‘I agree.’ Gilmour appeared beside him. ‘We have to ride south as fast as we can; the Malakasians have big Falkan stallions and they’ll run us to ground. Let’s go.’
‘He’s right,’ Brand agreed. ‘We’ll cover you, and hope they don’t see you.’
Steven shook his head resolutely. ‘We can’t leave you here alone.’
‘Yes, you can,’ Brand said firmly, ‘and you must – don’t think we’ll dig in here and fight to the death; no one can stand against a cavalry charge, not even you and that staff. Prince Malagon isn’t with them and this is no suicide mission: we’ll draw them away and try to keep them distracted long enough for you to disappear.’
Uncertainty was clear in Steven’s face. There was another thrum as Mark loosed another arrow; Garec thought he might have seen a rider go down.
All right, fine,’ Steven said, ‘let’s go.’ He rode off a few paces then reined in. ‘Brand, you’re not digging in?’
Brand shook his head. ‘I will see you again, Steven Taylor, and if I can find you in the next several days, I will. But go now, because the longer you wait, the longer we have to wait.’
‘Thanks,’ Steven said, and without another word, he thundered off, with Garec, Mark, and Gilmour hot on his heels.
Brand watched until the four riders had crossed into the next field, then nodded to one of his lieutenants. ‘Take the company north. Make a lot of noise doing it. I want that whole battalion following you. Don’t stop. Pass the word for everyone to retreat by squads. Find villages, towns, farms, caves, I don’t care where, to hide out, but break up and make your way back to Traver’s Notch. Send our fastest rider – Greves or Mallac – ahead to inform Gita. Understand?’
The man nodded agreement and Brand continued, ‘I’m taking one squad with me. I’m following them.’ Brand gestured the way the four had ridden. ‘Stay here long enough for us to get clear, then ride like all the gods of the Northern Forest were after you. Understand?’
‘Yes sir – and good luck.’
‘Squad!’ Brand shouted, ‘We can’t take the risk that Gilmour and the others were seen, so we’ll cover their flanks, give them as much time and room to run as possible.’
The rag-tag band of hardened partisan riders nodded, grim understanding on their faces. They would be the sorcerers’ last line of defence.
Brand clapped his lieutenant on the shoulder and pulled his horse round, then took off, but he and his squad had barely crossed into the next field when a group of cavalrymen broke off from the main charge, angled across the plain, and took up the pursuit.
The lieutenant shook his head; there was nothing he could do for them. The brunt of the day’s unpleasant responsibilities now rested on his shoulders. He rode back along the lines, shouting, ‘Retreat to the north! Retreat by squads! Retreat to the north!’
Gilmour rode hard down the dry streambed that was providing some cover. They had been galloping for a quarter of an aven now and he was worried that the horses would not be able to keep up this breakneck pace for much longer. They had no spare mounts, and losing an animal this far outside Wellham Ridge would be a disaster. They would have to stop soon.
He used a rudimentary spell – nothing that would resonate enough for Nerak to locate them – to confirm that they were being followed, but he had some vague sense that their pursuers were friendly. He guessed Brand had sent a handful of riders after them, and that bothered him; he hated that Gita had demanded they use Brand and his company as a live shield. He supposed he ought to harden his heart to such sacrifices, but it hadn’t been easy to look them in the eye; they all knew why they had been sent on this mission.
While Gilmour felt responsible for having led Brand’s company into the Malakasians’ path, he didn’t wish to make a stand against a cavalry charge, certainly not with his magic alone. He wondered for a moment if Steven would be able to help without losing the camouflage spell he had cast when they left Sandcliff Palace, but the old Larion Senator decided that risk was too great: any spell powerful enough to divert a cavalry charge would tell Nerak exactly where they were.
The gulley rounded a lazy bend and turned southeast; if this stream had once spilled into the Medera River and run through Orindale to the Ravenian Sea, then their current path would take them too far east. They had to leave the streambed. Gilmour looked around: if they were forced to expose themselves, they might as well seek whatever high ground they could find and use it to their advantage.
A thousand paces further on, he saw what he had been looking for: a tight bend in the riverbed had left an era’s worth of dirt and rocks accumulated above the turn, a little hillock. Given the paucity of heights in the Falkan landscape, this would have to do. At the bend, Gilmour slowed and urged his horse up the rise.
‘Where are you going?’ Steven shouted. ‘We have cover down here.’
‘This stream will run into Orindale. It’s the wrong way. Besides, we’re being followed and I don’t think it’s the Malakasians.’ He crested the hill; reluctantly, the others followed.
‘Who is it?’ Steven asked.
Gilmour peered back along their trail, and was surprised to see no one approaching across the plain. ‘They must be in the streambed,’ he said, scanning the area until he detected a faint cloud of dust and dirt billowing up from the twisting crevasse they had been using to mask their movements. ‘There,’ he pointed, ‘past that stone wall on this side of the far field.’
Steven, Mark and Garec all strained to see where Gilmour was pointing, but none of them had improved their vision with Larion magic; they saw only the barren expanse of fallow fields.
Garec rode back down into the gulley and dismounted, then patted his frothing horse gently on the neck. ‘Not much further,’ he said encouragingly, then sprawled on the ground and pressed his cheek against the frozen dirt. The sound was unmistakable. Rising to his knees, he called, ‘They’re not far, but nowhere near as many as earlier.’
‘Well, that’s good news,’ Mark said. ‘I think.’
‘It’s Brand,’ Gilmour said.
‘How do you know?’ Steven asked.
‘I checked – nothing that will alert Nerak – and I can feel that it isn’t Malakasians.’
‘That may be,’ Garec said, ‘but we should keep riding, nevertheless.’
‘My horse can’t keep it up much longer.’ Mark ran a hand through the animal’s mane.
‘Mine either,’ Steven added.
Garec said, ‘We’ll slow the pace. Mark and I will hang back and just trot for a while. They’ll see our trail run up the side of this gulley. When they get to the top, we’ll know who’s back there. If it’s Brand, we have nothing to worry about. If it isn’t, we’ll ride up behind you. You’ll hear us coming like rutting thunder.’
Garec looked at Mark, who pressed his lips together and nodded. ‘Give your horses a rest, but canter just the same. Get as much distance out from us as you can. If we get separated, we’ll find you in Wellham Ridge tonight.’
‘You understand that we can’t-’ Gilmour started, ‘that Nerak would-’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Mark said. ‘I don’t want that motherless bastard knowing where we are either. I just hope Steven’s blanket still covers us when you two are gone.’
‘I don’t know,’ Steven said, apologetically.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Garec said. ‘It’s not us he wants, anyway. We could stand naked out here singing bawdy songs and he wouldn’t look twice at us.’
Steven laughed. ‘Well, can you blame him?’
‘Go.’
Garec and Mark watched them lope off southwest. Garec asked, ‘How many arrows do you have?’
‘Maybe twenty. You?’
‘About the same.’
‘We can’t stop them with a couple of bows and a handful of arrows.’
‘I know,’ Garec said, thankful that Mark hadn’t suggested they make a stand there on the riverbank.
‘This is not good.’
‘We can’t run the horses any longer. We have to hope theirs are in a similar condition.’