The Writing Assignment

My precious diary. I hadn't thought about what I'd do with it once I finished that last entry, and got ready to ride Lightning. I didn't know where to put it. In the end, I finished up sitting on it, perched up on top of Lightning in his beautiful saddle. For a little while, I rode around the glade, and Lightning taught me how to ride. But what he showed me was all based on commands — and I'm not going to command my friend to do anything. But still, it was good practice for me to get used to sitting on him and moving with him in the glade.

What I didn't realize was just how big a mistake I was making, riding Lightning like that. It's not as if I had any way of finding out, and Lightning himself didn't know. But at the time I didn't know any of that. It was just a pleasure to sit on my friend.

When Lightning was ready, we made our way out of the glade toward my home. I wasn't sure this was safe. My Aunt and her family wouldn't scare Lightning — unless Brot had his bow - but hopefully they'd have gone without me. Lightning didn't know the way to his home, and the only hints of how to get to the castle started at my Aunt's home, and I wasn't sure how to follow them unless I started there. Anyway, Lightning wanted to see my home.

We were in luck, because they weren't there. As I rode into the small clearing where Aunt lived, I was amazed at how small it looked from up on top of Lightning. I showed him my stables where I slept, but he was too big to even fit in. Lightning is a very big horse — a real war horse, I think, really fit for a prince.

From there, we hurried through the forest following the creek and then the animal trail that Uncle talked about. Lightning covered the ground so fast! As we did, I showed him all the wonderful trees, and we even saw some deer. Lightning chased some of them down, and he was faster than them. I laughed so much — riding Lightning when he is running fast is an amazing experience.

Suddenly, we came out to the top of a little hill, and we saw the castle across the valley in front of us. It was huge — I'd never seen it before. All huge and dark grey and forbidding. I thought about what was about to happen, and I shuddered and my heart quaked. If it wasn't for Lightning, we'd still be sitting on top of that little hill, frozen in place. But he said "Courage, my friend", and we went on. I love the way he says his r's — he rolls his tongue and his lips make this wonderful flapping sound.

We followed the trail down the hill until it came to a little dell with some houses in it. At first there was no one around — I thought they must be up at Dro's trial, because Uncle said that the steward at the Castle said everyone had to go. But as we passed the third house, an old grandma looked out at us. The look on her face! She was pretty amazed. I waved at her, but she didn't wave back at me.

From the little dell, the trail picked up until it became a real road, and we followed it toward the castle. Eventually Lightning said that he knew where we were, and that it wasn't far to the big field outside the Castle where everyone would be. Not far for Lightning turns out to be further that I thought, but we got there eventually.

Lightning has very good hearing, because every time there was someone on the road, he'd slip into the forest and wait for them to go past. It's pretty cool riding a horse that can talk, because I don't think you could do that half so well on a normal horse — even if you could hear them coming.

Eventually we ran out of forest to hide in. There were so many houses! I had no idea so many people lived around the castle. We couldn't hide here, and everybody noticed us. It wasn't long before we had quite a group following us, so I leaned down and whispered to Lightning to go faster. When we finally came to the field, it was quite a shock for me — there were so many people there. I didn't know there was that many people in the whole world. They were all gathered around a great platform. I could see, on the platform, some men in rich clothes, and Dro, all chained down.

Poor Dro.

I told Lightning to get as close to the platform as he could, so he made a great challenging cry. After that, there was no problem. Any one in front of him got straight out of the way. When we were almost at the platform we had to stop because there were some men at arms blocking our way. Lightning stopped, and for a moment, there was silence.

I looked down at the guards, and then at the platform. The men in rich clothes didn't know what to make of me. I realised that one of them was quite young — perhaps only a couple of years older than Scotten. Was that the prince?

I looked around at the crowd. As loud as I could, I cried out "Dro is not guilty. He never even saw the Prince's horse. Let him go free!"

There was a buzz of noise from the crowd, and one of the men on the platform called out "Who are you? How dare you ride the Prince's Horse?"

Now Dro looked up. "Tenni! No? What are you doing?"

"My name is Tenni. I found the horse wandering in the forest, and looked after him as best as I could. Now I am returning him for the Prince."

The Lord on the platform looked back and forward between Dro and I. "You peasants know each other?"

When we both said that we did, and that we'd grown up together in Lower Jordling, he wanted to know what I was doing in the forest, so I had to explain that. So then he turned to his men at arms, and said "Guards, let this boy go. Arrest the girl and throw her in the cells. Jirl, you take the horse to the prince straightaway. Make sure you hand it to the prince directly."

Well, I suppose that was what I had expected all along. The men at arms surrounded us nervously. I could see how they were looking up at Lightning — he really was a very big horse. When the first guard reached in for his halter, Lightning suddenly made a big war cry and reared high above the guards. It was all I could do to hang on, but when I realized that he might come down on the guards, I tried to pull him back.

When he came back to the ground, I leaned forward, wrapped my arms around his neck, and whispered in his ear that it would be no good fighting them, we'd both just get hurt. I told him how I loved him, and then I slid forward off the saddle. At least I landed on my feet.

They grabbed me, and tied my hands. When they started to take me away, Lightning whinnied loudly and started pulling on his lead, so they let me stay with him. Then they tried to lead him away. He wouldn't budge. Five of them tried pulling on his reins, but still he wouldn't move. I saw one guard pull out his sword to poke Lightning with it, but Jirl, the chief, yelled at him not to, that anyone who harmed the Prince's Horse would be in very bad trouble (except he used a rude word that I won't say). Then they tied another rope to his halter, and ten of them pulled. He wouldn't move, even though it was hurting his mouth lots, I could see. The crowd of people around were starting to laugh, so I suggested that they let me lead him.