‘If we ride until dark,’ she said, ‘we can come around the spur of mountain into the Sasavinian. There is a post house there, with water, if you can ride that far.’
Thewson nodded grimly. Jasmine asked, ‘Did the salve help you?’
‘It helps skin. It is bones that break. This horse is very wide.’
Jasmine grimaced in reply. ‘Put one leg in front of you, across the saddle. Switch from side to side as we ride. It will help a little.’
They rode on into the dusk, Jasmine and Thewson growing more unhappy with each step as skin chafed and muscles turned into knots of pain. When the stars were burning they came into the upland which sloped west in a wide meadow crossed by meandering streams almost hidden between grass-furred banks. At the edge of the forest they could see the post house, shuttered and dark, Lain-achor, who had scouted the evening hours, rode up to them and conferred with the Sisters in a low voice. Finally, Sowsie said, ‘We will go back into the woods to a place I know. There is water there. We will not risk the house.’
Jasmine groaned. ‘I was dreaming of a real bed. My bones are broken.’
‘No.’ Sowsie was definite. ‘Something comes from the west. The post house is too well known. We will not be trapped within walls.’
They built a little fire in a hastily dug pit, burying it immediately after they had eaten and made mugs of sweet, musty tea. There had been little smoke, and in moments all evidence of it was gone, borne away on the little wind which rushed at them up from the west, smelling of the sea.
Deep in the night Jasmine woke in the circle of Thewson’s arms to stare at the stars and wonder where she was. Something had wakened her, and from the stiffening of Thewson’s body she knew that he, too, had come out of sleep. Close to them cautious footfalls went by, and heads were silhouetted against the sky. From somewhere down in the forest a creaking came, as of a door opened, then the sound of horses and the smaller creaking of a wagon wheel. Sowsie knelt at their sides, placing her hands across their mouths. ‘Down at the post house, a group of black robes have stopped. They have something with them in a wagon. Be very still.’ Jasmine tried not to breathe, fought down a hysterical urge to sneeze. Moments wore away endlessly until the sounds below them moved away to the east. At last she fell asleep, only to be awakened once more by a downpour of rain.
They rose to a cold breakfast and a swift departure under cover of the trees. Daingol went back to examine the post house and to track those who had been there. Sowsie went westward, scouting the way they would go. Dhariat rode as though half asleep. They spent a long, dull morning riding among the trees, staring at the high meadow under a constant drip of rain. Again and again as they rode they saw groups of black robes proceeding eastward through the pass, almost always with heavily laden wagons, sealed and mysterious in the wan light.
On the fifth day the skies lifted to leave mists and rising fogs in place of the rain. Sowsie rode back to the others and spoke in satisfied tones as she rubbed her weary horse down. ‘I have been as far as the Batum-Batok. No more wagons, no more black robes. Daingol has not yet returned? Well, there is still a little wind from the sea. Let us have hot soup to warm us. We can bury the fire.’
They had almost finished when Daingol rode in. ‘Nothing,’ he said. They went on to the south, whether toward the Hill or some other place, I could not tell. The wagon tracks are deep, very deep. The wagon was heavily loaded – all of them have been heavily loaded. A peculiar odour persists where the wagons have gone. However, they have gone. None are left behind.’
Sowsie nodded. Then we will go on more quickly. We will sleep at the Batum-Batok, then go out of the pass onto the slopes above the river plain of the Sals. There is still something west of us which cries pain, but it is beyond the wall.’
They saw the wall, a long jagged line across the width of the pass, when only a short time of daylight remained. Daingol urged them to hurry. There is Batum-Batok, old Axe King’s wall. He pastured his horses in the Sasavinian in winter, and this was the wall which kept the horses in and the thieves from Jowr out.’
The horses went to a fast trot which made Thewson grunt rhythmically. The wall loomed, crowned with widely spaced towers, pierced by gaping holes where great gates had once hung. In places the wall had tumbled into slopes and ramps overgrown with vines and low herbage, and the horses went up one of these as though to a well known stable. At the top of the wall was a wide, paved space with a trough at one side full of rainwater. Sowsie was already gathering wood from among the dried bushes which grew on the stones. Lain-achor had gone on and was not to be seen.
Night had fallen before he returned. ‘I found what is left of a horse herd,’ he said. ‘Several mares dead. The herders dead. Half eaten. That stink everywhere, on the bodies, the soil. Musky. The mares put up a fight, but they were trapped in a canyon.
‘What kind of thing could kill a herd of great-horse mares? They fight like gryphons.’
Lain-achor shrugged. ‘They wore
