The modern world has forgotten the legends that once were true. They've forgotten the ancient myths that taught and warned. They've forgotten why they fear the darkness and why the unknown could lead to doom. They've forgotten who and what they were. But forgetting does not kill that which our ancestors feared. In the dark of the night a creature that had been born countless centuries ago pulled himself from the darkness and cold and pieced himself together. The stallion was the night itself, with a coat so dark that the shadows seemed to fade away into him. The night trembled as he twisted and lunged through shadows that formed against the darkness of the trees. His hooves fell to the ground like the tolling of bells, a hollow mournful sound of years past. White fangs flashed beneath the supple dark lips as Doyle pulled himself into being. A nightmare born of nighttime terrors and tales.

The phouka wasn't a being of just flesh, but of spirit. A spirit that had been born from the battles and harvests of a thousand generations. The stallion screeched out his challenge and leapt out onto the long dead road. His hooves clattered and struck the stones as he threw his head up and scented the air. He had no part in this world. The breed his form resembled had long since died out. The proud war horse with his clipped mane and tail had no right to follow this road. The soldiers who had cultivated them had been planted in the ground and turned to dust. The men who had huddled at their fires with their spears and listened to his scream echoing through the valleys had only passed on whispered tales of the beast that would come among the armies in the night. The terror of his teeth and the hooves as he tore into their sweet flesh.

They told stories, too, of the way he would appear with his saddle and bridle on. They spoke wistfully of the soldiers who had gone out on the eve of battle and found him standing there. The red pupils of his eyes flared bright with fire, but his teeth remained closed, the fearsome fangs stilled. The soldiers that set their feet into his stirrup and dared his back feared no foe. No sword or arrow could touch him, no attack could harm his rider. He would carry his rider into the battle as an untouchable juggernaut that would slaughter those before them in glorious carnage. The stallion would revel with his rider in a glory of death and victory. The enemy would not live to see the dawn, with Doyle beneath him, the soldier would see his people victorious.

At the end of the battle the stallion would stop, bloody and satiated from the fight, and allow his chosen soldier to slide from his back. If the man was wise, he would lay his sword down at the phouka's feet and walk away. He would remain blessed by the strange creature so that he would never know death in battle. He would die old and wise, with many victories to his name. If he were foolish, he would try to capture the beast. He would be addicted to the power that he had once had and the creature would turn on him. In a flash of teeth and fangs his chosen soldier would become nothing more than a cooling body on the battle field. Or so the stories were told of him.

The night air was sweet, but no battle was near, no soldiers lured him. The stallion pranced upon the overgrown road that he had once known so well. He threw up his head and whickered as the bridle and saddle faded away to nothingness leaving him bare and dark. With a wild shriek that had once made the Roman's huddle by their fires, he launched himself along the road. The grasses stirred as his hooves clattered down and he tore through the night with his cropped tail held high. His ears flicked back and his lips pulled back to flash his teeth as the red pupiled eyes flickered over the land. There was no breath of the world he had known. No hint of the people who had worshiped and feared him. His unshod hooves hit rock as he turned and tried to find the sweet scent of those he had come to hunt, to reward.

The bridge was rotting from the base of the logs all the way up to planks that had been hammered into place countless years ago. It was falling back to the river that had spawned it, but the underlying structure still survived. The old stone bridge that had been created countless years ago hadn't fallen into the water and it never would. The wood had been used to make something newer and wider when carts had rumbled along the roads, but it had been a mistake. Those that tried to cross the bridge found themselves having to offer a sacrifice to the beast that kept the river or risk being drowned in the cold black water below. Or worse, become food for the beast and never found again. So it moldered and rotted, it passed away slowly as time marched on and it became forgotten. The soldiers had once made that stone bridge.

Doyle's hooves hammered towards it, his feet clattering over the ground as he set his sights on the familiar stone and his ears went up. He tested the wind for the sweet lure of camp fires, sweat, beer and horses, but only dank water and sea weeds replied to him. The phouka shrieked out his challenge as he followed the forgotten path of the road towards the bridge and what lay beyond. Surely those who had feared and loved him still remained there. Surely they only waited for him to return to their battles.

His hooves touched the bridge when a form erupted from the black depths of the water below. A flash of green and an equine scream roared at him as the frothing river parted beneath the ancient stone. The phouka reared as a beast made of water and moonlight tore it's way free of the riverbed and a set of sea green hooves hit the stone. The beast bucked and twisted with a flash of pale dappled hide to face him, the eyes glowing a sickly green as the dark lips peeled back to show curved sharp fangs. Water ran down the kelpies side to pool at his hooves as Doyle shifted backwards and kept his ears flat to his head. A low growl spilled from his throat as he looked the beast over, on his bridge, on his road, in his land.

"Who seeks passage on my bridge?" The kelpie's voice was velvety and smooth as he advanced. "It is death to pass without tribute."

"Who stands on my road and challenges me?" Doyle retorted and stomped his hoof on the ground. "I was here when my people carved it from the land and built your bridge, colt."

"And I was here when the land was new and the river cut through it for the first time." The kelpie growled and lowered his head to be level with his head. "What is mine, is mine, untouchable by no one else lest they wish to rest in my riverbed."

Doyle rumbled a sound like laughter before arching his thick neck and stepped forward. He was larger, his body built for bulk and war. The kelpie didn't back away, instead he advanced forward with his ears up and his teeth glistening. The wet strands of his mane twisted like kelp caught beneath the water. The edges twisted upwards and twined around each other so that he couldn't see where one left off and the other began.

"This is my road, my land, my home, are you so eager to meet your ending?" Doyle murmured softly as he started to circle the other stallion. The kelpie matched him step by step so that they kept each other in view.

"It would be a grand adventure, would it not?" The kelpie twisted his head and snapped his jaws towards him. Doyle's supple thick lips twitched back in a smile.

"The only one left..." The phouka murmured in a deep purring tone.

Doyle drew himself upwards with a glorious rush of fierce elation. Battle. To taste immortal blood on his fangs as two large equine bodies coming together as a pair of warriors should. Fangs and hooves driving one another until one would fall before the other. Equally matched. Earth and water. Moonlight and shadows. The phouka drew in a breath before shrieking it out as he launched himself towards the grey dappled stallion. They came together with the trembling impact of two massive forms and the scrape of their hooves. The sweet sound of battle ringing over the riverside where countless men had shed blood to hold and claim it.

Pisces is by Pisceskelp Doyle is me Artwork by VenLightChaser