Her horse flicked his ears at the flies, uninterested. He lowered his muzzle to graze at the full grass- heads.
“Jayr! Come on!” Ress sat in the front of the cart, spears by his side.
When the creature was at last bloodless, she shook it and slung it over her horse’s withers, put a foot in the stirrup and settled herself on his back.
Almost there.
Feren cried out again as the cart began moving, rolling clumsily towards Roviarath and the advancing shadows of the Kartiah.
Jayr touched the gelding’s flanks and he moved into an easy walk, the grasses swishing at his knees.
* * *
As the mare crested a long, rolling rise, Triqueta sat back, bringing the animal to an uneasy halt, her forehoof tamping restlessly at the soil. For a moment, Triqueta couldn’t see where the specks had gone – then her gaze was drawn to a circle of birds, high and black against the afternoon sky.
Aperios. Carrion birds. Tracking something?
The mare shook her mane nervously.
She unslung the bow, strung it without thinking and checked her saddle-side quiver. She didn’t nock, she had no target, but the birds moved lazily westwards, as if drawn by the Kartiah’s darkness.
Seeking death.
She’d been showing off her horsewoman’s skills before – now she stood up in earnest, swiftly, balancing easily, to look down over the long rise to the massive roll of empty plain beyond. Whatever those two black specks had been, she’d lay a bet the birds were following them.
Craning from the tips of her toes, she saw something strange.
Down there in the rippling grass sea, still a serious distance away, two young men, riders, long haired and bare chested, pushing their way forwards with an odd, deliberate gait. They walked in single file, leaving a long scar behind them. For a moment, she was puzzled. They were either closer than she thought, or they were bigger than Jayr in a lousy mood... Then the front one started at something by his feet.
As Triqueta stared, bow forgotten, the young man spun sideways, lurched backwards – and grew suddenly, massively taller, high above the grass tops. His movements were wrong, incomprehensible... until she saw his dark smudge of hair was rooted all down his spine – and his spine ended in a back.
A horse back.
Dumbfounded, her mind refused to grasp what she was seeing. They were riders, surely...?
Like any skittish Banned mount, the creature had spooked and reared – the familiarity of the motion was wrong, disturbing. His forehooves – claws? – danced in the sunlight before he plunged back down to the soil, tail twitching with agitation.
Then, like any Banned rider, he calmly turned to warn his companion.
Triqueta stared. Her returns had let her see some pretty unlikely stuff – even out here. But, half horse, half man – behaviour and body, action and reaction – it was loco. Crazed. As crazed as Roderick’s doomsaying. As crazed as Feren’s rantings.
For a second, she stood motionless, her hand white knuckled on her lop-ended bow, then she saw the second creature change angle, as if he was pointing right at her.
Like a fireblasted novice, she’d sky-lined herself flawlessly against the afternoon sun, her shadow stretched way down the rise. She saw the two great creatures acquire their target, and then make straight for her, charging from a standstill to a flat-out gallop.
The birds set up a distant, gleeful cawing and the circle began to move more swiftly.
Thinking fast now, tension in every muscle, she dropped back into the saddle, prepped arrows with swift fingers.
Feeling her urgency, the little mare needed no command – she, too, ran.
The rise defended them instantly. Bereft of a target, Triqueta lay her chest flat against the creature’s neck and just let her race. She was fast, nimble – but whether she could outdistance those things...
She had to reach the cart. Feren. The horrors of what they’d do to the helpless wagon hit her like the pollen- headed flowers that exploded against the mare’s chest and forelegs. Her heart hammered against the mare’s hot skin...
...and they ran.
* * *
“Jayr!”
Alarm, command and sudden terror, Ress’s bark made her jump.
She turned in the saddle – and swore in a hot rush of adrenaline.
Arrowing towards them, fast as the slender, racing arqueus of the southern plainland, Triqueta’s little mare bolted flat-out loco, froth covering her muzzle and chest. On her back, Triqueta was low over the front of the saddle, her expression grim and her hair a crazed yellow cloud.
Blood hammering in her temples, Jayr slammed her heels into the gelding’s ribs and he leapt forwards, neck arching. Raising his muzzle, he snorted snot and laid his ears straight back, baring his teeth like a stallion.
He charged forwards willingly and Jayr wondered what wrong reek he smelled.
Then she saw them – creatures that came out of the grasses, shimmering like a dream in the afternoon haze. These were the monsters that had shot poor Feren, the things Ress had refused to believe existed.
Ress had no such problems now. He stood by Feren in the cart, his hip braced against the side, and he smoothly fitted a heavy spear into the wood-and-leather thrower on his forearm. He had an almighty range with that thing. The first spear arced over Jayr’s shoulder but fell short of the incoming beast.
Bleakly, he fitted another.
The beasts were not shooting back – as they came closer, Jayr saw they bore no weapons, or garments, of any kind. They were fast though, their forelegs and chests pushing through the grass, their huge claws crushed and tore at it. Even as Jayr reached her, Triqueta slowed her wild-eyed mare and, unspeaking, cross-drew her two wicked-looking serrated short-swords.
Jayr came up next to her. She was grinning, bright and hard as a polished metal blade. Her blood thundered, she could feel it in her belly and thighs and in the horse beneath her. Any minute now, her frustration was going to detonate.
The beasts came closer.
Now, Triqueta turned her mare in tight, agitated circles, trying to calm the animal down. Jayr’s gelding tossed his head up and down, up and down. Big as he was, he was skittering, all four hooves tamping the soil like a crouching bweao – he wanted to fight as much as she did.
A second spear shot over them. This one crested its arc – then fell full-force into the horse chest of the lead creature.
“Ha!” Way behind them, Ress’s shout was pure defiance.
The beast staggered, but was still running. Then he reached down to yank the thing bodily out of his flesh and snap it into jagged halves and flying kindling.
And he grinned.
Furious now, Jayr tightened her knees and her gelding sprang forwards, the grasses parting under the onslaught of horseflesh. Dismissing her bundle of javelins – she couldn’t hit shit with them anyway – she unclipped her big, heavy-shafted spear.
The beasts were upon her. She held her horse in a thigh grip like a terhnwood pincer, and lifted the spear two-handed to aim it solid and point down.
The injured beast flashed past. A moment later, she heard Triqueta’s high, ululating war cry; heard Ress’s echo from further back. The other one came at her, chest first, wild haired, bare fleshed and screaming in anger and hate.
