After “Progress”

The crowd in the square remained silent, most of them staring at the winged horse that had just transformed in front of them. It stamped its feet and gently waved its wings. A young apprentice from one of surrounding bakeshops was an exception—he squirmed his way through the crowd to the side of the collapsed mage. Hesitantly, he touched the mage’s neck, then picked up one of his hands. “He’s dead,” the boy cried. “I can’t feel any life in him.”

“He can’t be dead,” said one of the city’s armsmen.

“My mother’s a healer. I’ve helped her, sometimes. His heart isn’t working. There’s no life in him.”

The horse pranced two steps, wings flapped powerfully, and then it rose from the ground. It circled above the crowd, and people ducked and shouted. A few arrows flew into the air, bur others shouted “Stop;. What do you think you’re doing." Wounds appeared on the horse, and it landed, standing over the mage.  Blood dripped onto the dead man.

The crowd still shifted and fidgeted, not knowing how to react. The apprentice still crouched next to the mage.

The horse lowed its head, sized the mage’s robe by the hood, and shook it. Then the mage’s body was flipped up and tossed onto the horse’s back. Stunned, the crowed watched as the mage shook himself and reached for the horse’s bridle. The horse rose into the air again and, perhaps rather laboriously, flew away above one of the great avenues.

“He was dead,” cried the boy. “I swear he was dead. I’ve helped my mother work. I know death.” He paused and then said, “It must be the blood. The blood brought him back.”

The there was silence no more but rather the pounding of many pairs of feet, as almost the entire crowd in the square pelted off on the trail of flying horse and mage.