Black Jade

Bemossed, exhausted, fairly teetered on top of his horse and said, 'I heard there was war in this district, and plague, too.'

'Oh, excellent!' Maram grumbled. 'A cursed land — and we have to ride straight through it. Is there no other way?'

I looked out at the hot green hills around us. Perhaps ten miles farther on, a band of darker green forest covered the rising ground leading up to the mountains.

'Hmmph, you'll be all right,' Atara said to Maram, joking with him. 'Just don't drink the water here, and try not to breathe the air.'

Liljana, upon hearing this, did not smile. She sat on top of her horse next to Daj as she combed her fingers through his thick hair, checking to see if he might have picked up any ticks or other vermin on our ride. Then she broke off her inspection and said,

'I wish that I did not have to breathe the same air as Morjin, anywhere on earth. He makes everything so foul.'

The unusual shrillness of her voice alarmed me, and I nudged Altaru over to her. We traded knowing looks, and I asked her. 'Has Morjin found his way into your gelstei, too?'

She nodded her head as she brought out her blue whale figurine. She looked at it hatefully. 'He slides himself into my mind, like a tapeworm! He is filth! He is an abomination who never should have been born! I can't tell you what he is saying to me — I can hardly tell myself.'

Her words alarmed not just me, but everyone. Kane rode over to her, and cast his eyes upon the blue gelstei. He shouted, 'Then it must be destroyed!'

'No, not yet,' Liljana murmured, closing her fingers around her crystal. 'I can still bear it.'

'Can you bear giving us away? If Morjin can see what you see, hear what you hear, then — '

'But he can't!'

'How do you know?'

'I just do. He wants only to madden me. He speaks and speaks to me, but he doesn't really know if I can hear him.'

'But how do we know that, eh?'

'How can you ask that? After all we've suffered together? Don't you know me?'

'But what if you're wrong, eh?'

Liljana thrust her hand inside her cloak as she glared at Kane. And she snapped at him, 'You'll just have to trust me!'

'So,' he growled as he glared back at her. 'So.'

Liljana usually spoke with care, so as not to upset the children with things that they didn't need to know. But now she cried out: 'It doesn't matter anyway! Morjin is tracking us, and not by my thoughts. He will run us down, and soon!'

'Did he tell you that?' I asked her.

'Yes!'

I looked up at the mountains, which seemed so close, and yet still too far away. I said to Liljana, 'Then he told you lies — we will escape him, again.'

'You tell yourself lies. We are riding so slowly.'

'Be quiet, woman!' Kane thundered at her. 'You worry more than Maram! And that's just what Morjin wants, eh? It's your damn gelstei! You should throw it away before I do!'

His large hands, it seemed, fairly trembled to rip open the folds of her cloak and seize her gelstei. And so I shouted at him: 'Kane! Morjin wants even more that we should start tearing at each other's throats!'

As I said this, the deep lines cut into his savage face smoothed out, and his eyes cooled, slightly. He turned away from Liljana. Then he brought out his black gelstei and sat on his horse staring at it.

'Damn Morjin!' he muttered. 'Damn his eyes! Damn his blood!'

He made a fist around his dark stone, and lifted his hand back behind his head as if making ready to hurl it from him. And then his whole body seemed to lose its strength. His arm fell to his side as he slumped in his saddle. He put his gelstei away. He turned to me to snarl out, 'Let's ride, damn it, while we still can!'

And so ride we did, trying to keep our hope fixed on the great rocky wall of mountains growing larger and larger in front of us. We pounded around and over grassy hills. Flies came out to bite us. Our sweat, like fire, burned in the little wounds the flies tore in our flesh.

And then we crested a good-sized hill, and the dark blanket of forest we sought for shade from the fierce sun and cover from our pursuers' eyes seemed almost close enough to touch. I thought that we might possibly reach it and vanish into its trees. Then I turned to scan the rolling ground behind us and a flash of white and red brightened the top of one of the hills. I squinted against the sun, and I could just make out a white horse bearing a bronze- armored warrior and his flowing red cape. Lord Mansarian. I remembered, rode a snow-white stallion. I knew this was he. His men galloped right behind him. There must have been at least two hundred knights of these Crimson Companies, pouring down the hillside like a stream of bronze and red. Somewhere in this frightful mass, I thought, rode priests of the Kallimun. I knew that their master rode with them as well — either he or the droghul of Morjin.

Seeing this, Maram sighed out, 'Ah, too many, too close — too bad.'

'No!' I said to him. 'We can escape them yet! Let's ride!'

I urged Altaru to a gallop; it gladdened my heart to see Bemossed push his gelding to match this pace. He and Littlefoot both seemed near to collapse, but they managed to negotiate the easy slope down the backside of the hill. Another and larger hill rose up before us. I led the way around it, through a broad, grassy trough, and I dared to hope that the sight of our enemy would inspire us to a speed great enough to leave them behind.

But it was not to be. Just as I rounded the hill, I came upon a stream cutting through a gully. Altaru jumped across it almost without breaking stride. Just as I turned in my saddle to warn Bemossed of this unexpected obstacle, though, he seized hold of Littlefoots reins in confusion. Littlefoot planted his hooves in the grass, stopping up short of the stream. Bemossed, completely unprepared for his horse's sudden balk, went flying headfirst from his saddle through the air. His momentum carried him clear across the stream, where he struck the ground with a sickening impact. He threw up his hands to protect his head, and I heard bones break. It was something of a miracle that Atara's horse and those of the children, following close behind him, managed to jump the stream without trampling him.

We all gathered around Bemossed near the edge of the gully and dismounted. Bemossed stood up bravely, holding his drooping arm in his hand. He winced in pain as Master Juwain quickly examined it, but did not utter even a murmur of complaint

'Both bones in your forearm are broken,' Master Juwain announced. 'Not badly, I think, but they must be set. and your arm wrapped.'

'Not here!' Kane growled out. 'There is no time!'

'He can't ride like this,' Master Juwain said.

'He can hardly ride as it is,' Kane snapped. 'But ride he must.'

'All right,' I said. 'Then he'll ride with me.'

I mounted Altaru, and then helped Maram and Kane as they fairly flung Bemossed up onto Altaru's back behind me. I told Bemossed to wrap his good arm around my waist and to hold on tightly. Then I whispered to my great, black stallion, 'All right, old friend, you must run quickly now — quicker than you ever have before!'

Altaru, however, although the strongest of horses and a fury of speed over short distances, had never had the wind for long races. With Bemossed's weight added to mine, Altaru sprang forward with a great surge of determination that could not last very long. We galloped for a while over the lumpy, grassy ground. The breath snorted from his huge nostrils, and I felt an agony of fire building within the great, bunching muscles of his flanks and legs. I feared that he would run so hard that his heart might burst. I wanted to weep at the valor of this great- spirited being.

I heard the horses of my companions pounding after us and Bemossed's tormented breath exploding in my ear. I felt his arm tight around my belly, but trembling with the effort to keep holding on. I knew his strength was failing, as was Altaru's. After a couple of miles, my horse's pace slowed to barely a gallop. His whole body seemed to knot and quiver with a burning agony. I did not know how he kept on running.