Last of all ... there was the thought that Cole Pieters was, indeed, trouble. And the farther Mags got from him, the better Mags felt. He didn’t want Master Cole to ever think about Mags again. Cole Pieters was a bad, mean man, and Mags hoped that Cole Pieters would forget about him entirely. The sooner that happened, the happier Mags would be.
He thought all that over while waiting for his aching muscles to settle down and let him sleep, and it occurred to him that being at the mine and having to run it the proper way, actually being forced to part with his money to pay his workers, was possibly the worst punishment that could be devised for Master Cole.
Mags fell asleep with that thought in his mind, and it gave him at least a level of satisfaction.
And even though he ached, he knew it wouldn’t be for long. He was used to hard work and sore, tired muscles. In a few days, even if he still wasn’t a good rider, he would be fit enough to stay in the saddle all day. Then they could leave, and Master Cole would be left far, far behind.
His dreams were disturbed only once, by something too vague to be called a nightmare, a dim dream of hunting for something, or someone, knowing that there was something else dark and dangerous that was hunting for the same thing. And knowing that if the other hunter found that thing ... something terrible would happen.
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The way to Haven unrolled before them, there was a good breakfast in Mags’ belly, and the air held the scent of snow to come. If Mags was not sitting in the saddle with the easy and careless grace that Herald Jakyr had, at least he was no longer sitting in the saddle like a sack of grain about to fall off. And if Herald Jakyr was worried about him being able to handle the long travel, he didn’t show it.
Those were all the positive things. Also positive—since the night he had had that dream of hunting something, all of his fears, while still in the back of his mind, seemed to have been pushed to the back of his mind. He had no good reason to feel so—so trusting. Well, other than that Dallen kept telling him that he could and should be. But it didn’t seem to matter that he had no reason for feeling this way; it even felt a bit is if he was dreaming while wide awake. As a consequence, he was feeling good; a sort of drowsy contentment, like the aftermath of one of those once-a-year feeds when he was full and warm and allowing himself the incredible luxury of not thinking about the next day And maybe that was stupid, but right now, it didn’t matter.
Herald Jakyr, on the other hand, looked as if he was fretting enough for both of them. It seemed he was more worried about the weather than about Mags falling off, and as they got packs strapped to the two Companions, it seemed to Mags that he was rightly concerned. Mags didn’t like the way the sky looked, or the air felt. It was a little too damp, the sun a little too bright, and yet there was the sense that there was something lurking just over the horizon. He was not weatherwise, but it felt as if there was a storm coming.
Herald Jakyr had wanted to be off at dawn, and when they finally set off down the road, with as much stuffed into the bulging packs on both Companions as they could easily carry, the sun was still touching the horizon. And the pace that Jakyr set was easily as hard as anyone trying to outrun a storm could want. Very shortly, Mags had his hands full, so to speak, with thinking about his riding. He didn’t have attention to devote to anything else.
Dallen did his best to spare his rider, but Jakyr did not stick to the road for very long, and Mags hung on grimly to the pommel of the saddle as the Companions followed tracks only Jakyr could see, up and down the hillsides, leaping frozen streams and bouncing over fallen trees. They cut right across farmers’ fields more than once, sometimes startling grazing livestock. But the wind was picking up by midmorning, and it whined in the uppermost branches of the trees with a tone that Mags knew well. There definitely was a storm bearing down on them.
Jakyr stopped at running streams only long enough for both of them to take care of the needful while the Companions got a drink. At noon, with the sun blazing down on the snow, and Mags’ stomach growling, they didn’t even stop long enough to eat. Jakyr put bags with sweetened grain in them over the heads of both the Companions so that they could eat while they loped toward whatever it was that Jakyr wanted to reach by nightfall, and Jakyr handed Mags a cold meat pie, some cheese, and an apple after they had both mounted up. All four of them ate while moving, with Jakyr glancing back over his shoulder from time to time, though what he could see through the trees, Mags could not venture to guess.
He was used to hard work, but this was harder than anything he had ever done in his life. He had thought he was used to riding, but it was not riding like this. He found entirely new muscles to stretch and strain as the Companions scrambled up and down slopes, or vaulted over fallen trees, and he fought to stay balanced. And every time he went in one direction while Dallen went in another, he got another tooth-jarring jolt.
Finally, in late afternoon, when Mags was wondering if they were ever going to see another human being again, they broke through the trees and onto the surface of a much wider, cleared road. Ahead of them, the eastern horizon glowed blue and clear, with only a few wispy white clouds tracing across :he brilliance. A few more paces, and they were at the top of a ridge, and Jakyr finally pulled up to peer back the way they had come. Mags turned to look, too.
Sure enough, the western horizon was a far different prospect than the eastern. Absolutely black clouds boiled across it, like a wall, and they were moving fast.
But they were moving more northward than eastward, and Jakyr sighed with relief. “The worst of it’ll miss us, or at the very least, we’ll be in good shelter in town, provided we keep moving until sundown,” he said, and looked at Mags with some concern. “Can you handle a gallop till then?”
“T’ not get caught in that? Aye,” Mags said, with a shudder. “That’s naught t’ chance with.” He had seen the sky like that before, when storms had all but buried the buildings around the mine. This was not something he wanted to meet while in the open. He had too-vivid memories of the kiddies desperately tunneling through the snow with their half-frozen hands to try and get to the kitchen, because the food was certainly not going to be brought to them, and it was better to lose fingers and toes than to starve.
They both turned their heads to the east, and without any urging, both Companions moved from a walk to a full gallop in a few paces.
They were not the only folk on the road, nor were they the only ones trying to outrun the storm. Jakyr actually stopped twice to advise people driving slow-moving carts to seek shelter with farmers ahead or behind them. But after a league or two, they drove on grimly without needing to stop, because it seemed that more and more of those they passed were coming to the conclusion on their own that they could not beat the storm and were turning their steps toward the nearest farmhouses. Mags could well imagine the reaction Master Cole would have had to people turning up on his doorstep. They’d have been driven right off; Master Cole would have been sure that they were there to steal the sparklies, and not even a looming storm would have convinced him otherwise.
With travelers clearing off the road of their own volition, the way was open for as far as they could see. The road was as deserted as if it wound through an empty wilderness now, and in the distance, they could hear the howl of the blizzard. The sun cast long shadows on the road before them, right up until the moment that the towering clouds swallowed it. Then the world plunged from sunset to red-lit dusk within moments.