Glancing back, she saw that the web-riders had scattered after leaving the narrow confines of the forest road. They were outdistancing the Shadow-creatures rapidly now.
Eydryth took hold of the Keplian’s mouth. “Monso… easy, son… we can slow a bit, now…”
Her pull on the stallion’s mouth went unanswered. The half-bred raced down the hillside toward the river with the rush of a stooping falcon. Eydryth begged, sang, pulled until her arms seemed to loosen in their sockets—to no avail.
She was still trying to slow the Keplian when Monso, running blindly, plunged full-force into the spring-swollen waters of the ford. The Keplian half-reared, trying to leap through the water. His struggles sent him plunging sideways, away from the stone-paved bottom of the ford, into deeper water. The river now rose belly-high on him. He staggered, trying to keep his footing on the slick, muddy bottom. Water washed up over his shoulders.
Eydryth felt the stallion’s hind feet slip out from under him; then Monso was falling. The black water rose up and engulfed horse and rider.
The songsmith kicked her feet loose from the stirrups as her mount rolled over, terrified lest she be dragged down beneath his body to drown. Her head went under as she flailed desperately. Choking and gasping, she swallowed and gagged on the cold water, but managed to fight her way back to the surface, then forced her arms to move, her legs to kick. Coughing, she trod water for a moment while she caught her breath, then she swam, feeling the current drag at her like a live thing. Eydryth blinked, vainly trying to shake the water from her eyes. Her night vision was gone, fled with her concentration on the melody.
Beside her, something large moved, snorted loudly. Monso! The Keplian had recovered himself and was striking out strongly for the opposite shore. Eydryth lunged toward him, felt something brush her hand, grabbed it, then realized that she had grasped one of the trailing reins.
Swiftly she pulled herself back to the stallion, hand over hand; then she was able to grasp the pommel of the saddle. Monso surged through the water, breasting the flood, towing the woman alongside him.
Eydryth knew that she would have only moments when the stallion struck solid footing to prevent him from breaking free and racing away from her into the night. Turning to glance back over her shoulder, she saw that the web-riders were no longer following. Their phosphorescent forms glimmered as they drifted aimlessly along-the far bank of the Deepwater.
Of course, she thought. Like most creatures of the Shadow, they cannot cross running water.
Monso’s steadily stroking forefeet suddenly struck land, then the Keplian was surging forward, snorting, water cascading off his powerful body. Eydryth swung herself forward, both hands closing on the horse’s headstall and bit. “Monso, ho!” she commanded, leaning her full weight back, digging her heels into the mucky, reed-grown riverbank. “Ho, son!”
The half-bred shook his head, but after a moment he obeyed. Eydryth stumbled beside him as he struggled up, out of the water. The minstrel collapsed for a second on shore, pushing her soaked hair out of her eyes; then, wavering to her feet, she summoned up her night vision again, seeing with relief that her harp was still tied firmly in place. It would have to be dried carefully lest it warp. Then she scanned her surroundings for a place from which to mount.
The night wind cut through her sopping clothes like a sword blade as she stumbled along, making her shiver. Finding a small boulder with a flat top, Eydryth halted the trembling, sweating horse beside it. She stroked Monso, soothing him for a moment; then her foot found the stirrup and she swung back up, settling into the soaked saddle with an audible squish.
As she turned her mount and walked him up the bank, Eydryth felt exhaustion drag at her with a pull every bit as insistent as the Deepwater’s current. She patted her pocket, feeling the hard lump that was Dahaun’s box. Did the makeshift seal I placed on it hold? she wondered frantically. Or is Jervon’s cure now mingling with the mud on the bottom of the river? She was afraid to look, and could not have spared the time anyway. Biting her lip, the minstrel urged the Keplian forward.
For the next few minutes she trotted until she was sure of her path, then, cautiously, eased her mount into a canter again. The time they had lost at the ford gnawed at her… What if, even now, Yachne was setting her trap for Kerovan?
Eydryth let the soaked reins out a notch, until they were galloping again.
Redmantle lands. She knew the road well now, having accompanied her family to town many times as a girl. Only a league or so down this road, she would take a branching trail, then cut cross-country over Kioga territory.
Monso no longer needed to be held in, which worried Eydryth. She knew that swimming the Deepwater had taken a heavy toll of the stallion’s endurance, if her own weariness was any indication. She wondered whether they would make it the rest of the way to Kar Garudwyn.
At least the web-riders were well and truly gone. She risked a final glance behind, seeing only darkness. Would those who had set them on their trail send another menace? She had no way of knowing.
Some distance farther on, the songsmith slowed Monso to a canter, watching to her right as they splashed through a small stream. A moment later, she saw it—a faint trail leading away across a meadow. It might have almost been a game path, but Eydryth knew better. Reining right, she turned the Keplian onto it.
The Kioga were not a people to leave well-marked trails to their grazing grounds. Whenever trading parties ventured outside their territory, they used small, insignificant trails such as this one, careful not to allow them to become too well marked.
Eydryth galloped across the meadow, but when the trail began looping through a small wood, she needs must slow to a canter. As they came around a bend in the path, a puddle of darkness suddenly blocked their way.
It seemed to crouch before them, making the songsmith wonder for a moment whether it was some kind of wild beast. But no, it was only a washed-out gully filled with debris from the spring floods. Bending low on the Keplian’s neck, the bard gave her mount free rein, urging him on.
Monso soared into the air, clearing the entire gap. For a moment Eydryth felt as though they were flying; then the Keplian’s forehooves came back to earth with scarcely a jar.
“Good boy!” she cried, shakily. Alon trained him well, she thought, steadying him and increasing speed to a hand-gallop. She was fighting her own exhaustion and chill, now, and the continual drain of using her newfound Power to see in the darkness was wearing her down even faster than the exertion of the ride.
Twice more they leaped trees that had fallen across the path—the first was low, scarcely more than thigh-high had Eydryth been standing. The second came as they rounded a last turn on the woodland trail. At first it seemed to her aching eyes naught more than a small tree resting in a patch of shadow from the woods.
But, just as they drew too close to safely halt, the songsmith realized to her horror that her magically enhanced night vision had played tricks upon her. What she had taken for shadow was substance, and the tree trunk now looming before them would have been chin-high on even a tall man!
All Eydryth’s instincts screamed out for her to sit back and drag the Keplian to a halt, but she realized immediately that it was too late. The stallion was headed straight for the tree, too fast to stop without crashing into the obstacle. Stifling a scream, Eydryth closed her legs on his sides, bent low over the black neck, and shut her eyes. The Keplian’s leap as he soared into the air nearly unseated her.