Wait, I hear something. Everyone down! Hide till I see what it is.
Dropping back to the bottom of the gully, the four humans quickly hid behind a bush. Unfortunately for them, this particular bush happened to be of the thorny variety.
"Well," Marco groused. "This is fun."
It just some horses, Tobias reported. False alarm. You guys can get up now.
"Finally," Marco muttered, already starting to rise.
Grabbing his arm, Cassie stopped him before he could raise his head over the top of the bush. "No, just wait," she hissed.
A group of horses, six in all, walked cautiously down into the gully several feet from where the Animorphs were hiding. They were heading for the small stream. The group was lead by a pale gray stallion.
"See?!" Marco demanded. "It's just a bunch of stupid horses. Now can I get this thorn out of my butt?"
Cassie shushed him, closely scrutinizing the group of horses. There was something unnerving about them. Cassie wasn't sure what it was, but the group was really setting off her radar. Four of the horses started to drink, and the fifth and sixth stood watching them. The stallion stood guard, and it would have seemed like a perfectly harmless scene to anyone else. But Cassie wasn't convinced.
There was something… not right about this particular herd of horses. Cassie knew this, and that was why she held Marco back. The sixth horse, a roan mare that Cassie thought looked like she might have come from thoroughbred stock, walked up to the pale gray stallion. She almost seemed to be whispering in the stallion's ear. A few seconds later… she was doing something that all horses did at one point or another.
"That horse is taking a dump," Marco whispered.
"Thank you for pointing that out. We'd have never realized that if it hadn't been for you, Beavis," Rachel hissed.
"Horse patties," Marco cackled quietly. "Prairie Pies," he chuckled lowly.
"Oh, that tears it," Rachel hissed in exasperation, starting to rise to her feet. "I refuse to share a bush with this annoying little---"
"Wait! Be quiet," Cassie hissed urgently.
The mare who had just a few seconds ago been pooping stopped suddenly. The other horses were all staring at her, neighing. Cassie thought that it seemed like they were laughing. The mare tossed her head, turned away from the others, and calmly walked behind a tree to finish what she had been doing.
"A modest horse?" Cassie asked smugly, making sure to keep her voice low so that the horses wouldn't hear.
"Well I've got to admit, it does look kind of strange," Rachel said, keeping her voice down for the same reason that Cassie had.
The four of them waited until the horses had finished drinking and left the gully. Tobias fluttered down from his perch on a dead, felled tree to join the others sitting under the bramble bush. Cassie, followed by Rachel and Marco and lastly by Slade, crawled out from underneath the bush. Cassie brushed a few lingering brambles off her morphing outfit, while Rachel and Slade both picked brambles out of their hair.
"I've never seen, or heard of a horse that hid behind a tree to do her business," Cassie said. She looked around at her fellow Animorphs. "Are you guys satisfied now? Those were not normal horses."
"I think you're right about that," Slade said, getting to his feet and stretching.
"Okay, even I have to admit that that was not normal," Marco said, brushing dust and dirt off his bike shorts.
Once all four of the currently-human Animorphs had climbed up the sides of the gully, they started morphing again. After they had taken to the air, Tobias, Cassie, Slade, Marco and Rachel flew together until they had gotten to the point where they were forced to go their separate ways. Slade quickly fell in behind Cassie, making sure to stay far enough away as not to attract any undue attention.
