A heartbeat latter she was firmly in the saddle, Evalie galloping beneath her
like a blizzard wind in horse-shape. Behind her she could feel Bard Stefen
clinging to her waist, and was conscious of a moment of pity for him—to him,
Evalie was strange, he could not move with her, only cling awkwardly; while she
felt almost as one with the Companion, touched with a magic only another Herald
could share.
Their speed was reckless; breakneck. Skeletal tree-limbs reached hungrily for
them, trying to seize them as they passed and pull them from Evalie's back.
Always the Companion avoided them, writhing away from the claw-like branches
like a ferret.
"The Dark Servants—" Stefen shouted in her ear "—they must know someone's gone
for help. They're animating the trees against us!"
She realized, as Evalie escaped yet another trap set for them, that Stefen was
right—-the trees were indeed moving with a will of their own, and not just
random waving in the wind. They reached out, hungrily, angrily; she felt the hot
breath of dark magic on the back of her neck, like the noisome breath of a
carrion-eater. Evalie's eyes were wide with more than fear; she knew the
Companion felt the dark power, too.
She urged Evalie on; the Companion responded with new speed, sweat breaking out
on her neck and flanks to freeze almost immediately. The trees seemed to thrash
with anger and frustration as they eluded the last of them and broke out on the
bank above the road.
The road to the capital lay straight and open before them now, and Evalie leaped
over a fallen forest giant to gain the surface of it with a neigh of triumph. .
. .
ARROWS OF THE QUEEN
Talia blinked, emerging abruptly from the spell her book had laid on her. She
had been lost in the daydream her tale had conjured for her, but the dream was
now lost beyond recall. Someone was calling her name in the distance. She looked
up quickly, with a toss of her head that threw her unmanageable hair out of her
eyes. Near the door of the family house she could make out the angular figure of
Keldar Firstwife, dark-clad and rigid, like a stiff fire iron propped against
the building. Keldar's fists were on her hips; her stern carriage suggested that
she was waiting Talia's response with very little patience.
Talia sighed regretfully, put up her wool and the wire brushes, and closed the
worn little cloth-bound volume, laying aside the rocks she'd used to hold down
the pages as she'd worked. Though she'd carefully marked the place, she knew
that even without the precious scrap of ribbon she used to mark it she'd have no
trouble finding it again. Keldar couldn't have picked a worse time; Herald
Vanyel was alone, surrounded by the Servants of Darkness, and no one knew his
peril but his Companion and Bard Stefen. Knowing Keldar, it would be hours
before she could return to the tale—perhaps not even until tomorrow. Keldar was
adept at finding ways to keep Talia from even the little reading she was
grudgingly allowed.
Nevertheless, Keldar was Firstwife; her voice ruled the Steading, to be obeyed
in all things, or suffer punishment for disobedience. Talia responded to the