A Falling Ember

Freedom

The fight begins.
Dune and River kick and squeal and rear, pawing the air with their hooves. Four of the two leggeds race over to our pen. The others are not far behind. I glance to my left, shooting a pointed look at a mare. Two stallions over there begin to kick at each other. Suddenly rearing horses are popping up in all of the pens. The two leggeds stop and look around, confused. One yells something into a small black box. More two leggeds race around the corner of a large structure.
"Everyone, don't panic!" I neigh, panicking. There are more two leggeds than I realized.
The wall to our pen opens.
"Wait!" I whinny to the nervous mass of horses behind me. "Hang on."
Three two leggeds sprint into the enclosure. No one is by the opening.
"Now!" I nicker.
We surge forward. The two leggeds stand there, wide eyed, as we rush past them. We are out! I look to my side.
More horses than I even knew existed are pouring out of their pens. The two leggeds begin to take action. They bark into their boxes and run to their large structure. I hear the roaring of their grey monsters that they ride in.
The foals! I can't believe that I forgot! They must be terrified.
"Keep going!" I neigh to the retreating backs of my herd. The entire dirt plain is covered in a blanket of wild horses. I turn back to the now empty row of chain link enclosures.
Scanning the area, a small shed on the outskirts catches my eye. As I gallop closer, I can hear a desperate whinnying from inside. One of the wooden walls creaks and splinters again and again.
I hesitate. What if it's Father? I rear and my hooves crunch through the wall. The early morning sun bathes the inside of the shed, including a big black horse.
Father.
He squints at me. His eyes are sunken and I can see his ribs.
"Father! Come on!" I urge. I reach out my head and nuzzle his cheek.
"How-" he begins. I cut him off with an excited whinny.
"We escaped! Everyone escaped! But I need your help finding the foals!" He trots through the hole in the wall.
"Those no good humans!" He mutters.
"Humans? You mean the two leggeds?" I ask. He nods. What a strange word! We lope over to the other pens. They are all empty. The only other place the foals could be is in the enormous structure that the humans seem to live in. We round the corner at the last pen. At the back of all of the cages is one large stone building. There are small openings in some of the walls.
Then three grey monsters zoom out from behind the building. My heart thumps against my chest. How will we ever stop them from re-capturing us?I turn and race after them. In a few seconds I sprint up to the back of one. The human in it doesn't notice as I struggle to keep up. Black smoke billows out of a pipe in the monster. I take a leap and slam my hooves onto the glass panel in the front. It shatters. The monster stops. I look the human in the eyes. Then I conk him on the top of his head with my heavy hoof. He groans and slumps forward. Not dead, but he won't get up for a while. One down, two to go. Out of the corner of my eyes a black flash sweeps by. Even when weak, father still amazes me. He quickly catches up with the other humans. They have almost reached the grassy plain that is at the base of the mountains. My homeland. I put on a burst of speed and stare straight ahead at the back of the monster closest to me. Once I get close enough, I jump onto the top. The world is rushing by. The human in the monster is gaping at me, horrified. The last thing he sees is my hoof. I hop to the ground, satisfied.
"You didn't kill them, did you?" Father asks.
"No, did you?" I say. He shakes his magnificent head. The monsters are still too close to the mountains for my liking, but they will have to do. I canter back to the building, about one hundred feet away from where we were. As I creep closer to one I the openings in the building, my heart is at my throat. I feel fathers warm breath on my back. I nose my way into the structure.
A glaring white light makes me snort and squint my eyes. I toss my head, and shake my mane out of my face. The room is enormous. On either side of the space are strange looking panels coming out of the walls. With a start, I realize that there are humans sitting on them! One is calling into a black slab he is holding to his ear. He looks distressed. The others are groaning and telling angrily.
"Of course now they run away! Right before the President declares them a protected species, and we didn't even get to sell them!" One growls at another.
"Whatever. We can still sell the babies," another replies. Father huffs.
"A protected species!" He nickers.
"You can speak human?" I ask incredulously.
"Yes." He answers, giving no further explanation.
"They said that we are now a protected species, which means that they won't bother us again, but they also said that they would try to sell our babies."
Well too bad, humans. I look further down the room.
At the far end of it is a small pen, leading outside into a grassy plot of land. There are the foals! Some are huddled in corners, whimpering. Others are staring out of the fence. I scan the enclosure for Patience. Finally I spot her. She and Buckle are both pressing their little muzzles out of the chain link wires.
I resist the urge to call to her.
"So, what's the plan?" I ask father. He whispers it to me. I am ready.
Father trots into the room. I duck behind the wall.
Inside I hear the whinnies of foals, the shouts from the humans, and father's neighs. He bursts out of the building, followed by about fifteen humans. As soon as father leads the group as far away as he can, I quickly go inside. There are no humans left in the room. I gallop over to the pen.
"Hey!" I call. "Foals! Whatever you do, follow me!" Patience whirls around. Her eyes are filled with awe. How's that for a big sister! The group of about twenty foals moves from the outside of the pen to the part inside.
"Mama?" a small palomino colt asks.
"You'll see her soon!" I promise him.
I crash my hooves down onto the three foot fence. It bends under my weight. I pound my hooves into it again and again. At long last both ends of it splinter off of the wall where it was attached. The foals crowd around me. Patience pushes through and nuzzles my face.
"I love you!" I whisper.
My ears turn back toward the doorway. The grunts and yells of the humans are getting closer. It's now or never.
"Follow!" I trumpet. Then I run.
We pour out of the building. As soon as father sees us he stops distracting the humans and races over to us. We must look like a strange sight. One large herd of baby horses being led by a black stallion and caboosed by a grey mare. We thunder across the plain. We run past the three monsters. We run past all of the cages that we were imprisoned in. Finally, free!
I turn and look back at the rows of pens  one last time. I grind to a halt.
Oh no.
Six or seven more monsters are roaring out from behind the building. These humans just don't give up.
I look back at the foals and father. They look at me with panicked eyes. I can't let them be caught again. A sacrifice must be made.
"Go!" I neigh defiantly at them.
"But-" father begins.
"No! I'll find a way! Just go!"
I turn and run toward the monsters. I hear the trampling of hooves behind me. They escaped.
I plow through the row of monsters and they whirl around to follow me. I gallop past the building and into the plain behind it.
My last glimpse was a human driving straight at me.
My last thought was freedom.
Then everything went black.