Fingers tangled into his mane and legs firmly about his body, I relished not having to decide the route almost as much as I enjoyed the exercise after so much talk and so many meetings. It was all too easy to be swallowed up by the demands of ruling a settlement as complex as Obernewtyn had become. In truth I dreaded how much busier it was likely to be once it was officially a settlement, or more specifically, the walled heart of a settlement. Rushton’s idea was to allow a village to grow up outside the walls, and to gradually demolish the wall until the village and what had been Obernewtyn were knitted together.

Gahltha slowed to a walk and chose a trail that soon brought us to the lip of a hollow filled with dense vegetation and very old, gnarled trees. Clearly the trail had once cut through the hollow, but it was so overgrown that I doubted anyone had used it in some time. Gahltha was on the verge of turning back when I heard the enticing clamour of water cascading over stones and suggested we find the source of the sound and stop for a drink. Obligingly, he pushed on, opening the old trail up with his bulk until we reached a small clearing in a knot of trees divided by a swift, narrow stream. I slid down onto the mossy bank and knelt to scoop water to my mouth. It was so cold that it made my hands and teeth ache. Sitting back on my heels once I had drunk my fill, I tucked my hands into my armpits to warm them, wondering idly why water drunk from a stream always tasted sweet.

‘It is sweet because it is freerunning,’ Gahltha beastspoke me as he quenched his own thirst. His strength of mind and our closeness gave him easy access to my thoughts unless I consciously blocked him. He ventured a few steps into the stream and splashed at the clear water with one hoof and then with the other. I marvelled at the sight of his black shining form, half obscured by the spray of droplets he sent up and the steam rising from his hot body.

As a younger horse Gahltha had developed a terror of water after being half drowned by a cruel human owner trying to break his spirit. Time and several sea journeys had forced him to conquer his fear but, being Gahltha, he never lost an opportunity to test himself.