Dragon's Child by M. K. Hume

and then managed to regularly throw him off her back with casual disdain.
    Aphrodite was definitely not the Greek goddess of love.
    ‘Who’s the smarter? You or the horse?’ Targo asked, with a wicked leer plastered over his seamed and wrinkled face.
    ‘I am,’ Artorex snarled through clenched teeth.
    Then the horse stood on the boy’s foot. Artorex was sure she had broken his toe.
    ‘Who’s stronger? You? Or the horse?’
    ‘She is - unfortunately.’
    Targo laughed, coughed and then spat on the ground.
    ‘So how do you control something that is far stronger than you?’ Targo asked.
    ‘Cheat a little?’ Artorex said hopefully.
    ‘You must convince her that you are stronger and nastier than she is,’ Targo lectured. ‘Horses are like little children. And how do you stop little children from misbehaving?’ Targo mimicked the slapping of a naked bottom. ‘For truly difficult horses, trainers use a quirt, or a small whippy branch. They don’t use it overly much, mind, for if you brutalize a horse you’ll only make it dangerous. Just a taste is all you will need, not enough to hurt but sufficient to demonstrate to Aphrodite that you’re in charge.’ He smiled. ‘Here’s a suitable branch. I’ll return when you’ve mastered her.’
    Targo walked away with his usual lack of concern, but he had just handed the boy his greatest test - and the most dangerous temptation to date.
    Targo was a hard man, in fists, in swordplay and in the business of living. He had few illusions about the goodness of heart of the people with whom he mixed, nor was there much love left in him. But to those he did love, he was faithful forever.
    During his long life, he had seen men who appeared to be honourable on the surface but who took unnatural pleasure in the infliction of pain and brute force. Targo had never understood such flawed creatures, for he hardly considered them to be human. They brutalized anything and anyone within the ambit of their power, so they would beat a horse until it was a quivering and broken-spirited creature, simply because they had complete mastery over the animal.
    Targo didn’t know if the boy was such a person. Often, these human beasts had felt inadequacy as children, or had been bullied and brutalized themselves. Targo knew that Artorex had never been forced to exercise power over anything that breathed, so he hoped that the boy wouldn’t fail this crucial trial. The snake-eyed Luka would be certain to ask the question on his next visit.
    Artorex could never have guessed the fearful tenor of Targo’s thoughts, so straight was the old man’s back as he strode briskly away.
    As was becoming his custom, Artorex approached this latest problem with logic and reason. He cut his own quirt in full view of the wild-eyed mare, slicing his hand with the thin wand of alder in the process. It hurt!
    Yes, he thought to himself. No horse would enjoy a blow from this weapon.
    Then, for the very first time, he looked at Aphrodite with real attention. She was an ugly mare at best, and it was obvious that she had felt the quirt before, judging by the narrow scars on her shoulders and her flanks.
    The horse looked back at him defiantly and Artorex recognized that the mare’s hatred was directed at the narrow wand in his hand. In clear view of Aphrodite’s rolling eyes, he turned his hand and dropped the branch to the ground before showing Aphrodite his bare palms. Then he swiftly leapt on to her back, grabbed her mane tightly with both hands and wrapped his legs about her barrel belly.
    As usual, she tried to throw him, but this time her heart didn’t seem so set on drawing his blood and maiming him. Artorex pulled hard on her mane, thereby yanking her head upward. The horse corkscrewed and twisted, but the boy continued to pit his will against hers. Even when she eventually threw him off, he went through the same procedure as before, again and again, until, just when Artorex believed his aching bones