Dinah raised her head slowly, hoping not to spook him. Morte loomed over her, so large his frame blocked out the afternoon sun. All she could see were heaps of black muscle and bone. He will kill me, she thought. He wants to. Steam hissed from his nostrils as the steed rocked his head back and forth over her. His hoof raised and stomped down, inches from Dinah’s frame, so easily crushable, this sack of tissue and bone. Morte stomped his hoof again. The ground trembled. He lowered his huge head and sniffed Dinah; steam washed over her face, so hot that she feared her skin would blister. She didn’t move, her body as still as stone, her eyes closed. Finally, Morte seemed satisfied and pulled his long muzzle back, stomping again.
Dinah opened her eyes and gave a terrified glance over at his hoof. One of the bone spikes had broken and was now pushed upward, several inches deep into Morte’s foot. It must have happened when he stepped in the hole, she thought, and when he struggled he pushed it into himself. Marrow dangled from the end of it and Dinah felt her stomach heave. The huge hoof came down again in front of her face, breaking the hard ground as if it were made of glass. Dinah took a deep breath and raised herself slowly to her knees, her hands up in front of her, showing surrender. Morte bucked, his feet landing in a shower around her. She stayed still until he stopped moving and then reached out her shaking hands until they hovered above the bloody bone spikes. He huffed angrily.
I could lose my hands, she thought, either my hands or my head. Reaching out with the utmost of care, Dinah placed her shaking hands on Morte’s leg, running them slowly down together until they reached the hoof, as she had seen Wardley do a hundred times with normal horses. Wardley. What had become of him? Her hands rested now just above the bone spikes. She left the hand with the broken fingers on Morte’s massively muscled leg while she wrapped the other around the bone spike that was impaled into the bottom of his hoof. The jagged edges of the spike pressed into her skin as she pulled downward. Morte let out a terrifying scream of pain and pounded the ground with his other hooves. The bone hadn’t moved at all, except now it was slick with blood from Dinah’s lacerated hand.
Morte gnashed his teeth together, and Dinah could sense his fury and anxiety growing. She had mere seconds before he lost control and killed her, she could feel it. She wrapped her hand once again around the bone spike and yanked with all her might, the skin on her hand ripping and tearing as if she was grabbing the end of a sword. Dinah let out a blood-curdling cry as the bone scraped deep into her skin, sliding on the wet blood. Her blood mixed with Morte’s as it dripped, and her high-pitched scream was matched by his as he knocked her roughly aside with his head. Dinah curled into the ground, her head under her hands, one of them holding the bloody bone spike as Morte stomped around her in a circle, his hooves inches from her body.
“Please . . . ,” murmured Dinah. “Please.”
Morte stood still and considered taking her life for a few minutes before he stomped away to inspect his wound. When Dinah raised her head, he was staring at her from a dozen yards away, his huge black eyes taking in every inch of her face; he was thinking, calculating. After what seemed like an eternity, he gave a loud huff and bent his head to drink from the meager stream. Dinah sat back and let relief wash over her as she clutched her injured hand. Morte would not kill her, not right now, anyway. She washed her hand in the creek, blood tinting the water red before it traveled downstream with a cluster of variegated purple leaves. She ripped off the hem of her once-white nightgown—now brown, bloody, and covered with coarse black hair—and wrapped it around her hand. Pain from her broken fingers swept over her and she wearily climbed out of the creek bed, fearing she might faint. Stumbling, she came to rest against the overturned tree she had smacked her head on, keeping an ever-wary eye on Morte, who was now happily eating every bit of foliage in sight.