She falls in love with Zehun, a Lieutenant of Attila the Hun, while he saves her from savages who want her dead. She returns the favor by saving Zehun seconds before he is sliced to pieces by Roman soldiers who have captured him. She places seven arrows into seven soldiers in as many seconds, shooting left and right handed with her bow. This happens in an action-packed fantasy world Emma Armbrust has created as a refuge from her autism. In real life, her autism enables her to communicate with her jumping horse Tower, as people and horses did millions of years before. Emma is 18 years old, tall, blonde and beautiful. She lives in the hills of Malibu, California, where she also falls in love with Jules, a troubled young man who is her age, and also a social outcast. There is just one problem. Zehun and Jules look exactly alike-they just live 2,000 years apart. While Emma tries desperately to resolve her love triangle, she survives medication to make her "normal" and then rides Tower to National Grand Prix victory, thus saving the family horse ranch from bankruptcy.

Talking with HORSES

By Colin Dangaard

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Colin Dangaard
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-2830-3

Chapter One

Sunday, January 17, 2010. The Santa Monica Mountains, California. A full moon, silhouetting rugged cliffs against a clear night sky. Emma Armbrust could read right now—if she had a book. She is riding her seventeen-hand horse Tower, a thoroughbred, with Man o' War breeding on both sides. Emma Armbrust is eighteen years old, the horse ten years—which in human years makes Tower forty. Emma often thinks about this and marvels at how Tower doesn't feel that old. Tower rotates one ear back in her direction, and she smiles; he knows what she is thinking. She had projected an image of a very old swaybacked horse.

Emma pats his neck and says, "There now. I think you're just as young as you feel."

The ear rotates back to a forward position. Tower is okay with that thought.

"Come on," she says, "let's gallop up this hill. I know you hate to walk uphill."

She does not kick him or use the crop. She simply leans forward, ever so slightly, so her body does not whip back as Tower leaps into a flat gallop. But even before she leans forward, she knows he knows what she is thinking. He tells her this feels really good as the hill slips beneath at breathtaking speed. Tower's hooves are muffled on earth softened by heavy rain. Like a dancer, he carefully negotiates deep ruts caused by running water. Fifteen minutes later, they crest the ridge on the top of a mesa, the sky so close it seems to Emma she could reach out and touch it.

Emma feels Tower's heart beating between her legs as he sucks in vast amounts of air. His nostrils flare like trumpets. His hot breath frosts the night. Way down in the valley below, Emma sees the lights of her father's horse farm, where Tower was bred to race. But despite his impressive heritage, he was slow. Years later, when Tower was six years old and Emma thirteen, she started riding him, having given up her pony Nugget.

Tower told her that he wasn't slow at all; he just didn't like the competition, didn't like racing against his friends in the way people wanted. He was okay with racing as play but not as work. He liked to jump, which he did at every opportunity. Several times he jumped out of the paddock, until Emma told him to quit doing that or he would be "sent down the road." She overheard her father tell the stable hand, Manuel, as much. Emma didn't like Manuel, and Tower liked him even less. Because Tower couldn't run fast enough to win, Manuel considered him "dog food in search of a can."

Tower does not have the direct communication with Manuel that exists between him and Emma, because Manuel cannot read the pictures in Tower's head the way Emma can. Between Tower and Emma, the images are crystal clear, going both ways. With these pictures, words are not necessary; indeed, they hinder. At most, they are tools of exclamation or embellishment. This is how it was millions of years ago between man and horse. And this is how it is today between Emma and Tower. Few people today have this power of extraordinary communication. Most who do are to varying degrees autistic.

Emma studies the ground. The print is still there: a mountain lion. She saw it yesterday afternoon. Judging by the size of the paw print, the lion is about 250 pounds. Tower is completely disinterested. He knows the lion is long gone. He has picked up its electromagnetic energy. The image in Tower's mind, which he knows Emma is receiving now, is of a lioness way over the north ridge.

Suddenly Tower freezes and looks up at the moon, his body trembling. Emma follows his riveted concentration, and then sees what Tower sees. It is as if her body is drawn up through the tunnel of light that is her gaze. The image has clear edges, and it cuts up into the night sky. At the end, there is a very bright light that seems to draw Emma up, moving her at ever-increasing speed, until she is overwhelmed by the dense brightness. Cracking thunder and lightning split the night sky, as if disemboweling the heavens. Rain drives down on Emma, drops so large they feel like rocks flying into her face.

Solid ground is under her feet now. The air is filled with screaming, blood everywhere, as a horde of mounted horsemen bear down on a small village. All around her, death and pain and terrible agony. Emma is flat on the ground now, slammed down by a massive force, and one of the savages crashes upon her, tearing at her deerskin garment, pulling at her hair. She is overcome with the raw, rotten stench of his breath; it smells of blood. The night is swirling around her, as if she is lost in a whirlpool of black water, being sucked down, down. Women and children scream, a background to the pain and thunder and driving, hard rain. The man is on top of Emma now, his eyes blazing into her soul. Then he throws back his head and screams like a hyena, the sound piercing Emma's ears.

Emma knows she is going to die, but then, suddenly she sees him. A tall man, appearing as a rising backdrop behind her attacker, his skin, not black, not white—a golden brown. His chest is bare, rain glistening off muscles rippled across his torso and down his massive arms, the veins pumped and visible, like whipcords. She locks eyes with this man behind the monster, and his eyes stop her heart, as they always did. Oh yes, it's him all right. She has seen him before, many times. The eyes glow green. His face is finely chiseled, black hair pulled back and tied with a leather thong. Emma is aware of a bloody sword in his hand as he grabs her attacker by the hair, pulls back his head, and draws his sword across the monster's throat—stretched and vulnerable, perfectly angled for a clean, deep slash—like a bow pulled across strings of a musical instrument, a closing symphony of death.

Emma feels a red-hot gush on her face. She locks eyes with this man who has saved her, his great frame now completely visible, as the savage is flung aside like a bloody rag doll. He smiles, his teeth brilliant and white in the moonlight. He leans forward, wipes her face, his hands strong but incredibly soft and warm. The hands cup Emma's head, and the warrior asks, "You are all right?" She hears his words so clearly, although all around them is earsplitting chaos—screaming, clanging of swords, the animal-like bellowing of bloodthirsty savages, and the driving rain, the sky hemorrhaging thunder and lightning. This man locks eyes with her one more time for what seems like forever, but is in fact an instant; his green eyes deliver a burning beam of light that goes deep into Emma's soul.

Emma looks past the green eyes now, and there is a new horror, another warrior, with sword raised, a giant of a man, with leopard skin over his head, and he is screaming not at Emma, but at the man with the green eyes, "Why haven't you killed her? She is a worthless piece of meat! We have raided this village to kill, kill!"

In a flash, the man with green eyes ducks low and swings his sword upward, sending the sword from the hand of Leopard Man rattling off into the storm. Now Leopard Man is defenseless, his eyes wide with fear. And then the man with the green eyes puts his sword at the throat of Leopard Man and says, "I rank above you with Attila! Never try that again, or you will die. We are warriors, not savages. We kill other warriors. We do not kill the defenseless! This girl lives ..."

Leopard Man growls and spits, "You are soft. You are not a real killer. Attila will hear about this!"

And then, the vision fades, and now Emma is shivering. She...