They still looked like green blurs to Ista, though she squinted, too. She said uneasily, "What are they doing here, in this peaceful land? Are they merchant's guards, leading a caravan? Emissaries?"
Ferda stood in his stirrups, craned his neck. "Soldiers. All soldiers." He glanced around at his little company and touched his sword hilt. "Well, so are we."
"Ah... Ferda?" said Foix after a moment. "They're still coming."
Ista could see his lips move as he kept count. Rank on rank, riding two or three abreast, the interlopers poured over the lip of the hill. Ista's own count had passed thirty when dy Cabon, whose face had gone the color of lard, signed himself and looked across at her. He had to cough before he could form words. They seemed to catch on his dry lips. "Royina? I do not think we want to meet these men."
"I am certain of it, Learned." Her heart was starting to pound.
The column's leaders had seen them, too. Men pointed and yelled.
Ferda dropped his arm and shouted back over his company, "Ride on!"
He led the way down the track at a brisk canter. The baggage mules resisted being towed at this speed, and slowed the men who had them in charge. Dy Cabon's more willing mule did better at first, but it grunted with each stride at the jouncing weight it bore. So did dy Cabon. When they reached the top of the next rise, half a mile on, they could see that the Jokonan column had dispatched a squad of a double dozen riders out ahead, galloping with the clear intent of overtaking Ista's party.
Now it was a race, and they were not fitted for it. The baggage mules might be abandoned, but what of the divine's beast? Its nostrils were round and red, its white hair was already starting to lather at its neck and shoulder and between its hind legs, and despite dy Cabon's kicks and shouts it kept breaking from a canter into a bone-jarring fast trot. It shook dy Cabon like a pudding; his face went from scarlet to pale green and back again. He looked close to vomiting from the exertion and terror.
If this was the raiding column it appeared—and how in five gods' names had it appeared from the south of them, so unheralded?—Ista might cry ransom for herself and the Daughter's men. But a divine of the fifth god would be treated as heretic and defiled—they would indeed start by cutting off dy Cabon's thumbs. And then his tongue, and then his genitals. After that, depending on their time and ingenuity, whatever ghastly death the Quadrene soldiers could devise, or urge each other on to—hanging, impalement, something even worse. Three nights he'd dreamed of this, dy Cabon had said, each different. Ista wondered what death could possibly be more grotesque than impalement.
The country offered poor cover. The trees were small, and even if any overhung the road, she wasn't sure they could boost the wheezing divine up one. His white robes, dirty as they were, would shine like a beacon through the leaves. They'd show up for half a mile through the scrub, as would his mule. But then they topped another rise, temporarily out of sight of their pursuers, and at the bottom of this wash...
She lashed her horse forward beside Ferda's, and shouted, "The divine—he must not be taken!"
He looked back over his company and signed agreement. "Exchange horses?" he cried doubtfully.
"Not good enough," she shouted back. She pointed ahead. "Hide him in the culvert!"
She slowed her horse, letting the others pass her, till dy Cabon's mule labored up. Foix and Liss reined back with her.
"Dy Cabon!" she cried. "Did you ever dream about being pulled out of a culvert?"
"No, lady!" he quavered back between jounces.
"Hide you in that one, then, till they all pass over you." Foix—Foix was in hideous danger if taken, too, if the Quadrenes should learn of his demon affliction. They might well take him for a sorcerer and burn him alive. "Did you dream of Foix with you?"
"No!"
"Foix! Can you stay with him—help him? Keep both your heads down and don't come out, no matter what!"
Foix glanced down the track at the cover she pointed to and seemed to understand the plan at once. "Aye, Royina!"
They scraped to a halt over the culvert. The streamlet here did not fill it full, though it would be a cramped, wet, uncomfortable crouch, especially for dy Cabon's quivering bulk. Foix swung down, threw his reins to Pejar, and caught the gasping divine as he half fell from his animal. "Wrap this around you, hide those white robes." Foix tossed his gray cloak around dy Cabon, hustling him off the road. Another guard began grimly towing dy Cabon's mule; relieved of its great burden, it broke again into a canter. A canter wasn't going to be enough, Ista thought.
"Look after each other!" she cried in desperation. The pair was already scrambling into the low mouth of the culvert, and she could not tell if they heard her or not.
They started forward once again. There was another here who must not be taken by the rough soldiery, she thought. "Liss!" she called. The girl rode nearer. Ista's horse was dark with sweat, blowing; Liss's tall bay still cantered easily.
"Ride ahead—"
"Royina, I won't leave you—"
"Fool girl, listen! Ride ahead and carry warning to anyone you pass, Jokonan raiders are coming. Raise the countryside! Get help and send it back!"
Understanding dawned in her face. "Aye, Royina!"
"Ride like the wind! Don't look back!"
Liss, face set, saluted her and bent over her horse's neck. Its stride lengthened. The three or four galloping miles they'd covered so far were clearly but a warm-up for it. In moments, the bay outpaced every horse in the party and started to draw ahead.
Yes, fly, girl. You don't even have to outride the Jokonans, as long as you can outride us...
As they topped the next rise, where the road swung out around a bulge in the hill, Ista looked back. There was no sign whatever of the divine or Foix. The first Jokonan riders were galloping across the culvert without pausing or looking down, intent on their quarry ahead. The tightness in Ista's chest eased a little, even as she gasped for breath.
At last, her whirling brain began to take thought for herself. If captured, should she maintain her incognito? What worth would a minor female cousin of the rich provincar of Baocia seem to them? Would Sera dy Ajelo's status be enough to buy safety for her men as well as her? But the dowager royina of Chalion, Royina Iselle's own mother, was far too exciting a prize to let fall into the grubby hands of a pack of Jokonan soldier-bandits. She glanced around at her grimly intent outriders. I don't want these loyal young men to die for me. I don't want any man to die for me, ever again.
Ferda galloped up beside her horse, pointed back. "Royina, we must cut loose the mules!"
She nodded understanding, gulped for breath. Her legs ached from gripping the heaving sides of her mount. "Dy Cabon's saddlebags— they must be got rid of—hidden—all his books and papers will reveal him, they might go back and search! And mine as well, I have letters in my own name—"
His lips drew back in a grimace of understanding; he stood in his stirrups and fell behind. She turned in her saddle and scrabbled at the rawhide ties holding her bags behind her cantle. Happily, Liss had tied them intelligently; the strong knots came loose at Ista's pull.
Ferda again galloped up beside her; now he had the divine's heavy pair of bags over his pommel. She glanced back. The loosed baggage mules and dy Cabon's white beast were falling behind, stumbling to a halt, wandering gratefully from the road.
They were approaching a bridge over a strong freshet. Ferda held out his arm in demand, and she swung her bags over to him. He reared his horse atop the bridge and violently heaved first one set of bags, then the other, over the crumbling stone balustrade to the downstream side. The bags floated away, bumping on the rocks, sinking slowly out of sight. Ista briefly regretted the divine's books, and their purses of money—but not their damning correspondence and other signs of identity.