Told in alternate chapters in first and thrid person, this book documents the arrival of a small girl in the tribe of the Storn.
The hapless, tyrannical Lawmaker of the tribe, Horn, finds her when he is off on a quest to find a wolf that bit his advisor. After he and the men of the tribe have killed the wolves, they dicover a little girl in the wolves' den, crying. Olaf, Horn's enemy, the father of Sigurd, and the man who he fought for the leadership of the tribe, takes in the child and fosters her as his own.
Mouse, as the girl becomes known, is never really one of the tribe. She can read the minds of animals, use their senses, and perform magic, all of which terrify the Storn. She can also open the mysterious box that she and her foster-brother, Sigurd, find on the beach. Horn flies into a rage when he finds that they have been concealing the box, and that the box is empty. In a fit of anger he tries to strike the box with his sword, but the sword breaks and wounds his Spellmaker, Gudrun, in the stomach. Mouse is called to tend the Spellmaker's wound, and Gudrun teaches her all she knows about herbs, plants, and magic.
Olaf is ashamed that his son could have hidden anything from him, and deep below is the terrible shame of having lost the fight that would have made him Lawmaker, and being subjected to Horn's scorn for many years. Sigurd is so wounded by his father's anger and his years of coldness and runs away. He collapses on the beach several miles away and is carried back to the Storn by Ragnald, a man with pure white hair and skin and black palms.
Ragnald claims that he is an entertainer, and that the empty box contains his magic. He bewitches Sigurd, and Sif, Horn's daughter, into showing him the location of the box. He then ties them up and gags them, threatening to slit their throats. Sif and Sigurd have to burn themselves free of the rope that ties them together with a brand from the fire, and they both receive an identical scar on their necks, one that binds them, always.
Once they escape, they find Mouse, writhing in agony on the floor of the grain barn, with her hands seemingly stuck to the inside of the box. Mouse never recovers from this trauma, becoming even more quiet and withdrawn than ever.
Ragnald then kills Horn and Olaf as they rush in, alerted by Sif. Sigurd then performs the first ever act of which he has been proud, killing Ragnald with the broken end of Horn's sword.
Sif and Sigurd fight for the right to be Lawmaker, and Sigurd wins. He begins to lead the tribe away from the folly that Horn ingrained, rationing out food, and building a defensive wall around the village to keep out the Dark Horse. Every merchant ship that passes by gives warning that the Dark Horse are coming, they are getting nearer, sacking villages and killing or imprisoning all those in their path.
Within days, the Dark Horse are upon the village. Most of the Storn are able to escape into the hills behind the village. Mouse and Sigurd meet up with another small party of the villagers, and Sigurd begs Mouse to use her skills to help them escape the Dark Horse. Mouse claims that there is a narrow gully that they can escape through, that the Dark Horse will not have found. But as soon as what's left of the Storn enter the gully, the Dark Horse bear down on them from behind and in front. Mouse had betrayed them.
The Storn are taken captive, and presented with the choice of dying, or being slaves to the Dark Horse. Mouse tells Sigurd that she is the long-lost Princess Kara of the Dark Horse, and she is what they have been pillaging the coast looking for.
Sigurd and the rest of the Storn with him choose to die rather than be slaves to the girl who betrayed them, but they are surprised by the arrival of Sif and more villagers. Together they ambush the tent of the Dark horse and kill them all, save Mouse. Sigurd goes after Mouse, intending to kill his sister. They are both overcome with emotioy face the prospect of him kil, and he lets her go. His last words to her: 'I will always be your brother', and Mouse runs away to live wild as she did with the wolves.
The Dark Horse is, in esscence, the tale of Sigurd and Olaf's power struggle with Horn and Horn's folly. Sigurd is contantly trying to undo and erase the idiotic decisions made by Horn and lead the tribe for their own good. And it is also the tale of Sigurd's love for the girl who he calls his sister, the wild girl who nobody but him accepts. It is a deeply personal tale that is defintiley a good read. At times tear-jerking, it is so wonderfully in touch with human emotion that it transports you.
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