up with his pupils. When he got back to the training grounds all was quiet. Five horses lay silently in the shade. He slowly walked to join them, curious as to what had happened, fearing the worst. They looked up at him - Pride wasn't there.

"He took on Luke," Dillon croaked. Luke was the Captain of the Workforce, and was known to ignore pleads of surrender. The years of pushing slaves over the limit had made the stallion heartless and cold.

"I see," Spuro replied, ears drooping. "But the rest of you are alright?" They nodded solemnly and he turned to go. "I'll have a talk with Pirate, see if he's got any privates to take his place. Take the rest of the day off. Tomorrow, we start training again."

"He was so young and nieve," Spuro said to James as they waited at the Counsil. "He didn't stand a chance. He was foolish, but I'm more concerned about how his death will affect the others. I mean, when Jupiter decided to fight you - and lost - we felt depressed for weeks."

James sighed. "There will always be a few bigheads in a class, Spur, ones who think that they are unbeatable. You warned him, and he did nothing. And as for the rest of the group, well they'll just have to use this experience as a lesson - they're going to lose more horses in the trials at the end of the circuit."

"Captain Spuro."

He turned to see an officer beckoning him over. He was led to a piece of dusty ground in the Centre with three young stallions waiting for him. After observing their strength, asking them various questions and testing their intelligence, he settled on a pale red dun who identified himself as Romeo. He felt it was a little too soon for his pupils to meet Pride's replacement, so he invited the stallion to stay in his quarters until the next day.

On the way back to the enclosed pasture Spuro asked the new addition questions on his life before the band. It turned out that he was actually three years older than him, even though it was only his second year in the Band. He became particularly interested in Romeo's previous life when the stallion mentioned that he came from a valley on the other side of the northern mountain range - his true home. Spuro explained that before he was bron men set up a town and his herd had to leave for a new home on the planes.

He stopped. He had just given away his family's position. Romeo appeared to have not taken any attention though, so they were safe - for now. They arrived at the meadow and He introduced the newcomer to the mares. The creamy stallion gawped at Willow for a moment, then smiled and started talking to her. It was a one-sided conversation though, as the poor girl clearly wanted him to go away.

Spuro approached him. "You have been here long enough to know that these mares are here because I chose them, and that means that you can leave them alone or you'll see my bad side before my good one."

Romeo took a few steps away from the grullo and said, "But what if the lovely lady likes having me around?"

"I don't," she said, not looking up from her grazing, "I hate creeps, so go away."

He slunk off to the other corner of the meadow and stayed in the shade, flicking flies away with his tail. Spuro kept his gaze fixed on him, leaned in towards Willow and whispered, "If he causes any trouble, tell me." She smiled at him, then he walked off to meet up with the class. At the entrance to the training paddock, he felt a comforting sensation on his nose. A snowflake had landed on him, and for a breif moment he felt like a newborn colt, bounding and rolling about on the mountainside where he was born. Winter was drawing in. Battles would be won and lost in deep snow, the army could freeze to death on the long journeys and food would become scarse for the hundreds of horses that made up the Band.

It was going to be a long haul to the spring.

Between the months of November and March, only two attacks on herds took place. The snow had been heavier than previous years, almost trippling the work of the enslaved horses, who dwindled in numbers through the cold weeks. Ghost had chosen ten of the strongest stallions in the Band, which included seven Resistors, and was training them up for the next attack. Spuro had gathered five more mares over the winter, much to the jealousy of the other officers and captains. He still allowed them to stay in his quarters, though, providing them with a safe place to live.

The rest of the captains followed Spuro's actions and kept their mares in their own fields too, now that there seemed to be less and less of them after each attack. Luckily, Sunset and two of the others still remained by the woodland without being taken by another stallion. Escapes were harder, and only two or three could leave at a time, but it was enough to be happy about. Spuro worked with his mares to come up with a plan if the time ever arose for a revolution, and it was the perfect time to get to know them all.

The quiet ones were Roe, a cherry bay, and Marsha, a blue roan. They tended to stick to the sidelines in meetings and only offered an answer if asked directly, but what they contributed was good stuff. They were half-sisters with different fathers, but they looked more like best friends.

Sham, a cremello, was a fairly violent, middle-aged mare, keen to get stuck in with the fighting when they attempted to thwart the Band's army. She had had foals in the past, all fillies, and they were spread throughout the territory between officers and captains, and she wanted to free them and give the stallions a seeing-to for going near her babies. Spuro admired her pluck, but feared her slightly, which they all found highly amusing.

During the second attack Spuro had managed to kill the lead stallion, so he earned himself two mares for that alone. One was a black overo called Fenna, who was the fastest long-distance runner of them all. She had almost escaped from the camp after her herd had been attacked, but was eventually caught. Spuro was so impressed he chose her as one of the two. The other was Ala, a young dunskin who pitched in a lot in the meetings. Her anme meant 'dorsal stripe', which was fitting for her because of the heavy, dark line that ran down her back.

On top of this, Cygnus was growing fast and was beginning to lose her baby-fur when she molted for spring, giving way to a smooth, jet black coat underneath. They were like father and daughter now; she stuck to him like glue when he was in the meadow, and he threatened any strange stallion that came near her.

Willow was also keen to be with him. They spent their spare time together, comparing their childhoods and telling each other memories long forgotten. He had promised that he wouldn't get attatched to any of the females, in case the lost them or he drove them away, but each time they met he felt himself falling a little further in love.

On the other side of things, the winter had taken its toll on the class of six stallions, all except Zac. Muskrat had been killed in a fight - he hadn't stood a chance with his attitude, they all knew it - and Dillon had been trapped under a mountain of snow when it slipped off the top of the cliffs in the Centre, suffocating him. Spuro had asked that they weren't replaced, since there simply wasn't enough food for six horses as they were stuggling on four. Tay and Copper continued to work hard at their training, but the frosty months had starved and stiffended them, and there was only so much that they could improve.

Romeo was't having much trouble, but sometimes he just didn't know when to stop pushing the boundaries. Spuro had physically punished him only once, which seemed to do the trick, but it was clear that the peachy dun, no matter how charming or 'well brought up' as he had said her was, hated being told what to do. He was a better fighter than Tay and Copper, but he wasn't quite as good as Zac.

Spuro had seen a miraculous transformaion of the youngster since the beginning of the circuit. The fat, shy tobiano had built himself up into a muscular giant who was more than capable of beating the trials, if only his mind would be balanced. Spuro knew how dangerous it was for him to become dependant on competition, but if he didn't have that champion streak he could be sent to Van for showing mercy against his classmates.

Once the weather picked up the training improved and the entire herd fattened up. As part of their preparation of the trials, Spuro took the youngsters down to the Centre to watch some fighting. He avoided to stakes completely, discouraging the privates from gambling everything in some rediculous odds. Instead they formed the walls of the leagues arena, excused from the fights under the circumstances of the 'educational trip'.

They watched several fights before Spuro asked Romeo, "What was the first fight you were ever in, Rome?"

The dun shrugged and huffed. "It was against a mare. We had a bit of a domestic, it wasn't a full on battle like the sort here, but she still managed to bruise me badly."

Spuro laughed, "Beaten by a lady? I thought better of you!" he teased.

"She had good blood lines though," he replied in defence, "her parents were war horses and her grandfather was a legendary stallion,"

Spuro zoned out from the Centre's buzzing atmosphere and fixed a stare on his pupil. "She was a fiesty little minx, and hated the idea of sharing me with other mares. Shame she left me - she was an utter beauty! An isabelline palomino, just a bit younger than you."

"Her name," Spuro said,