Then the brooding sky let down and in a moment I was drenched with the chill spillage of the heavens. A crack of thunder spooked Starshine, and she bolted for home, for-getting me, nor could I blame her. I fled for home myself, shivering with more than cold, but the reaching brambles tore at my skirts and the gusts buffeted me so harshly I could not see. I cried out, hoping to be heard at home, but this was futile in the fury of this storm. It was the trolls who barkened, and when I saw the grim apparitions I screamed with much-heightened force. But the gross monsters caught hold of me, all gape and callus, and I knew I was done for. I had not saved the life of my pet; I had sacrificed mine own.
A troll clutched me by the hair, dangling me above the ground. I was now too terrified to scream. I feared for death, assuredly; more I feared for that which would surely precede it, for the troll folk ever lust after human folk. Then came the beat of hooves, approaching. Now did I manage to cry out again, faintly, hoping Starshine was returning, perhaps ridden by my father. And the beat came nigh, and it was no horse I knew, but a great blue stallion with mane of purple and hooves like blue steel, and on it a manchild in blue—
(“The Blue Adept!” Stile exclaimed, interrupting her.
The Lady nodded soberly, and resumed her narrative.) I knew not who he was, then. I thought him a lad, or perhaps one of the Little Folk. I cried out to him, and he brandished a blue sword, and the trolls gibbered back into the shadows. The small youth came for me, and when the trolls saw what he sought, they let me go. I dropped to the ground, unhurt in body, and scrambled toward him. The lad put down a hand to help me mount behind him, and I did, and then the blue stallion leapt with such power the trolls scattered in fear and I near slid off his rear, but that I clung desperately to my rescuer. It seemed but a moment we were out of the wood, pounding toward our village homestead. The rain still fell;
I shivered with chill and my dress clung chafingly to me, but the boy seemed not affected. He brought me to mine own yard and halted the stallion without ever inquiring the way. I slid down, all wet and relieved and girlishly grateful. “Young man,” I addressed him, in my generosity granting him the benefit of a greater age than I perceived in him. “Thou’rt soaked. Pray come in to our warm hearth—“ But he shook his head politely in negation, speaking no word. He raised a little hand in parting, and suddenly was off into the storm. He had saved my honor and my life, yet dallied not for thanks.
I told my family of mine experience as I dried and warmed within our home before the merry fire. Of my foolish venture into the wood, the storm, the trolls, and of the boy on the great blue stallion who rescued me. I thought they would be pleased that I had been thus spared the consequence of my folly, but they were horrified.
“That is a creature of magic!” my father cried, turning pale.
“Nay, he is but a boy, inches shorter than I,” I protested. “Riding his father’s charger, hearing my cry—“
“Did he speak thus?”
I admitted reluctantly that the blue lad had spoken naught, and that was no good sign. Yet in no way had the stranger hurt me or even threatened me; he had rescued me from certain horror. My parents quelled their doubts, glad now to have me safe.
But the foal was still missing. Next day I went out again to search—but this time my father went with me, carrying a stout cudgel. I called for Snowflake, but found her not. It was instead the blue lad who answered, riding across the field. I saw by sunlight that the horse was not truly blue; it was his harness that had provided the cast. Except perhaps for the mane, that shone iridescently.
“What spook of evening goes abroad in the bright day?” I murmured gladly, teasing my father, for apparitions fear the sunlight. My father hailed the youth. “Art thou the lad who rescued my daughter yesterday?”
“I am,” the lad replied. And thereby dispelled another doubt, for few monsters are able to converse in the tongues of man.
“For that my deepest thanks,” my father quoth, relieved.
“Who art thou, and where is thy residence, that thou comest so conveniently at our need?”
“I was of the village of Bront, beyond the low midvalley hills,” the lad replied.
“That village was overrun by trolls a decade past!” my father cried.
“Aye. I alone escaped, for that the monsters overlooked me when they ravaged. Now I ride alone, my good horse my home.”
“But thou must have been but a baby then!” my father protested. ‘Trolls eat babies first—“
“I hid,” the lad said, frowning. “I saw my family eaten, yet I lacked the courage to go out from my hiding place and battle the trolls. I was a coward. The memory is harsh, and best forgotten.”
