The clang of cast iron and the stomp of footsteps filter through the door from the kitchen. The inn rises early to prepare breakfast. Not much time until someone comes to tend the horses.
“Can we wedge the door shut?” I ask. “It might win us some time.” Even the minute or two it would take for the soldiers to realize the door was jammed and run around back would help.
Belén’s gaze darts around. “The hay bales! Help me move them.”
I open the stall door and wince at the creaking hinges. The bales are too heavy for me to lift, but I’m able to grab a cross-section of twine and drag them backward into place. Belén, on the other hand, stacks them quickly, two wide, two thick, four high, until we’ve made a solid wall.
“Watch the entrance while I saddle a horse for you,” Belén says. “Listen for Mara’s signal.”
I creep toward the opening, wary of the patrolling guard. The sky is as blue-black as a bruise, and the stars are dimming. As soon as light peeks through the mountain peaks, Mara and Storm will begin their phony assault.
My Godstone cools in my belly, giving me a slight shiver, and I cast my awareness about, alert for danger. If my life were imperiled, the stone would turn to ice, but it is merely chilly. Which means either the danger is distant, or it remains within the realm of possibility. All these nuances now, ever since the zafira. It’s like I’m living with a whole new Godstone. Or maybe it’s always been this way, and I’m only now learning how to interpret its signals.
“You there!” comes a voice out of the fading night.
I whirl to find the silhouette of a man in desert robes bearing down on me. The guard. With a calm that surprises me, I step from the shelter of the stable to intercept his path. Better to keep his eyes on me than allow him to notice Belén preparing the horses.
“Good morning to you!” I call out cheerfully.
“This area is off limits,” he says, his hand going to the hilt of his sword.
“It is? We rented space in the loft from the innkeeper. He didn’t say anything about that.”
“Then you should go back inside.”
What to say next? If I don’t convince him to walk away soon, Belén will have to kill him.
I sigh loudly. “Please, sir, I won’t cause any trouble. It’s just that my husband is still in there, snoring up a sandstorm, and I couldn’t take it a moment more.”
He chuckles, and relief washes through me. The cold of my Godstone begins to ease.
“Promise not to stray from the stable?”
I open my mouth to promise, but Mara’s war cry rips the sky. It’s high-pitched and eerie, as mournful as death, and knowing it’s my friend does not prevent the back of my neck from prickling.
I lurch forward, clutching the guard’s robes in what I hope is a decent approximation of panic. “It’s an animagus! We’re under attack!” The animagi have never announced their attacks thusly, but the guard shoves me away and dashes off.
I turn to find Belén leading two horses my way. The tallest one, a black monster with flaring nostrils, is the one he chose to saddle for me. I shrink a little.
“Don’t let her size fool you,” he whispers. “She’s gentle as a lamb. After you mount her, I’ll hand you the reins for this pretty girl too. As you ride, keep enough slack in the reins so she can trot easily beside you.”
The second, smaller horse is a bay, maybe a blood bay, though it’s too dim to tell, and she prances in place, swishing her tail. Belén grins, patting her neck. “Mara is going to love you,” he croons.
I hear distant shouting, another war cry. Storm and Mara only have a moment more before they must dash away to our rendezvous spot.
“The rest of the horses?” I ask.
“I opened the stall doors. I’ll set the hay bales on fire as I leave.” At my indrawn breath, he says, “The horses will panic. They’ll be impossible to catch. Do you have a better idea?”
I feel sick. But no, I don’t have a better idea. I can’t bring myself to answer Belén, so I place my foot in the stirrup and heave myself up, swinging my leg over the mare’s impossible girth. I sway as she adjusts beneath me. She is so huge, and I am so high off of the ground.
Don’t think, Elisa. Just do.
Belén hands me the reins to the other horse. I wrap the ends once around the pommel of my saddle and hold tight with my left hand. With my right, I flick the reins of my own horse experimentally, and she steps forward.
“Head east, out of the village. Go slowly until you find your seat. I’ll catch up in a moment.”
I kick my heels against the mare’s withers, and she lurches forward into a lazy walk. We’ll have to move a lot faster than this very soon, but I take Belén’s advice and concentrate on finding my seat in her swaying rhythm. The mare beside me kicks her knees up a little higher than necessary, and I know she’ll be delighted when Mara finally demands that she run.
We skirt the village, keeping to the shadows. I see no one; everyone is hiding, fleeing, or trying to organize a defense. From the corner of my right eye, I catch a smear of brightness as it arcs over the village and plummets to the ground somewhere in the plaza.
Someone screams. The horse beside me whoofs as she sniffs the air, and she dances nervously. Smoke. She smells smoke.
I must get away from the smoke before the horses panic and I lose my already-tenuous control. I kick again, but she takes only a few quick steps before settling back into slow, useless plodding.
More arrows spear the brightening sky. Storm’s voice booms across the tiny valley, menacing and curselike. He’s intoning something in the Lengua Classica. Then a giggle bubbles from my throat when I realize it’s a silly rhyme about poppy fields and drunk sheep.
Panicked shouting, an order for archers to fire, and suddenly the northern sky glows with a nimbus of burnt orange. Buildings block my view, but I know something burns. My eyes sting, with shameful tears and from smoke, as I kick my useless mare again.
Hoofbeats approach from behind, and I twist in the saddle. It’s Belén. One fist is clutched in the mane of a tall dapple gray, the other holds the reins of a smaller chestnut. “Elisa, we have to move!” he yells.
“I can’t!” I say helplessly. “She won’t—”
Belén races up to me, leans over, and thwaks my mare on the rump. She jerks into a trot, and suddenly it’s all I can do to keep my seat without losing control of my extra mount.
We reach the tethered camels, which are rolling their eyes and tossing their heads in panic. Belén leans down with a knife and cuts them loose, and they gallop off. I watch them go mournfully, wishing I was riding one of them instead. Belén leads us slightly south of the village, and once we’re out of sight, we start switching back along a rocky slope, gradually circling north toward our rendezvous point. I lean forward over the mare’s neck to keep my seat on the incline.
For the first time since we decided to become horse thieves, real fear stabs my gut—but not for me. What if someone doesn’t make it? Mara is used to these hills and gullies; she stands a good chance of disappearing into the scrub and slipping away. But Storm is a stranger here, ill suited to the dry and dusty climate. What if I have sacrificed him? What if we get to the rendezvous point and he is not there?
My heart twists. Storm and I have gone from enemies, to uneasy allies, to grudging friends. I would never tell him so, but I am fond of him. Being queen has taught me that loyal friends are in short supply, and I’m not willing to lose even one of mine.
We reach a narrow gulch, half covered in bramble. Belén brings his horse to a halt, kicks a leg over, and slides off neatly. He grabs my mare’s bridle to hold her steady while I dismount. “We lead the horses from here,” he whispers. “We must go quietly.”
He sets off with his pair, and I follow. The gulch is barely wide enough for two horses, and they bump each other nervously as we travel. I stare at the hindquarters before me, expecting a kick to the face at any moment. But then my mare whuffs into my hair, blasting my neck with moist air, and all I can think is, Please, please don’t bite me.