“I thought you said the Sheep-faces didn’t do magic.”
Saranja started to explain. Maja tried to listen, sleepy still, and only half hearing.
“They don’t. But they want it. That’s what they’re like. Anything they haven’t got. You’ve got an opal mine, they want it. All the warlords keep a magician in their household. They’re not mighty magicians, not like the ones in the story, and when their warlords start fighting mostly they cancel each other out, but they can usually tell when someone else is brewing up magic anywhere near. The Sheep-faces have got hold of a few—they pay them the earth. I couldn’t help picking up a lot of this sort of thing because my owner liked to have a woman sitting at his feet when he was in council or anything—pet dogs, we were. Added to his status.
“First off the Sheep-faces ran up against the Empire. Wanted to trade, they said. Empire took a look at them, worked out what they were at, wouldn’t let them in. So they tried to force their way in. They’ve got some amazing weapons, but they hadn’t met dragons before, or directed lightning, or some of the other stuff that got flung at them in the Empire. Those airboats burn—get a flame against one of those bags and it goes up like gunpowder….”
“Gunpowder?”
“Too long to explain now. So the Sheep-faces started trying to encircle the Empire and ran up against the warlords. The only thing that stops warlords fighting each other is somebody else to fight. Magic doesn’t work as well the other side of the desert, but some of the warlords’ magicians could fling fire—not as good as dragons or lightning, but enough to stop an airboat getting in close, and the warlords fought hit-and-run on the ground, which they’re good at and the Sheep-faces weren’t, so it was a really bloody business down south until the Sheep-faces backed off. Now they’re working to set the warlords fighting each other—doesn’t take much doing—and meanwhile mopping up all the magicians they can. I reckon that airboat was a patrol coming up through the desert, looking for magic stuff over on their left, and all of a sudden they found out there was more on their right than they expected now the Valley’s open. Six years ago, when I crossed the desert, nobody that side had any idea it was there. The Sheep-faces must have been coming to take a look when I happened to be giving Rocky his wings—that’d send out a signal you could pick up a hundred miles off.”
“So they can follow us wherever we go?”
“Until they run out of fuel for the engines. It’s a patrol. They’ll be carrying plenty. Could last for days. How far to your mill, Ribek?”
“Five miles from the bottom of the pass. That’s it, ahead. You can see the river. Better get him down while we’re still over the forest, I suppose.”
“Umph. Not something they teach you in riding school.”
Maja saw her do something with the reins and felt the slight shift of her body. Rocky steepened his glide, landed with barely a jolt and folded his wings. Ribek and the woman dismounted. Saranja lifted Maja down and helped Ribek unbuckle the saddlebags and harness, then moved to Rocky’s flank. Her hands seemed to know what to do. She laid one on the root of each wing. She was a tall woman, but even on tiptoe she could barely reach across to the further one. At her touch the horse half spread both wings. Her lips moved, soundlessly. Again that shock-wave, the fierce, glittering tremor in the golden evening light sweeping along the opposite mountainside, that pang of excitement deep in Maja’s soul, so intense this time that she cried aloud.
Saranja looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“I…I’m all right,” she said. “It’s just when you do that…”
“Your Sheep-faces’ magician will have felt it too, surely,” said Ribek. “I felt it a bit myself.”
“Uh-huh. Probably still feel it when they get here,” muttered Saranja.
Gently she stroked each hand up the two massive bones that carried the wings. And again. And again. Each time she repeated the simple movement the wings became smaller, and the horse itself dwindled in proportion, until only an ordinary chestnut stallion stood there, in a harness of brown leather, with a couple of golden feathers lying on each shoulder. Even so, it was a handsome beast, tired after a long day, but well muscled, its coat glossy with health, and with an odd, humorous look in its eye, as if it knew some secret no other horse was aware of.
Saranja unwound a golden hair from her wrist and bound it round the quills. As she did so Maja felt the strange Rocky-sensation die away. Saranja slipped the feathers into her belt-pouch, and the world was ordinary again.
They walked the hundred paces to the edge of the woods. Maja gazed around as they went on. Small interlocking fields, not a square foot of good earth wasted, lay in two narrow strips either side of the river. She could see a dozen farms from where she stood. All had a winter-hardy look. There was no sign of the ravages of the horse people. The slopes above were clothed with dense woods all the way to the tree line.
“Five miles to your mill?” said Saranja. “They’ll be sending patrols out the moment they land.”
“Should be enough for tonight,” said Ribek. “They won’t see much. It’s a waning moon, doesn’t clear the ridge till well after midnight.”
“Suppose they’re here before morning, is there another way out of the Valley?” said Saranja. “We’ll need to start well before dawn. They’ll have bird-kites up watching for us soon as it’s light. We could fly, but I’m not sure he’d make it over the next ridge.”
“I can take us up through the woods and along to the next pass. It’s a bit more exposed after that. Won’t their magician be able to pick up your feathers soon as he gets near them?”
“I don’t think so, not with the hair round them. Can’t be sure, but I can feel them sort of come into their power when I unwind it.”
“So can I!” said Maja. “It was there, like a kind of background buzz, but it stopped as soon as you put the hair round.”
“Funny,” said Ribek. “I can’t tell, but that sounds all right.”
“Let’s move,” said Saranja. “I want to take a look at that leg of yours. You’d better ride—you look dead beat. I ought to be, too, but I’m not. Still, I wouldn’t mind sleeping in a bed, even if it’s just three or four hours. Maja too, I expect.”
Bed! Maja thought, as Ribek climbed wearily into the saddle and Saranja lifted her up behind him. She settled sidesaddle, leaned her head against his back, reached her arms as far as they would go round his waist and fell asleep.
It seemed to Maja that she woke in the same place that she’d fallen asleep, sitting sidesaddle on Rocky, leaning against Ribek’s back, with the whole side of her face numb and creased with the imprint of his jacket. Only it was now daylight, daylight sweet with the dewy airs of early morning. Saranja was on foot, leading the way up a steep hill path through dense old woodland. From far down the slope to her right she could hear a drowsy throbbing sound.
“Ahng…are…,” she mumbled. “Are we nearly there?”
“Nearly where, kid?” said Ribek.
“We were going to your mill. We were going to sleep in a bed.”
“Been and gone, kid. You slept four hours in a real bed.”
“Oh! I thought that was only a dream. There was a blue clock on the wall.”
“That’s right. In the kitchen. My grandfather made clocks for a hobby. That’s where I belong. Best place in the world.”
“I don’t belong anywhere.”
“Not Woodbourne?”
“Not now. It’s gone. Anyway, it wasn’t like your mill. It wasn’t a good place. Saranja ran away.”
“She was telling me. That sort of thing shouldn’t…I wonder if I should have left you at the mill. They’d have looked after you there.”