to shudder at the step of the man who paced the greensward, eyes narrowed and line poised to toss.

    The stallion came on like thunder, like storm. The crowd sucked in a taut breath. The horsebreaker poised with slightly bent knees, admiring, though his life stood endangered. He was confident when the dun snapped up short from his run and towered into a rear. The man's hand on the rope did not tremble as black forelegs raked out to strike. He tossed his loop then, supremely, recklessly sure that his lifetime of skill would not fail him.

The throw missed.

    Too fast for the eye to follow, the loop collapsed in a whipping slide off the stallion's knee as his head snaked down, and he whirled.

    Not off his guard, nor yet shaken, the horsebreaker shouted and snapped the rope. This horse, like a thousand others, would be bound to shy from any movement, half-seen where equine vision was obscured by the length of his muzzle. Stallions could be predicted. Their forehooves came down, then their head, with ears pricked to assess the threat to their footing; the shy ones would often whirl and run.

    The dun stud twisted instead. He landed, still spinning, his ears pinned fiat. The horsebreaker shouted to drive him back to a gallop, his hands swiftly reeling in rope. But the stud had done with running. His silver-blue quarters bunched, and one hoof flashed back in deadly perfect accuracy to hammer the man where he stood.

    Bright blood flecked the green grass. The horsebreaker lay unmoving, while a woman screamed, and men on all sides started shouting, most jostling back from the fence, but others pressing forward. The stud danced a half pirouette, some swore, in celebration of his unholy victory. The grooms and the stable hands disagreed; the horse was a killer, but not so driven by rage that he ever once stopped thinking. The blue dun was far too crafty to mire his pasterns in a corpse or a tangle of rope.

    Solitary, unmoved to any human commiseration, Trionn crouched with his hands laced over his face. He alone had not exclaimed in shocked sympathy as the Lord's men reached beneath the lower rails, and dragged the horsebreaker's body beyond reach

II7