Blitzkrieg: I suck harder. (Judges)

The rain slicks in rivulets down Fehazathant’s side as his escape – such as it was, in the slowing mud and wetness – was arrested by the sudden bunching of the muscles in Vurtne’s hindquarters, as they took the full strain of his weight and pivoted; Fehazathant cannot know what Vurtne has planned in retaliation to his strikes, but reacting in instinct and trusting the twitching of his own muscles, he can guess; and Fehazathant knows that he has left himself vulnerable, and unable to avoid Vurtne’s seeking hind feet. He knows it, and he cannot do anything but plant his back feet deep into the battle-churned mud beneath them and brace himself for the strike; and so Vurtne’s attack, and the full force of his gathered momentum, thumps into the gathered muscles of his chest like a thunderbolt, exactly where his opponent had aimed for.

Fehazathant was fit, and his muscles lean rather than bulky, and so they do not protect the points of his humerus nor the fused bones of his sternum as they would have done in another horse; the muscles there bruise and bleed internally almost instantly, and Fehazathant exhaled explosively in pain as he staggers a step backwards and feels his bones quake from the impact, intact but bruised themselves. In a few days, he knew, he would be unable to walk as he stiffened into immobility, and he instinctively sinks onto his back legs, raising his front into the air and easing the terrible pressure.

Ironically, it is his agonised half-rear that saves his knees from Vurtne’s next sundering of his body, and instead only one of his opponents hooves (the other strikes long, and the tip of that hoof grazes painfully against the ugly, swollen bruise of Fehazathant’s chest, Vurtne’s aim offthrown by Fehazathant’s backward step) strike a point of his leg structure that was designed to give to pressure, his hoof. The left one, in fact, and it snaps back towards his body at an unnatural angle as the ligaments stretch - almost to the point of tearing – and absorb the shock of the impact.

In the end, he must come back down to earth as Vurtne lands and disengages; he does so, slowly, until the muscles of his hindquarters begin to ache with the strain, and finally he rests his weight on his near forehoof – and feels the true extent of the sprain. He wonders if he can walk, and he does not yet try, thinking with a wry and pained smile that he may have to wait for a while for a healer to stroll by.