“What is your name?” Joshua
asked after a moment.
“Krieg,” the war horse answered.
“What does it mean, Krieg?”
“It means ‘war’. Just ‘war’. I
was bred for the war, born during the war and trained for battle.
“Is that where all your scars
come from?” Joshua asked.
The horse looked toward the dark
horizon, lost in his thoughts.
“I have seen death and too much
of it. On the battlefields of Toloose where men fought men for land that
belonged to neither. For riches that held no value other than a handful of sand
that amounted to nothing. I saw blood there that ran like crimson rivers across
the charred soil. It spilled from brothers and fathers and sons, from big
hearts and small ones and the blood of each flowed into the others’ and in
death they became one once again and they forgot why it was they had fought.”
He turned toward Joshua and
the Wolf. “I just want peace. I do not wish to fight for my life anymore. I’m
too old. Too tired. Soon. Soon, I will follow my fathers’ path into the great
vast grasslands where the sun never sets and the water is plenty, and where
there is peace for all living things. Until then, I am in your debt, Joshua. In
both of yours."
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