
This was when the iron-grey roared out his rage, and for a moment the reverbrations of his own roar was terrifying even to himself.
The two fillies’ hooves clattered on the stone floor as they leapt away from the noise. Wurring was too lame and sore to jump away.
The iron-grey walked on. Ilinga’s scent was there but so much overlayed by that of the others that he knew that they must have left her further along - or she had gone on while they came back. He would lose her after all, if he did not hurry.
He started to trot, then all of a sudden he was among boulders, he was on his knees, his nose crashed into a large rock. As he got up, he screamed with fury... but there was Ilinga’s scent again.
He picked his way carefully over the heaps of rocks. The scent of the other three was still there. The rocks got higher and rougher. Then there was only Ilinga’s scent. She had gone on without them - and not long ago.
Where she had gone, he would go too. Now he would catch up with her.
Slipping and stumbling, climbing, falling, he followed where Ilinga had passed not very long before.
He came to the enormous rock. Here he could smell her as though she were still there. The scent was so strong that it called up the whole picture of her - every lovely line, the thrilling grace of her carriage, dark head held proudly, neck arched, and the mane that seemed to hold such unusual lights, the supple back, the curve of the quarters, the proud-held tail - all, all Ilinga was there in his mind, except the flesh and the gay and lovely spirit of her, the unobtainable and beautiful.
He began to try to find a way over this rock. It seemed to block the whole tunnel - but the scent was all around him. For a moment he wondered giddily if she were there, somewhere hidden. He explored around, putting his head into every crevice, following in with his shoulders if he fitted. Around, behind the rock, the scent was so strong that he followed unwisely far, and his shoulders became stuck. He wriggled and became more tightly wedged. He began to scream with fear, pushed with his feet and, scraping his shoulders, slid out backwards, still roaring.
For a while he attacked the rock without stopping to think out any way of climbing it. Then he began to try to work out how Ilinga must have got over it. Between each attempt he rested and felt around for footholds.
Ilinga had got up it somehow. He was so anxious to find her that he did not get bad-tempered over failing to climb the rock
— he just kept on trying. Hours passed, and if it had not been for Ilinga’s scent, he would have given up in fury, and rushed down to work off his bad temper by finishing Wurring. Even the bats must have decided he would not be able to get up because most of them left him alone.
Something told him that it must be almost morning. If Ilinga had a way of escaping out of this tunnel, he had better get up the rocks quickly, or he might never catch her.
This time he made a prodigious leap, struggled with all his strength - and made it.
Ilinga’s scent called him on and on over the boulders, but soon there was moving air, fresh air coming in. He crashed and scrambled over the rocks, hurrying stupidly. Suddenly he was falling and there was fire burning in his off knee. The leg was gripped between boulders, and it was twisting as he fell, twisting, twisting. He wrenched it out, and struggled to his feet, then he went madly on. Faint light was seeping into the tunnel. He must be coming to the end. He would find Ilinga very soon. With this air coming in, the scent did not hang so strongly.
He slithered into a pool, fell again, picked himself up, barely noticing that his leg was becoming less and less steady.
Ilinga had passed by these rocks beside him. He forced himself forward over the last boulders into the half light.
A brown filly with proud head held up listening - this was
what he would see. A brown fitly that he had won at last.
The hole was empty and there was only the slightest lingering fragrance.
He looked round wildly. There were her hoofmarks on the sloping slab of mud, lots of hoofmarks, signs of her having jumped. There were also the marks of scrabbling, struggling hind legs. These were being washed away by the water because they were just where the creek poured over the earth lip into the deep hole.
He stood staring at it all. He sprang out on to the sloping wedge of mud. Suddenly the pain in his knee gripped him. He tried to leap from this mud towards the creek, and crashed down right into the water and on to the rocks. For a moment the creek poured over him.
Flashes of pain went up from his knee, making him quite stupid. One last grain of sense remained. He must get back down the tunnel before he became too stiff.
He got up and began to work his way downwards again, his temper getting worse as the pain increased and as his feeling of frustration grew stronger.
When he reached the opening of the cave, the young horses had vanished, and the snow was falling, falling.
* * *
Ilinga had waited till daylight came, and the fear had been with her all through those hours that the iron-grey had followed her and would suddenly appear out of the dark tunnel.
When daylight came, she knew she had to get out, or wait till night time and go back to
the iron-grey’s valley. The sides of the hole looked hopelessly difficult.
She studied the sides, working out a possible way up. From the sloping lump of earth to a jutting-out rock might be done with a good jump. Then she would have to turn a little and make a tremendous leap for the one place where the side of the hole was broken down by the stream.
She balanced on the slippery earth, braced herself, and
sprang. She made the rock, but wavered back and forth, shoulder touching the cold earth, and then swaying away from it, straining to hold on with her hooves, straining to balance. Better to jump back than to fall. She landed on the wet lump of earth, slid, and managed to remain standing. She looked up. This time she would not try to stay on that rock: just jump on to it, turning in mid-air, land and jump again before falling.
She leapt, twisting, felt the rock under her hooves, and pushed off in another big spring, extending her forefeet at the last minute, to try to get a grip of the wet earth. Her hind feet slipped. She was struggling to get a toehold. Then there was something firm underneath her near hind hoof: her off hoof got a hold too. She heaved herself up.
She was there! Standing in the creek above the hole, wet with the freezing water, streaming with sweat from effort and fear. She was up, and in the light, in the snow, even touched by the wind.
Then she noticed the depth of the snow all around her. Here was the next danger to fear, snow, snow, snow. Snow was still falling steadily - and she was alone.
She stood there, in that deep cleft valley, below the cliff, below the tall mountain ash with their snow-spattered bark and their towering heads covered. She was gasping for breath, and with each gulp of cold air it was as if she tried to draw in strength and wisdom - for what should she do now? Where should she go?