A fresh wave of alarm rose from the south.Doors slammed shut, and a howl that chilled Fola to her marrow split the air.
‘No…’ Llewyn slumped again, the sudden strength lent by his panic spent.‘Afanan… So little time?’
‘Llewyn?’Siwan said, leaning from behind Damon.‘What are you talking about?’
Llewyn made no move to answer.
‘What happened to Afanan?’Siwan demanded.Her voice hitched in her throat.She stared at him, her eyes going wider, her mouth trembling.‘Llewyn?Tell me!’
‘We don’t have time for this,’ Fola said.Afanan was a good woman, and Fola’s best ally in bringing Siwan to the City, but dwelling on her fate now would only endanger them all.‘We have to keep moving.’
‘Glascoed it is, then,’ Harwick said, grimly determined, whatever he felt suppressed by the need for action.‘By the sunken road.’
Again, he put knees to his horse.They shot east, through rapidly emptying streets as word spread ahead of them that some fresh danger had visited itself upon the city.Fola felt a pang for the common folk of this kingdom, born into a place and a time of such chaos, and none of it their making.
Thoughts which distracted her, however briefly, from worrying after Colm, and wondering whether she had bought him the time he needed to make his own escape—hoping that she had not abandoned him to die.
‘Shit,’ Harwick growled.
A grinding rumble sounded ahead of them.The eastern gate of the city slowly swung shut, creaking on its massive gears.Whatever had raised the alarm at the southern gate—whatever hunted Siwan and Llewyn—had overcome tradition.Parwys might stand open through the night in defiance of death until the prince had been crowned, but would close in the face of a more mundane, immediate threat.
And lock them behind the city walls with the templar knights, it seemed.
‘Don’t slacken!’Fola shouted in Harwick’s ear.‘Keep pace!’
Harwick shot her a glance over his shoulder.
‘We’ll be crushed!’he shouted back.
‘Trust me!’Fola held on to the back edge of the saddle with her knees and opened her notebook across the strongman’s back—almost as broad as Colm’s.Harwick grunted something under his breath, but nodded.
‘Stay close!’he yelled to the other riders, and put his knees to the gelding for another burst of speed.
Fola took note of the gate’s make.It opened inwards, towards the city, and worked by counterweights—massive blocks of stone suspended on chains slowly lowered, driving the mechanism that swung the doors.It would be a race, then.Horseflesh and her magic against the inexorable pace of gravity.No other way.She started to draw the circle, despite the searing bar of tension that seized her middle.
The gelding beneath her began to baulk from the narrowing gap.Horses had better sense than people when it came to charging head-first towards certain death.Of course, unlike Fola, they neither understood nor could wield the powers of thaumaturgy.
A simple function of compression, then flow.With a stroke of her pen, spellpaper burst in a flash and, with the acrid scent of burning ink, conveyed her spell to the air itself.She hugged Harwick’s middle to keep her seat.The screams of their horses soared to a piercing, terrified wail, soon scattered by the sudden roar of rushing wind as the air caught and carried them forward, doubling their speed.A loose formation of guards had begun assembling to bar their way; the sudden gust battered them with flying debris, then bowled them over moments before the three horses surged past.
The bar of tension in her core began to relax as they rode free.The ensorcelled wind dissipated in the same moment the gates thundered shut.Fola shook her head, laughed in relief and satisfaction, and moved to put her notebook away—and only then realised that all during the mad dash she had been crushing Frog against Harwick’s back.The bird trembled, blinking up at her from the swaddling bundle across her chest, startled and confused but thankfully unhurt beyond the wounds Torin had dealt.
To a chorus of shouts and confusion from the city, Harwick led their party east along the First Folk Road, still at a gallop.They passed the ruined fields where the haunting had struck the festival hardest.Abandoned tent poles stood sentinel over bloodstained grass.Torn remnants of pavilions and bunting fluttered in the afternoon breeze.Fola held tight to Harwick and chanced a backward glance as they galloped through the abandoned wreckage.Llewyn slumped against Spil on the black palfrey, his eyes glazed in agony.Siwan clung to Damon’s waist and looked about them—perhaps taking in the devastation where so recently a festival air had held, perhaps seeking sign of Afanan, behind them.The girl’s taut expression poorly masked her grief and guilt.At their back, a pillar of smoke had begun rising from the southern end of the city.
* * *
‘Harwick!’Spil shouted.‘You’ll kill Rusty and Mable if we keep on like this!They’re only carthorses, for pity’s sake!’
They had reached the edge of the festival grounds, well on their way to Bryngodre through open country, little more than gentle hills and grassland dotted with the occasional stand of trees.Fola looked back.Neither Anwe nor whatever threat the troupers had fled pursued them.She could feel the roan gelding—Rusty, she surmised—growing tired beneath her, his stride losing its smoothness.Mable, which bore Siwan and Damon, was faring slightly better with her lesser burden, but of the three mounts only the black palfrey had yet to flag.
‘We’re safe for the moment,’ Fola said.
Harwick nodded, and soon they had slowed from a mad gallop to a steady trot.
‘We should see to Llewyn,’ Siwan said.A deep furrow in her brow held in her grief and questions.‘He’s hurt.’
‘Is he awake?’Fola asked.
Llewyn grunted.
