And just past her, on the other side of the stream, ten or twelve Cousins.
Mirage knew what she had to do. But she sat there, motionless, staring at the form of her fallen double.
Miryo wasn’t moving.
“Come on!” Eclipse roared.
The Cousins would be clearing the stream any second.
“Move your Void-damned ass!”
Mirage closed her eyes. Warrior have mercy. I do what I must.
She slammed her heels into Mist’s sides, and the mare leapt forward, into the teeth of the wind, away from the stream. Away from Miryo.
Leaving her to the Cousins.
Not all of them stayed behind at the stream. Mirage heard splashing, and guessed that at least a couple had not made the jump; of those who did, some reined in around Miryo’s fallen form, and the rest pursued the Hunters across the muddy ground.
Eclipse led the way, up a gentler slope and into the shadows of the trees beyond. Mirage was hard on his heels. They slowed as they passed between the first trunks; one misstep in here and their horses would go down. The only bright side was that it would slow the Cousins just as badly. And the two Hunters were more accustomed to riding under bad conditions than the witches’ servants; in wooded terrain like this, they had the edge.
The chase stretched out, with pursuers dropping away one at a time, fanning out to cover the area more thoroughly in case the Hunters diverged from their course. Mirage was numb inside; she let Eclipse choose their way without even paying attention to what he was doing.
She’d left Miryo behind.
There had been a dozen Cousins there. Not odds Mirage favored. Had she ridden back to the stream, even with Eclipse at her side, she would have gone down.
But she had left Miryo behind.
The betrayal stabbed her, a razor-edged knife twisting in her gut She could go back; she would, later, and try to rescue her double. But at that moment, when Miryo had gone down, Mirage had ridden on.
Leaving her behind.
Light pierced her eyes. The clouds that had blanketed the sky all day were breaking up; rain still fell, but in the west the sky was clearing enough to let the sun through. It was later in the day than Mirage had thought And they had just ridden out of the trees. Up ahead Eclipse twisted around in his saddle to look back at her.
“Have we lost them?” he asked.
They both reined in to listen and heard a crashing not too far behind. “No,” Mirage said grimly. “Although most of them are gone.”
The two Hunters urged their horses forward again, making for another small wood visible in the distance. They had not covered even half the ground to it, though, when behind them three Cousins broke free of the trees and sighted them with a triumphant cry.
The Cousins’ horses were fresher than either Mist or Sparker. Mirage, looking ahead, realized that they would not make the next patch of trees in time.
An unpleasant grin crossed her face; she was barely aware of it.
She cued Mist to slow ever so slightly, so that the lead Cousin would catch up to her sooner. Up ahead, Eclipse did not notice. Mirage kicked her left foot clear of the stirrup for just a moment, and then hooked her toe back in from the other side, so that the stirrup was twisted around.
The first Cousin had almost drawn abreast.
Mirage suddenly pulled her horse up short. As she did so, she swung her right leg clear of the saddle; her left foot in the twisted stirrup and her hands planted on the saddle’s cantle gave her a pivot point for a roundhouse kick that took the Cousin completely by surprise. Mirage’s foot slammed into the woman’s shoulder and threw her backward, clean out of her saddle and onto the ground. Her last sight, as she whipped her right leg around to drop herself back in the saddle, was of the woman rolling into the path of the second Cousin on their trail.
Eclipse had finally noticed what she was doing. He was pulling Sparker around in a circle, but Mirage kicked Mist forward and caught up to him. An unpleasant thud behind them told her the fallen Cousin had tripped up her compatriot’s horse.
Which left just one.
They reached the wood. Mirage reached up for a low-hanging branch and pulled herself out of the saddle and into an elm. Eclipse had anticipated this one; he grabbed Mist’s bridle and kept the mare moving forward, deeper into the wood.
The Cousin raced closer.
Stupid. One Cousin against two Hunters?
The woman didn’t stand a chance. As she rode under the tree, Mirage dropped. The horse reared at the unexpected weight on its hindquarters. As she and the Cousin fell, she made sure the other woman ended up on the bottom. Her head slammed into a rock. Mirage didn’t even have to knock her out.
She took a moment to scan the muddy field they’d just left. Some distance away, she could just see a Cousin rising unsteadily to her feet, cradling a broken arm.
There was no one else moving.
Mirage turned and jogged deeper into the trees to find Eclipse.
“I’m going with you.”
“Void you are.”
Eclipse grabbed Mirage’s arm as she took hold of Mist’s bridle. “You, alone, against how many Cousins? You’re good, Sen, but not that good.”
She gave him a quick grin, even though it was the last expression her face wanted to assume. “I’ll be quiet.”
“You’ll be dead. And that’s what they want.”
Mirage shook her head. “Miryo’s the only one who can kill me, remember? Ashin confirmed it. And according to Miryo, they can’t magically force her to kill me if she doesn’t want to. A spell like that has to have something to work with.”
“So then they lock you in a cell until her magic kills you both. Great alternative.”
Mirage wrenched her arm free of his grip with a violent twist. “What do you want me to do? Let her rot in their hands? Run away? Warrior damn my soul black if I do. I left her there on the field because I didn’t have any other choice, but now I do. I can sneak up to them, and try to get her loose.”
“Let me go with you, then.”
“No.” Mirage shook her head emphatically. “Two people are more noticeable than one.”
“And two people can kill more other people than one can.”
“I hope to kill as few people as possible. Besides, Kerestel,” and she took care to soften her tone, “I need you to do something else.”
“Ah. Here comes the thinly disguised excuse to keep me away.”
“It’s not an excuse. I need you to go back to Silverfire.”
He stared at her. “What? Why?”
“The other doppelgangers. Jaguar needs to know about them, and about me. The Primes will learn they exist eventually—if they don’t already know—and they will find them. That can’t be allowed to happen. If Miryo and I go down in this, those girls have got to be around to keep trying for an answer.”
She could tell by his face that he did not like hearing her talk about dying. “That can wait, can’t it?”
“No. Please, Kerestel, do this for me. I’ve got to know that they’ll be protected.”
He dropped his head, then kicked a rock suddenly. “I don’t like it. Letting you ride off alone is a shitty idea.”
Mirage reached out and lifted his chin so she could look at him directly. In his eyes she saw worry, even fear. For a brief moment it warmed the cold place inside her, to remember that he was her friend, and would ride with her into the middle of a nest of Cousins and Primes if she would only let him.
“I’ve got to do this, Kerestel,” she whispered. “I left Miryo there. I owe a debt to her. To her, and to the Goddess.”
He hugged her suddenly, fingers digging into the muscles of her back. “Don’t get yourself killed just because you expect to. You’re better than them, Sen. Find a way through and come back alive.”