Sabba stumbled over his own hooves, jerking his head up to avoid falling. The wound on his neck throbbed, tore again at the sudden movement. His body felt hot and swollen, dull at the edges as if he were somehow fading, burning away a little at a time until there’d be nothing left of him.

He walked on because there was nothing else to do. An entire day had passed since he’d last found water, and the dry tightening of his throat only accentuated the heat which seemed to come both from the sun above and from some deep place inside himself.

Burning.

Once, he’d stumbled and staggered until he’d been so turned around that he retraced his own steps for a long while. When he’d finally turned around again, it had felt almost as if he tracked another horse, as if he was not quite so alone in the wretched trench. He fantasized about it, imagining each of his previous hoof prints as the mark of a stranger.

One more step and he’d see them in the distance. One call from his parched throat and the herd he’d never met would come for him. When he reached the place he’d been turned around, however, the ground returned to its lonely hard pan. Sabba sagged, shivering beneath his speckled hide, and shuffled forward.

There is no one else.

In truth, the only proof he had of other horses were his dam’s words. He’d never seen one, never known anything but the mare and the wide plain. For all he knew they’d been the only two equines in the entire world. If she fell to the raptors, and Sabba had long since decided she had, he could easily be the only horse in existence.

But not for long. As the heat in his body built and his steps became even more erratic, Sabba’s certainty grew that he’d been bitten by the snake. He was poisoned, certainly, and he could think of no other culprit on which to pin the blame. His dam had warned him of venomous serpents. She’d advised caution when dealing with anything scaled, prepared him as best she could in the short time they’d had together. Yet the first thing he’d encountered on his own had surely done him in.

He’d let his anger overtake his reason and vowed never to forget the lesson. Considering he likely had only hours to live, this seemed like a perfectly reasonable promise.

He stumbled again, scowling through a sudden haze at the rock which must have leapt into his path. Bending his body into a curve, Sabba pranced around it. The jerking, exaggerated movements of his legs carryied him into a clump of nearby brush which scratched at his sensitive pelt.

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Heat. Everything was heat and pain.

He cried out, singing his tiny, Wind Singer chorus to a still and unflinching sky. There was no fairness in it, in giving life only to seize it back again. There was no justice in leaving a colt alone to suffer. He called again, sides heaving, forcing his fury into the song. His despair and frustration.

When the echo died, his belly rumbled. His nostrils flared, and his tiny ears swiveled instinctively. He imagined his dam had heard his call, that she galloped, even now, for the rim of the trench.

But the raptors had killed her in the end. The mare was gone, and Sabba would die alone. He should have given up already, lain down upon the crusty ground and simply let it happen.

The wind stirred gently, offering no relief to the heat but bringing a soft sound to one twitching ear. Sabba aimed himself in its direction, listening without hope as the air shifted. He imagined he heard a distant whicker, the steady thump of approaching hooves. Squinting down the trench that never ended, Sabba thought he saw her. A dark shape, round in the belly, bounding in his direction.

Silly. The fever had cooked his mind. Sabba shook his head, and the trench danced wildly. The shape in the distance flickered in and out of view as his eyes teared, shut, opened again. Speckled. A hide like his painted by the angry sun. His nostrils quivered and a pathetic, squealing snort emerged.

He took a step and faltered, leaning hard to one side and then the other as his legs refused to answer even one more order from his fevered brain. He tried to cry out, to call, “Mother,” but the sound was a faint croak from a sere throat.

Suddenly, he knew he hadn’t imagined her. He was dying, and his mother had come from beyond death to retrieve him. Finally, when he could go no farther, she had found him.

As if in proof, the call came again, trumpeting in a mare’s voice. An odd sound, not instantly familiar. Had he already forgotten the sound of her? Should he not be able to recognize his own dam? To smell her long before her gallop brought her clearly into focus?

The mare called again, and Sabba squinted, peered through watery eyes and could make out only speckles. Light and shadow. A hide so like his own he threw off his musing and rallied the last of his strength. Kicking his legs forward, the colt staggered to meet death. Half blind and fully resigned, Sabba trotted toward the spotted shape of the mare, certain it was his mother, certain he was already beyond hope.

It wouldn’t matter, so long as he was not alone. He would perish willingly if he could do so at the side of his dam. And so he broke into a wild canter, weaving as he went. Singing. All his terror and his pain and his loneliness rattled free in a plaintive call as he raced to meet her.

And he was so blinded by it, so dulled with fever and longing, that he never noticed the second shape bobbing along at the mare’s flank.