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The banner bearer flipped backwards across his horse’s rump, his heels high and his cloak fluttering. He hit hard and the horse behind jumped to avoid hitting him.
Wistala flattened herself into the branch, barely daring to peep at events with one eye.
All the horses snorted and danced, probably smelling Wistala above.
“What now?” Vorl rasped.
“The tree hit him,” the fourth man shouted, getting his horse out from under the oak. “A limb full of twigs reached down and struck Gleshick full in the face. It was the tree!”
“Vorl,” the other rider said, searching the dark overhang of branches. “Perhaps it’s time to leave reins and take up bedcups.”
“My horse cannot be controlled!” the last in line said, spurring his mount away. The beast galloped southward, its rider’s hindquarters lifted high as he hung on. “An evil magic drives it! Good luck!”
“Brothel spawn!” Vorl shouted at the receding figure. “Come.
We’re a short way from House Gamkley. He’ll remember the thane and mount his household.”
“What about Gleshick?”
“A bloody nose and a night on the gravel will teach him not to sleep in the saddle. Let’s hurry! Perhaps we can catch up to that fool and talk some sense into him.”
They galloped off south, and the empty-saddled horse moved to follow them in a halfhearted manner. Wistala dropped from the tree onto its back.
She clung as best as she could, digging her claws into the mane as the men did their fingers.
The horse bucked and screamed. Wistala hung on with all four sets of claws.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Wistala said. “Bear me but short run the other way, and I’ll release you.”
“No!”
“Otherwise you’ll not live another minute,” Wistala said. “I haven’t had horse since I was a hatchling, and your quivering makes me long for the taste.”
The horse tore off up the road north. They hurried through the village where Rainfall had been abused and were out of it again before any but the barking dogs woke.
As their racket faded behind and they reentered the woods, the horse tried to knock Wistala off its back by passing under branches, a difficult proposition as she could flatten herself on the horse’s back better than any man and still keep her grip. Wistala struck its rump with her tail. “Keep to the center.”
“Pity! Exhausted—”
They left the thicker woods and came to open, rocky ground that smelled of sheep and yellow late-summer wildflowers. Wistala saw distant shepherd fires to both sides of the road. Quartz veins in the protruding rocks caught the moonlight. The river ridge broke the horizon in the distance, notched where the road cut through it. She knew that notch. The river ran just beyond.
“Up this far rise, and you’ll be done,” Wistala said.
The horse quickened his step but breathed more heavily than ever, snorting and gasping as though each labored breath might be his last. Wistala made out the wagon cresting the notch.
“Well enough,” Wistala said, hopping off. “Go where you like, but on the other side of the river—”
The horse tore off down the road, away from the fearful dragon-smell.
“Stupid brute,” Wistala muttered. Ah well, of such mentalities meals are made. She trotted at her best pace after the wagon. As the sky grew pink and then orange, she breached the rise.
She couldn’t help but think that the notch would make another fine ambush site. Its steep sides meant that with a little work they could block the bend ahead, and she could rain fire upon anyone at their heels. . . .
And here was the wagon. She scrambled up the ridge—her hearts beat fast and hard at the sight of the river and the bridge—then got ahead of it.
She counted heads. Each face was drawn and exhausted from the long flight. One was missing: that priestess, Mod Feeney. Had she gone off the road?
“Jessup!” she called when they came within the sound of her voice. “Jessup! Does Rainfall still live?”
