The wild horses of Devon

At this time of year they swarm across the limitless steppe in countless multitudes: the thunder of hooves an ever-present background to daily life.  Incomers and children, few as they now are, are frequently trampled.  Taking this photograph was possibly foolhardy: fortunately they did not see me, hidden as I was in my nest of barbed wire, a poor deterrent if they were to surge towards me in their thousands.

Genetically-modified hybrid cats, some with as many as fifty legs, are used to control the vast herds, and, later, hunt them.  (For our own pack we have concentrated on the traditional eighteen-legged cultivar, as we find the very high-leg-count animals impractically long and hard to control.)

But we are losing the battle: every year there are more horses, every year fewer of us.  Soon (how soon we dare not think) there will be only horses and cats.  Already the cats, realising the inevitable, are beginning to turn on their owners.