The patriarch gawped at the glittering thing in his hand. The others had gathered around to stare with him. Only the children were unimpressed. He found his voice eventually. 'Pretty though it is, this won't buy us grain.'
'It's worth all the grain on the Hunch.'
He continued more certainly, 'Trinkets are all well and good for rich folks. For peasants, ready currency is the only useful sort.'
I pointed past him. 'If you can't appreciate it for its aesthetic value, I'm sure those gentlemen will take it off your hands.'
He seemed uncertain, now, even nervous. 'Are those riders?'
'Yes indeed. Maybe they'll require lodgings.'
I grasped the netting and made to swing up, but he stopped me with a glare. Seeing no option, I drew out an onyx and tossed it towards him.
'Here, for your more pressing needs, though I feel less inclined now to speak well of Reb Panza's hospitality.'
I clambered to Saltlick's shoulder while he was scrabbling in the dust.
'I can't say it's been a pleasure doing business. Still, I wish you a good night.'
I pointed Saltlick towards the road, and we were gone before the patriarch could raise any further objections.
The road took us quickly higher, so that the trees and foliage thinned out and the boulders grew more rugged and pronounced. It swept up in long curves, doubling back on itself time and again. Its convolutions gave me a good view of the way we'd passed — and of the line of torches approaching in our wake.
I'd taken pains to impress our urgency on Saltlick, though I doubted he wanted to be recaptured any more than I did. He had redoubled his pace, so that it took all my strength to stay on his shoulder, and all my willpower not to throw up. I wasn't about to complain. I suspected now that the riders had deliberately idled through the day, taking a gamble that we would either exhaust ourselves or try to go to ground. Whatever the reason, it was clear they'd only begun to stretch themselves after nightfall. They'd covered a remarkable distance during the hour we'd wasted in Reb Panza. Even now, with Saltlick jogging at what seemed an outrageous speed, they were still gaining.
After a few minutes, the lights bunched together. That seemed odd, until I realised they'd reached the village. There was no illumination except for the torches, a performance of shimmering yellow dots on a black stage. Some spread out to form a wide circular border while the remainder drifted into the centre.
When, five minutes later, they were still in that pattern, I began hesitantly to relax. 'Slow down a little,' I told Saltlick, 'I think they've stopped.'
He did as ordered, and I continued to watch. It was dull entertainment. The dots in the centre bobbed and weaved, with inscrutable purpose. The outer circle held firm without so much as a tremor. After another five minutes, I decided that the chase was over for the time being. Either they'd recovered the ruby and were satisfied or they'd decided to camp for the night, confident in their ability to run us down in the morning. I faced forward, breathed a sigh of relief, and wondered if we might be safe to find a campsite of our own.
Steadily, though, a sense of unease crept back over me. I couldn't explain it at first. There was nothing to hear, no rumble of hooves. I decided it was something in the quality of the light. The sky seemed inexplicably brighter behind than ahead, as though the sun were rising early and in the wrong direction. We'd come to a region of large boulders, however, my view was obstructed on both sides, and I couldn't make out why.
Eventually, another turn brought us out near a ledge, with nothing beyond it but a steep decline. Then I understood.
There were the torches, not far behind us, fallen back into their original formation.
Now they weren't the only things burning.
Reb Panza was, as well.
CHAPTER 5
I was no stranger to being chased. I'd fled from my share of angry shopkeepers and incensed guards, not to mention the odd mob. But those occasions had been a breeze compared to the hurricane I found myself in that night.
It was late when the hunt began in earnest, the moon near its apex. It was hard at first to separate the weaving torches from the conflagration of Reb Panza. It was hard to see anything much. The wind was from the north, and it wasn't long before a great cloud of stinking smoke had enshrouded us and the area all around. My eyes smarted and wept — though in truth, that was caused by more than just the smoke. I had a sick feeling rooted in my stomach, half numb horror and half disbelief. Why had they destroyed Reb Panza? It made no sense. Had the people been in it when it burned, those giggling children and their ancient guardians, the patriarch with his preposterous moustaches? And there was another question, even more urgent-seeming, which my mind kept returning to despite my efforts.
Had it been my fault?
Saltlick laboured on beneath me, feet pounding the dusty road, breath escaping in violent gasps. I'd lost track of how long he'd been running. I couldn't imagine what was going through his mind, or what pressures were tearing at his body. Behind us, that chain of fires commanded the near horizon. All I could see were flames weaving in the foggy darkness; but my imagination was eager to complete the scene. I saw a hundred riders, arrows notched, scimitars bared, grim determination on their faces. I saw their leader urging them on, screaming threats of grotesque punishment and promises of outrageous reward to the man whose blade first drank our blood. I saw my death encroaching, inescapably.
The wind rose, the smoke began to break up. The air still stank of charred grass, and at first retained a hazy thickness, lending an unreality to everything. Then a light rain began, and it was as though we'd been travelling within a chamber of grimy glass that was suddenly washed clean. The stars seemed very bright, the trees and rocks glistened. The bobbing torches behind us stood out like pinheads on a black velvet cushion.
That sight brought me back to the moment. I told myself that the men pursuing us must be insane, that they'd set fire to Reb Panza for no other reason than a love of destruction. It need only be the work of one madman, in fact, and the rest were simply following orders. There was no reason to think it had anything to do with me. Moaradrid's army probably burned villages every day. The best I could do would be to escape and carry word of their atrocity.
The issue settled, I tried to get my bearings. I wasn't sure how long had passed since we'd left the village. It might have been an hour or four. We didn't seem much nearer to the distant lights of Muena Palaiya. The town would have to be our destination now, if we could possibly make it so far. We were travelling southeast towards it, though the road continued to twist back and forth, never running straight for long.
Thanks to that serpentine course, a strange relationship began to form between our pursuers and us as the night wore on. They would draw very close, but be below us. Boulders, scrub bushes and loose shale littered the steep slopes between steps of the road. Their horses stood no hope of cutting the distance that way. Archers attempted shots, and some flew close enough that I heard them whistle by. I was convinced one of those shafts would plunge through my body, or wreak some catastrophic injury on Saltlick.
Yet it was probably at those times we were safest. Occasionally a glimmer of orange would be extinguished, as a rider tested the incline and went tumbling into the dirt.
At other times, they relied on their advantage of speed. There could be no doubt they had one. Even with Saltlick travelling at his fastest, they still gained steadily.
How long could the horses keep it up for? They'd been galloping for hours, and their brief break at Reb Panza hadn't been enough to rest them properly. We had a slim advantage there. But then horses were built for speed and stamina, and giants probably weren't.
By the time I got my answer, dawn was smudging the horizon like a drunken whore's rouge. Saltlick had slowed to a jog, and was weaving between the verges of the road. His pace had been slackening for the last two
