The Fog Horse - by Aiden Ralph
“The cannonball has flown it’s arc now; To be found by the plough; Years from now; Keep on falling down”
From ‘Falling Down’ a song by Sparklehorse
The mist clung thick as sheep’s wool to the fiields behind the cottage. Henry pulled his thin coat tighter, kicking at clumps of wet grass. Twelve years old and already burdened with a knowing softness for broken things. Stray cats with torn ears, birds with snapped wings, rabbits caught fast in snares set by other boys. He’d find them, tucked away in ditches or shivering under hedgerows, and try his best.
Sometimes it worked. Mostly, it didn’t. A sound cut through the grey quiet. Not a bird cry, nor the bleat of a lost lamb. This was deeper, rougher. A horse, sounding like its lungs were tearing. Henry stopped, listening hard. It came again, a panicked, desperate sound from somewhere out in the dense white. He edged towards it, boots sinking in the damp earth.
He nearly stumbled over it. Huge, it was bigger than any carthorse he’d ever seen. Steam rose from its chestnut coat, dark with sweat or blood, maybe both. One leg was held crooked, splintered bone jabbing raw through the hide. Its eyes, wide and rolling, fiixed on him. A warhorse, breathing in shuddering gasps. It looked magnifiicent, even wrecked like this.
Henry turned and ran, fear giving way to the familiar urge to fetch help. He ran back to his thatched cottage beyond the lake. He burst in startling his father sitting by the fiire. “Dad! There’s a horse! A massive horse, hurt bad, out in the field!” His father looked up, slow. A man worn down by toil and worry. “Horse? What horse? Don’t be daft, lad.” “It’s true! A red one, like knights ride. It’s hurt bad. We need to help it.” His father sighed, pulling on heavy boots.“Come on then.”
They trudged back out, the mist swirling around them, colder now. Henry led him to the spot, near an old oak. Nothing. Just flattened grass and the silence. “Well?” his father asked, impatience rough in his voice. “Where’s this grand beast then?” Henry searched frantically, eyes darting through the white. "It was here! Right here! Big as anything, bleeding…” His father shook his head, grunted, turned back. “Got enough real troubles without you dreaming up more. Stop with the stories, Henry. The land is full of them.” He looked at his son with pity. “Let’s go.” Henry felt the familiar sting of disbelief, queasiness in his stomach and heat behind his eyes.
Weeks crawled by. The damp chill stayed. Then, one morning, the mist returned, thicker than ever. And with it, the sound. That same desperate noise. Henry didn’t fetch his dad this time. He crept out alone, heart thudding. It was there again. Same spot, same awful injury. The chestnut coat gleamed. He approached slowly, hands outstretched.
“Easy now,” he whispered. “Easy.” He fetched water in his cupped hands from the lake, offering it clumsily. The horse dipped its head, drank a little, its breath warm on his skin. He touched its neck, feeling the tremor beneath the coarse hair. He stayed with it a while, just talking soft nonsense, until the mist seemed to thin slightly. Did he fall asleep? He wasn’t sure. He blinked, the horse was gone. Vanished into the white, leaving only the trampled earth.
Months later, the world had changed. King against Parliament. Noise, shouting, men marching. Henry found himself miles from home, clutching a fllagstaff near Edgehill. He wasn’t sure how it had happened – swept up in the fervour, or maybe just running from the silence of home. He’d wanted something different; he hadn’t known different meant this. The battle, when it came, wasn’t grand. It was mud, fog, and screaming. The heavy clang of metal, sickeningly close. Men fell like sacks, groaning or suddenly silent. Smoke burned his eyes, noise battered his ears. Disorientated he stumbled backwards, separated from his company, the flag trailing in the mud. Enemy soldiers, grim-faced under their helmets, loomed out of the smoke, pikes lowered.
He was trapped, small and helpless, the fllag useless in his hands. He clamped his eyes shut, waiting for the blow. Is this the end? A thunder of hooves. An otherworldly inhuman scream. He looked up. The chestnut horse. A red fllare in a monochrome scene. Riderless, impossible, terrifying. Its eyes were crazy as it smashed into the soldiers, teeth bared, clouds of steam pumping through its nose, front hooves lashing out like hammers. Steel glanced off its hide. Men scattered, shouting in alarm, scrambling away from the sudden, demonic fury. It wasn’t fiighting like a regular horse; it was pure, wild rage. In moments, the enemy was gone, vanished back into the swirling chaos.
The horse stood panting, its sides heaving, the old leg injury nowhere to be seen. It turned its great head, looked straight at Henry with those dark, knowing eyes. Then, it reared once, a silhouette against the grey sky, before dissolving back into the battle smoke and fog. Gone.
Later, huddled with the remnants of his company, faces streaked with powder, blood and grime, Henry asked “The horse… did you see it? The red horse?” A grizzled soldier nearby spat. “Horse? Saw hundreds of them, mostly dead. Keep your wits about you, boy. Battle plays tricks on the eyes.” Another laughed sarcastically. “Ghost horses now, is it? You took a knock to the head?” No one hadseen it. Just another of his stories, they thought. He fell silent, the memory burning bright against the surrounding misery. Now he was doubting himself, was it all a dream?
They marched away from the battlefield, a quiet, weary column. They trudged past the Vale near Tysoe. And there, cut deep into the rich, red soil of the hillside, was the giant fiigure of a horse. Ancient, stark against the green. Everyone saw it. A murmur went through the ranks. Old tales surfaced, whispers of a guardian spirit, tied to the land. Henry stared at the carving, then back towards the battlefield. He knew. They all looked at it, this sign in the soil. And maybe some of them knew too. The world was still harsh, the future uncertain, but something else had transcended through the mist and the mud that day. Something old, fierce and red.