be waste. He didn't dwell on the possibility.
He flung the loop. It soared cleanly between two bucking fire-mares to settle around a piebald neck. The mare whinnied loudly, loud enough so that her cry rose above the echoes of falling rocks and shouting men. She kicked and turned even as Rell grabbed hold of the rope, pulling both men flat and dragging them across the rough ground. Colwyn had the rope looped several times around his right arm. The mare might pull the arm out of its socket, but he was determined she would not separate it from the rope.
Gravel and sand pitted his skin and stung his eyes as she pulled them across the canyon floor, but he clung grimly to the rope, trying to get to his feet and dig in. Torquil tried to help but was too far behind to reach them.
All around the bandit leader, his men were being thrown aside, and they were good riders, too. The cyclops was wrong. Mere men couldn't ride these cursed creatures! In his mind's eye he recalled the difficulties they'd already overcome to get this far. Now it seemed they were to be defeated for taking the word of a one-eye.
But even as he began to despair, Rell struggled to his feet. His weight and strength slowed the leader. Then Colwyn was on his feet next to him, fighting his way along the line toward the great beast. She snorted and reared angrily before him and he had to dodge hooves and teeth.
Rell slid sideways until he stood behind a rock firmly anchored to the earth. With his feet thus braced and muscles straining, he managed to keep the fire-mare under control.
'Hurry!' he urged Colwyn. 'I will not break, but I can't vouch for the rope, and if she thinks to snap at it she may bite it through.'
Colwyn kept the Cyclops's warning in mind as he approached the bucking mare with saddle and bridle in hand. His eyes stayed on those flying hooves and he was mindful not to approach too quickly. The herd milled nervously around them, perhaps aware now of the way out of the trap, but unwilling to try it without direction from their leader.
'Easy, my beauty, stand easy,' Colwyn murmured consolingly as he drew near. 'Temper your impatience. A day's ride and then you'll be free again.'
By the time he came alongside, she'd relaxed a little, winded by her fight with thepe. Rell kept it taut as Colwyn slipped onto the fire-mare's back. Then he was safely in place.
Making sure of his seat, he nodded to Rell. The cyclops let loose of the rope and backed clear as the mare immediately galloped off. The herd began to flank her, whinnying their concern.
For an instant Colwyn feared she'd bolt for the exit, but a touch of his heels and a tug leftward on the reins changed her mind. By the time he directed her back toward his friends, he felt he had her fairly well under control. Still, he did not relax. It would be presumptuous to think he knew her. A flick of massive back muscles could still send him flying.
The longer he rode her, however, the less likely that seemed. She had turned into a model of equine decorum.
'Gentle as a baby,' he said to Torquil, who watched him approach warily, ready to retreat if the mare charged. He eyed those pacing hooves uneasily.
'Some baby.' He turned, shouted commands. 'Saddle the others! Quickly!'
Some of the chosen fire-mares still resisted, but most did no more than canter nervously around their docile leader. They were not broken, but the fight had gone out of them. As long as their leader stood placidly in their midst, there seemed no more reason for alarm, not even when strange things like saddles and surcingles were placed on their backs.
As the last mounts were being chosen, Rell walked up to Colwyn. 'I must remain here.'
This was not expected. 'Why? We'll need you when we assault the Fortress. You're worth any half dozen in a fight, Rell. Why withdraw your support now that—' He broke off, remembering what Ynyr had told him about the one-eyes and their bad bargain of ancient times.
'Forgive me, Rell. I've been so involved with my own problems that I tend to forget other men have their own. Is it time, then?'
Rell nodded somberly. 'Before night falls again, my night will come for me.'
Colwyn leaned down to grip the Cyclops's shoulder. 'You've done enough. More than enough. More than could be asked of any man. Stay here. In peace.' He straightened in the saddle and looked around the canyon. 'This is a quiet place.
A good place. None should disturb you here, not even Slayers.'
'Each to his fate,' Rell murmured, adding a gentle smile.
'Each to his fate. Yours to stay, mine to go on. If not for Lyssa I'd be tempted to give up. But while she suffers, I suffer.'
'Not to waste any more time, then,' Rell advised him. He nodded toward the open end of the canyon. 'Your way is clear, as is mine.'
Colwyn nodded, urged his mount toward the opening. The others followed, still settling themselves on their strange but willing mounts, talking steadily to them to show they meant no harm. Torquil rode alongside Colwyn. As they passed Rell, he glanced curiously from the unmounted cyclops to Colwyn, who said nothing but explained all with a single, eloquent shake of his head.
Rell turned and walked over to where Titch stood watching Kegan secure his own mount. He came up behind the boy and lifted him easily up behind the man. Titch turned to say something, then caught the look in the Cyclops's eye. Life with the seer had made the boy perceptive as well as quiet. In mat single glance he saw what awaited his great friend, and how near at hand it lay. For a boy he was very strong. There were not many tears.
That single eye produced only one. Gently Rell backed off.
Kegan watched curiously, said nothing until Rell had moved away. 'He's not coming with us?'
'It is his time to die,' Titch said softly.
Kegan was a practical man, not a diplomat. 'We'll miss his help. If he's going to die anyway, why doesn't he come with us?'
'No. He must stay here and accept his fate. If he opposes it in any way, he will bring great pain on himself.'
Kegan shrugged, urged his fire-mare forward. 'A strange way to live. A stranger way to die. Be thankful, boy, we were given two eyes instead of one.'
Ergo rode last in line and was quick to note the exchange. He turned in his saddle. 'Rell'
'I must stay here, my magnificent friend. You and Titch have already realized your wishes. Soon I will realize mine.'
Ergo reined his mount in. 'We had no time to be friends. I mistrusted you when I first met you.'
'And I was equally unsure of you,' Rell replied.
'No time. Never enough time, it seems. I wish…' He shrugged helplessly. 'Good-bye, friend.'
'Farewell, Ergo. There was time enough for friendship. Go now without looking back. There'll be nothing to see.'
But Ergo could not help looking back. Rell stood staring after the departing troupe, solid as the rock walls that enclosed him, until they swallowed him up,
Colwyn kept the pace easy until they were clear of the canyons. Ahead lay the southern plain and beyond, where the grass rusted, the Iron Desert. And Lyssa. Thoughts of her freshened his resolve. They had a long way to go.
Kicking his mount's flanks as hard as he could, he chucked the reins and let put a shout. The mare started, reared, then let herself go. The breeze in Colwyn's face became a gale, then a hurricane. Soon he was no longer riding, he was holding on for his life.
Behind him he heard yells and cries as his companions urged their steeds to keep pace. Hazarding a glance backward, he saw the frightened faces of his men hugging tight to massive necks, saw whitened fingers clutched convulsively around taut reins. Below the men were pounding, wondrous bodies, and between them and the earth were only blurs riding streaks of fire.
Carefully he sat up in the saddle and squinted into the wind. At this pace they might indeed reach the Iron Desert in time.
It had been a slow week and the boatman was hungry for a little business. He scratched at himself as he
