No, Maslakhat and the black mare did not know each other, and he doubts her reaction would have been much different if they had. He watches her quake with rage and flicks his ears backwards with disdain, realizing that almost nothing he said or could say would make a single shred of difference to her. She could not be placated by proverbs or his veiled suggestion that they might have something in common. The dark mare picks up her front hoof and flails it at him, spitting her venomous orders to get out. Maslakhat backs away again, arching his neck to regard her with narrow eyes and lashing his tail in annoyance at her relentless fury.

It was time for a bluff—an utterance that might make the black mare continue feeling as unsettled as she did at this very moment, standing opposite a horse like Maslakhat. The Akhal-Teke lunges forward into an explosive gallop quite suddenly, brushing by the two with a spray of sand as he puts himself atop a small dune still within earshot.

“Ben bunu gizleme ne olduğunu biliyoruz,” he calls down to her, each syllable annunciated with sharpness like the spines of cacti. He had a strong feeling he was right, despite not knowing the specifics of just what exactly. And there was no doubt in his mind that he would indeed find out.

With the sun falling fast behind him, flooding the desert sky with a blood-red light, Maslakhat rears up and springs forward into another bursting gallop away from the pair of horses he was certain he would see again.


MASLAKHAT
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