The Dark Horse Read Online Free Page B

shoulder.
    “But Sigurd . . . ,” she began.
    “Sigurd’s nearly a man now. He can look after himself. And if he can’t, well, perhaps it’s for the best if he doesn’t come back!”
    “That’s not fair!” cried Mouse, but Olaf stormed out of the broch.
    “He doesn’t mean it,” said Freya, “he doesn’t mean it. He loves Sigurd.”
    Mouse paused.
    They were too alike, Olaf and Sigurd, father and son, that was the trouble, said Freya. Both stubborn and proud.
    “I know Olaf loves him,” Mouse said after a while. “
I
know, but Sigurd doesn’t. That’s why he’s gone, isn’t it?”

11

    In those first months after she came, we began to learn about Mouse.
    I look back now after many years. Horn’s plan to saddle my family with a useless, dumb foundling backfired. We didn’t fully realize it, but we had in our midst a creature with unheard-of powers. She—Mouse, I mean—was not yet fully in control of her abilities. It appeared that she was learning all the time what she could do.
    She sensed things through animals. I have thought about this often, and this is the best way I can explain it. She could use animals, nearby animals, as a channel through which she could feel and see. I still don’t know whether she actually saw what the animal saw, or whether she just knew what it was seeing. It doesn’t really matter either way. It was an immense power, and unknown, and so? And so, and so, and so, it scared people.
    We could have made so much more use of Mouse. Had her help us. But Horn sensed that people were wary of her, and he fueled their fear.
    Once upon a time.
    This story will show you what I mean.
    Once upon a time the fishermen were returning from the sea, and it had been a bad catch. This was about the time that things started to get difficult for the Storn. When food really started to be hard to come by. When the trading ships were still coming but their stories were full of gloom.
    And it was before we started to think about the Dark Horse.
    So the fishermen were returning, and it had been a bad catch.
    There was a solemn mood amongst those of us milling about on the grass before the great broch. Solemn, but how could we know then how much worse it was going to get?
    Mouse was watching. She was next to me.
    “Why did they go north?” she said. “The fish are over there.”
    She pointed to the south of our bay.
    “They’re only just out to sea,” she said.
    I looked at her without saying anything, but she had been overheard.
    “Hey, Horn,” shouted Grinling. “This girl says the fish are that way!”
    Horn looked up from where he was talking with one or two men.
    “Then let her useless father go and catch them all!” he bawled.
    Father had just beached a boat. He heard what Horn said. For a moment he hesitated, looking at Mouse, looking at Horn, who stared back steadily, aware of everyone watching him.
    Something clicked in Father. He was stubborn sometimes. He looked just once more at Mouse, who sat next to me smiling, and then single-handed he dragged the boat back down to the shore.
    I hesitated for a while, then ran to help him.
    “Go away, Sigurd,” he said as I put my hand on the boat.
    “You can’t do it by yourself,” I protested.
    He paused. “No need for both of us to make fools of ourselves.”
    I could tell, though, from the tone of his voice, that he had changed his mind. I climbed aboard, and within seconds we had a sail up that carried us just a couple of hundred yards toward the south of the bay.
    Father was quiet.
    “Are we really going to try?” I asked.
    He held up his hand.
    “Cast the nets, Siggy,” he said. And a smile grew over his bearded face.
    He had sensed the darkness of a huge shoal of fish right under the boat.
    When we returned, boat laden with fish, Father and I expected a heroes’ welcome, but as we walked up to the broch the eyes of the villagers were filled with dread, not wonder.
    “It’s not natural,” someone muttered.
    Father took