When she actually moved between two thick, untrimmed hedges, he could hardly believe his good luck. She couldn't have gotten into a better situation for him to corner her!
Knowing that a horse is averse to backing up, he ran around to the front of the hedges, and struck.
Making a dash out of cover, he grabbed for the reins and the saddle in the same movement, hauling himself into the saddle before she had time to do more than snort. And somehow, before he realized it, he was in the saddle and in control!
For just about a heartbeat.
Because in the next moment, the horse tossed her head, jerking the reins out of his hand, and set off at a gallop, and all he could do was cling desperately to the pommel of the saddle.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALL Skif could do was hold on, with every aching finger, with knees and thighs, wrists and ankles. If he could have held on with his teeth, he would have. If he could have tied his hair to the saddle, he would have.
He'd lost the stirrups almost at once, shortly after he lost the reins. That didn't give him a lot of options; either cling on like a burr, or try to jump off. But the mare was going so fast, he knew if he jumped, he'd get hurt.
Badly, badly hurt —
And that was if he was lucky. He'd seen someone who'd been thrown from a galloping horse, once. The poor fool had his back broken. Healers could fix that, he'd been told, if the Healer got to you quickly enough, if you were important enough to see a Healer. He'd seen countless people thrown from runaway wagons, and they always ended up with broken arms and legs. That was bad enough.
She was at the gallop, head down, charging along as if she'd gone mad, pounding down the paved streets, the occasional bystander gawking at them as they tore past. No one tried to stop the runaway horse, and all that Skif could do was hang on tight and trust to the fact that as hot as it was, she'd tire soon. She'd have to tire soon. She was only a horse, just a fancy horse, she couldn't run forever —
He closed his eyes and crouched over the saddle, gripping her with his thighs and holding onto the pommel of the saddle with all his might. Her mane whipped at his face, it was like being beaten with a fly whisk, and he gasped with every driving blow of her hooves that drove the pommel into his gut. She'd be slowing any moment now.
Any moment now…
Oh, please —
He cracked his eye open, and closed it again.
She wasn't slowing. If anything, she was running faster. People, shops, pavement blurred past so fast he was getting sick. His eyes watered as some of her mane lashed across them.
How was that possible?
Hellftres! I stole a racehorse! Of all the stupid, idiot things to have done —
He opened his eyes again, just in time to see a wagon pull across the street in front of them and stop.
She's got to stop now —
She raised her head a little, and her ears cocked forward.
She's not gonna stop!
The driver stared at them, then abruptly dove off the seat. The mare increased her pace; he felt her muscles bunch up under his legs.
She's gonna jump it!
She shoved off, her forequarters rising; he clawed desperately at the saddle as his weight shifted backward. He screamed in terror, knowing he was going to fall, then the wagonbed was underneath him —
She landed; he was flung forward, his nose and right eye slamming into her neck. He saw stars, and his head exploded with pain. Somehow, some way, he managed to hang on. The thought of falling off terrified him more than staying on.
She didn't even break stride as she continued her run and careened around a corner; sweat flew off her, and she didn't even seem to notice. She was off around another corner, pounding through a half-empty market, then toward the last of the city walls.
No —
But she wasn't listening to what he wanted.
She plunged into the tunnel beneath the walls, and for a moment her hooves echoed in the darkness, sounding like an entire herd of horses was in here with him.
There were Guards on the wall! Surely, surely they would stop her — Then she was out, with no sign of a Guardsman.
Skif dared another glance, out of the eye that wasn't swelling. Through his tears all he could see was a road stretching ahead of them, the road leading away from Haven. He couldn't even tell which road; all he knew for certain was that they were flying down a roadway, and people were scattering out of their way, shouting curses after them.
The mare wove her way in and out of the traffic with the agility of a dancer. He actually felt the touch on his ankle as they brushed by other riders, the whiplike cut of a horse's tail as it shied out of the way. And somehow, she was getting faster.
He knew if he tried to throw himself off now, he'd die. It was just that simple. No one, not even an experienced rider, could slip off a horse at speeds like this and live. He wouldn't just break bones, he'd break his neck or his skull and die instantly. All he could do was what he had been doing; hang on, try not to get thrown, and hope that when she stopped, he'd be able to get off of her without her killing him.
He gritted his teeth together, hissing with the pain of his eye and nose, so full of fear there was no room in his head for anything else.
The sounds of shouting and cursing were gone. He dared another glance. There were no more buildings beside the road now, nothing but fields with tiny farmhouses off in the distance. The road still had plenty of traffic, though, and the mare wove her way in and out of it with a nonchalance that made the hair on the back of his head stand up. People weren't shouting and cursing at them because they were too busy trying to get out of the way.
He had never been so terrified in his entire life.
He squeezed his eyes tight shut again, and for the first time in his life, began to pray.
* * * * * * * * * *
Skif was limp with exhaustion, dripping with sweat and aching so much that he wasn't sure he even cared what happened to him now.
He also had no idea where he was. The mare had gotten off the main road and was still running, though not at the headlong pace she'd held through the city. This was a normal gallop — if anything this mare did was normal!
This was a country road, rutted dirt, with trees on both sides that met over his head, forming a tunnel of green. If his eye and nose hadn't hurt so much — and if he hadn't been so terrified — he'd never been anywhere like this before in his life.
He had no idea how far they were from Haven. A long way, that was about all he could tell. So in addition to the rest of it, he was hopelessly lost, and completely outside familiar territory.
And the sun was setting.
He wanted to cry.
He did cry; tears leaking silently out from the corners of his eyes. His nose felt as if it was the size of a cabbage, and it throbbed.
The mare suddenly changed direction again, darting into a mere break in the trees, down a path so seldom used that there weren't even any cart tracks in it. She slowed again, to a trot.