But the snow-fall was the creature’s friend if it was still in the village. Now and again the horses caught a whisper of something in the ambient that made all three of them in direct contact with the horses entirely uneasy, it was impossible to see what might be more than three buildings away, and hard to focus up into falling snow to check the roofs.
“Papa,” Jennie said once, in a very quiet voice—a kid asking for reassurance; but with good reason.
“Hush,” Callie said. “We know. We—”
Shots went off down the street. A flurry of them. Glass broke. He wanted—and Slip was off, Shimmer and Rain close behind, leaving the marshal and the hunters and the others to hold the middle of the street in mid-village as he and his went down the street, Jennie clinging like a burr to Rain’s mane and staying up with them all the way to the black clot of scared men grouped in front of The Evergreen.
Those men, some with guns, were screaming in panic at others still inside to get down as sounds of breakage resounded in the building. The shattered glass still in the doors showed dark spatter against the light, more dark spatter showed on the walls and a chaotic wreckage of overturned tables lay inside—<blood> was in the ambient, <blood and anger> and something else. Alive. Hurt.
And <predatory.>
“Stay <here!”> he said to Callie and Jennie, and rode Slip for the side of the building, the <back of the tavern> and the <warehouses.>
He saw what looked and felt like <man hurt and running across the alley,> and in that split second too long knew it wasn’t a man as it swarmed up an evergreen in the back of the tavern and up to the roof in a cloud of dislodged snow.
He let off a shot, and knew from <Callie and Jennie in front of the tavern> that they were aware of him, and aware of danger, <Callie’s gun aiming for the roof edge.> His own shot hadn’t hit anything—the ambient held nothing of the thing he’d seen, and that was something he’d never had happen to him or to Slip.
He rode Slip breakneck back around the building, fearing that at any moment the thing might come <plunging down on top of him> or onto <Callie and Jennie out front> where the ambient from the miners was awash with <alarm> and the air was confused with shouting voices.
He reached Callie and Jennie, and shouted for order among the miners who, the worse for drink and the scare of their lives, were all trying to report and debate what had happened. Hell, he knew what had happened—broken glass and <something large and black and deadly crashing right through the damn tavern,> was what had happened, with carnage left and right.
Laughing at them. Eluding them.
Slip wanted <fight.> So did Shimmer, now. Shimmer’s peace had been challenged, the vicinity of her winter den disturbed.
But something else had flared into the ambient: <girl> and <wanting> and <anger.> Jennie was outraged, <fighting bad girl> for Rain, for the ambient and her own place in it. It was Jennie first and foremost that that sending challenged, not them. It was his daughter who flung that challenge back, and the threat of Brionne Goss calling out and welcoming that thing that had come into his village, the threat of Brionne Goss challenging his daughter for whatever was at issue between them diminished the miners and their bloody calamity to a distant concern in his world.
“Dammit,” he said to the clatter of miners shouting appeals and drunken orders at him, “get <inside! ”>
<Jennie and Rain> was the defiance at that instant blazing out into the snowy dark, a challenge to all comers, flung out with all the force a young fool horse could throw into a sending. Rain wanted <fight for his rider.> Rain wanted <territory around his rider for his territory.> Rain’s rider wanted <bad girl going away! from her village and knew no sensible fear of the threat: <Jennie and Rain> were in possession of the street and the village that was their world, and nothing could come into it and take it from them.
“Stay with us!” he ordered Jennie, and fought Jennie and Rain for the lead as they bolted up the street. He was just barely able to cut Rain off short and prevent a charge right to the Schaffer house as they reached the marshal’s position. “Hold him, dammit, or get down!”
He’d never sworn at Jennie. He’d told her from earliest time that the way to stop a horse that wouldn’t otherwise stop was to slide off, and she didn’t do that—she wanted <stopping> and somehow made it stick, clinging to Rain and holding on, because she wouldn’t let him go across that street toward the <bad girl wanting him.>
Neither was Slip going to lose one of his own herd, young male or not: Slip was sending a strong <Slip to the fore,> boss horse, and Shimmer came in with <mama> fit to chill the spine of an intruder.
They’d stopped in the midst of the marshal’s group, guns all around them, guns aimed toward roof edges—when all of a sudden <challenge > rushed right under them and up the street.
“God!” Peterson cried.
Callie said, “It’s found the passages.”
Chapter 22
Run and run and run down the dark of the road, carrying only the rifle and a dozen shells—Danny ran by Cloud’s side as Tara ran by Flicker’s, the two of them, alone in the dark, ran and ran until the horses had caught their wind in this high altitude. It was swing up and ride until the horses were tiring under their weight, then run, then walk a distance, at last resort rest a moment, humans and horses alike, heads down, trying to warm the air they breathed. A rider knew the state of his horse’s body as a horse knew his rider’s. He knew what they could possibly do. He discovered reserves in both of them. And Guil had told them, go, run and ride, get there as fast as they could, stripped down to the absolute minimum they had to have in the Wild if something stranded one of them: a knife and a burning-glass, matches, Tara and him with rifles, the very least they could survive on and the lightest weight they could carry and make speed.
Guil and Carlo were coming behind them with the rest of their belongings at the best rate they could, a man healing of a wound and a new rider whose chief use to them was outright strength—carrying three riders’ ordinary gear.
It was up to them to get to the village with horses that might make the difference—to prevent another Tarmin.
The bells had gone silent an hour ago at least.
Slip reared, then lunged at invisible threat under his feet as the creature raced right under them, and the <anger> went flaring off toward the church.
At that place, by the light of lanterns hung on the village hall posts, two men stood on watch with shotguns.
But more volunteers were actually heading down into the passages, by the church front access, to try to get a shot at it point-blank. Hunters had volunteered for that harrowing post, village-siders accustomed to standing their ground in dicey situations, and Ridley entirely gave them their due: he didn’t want to be in their position at this precise instant.
Jennie was with him and Slip, <scared for mama>; and Callie and Shimmer were down almost at the church along the course of the tunnel. “Now!” he heard from Callie, signaling presence right under Shimmer’s feet, and “Now!” the shout came from the men on the porch, the signal for the hunters in the tunnel to open the door to the church access.