Gabbar
stallion . arabian . bay . 14.3hh . 8
She comes when the sun reaches its zenith.
Gabbar tops a lonely dune facing the ocean, his feet planted firmly in the warm sand. He sees her stride from the water and recognizes the shimmering red of her coat, the high white stockings that nearly blind him as they flash in the sun, her wet coat gleaming as brightly as an Akhal-Teke’s or a horse on fire. “O yürür” he says, delicate ears twitching in mild shock. The red mare pauses, lifts her head to point her nose directly at him, and his heart skips a beat.
Iftikhar launches into a run. He can do nothing but watch as she races toward him, hot sand flying from beneath her hooves as they churn the ground. She is at the foot of his dune in moments, surging up the side of it before he can do more than half-turn to meet her and then she is at the top, pinned ears hidden beneath her wild mane and nostrils flared to the red as she sucks in breath, the skin of her face stretched so taut he sees the outline of her skeleton before it registers with him that flesh still covers it. Gabbar’s left hind hoof slips downward and his stomach drops as he realizes he is backing away, but it is too late; Iftikhar snaps her teeth at his face, and when he swings it out of reach she bites down hard on the soft pulse of his throat.
His bugle is a wheezy protest, and panic makes him lash out with his front leg. He catches the red mare on her inner knee, feels the crack of his hoof against her bone, and suddenly he can breathe again. Gabbar totters to one side, gasping, as Iftikhar recoils, her shrill squeal filled more with rage than pain.
“Küçük bok,” she spits.
Gabbar steps forward to stand on even ground, eyeing the red mare as he comes within biting distance. The latch of this throat is sore, every beat of his heart making it throb, every indrawn breath reminding him of the pressure recently applied to his windpipe. His ears flip back.
“Şirret,” he replies with equal venom.
Iftikhar’s eyes bulge. “Breeder,” she reminds him in one exhale.
“No,” Gabbar shakes his head. “Not anymore.”
He sees how the skin hangs on her flanks, the desperate hollows of a horse gone too long without food in front of her hips. The skin of her face is tight, too tight, and her tongue sticks to her mouth when she speaks.
“You are a breeder. You belong to the herd, my herd, and we are returning to the desert. Today. Now.”
The bay Arabian blinks. Rakkas, he recalls suddenly.
“Take El Halin with you,” he says, and raises his voice as Iftikhar tries to interrupt. “Rakkas sent me to bring you both back. You are needed there, not chasing after some blind false-prophet. The longer you remain away, the less likely it is you will be the Honorable Iftikhar when you return. Perhaps Nasmat holds that title now,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.
He turns away as Iftikhar draws in another breath. Tucking his hindquarters under him, Gabbar descends the opposite side of the dune. He flicks his ears forward and ignores the insults she hisses and spits after him and contemplates the steady thud of his heart, wondering at the lack of panic coursing through his body.
Gabbar has done it. He has defied Iftikhar, the exalted lead mare of the Arabian herds of the desert, and he is merely a breeder.
No, he thinks as the sand levels beneath him and he strides further into the territory. I am a stallion.
Gabbar tucks his nose toward his chest despite the lingering ache from the mare’s assault and whips his tail into a flag as he stretches his gait to a trot, then an easy canter. He does not look back. His spirits are still high when he comes across another horse wandering the Dunes, a slender buckskin who reminds him of Valve —his heart skips another beat as his eyes flick across the horizon in search of that dark mare— but in breeding only.
“Ho!” he calls, and heads toward the other stallion. As he draws near he slows to match the other’s pace, and utters a low snort in greeting. His next inhale triggers a memory: he’s smelled this male before, all across the sands of the Dune. This is the male Gabbar has been avoiding, not out of fear but out of an intense desire for solitude. It is the first time in his life he has had the chance to engage in such extensive self-reflection, and he is glad of it. Gladder still he could consider his options for so long without undue interruption, though now he recalls how lonely he has been, and for how long, during that necessary process.
Gabbar extends his nose toward the other stallion to exchange breaths. “Not-Stranger. We finally meet,” he says, wary but unafraid of the other male taking offense to his long-time presence in the Dunes.
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