Anthony shrugged. “I shall waken you when I tire. It shall be half the night at least, and perhaps all of it, since I shall have the sweetness of your sleeping face to gaze upon and fill me with strength.”
She blushed, looking down. “May the night be calm for you, then.” She lay down, careful to arrange her cloak with all modesty—if he would gain strength by gazing, it should be only her face that he watched.
“Sleep lie sweetly on your brow.” Anthony leaned over and kissed her forehead. “And on your eyes.” He kissed each closed lid. “And on your lips.” The last kiss was substantially longer than the others and guaranteed to keep him awake. When he lifted his head, Balkis smiled shyly up into his eyes, then deliberately closed her own and breathed out a long sigh of happiness. Anthony echoed it with a sigh of his own that perhaps held as much longing as contentment, then turned away to sit by the fire where he could watch both the night and her.
Sleep would not come to Balkis, though, and all that lying still with her eyes closed merely made her acutely aware of the strange warmth and trembling within her. As the hours passed she began to wonder whether to feel relieved or disappointed at Anthony's self-control.
Then she remembered that the unicorn hadn't hesitated to carry him, that he must be virgin, too, and wondered if he were as apprehensive as she. She even wondered if he knew what lovers did together, then remembered that he was a farm boy, after all, so had certainly seen animals couple, as had she herself in growing. Then she remembered the crudeness of the household in which he'd been reared, and a strange thought struck her, the possibility that he might not connect mating with love.
If that were so, she would definitely have to do something about it. She was still wondering what when she finally fell asleep.
Anthony woke her after the moon was down, woke her with a kiss on the forehead. Heavy-lidded and flushed with sleep, she smiled and said, “Is that all you can offer me, sir?”
Smiling, he kissed her on the lips, a long and lingering caress that quickened the blood in her veins well enough. Then, though, he released her and sat back on his heels to say, “I have grown wearied at last, so I shall let you watch for the last hour or two of the night, if you wish.”
Balkis realized that he was waiting for her to rise from the bed, even though she had made only the one this night. She rose with a sigh, went to sit by the fire, and gave him a smile that spoke more than her lips as she said, “Dream sweetly, love.”
He pulled his cloak over his shoulders, smiling back and saying, “If my dreams have been as sweet as my musing, I may not wish to wake.”
“Oh,” Balkis said, “I think I can see to that.” She gave him what she hoped was a look filled with promise. His eyes glowed in answer, but he forced his lids shut with firm resolution.
She turned back to the fire with a sigh and fed it twigs. Really, she was going to have to do something about his excess of gallantry.
She woke Anthony with a kiss, and the magical mood wove itself around them again as they ate breakfast. Then they drowned their fire and took to the road again, or rather, the path. The early sun cast a rosy glow over the landscape, the dew twinkled like stars all about them, and they both felt that they were walking on air as they strolled along, chatting of inconsequentialities—and stopping now and again for a kiss.
Early in the afternoon the mountains that had been before them in the distance for so long were suddenly near, and they saw that the path led into a gorge a hundred yards wide at the bottom. As they came into it, they saw that the walls were high rugged cliffs. They looked about them, marveling at the wild beauty of the place—then heard shouts in a language that Balkis recognized again as akin to that of Maracanda, but so heavily accented that she couldn't really understand it. She did, however, comprehend one word. “Anthony! Someone is telling us to stop!”
“There may be danger ahead, then.” Anthony looked all about him. “Where are these people who send kind warning, though?”
“I see them not, either,” Balkis said.
The voices shouted again, then began to chant with a heavy beat.
“That has the sound of a war song,” Balkis said nervously. “Where are the singers?”
“There!” Anthony pointed upward, staring in amazement.
Balkis looked where he pointed and saw a dozen dragons— small ones, only twelve feet long—saddled and bridled and with people riding them as they flew. As they spiraled down toward the intruders, their war-songs grew more harsh. Anthony and Balkis stared, thunderstruck, as they came. Then three riders dropped spinning packages that spread open into nets, and Balkis jolted out of her reverie. “Run!”
They ran hand in hand, stumbling and staggering over rough ground. Balkis followed the pressure of Anthony's grip, first left, then right, with a total lack of pattern; they were running toward the western wail, but so unpredictably that first one net, then three, fell to either side, but none caught them.
A voice above called out a command, and two dragon-eers dove between the fugitives and the cliffs, then arrowed toward them.
Balkis cried.
“Fires scorch and waters drown!
Fear that earth might drag you down!
Air betray you, tumult-fed!”
Anthony didn't even give her a chance to run dry; he called out,
“Hurl you high above our heads!”
The dragons cawed in fright as a wind rose out of the earth itself to hurl them high, tumbling; their riders shouted in terror. They didn't fall from their saddles, though, and Balkis suspected they were tied in. She ran on, letting Anthony direct their course, but glanced back over her shoulder and saw that the two dragons had dropped as suddenly as though they had been tossed, but managed to halt their fall by cupping their wings. Steadying, they didn't try to chase Anthony and Balkis, but flew ahead toward the eastern cliff, then swooped upward and spiraled higher, regaining altitude.
“Down!” Anthony cried and dove, pulling her with him. She fell, and scaly bodies shot by overhead. A rider shouted and a net fell but didn't have time to open; it struck Anthony between the shoulders as a solid lump.
“My love! Are you hurt?” Balkis cried.
Anthony flashed her a grin as he struggled to his feet, then managed to catch his breath and say, “I've taken worse knocks than that.”
Balkis caught his hand again with a sob of relief, then saw the lumps of lead in the packed-up net. “It is weighted around the edges!”
“Therefore it spreads when the warrior gives it a spin and lets it go,” Anthony said grimly. “Very clever—but so are we. Run! If we can find a cave in that stone wall, they cannot come at us!”
Balkis ran, glancing back at the riders who had just attacked them—but saw that they were sailing onward toward the eastern cliff, just as the last two had. She thought they were going to strike directly into it, but at the last second they swooped upward, then spiraled aloft. She remembered Matthew Mantrell saying something about updrafts. “Anthony! We do not need a cave! If we can even come near to the wall, the riders cannot reach us. Their dragons are far better at gliding than at real flying, and need the air that blows upward along the cliffs to take them back into the sky!”
“To the wall let us flee then!” Anthony said grimly, and kept up his broken-field running. Nets fell to the left and the right of them, they even had to bat aside the edges of one, but none caught them. They came closer and closer to the wall, and the riders must have known it meant safety for the couple, for they set up a hue and cry as they dove at their quarry.
Then one flew directly overhead, only twenty feet up, his net already spinning. It fell open, fell far more quickly than most, fell on them and all around them, and they floundered in the midst of it with cries of despair. Anthony reached for his dagger to cut their way free, but the rider pulled sharply on a drawstring rope and the net closed about them, yanking them off their feet, swinging them high into the air. They cried out in fright and clung to one another, staring down at the ground that receded so quickly below them, spinning and swaying.