Guardians of the West

laughed and climbed up on the boulder. "Well," he said, "here we go." He threw his leg over the horse's back.
    The colt flinched slightly and stood trembling.
    "It's all right," Errand assured him in a calm voice.
    The horse turned and looked at him with soft astonishment in his large, liquid eyes.
    "You'd better hang on," Hettar warned, but his eyes had an oddly puzzled look, and his voice was not quite as certain as the words.
    "He's fine." Errand flexed his legs, not actually even bringing his heels in contact with the chestnut's flanks. The horse took a tentative step forward and then looked back enquiringly.
    "That's the idea," Errand encouraged him.
    The horse took several more steps, then stopped to look back over his shoulder again.
    "Good," Errand said, patting his neck. "Very, very good." The horse pranced about enthusiastically.
    "Watch out!" Hettar said sharply.
    Errand leaned forward and pointed toward a grassy knoll several hundred yards off to the southwest. "Let's go up there," he said into the sharply upstanding ear.
    The horse gave a sort of delighted shudder, bunched himself, and ran for the hilltop as hard as he could. When, moments later, they crested the knoll, he slowed and pranced about proudly.
    " All right," Errand said, laughing with sheer delight. "Now, why don't we go to that tree way over there on that other hillside?"
    "It was unnatural," Hettar said moodily that evening as they all sat at the table in Poledra's cottage, bathed in the golden firelight.
    "They seem to be doing all right," Durnik said mildly.
    "But he's doing everything wrong," Hettar protested. "That horse should have gone absolutely wild when Errand just got on him like that without any warning. And you don't tell a horse where you want him to go. You have to steer him. That's what the reins are for."
    "Errand's an unusual boy," Belgarath told him, "and the horse is an unusual horse. As long as they get along and understand each other, what difference does it make?"
    "It's unnatural," Hettar said again with a baffled look. "I kept waiting for the horse to panic, but his mind stayed absolutely calm. I know what a horse is thinking, and about the only thing that colt was feeling when Errand got on his back was curiosity. Curiosity! He didn't do or think anything the way he should." He shook his head darkly, and his long black scalplock swung back and forth as if in emphasis. "It's unnatural," he growled as if that were the only word he could think of to sum up the situation.
    "I think you've already said that several times, Hettar," Polgara told him. "Why don't we just drop the subject since it seems to bother you so much and you can tell me about Adara's baby instead."
    An expression of fatuous pleasure came over Hettar's fierce, hawk-like face. "He's a boy." he said with the overwhelming pride of a new father.
    "We gathered that," Polgara said calmly. "How big was he when he was born?"
    "Oh-" Hettar looked perplexed. "About so big, I'd say." He held his hands half a yard apart.
    "No one took the trouble to measure him?"
    "They might have done that, I suppose. My mother and the other ladies were doing all sorts of things right after he came."
    "And would you care to estimate his weight?"
    "Probably about as much as a full-grown hare, I suppose -a fairly good-sized one- or perhaps the weight of one of those red Sendarian cheeses."
    "I see, perhaps a foot and a half long and eight or nine pounds -is that what you're trying to say?" Her look was steady.
    "About that, I suppose."
    "Why didn't you say so, then?" she demanded in exasperation.
    He looked at her, startled. "Is it really that important?"
    "Yes, Hettar, it really is that important. Women like to know these things."
    "I'll have to remember that. About all I was really interested in was whether he had the usual number of arms, legs, ears, noses -things like that- that and making sure that his very first food was mare's milk, of course."
    "Of course," she said acidly.
    "It's very important, Polgara," he assured her. "Every Algar's first drink is mare's milk."
    "That makes him part horse, I suppose."
    He blinked. "No, of course not, but it establishes a sort of bond."
    "Did you milk the mare for him? Or did you make him crawl out and find one for himself?"
    "You're taking all this very oddly, Polgara."
    "Blame it on my age," she said in a dangerous voice.
    He caught that tone almost immediately. "No, I don't think I'd want to do that."
    "Wise decision," Durnik