“Help them through, whenever you can,” muttered Kordas, Duke of Valdemar, in a horse-box that felt stifling for the stark, dirty work to be done. He had latched onto that as his personal guide to life when he’d begun equine husbandry, and he must have repeated it to himself twenty times in the past candlemark, to maintain his focus.

The Duke was nearly beside himself over the state of his favorite mare, but no grinding of teeth nor fretting would take the place of skilled hands in a time like this. The mare in question was in the throes of foaling, and it was not going well. Knowing that she was very close to dropping, Kordas had ordered her put up in her loose-box just before sunset, and it was a good thing that he had. It was, as these things always were, the middle of the night.

On the plus side, Kordas was an educated mage, so at least he had mage-lights to see by, and a panel of mage-fire to keep him and the sweating mare warm. And, fortunately, this wasn’t out in the pouring rain. Because it was raining—of course it was. Not all of the rumbling was thunder. There had been tremors all across the Empire of late. This mare and most of the other animals in the area were on edge, and those tremors could be why she went into birthing so suddenly—an instinctive impulse to birth now, in case danger was coming. The stable smelled of sweaty horse, damp and dry hay and straw, rain, the reek of Kordas’s own sweat, the mare’s waters, and a truly notable amount of the mare’s digestive gas.

This was especially notable because Kordas was trying to get the foal positioned correctly and his arm was deeply engaged.

They never tell you that giving birth makes the mother gassy, until you’re well-committed to the program . . .

Kordas had stripped off tunic and shirt a candlemark or so ago. His trews were probably ruined, his hair was plastered to his head with sweat, more sweat ran down into his eyes and down his back, and the pain in his right arm and shoulder was indescribable. I don’t think I’ve ever been more miserable in my life.

On the minus side . . .

The mare grunted with a contraction. Her vaginal muscles clamped down on his arm, he lost the miniature hoof he’d been groping for, and he thought his head was going to explode from the compression of those muscles around his arm. And then, she farted in his face.

As soon as the muscles relaxed, he pulled his arm out, another contraction started, and the foal popped into view again. One tiny hoof, and the nose, and no further.

He stared at the sight of his failure and cursed. “Futtering breech birth,” he murmured, as his Healer, Cestin, soothed the mare and stroked her nose.