Conquistador had learned to approach his brother with caution.
Something about the roan stallion had changed between his sudden departure and his even more abrupt return. Rade had never been warm - compassion wasn't in his nature - but now the Lagoon's leader was as cold and implacable as the current season. This is the face the rest of the world sees, the younger stallion realized as he met his half-sibling's empty yellow eyes. This is not the man who loved me as a brother, but the monster who has made me a prisoner. His own expression hardened, and Conquistador stood beside the Boss in sullen silence. He would not ask Rade where he had been, would not comb the tangles from his creamy mane as he had done so often in the past. He would not - could not - continue to love the stallion in spite of all he had done.
The bright summer of his childhood was over and winter had come, burying his joy beneath an ashen layer of snow.
It was cold without the warmth of his brother's sandy skin pressed against him, but Rade embraced the bitter chill as an anesthesia to his pain. He could see the cold fury in the furrows of the younger stallion's face, and beneath the Boss's detached expression, Conquistador's contempt cut him deep. I clung to you because I could not let you go, my brother, the palomino roan ached to say. And now I have lost you in every way but one. But Rade was the Lagoon's king, and to share of his doubts would only give the men he led cause to doubt him.
He could not look back; he could only continue down his dark path.
"Come with me," the elder stallion abruptly said, stepping toward the shelter - and shadows - of the forest. Conquistador hesitated, curiosity battling with contempt, and the instinct to obey warring with the urge to rebel. But when his silent struggle came to an end, he followed Rade, carving a second scar through the layer of freshly-fallen snow.
The pair of brothers left the Lagoon behind them as the clouds parted and the sky lightened overhead, traveling toward the distant thunder of the Falls. As they walked in silence, the tension between them even eased, though it could never be erased in its entirety. Too much had changed over the past cycle of seasons; Conquistador could not set aside the differences that divided them, and Rade could no longer see the boy his brother had once been. But when they halted in the center of the clearing and turned as one to face the Falls, they were to halves of the same whole again, if only for that brief moment.
"The cold may conquer lakes and streams, but it will never win here," Rade said, his eyes flitting to meet Conquistador's gaze, and then returning to the Falls. "That which stands still has already accepted defeat - only by pressing on, even in our weakness, can we hope to conquer a greater strength."
A brief flicker of emotion transformed Conquistador's face as he understood the meaning buried beneath his brother's words, and for a moment the tawny gold of his skin met the dusty gold of Rade's. Then his ears submersed themselves in the ivory sea of his mane, and the younger stallion lunged for the older, grabbing a loose fold of Rade's skin and twisting it between his teeth.
Rade bore the attack silently and stolidly, holding his brother's anguished eyes until Conquistador released him and turned away.
RADE & CONQUISTADOR
children of the great empire |