“Ruarc’s men have arrived. Our time is limited.” Cian starts toward the gate, more urgency to his step this time.
We make it halfway to the wall before the command rings out behind us.
“Stad!” No doubting the meaning of the word, or who it’s intended for. Iturn to see a redheaded young warrior hurrying toward me, spear half raised. Cian steps smoothly in front of me. Into the path of any potential attack.
The man stumbles to a confused halt, recognition in his eyes. He says something to Cian, who just shakes his head, stepping forward. He says it again, a little more forcefully. But he’s backing away and Cian is advancing calmly. Hand outstretched. He’s twenty feet away. Ten. The warrior is tall and muscled and armed. Cian has only his staff.
The other man turns to run, only to be brought up short by the dogs that have circled behind him. They remain eerily mute, but their lips are curled back, revealing a healthy number of teeth.
Cian’s staff takes the stranger in the back of the skull. He crumples to the ground.
“Come.” The white-cloaked man sounds frustrated as he leaves the man in the mud. The dogs remain around the motionless figure, ignoring our departure.
Silence as we stride for the gate. Slip through it. I wait for shouts of discovery, but still the only sounds from the township are the faint strains of music and raised, exuberant voices. We hurry away from the torchlight down a black trail that splits a field rippling with wheat.
After a minute, the gloom reveals two sable horses tethered beneath a lone tree. Neither has bridle or saddle. Cian unties them and indicates one.
“I will not be able to … direction.” I whisper it, despite the distance between us and the town now. I don’t know the Vetusian for steer.
“You just need to stay on. Can you?” He sees my hesitation. “Honesty only.”
I chew my lip. Shake my head. I was always a competent rider, but I know what it will take, especially bareback. I am still weak, and my balance is barely good enough to do more than walk.
Cian nods with calm acceptance, swinging himself up on the larger of the two animals and then offering me his hand. I scramble awkwardly up behind him, clutching tightly with my knees and wrapping my arm around Cian’s waist.
“Ready?”
I brace myself. Even with Cian to cling to, this is going to be exhausting. “Yes. How far?”
Behind us, there is a commotion from the town. Shouting. A clanging of some kind of bell. I see new torches flare along the walls.
Cian spurs the horse to motion. “Far.”
We gallop into the night.
THERE IS A UNIQUE, BUILDING FEAR TO KNOWING YOUare being hunted. Some distant part of me still remembers playing hide-and-seek in the palace at Suus. Running the hidden passageways and expansive halls, fleeing my giggling sisters. Heart hammering as their footsteps drew nearer, balled up behind some couch or pressing myself flat against a wall, hoping they would somehow pass by without noticing. It was just a game and yet there is nothing that induces anxiety more than wanting to be hidden, and knowing you are about to be found.
It is the years after which made me familiar with the true dread of the feeling, though. Which allow me now to press past it andthink.
I spend most of those first few wretched hours doing just that, struggling with every thumping jolt of our steed, turning everything I know over again and again, until I finally have to admit I simply don’t have enough information for conclusions. My thighs burn. My arm feels heavy and the other still feels as though it’s there, begs me to reach around and secure myself properly. The questions I have for Cian, I have no breath to ask.
Not that he appears to have idle time to talk, either, with his attention clearly consumed in getting us away from our inevitable pursuit. I am inclined to let it be.
I have little spare focus of my own to take in the countryside as we ride; it passes in a vague blur of rolling hills and vast meadows and rustling forests, all muted and obscured by the constant drizzling damp that beats miserably down upon us. No cities or towns, only the torches of one small village that we’ve passed through almost before I realise what it is. Not even many farms, as far as I can tell. The road is mud and little more than a worn track at points.
Some part of me keeps watch for a landmark. I see nothing I recognise. Still no telling where I am, how far from Caten I’ve been brought.
Finally, just as another downpour eases and I’m certain my aching, freezing muscles are about to give out, Cian slows our lathered horse. We pull a little way off the road to stop in a copse by a brook. Cian dismounts and I try to follow without thinking, only remembering halfway through that it will be a far moreawkward process without my arm; my rescuer was already moving to assist, but I fall far more than alight, slipping clumsily in the mud and pulling Cian down with me.
I lie there and groan as he uses his staff to regain his feet, staring down at his mud-stained cloak. Then he offers me his hand.
“Graceful,” he observes solemnly.
I allow the ghost of a smile. Nod ruefully, and accept the help. “How long … we rest?”
“Minutes.” Cian checks I’m alright and then leads our heaving horse to the water, patting it reassuringly. “They will track us, if they are not already. We need to reach the border before they catch up.”
“It has been … raining. Hard raining. These roads are … have lots of tracks … from other horses. And we have … crossed? … several streams—”
