If it had to be, it had to be, dammit. The old lad would find his way, he hoped, to the judge's mares, and not to the hands of mercenaries. He was only a horse. Dammit.
"There's boats," Taizu said. There were, several of them, running dark on the water. Then more and more as they rode, until they reached level ground and trees came between them and the river.
People ahead, afoot, without armor, people with baskets and bundles, fleeing the nightmare of fire and stinging smoke. Shoka reined back, confronting that movement around a turning of the road, and the mare danced anxiously past and around again under Taizu's hand.
"It's townsfolk," Taizu said. "Running from the fires."
Worse and worse, Shoka thought. Much worse. The fires involved houses, barns. He had a surer and surer feeling of disaster. That damn horse of Taizu's.
It's our fault. It's our doing.
"Come on," he said, and rode forward, slowly. People scattered from them, through the trees, people shrieking and crying.
It's the soldiers, he heard.
It's the soldiers.
And when they had come closer to the town, they caught sight of riders passing against the light of burning houses; and saw people lying dead, pale blotches on the firelight ground. It's the soldiers.
"Damn them," Taizu said, in a hoarse, demon's voice. "Damn them!"
He reined in, caught up the helm that had rattled useless by his knee till now, and put it on, making the ties carefully, precisely, while Taizu put on her own.
"The bridge," he reminded her harshly. He drew his sword, and sent Jiro ambling forward, the mare beside him.
The steel of Taizu's sword rasped out of its sheath.
That damned white-legged horse . . .
"Let's go, girl."
Faster now, running flat-out, the whole night narrowed to what came through the face of the helm: fire, clouds of smoke, the bright fire of a burning barn, the black shape of an abandoned cart—He whipped a glance rightward as they bore left down the street, and saw it clear from that direction.
"Master Shoka!"
Riders in the way ahead of them. He went clear and cold, measuring the strides, their horses' and Jiro's. And hers. "Haii!" he yelled, and gave Jiro a kick that the old lad was well-trained to. Jiro surged forward and Shoka laid about him with a vengeance, one, two, three men out of their saddles before one got past him.
Not far. He heard Taizu yell.
Four, five, before Taizu caught up with him and they broke through to the riverside road—
There were no boats beside, except one burning, with the light flaring out on the waters: with the light showing the road ahead.
And a troop of foot guarding a barricade ahead.
He spun Jiro sharply to the right, hard about with a yell at Taizu: he had not seen the bows, but he knew—he swept Taizu up as she reined the mare around; and rode, down the rutted shanty street, past the burning wreckage of buildings.
Four riders ahead. He gave Jiro his heels again, and yelled at Taizu: "We're going through! Stay with me!"
He took two men out of the saddle and did not appreciably slow down. He wheeled about for a third and got him off Taizu's back. "Get the horses!" he yelled, and herded one riderless horse against the wall, but it and Jiro took exception to each other, a teeth-bared encounter that was going to cost dangerous time. He let it go. "Never mind!" he yelled at Taizu. "Get the hell out of here!"
She had snagged a horse. She nearly came out of the saddle trying to hang onto it, the animal backing wildly. It slipped free.
"Never mind!" he yelled at her, and the mare bolted into a run as Jiro came past her.
"Where are we going?" Taizu yelled. "Where are we going?"
"Hell if I know!" he yelled back. "We can't make the bridge. Out of here!"
There were carts on the road ahead, in the dark. People left them and ran when they came by. There were soldiers plundering one.
"Stay back with that damn horse," Shoka said to Taizu, and rode up on the soldiers alone.
"What are you doing?" he asked them.
And killed both of them.
When Taizu caught him up he was waiting quite calmly, quite numb, thinking over the archers on the bridge, the ruin of the town.
"We can go west," he said. "Down the Yan. Toward Dai, as far as Muigan, then cross south."
"All right," she said in a thread of a voice. And then, in a creaking squeak. "I'm sorry about the horse. I'm sorry. I couldn't hang onto it."
"It's not your fault," he said, very quietly, very reasoned. "It's mine. The best thing we can do for these people is get out of Hoishi, as far as we can. As loudly as we can."
She said nothing for a moment. Her face showed between the steel cheekplates of the helm, the metal shining with the distant glare of the fire.
No protests, no arguments. Just that grave, large-eyed stare. And a sniff and a discreet wipe at her nose.
"Probably it's a good thing you stay with that horse," he said. "Attract all the notice we can. We get out of this if we can. I'm not going back to Mon. We're not going anywhere but to the border, and over." He turned Jiro's head to the road, started them moving. "We save the horses for times we have to run. And we'll have to."
There were no more soldiers on the road, just peasants, farmers out of Ygotai and gods knew where—folk who abandoned their belongings as riders came by, threw them on the roadside or left handcarts standing and fled, dragging children or carrying them. In some cases they hid very near the road, old folk, perhaps, desperately afraid.
But before long they passed beyond all such refugees, onto a clear road, across a flat, wild land,
They were on the Keido road, Shoka reckoned. There were hills westward, that would make pursuit harder and give them a chance—as long as they could keep the horses sound: that was his greatest concern, and for that reason he wanted to keep to the good road as long as they dared, as long as it tended generally toward the hills. They kept an easy pace, rested the horses when they tired, keeping, Shoka figured, only a minimal distance between themselves and the trouble flowing outward from Ygotai toward Keido.
"It's going to be hard tomorrow," he said when Taizu protested they were stopping too often. "Get your breath now." He sank down by her, Jiro's reins in hand, and found his own stomach empty and aching. "We're doing all right. Don't worry."
She was scared, he thought, sitting by her in the dark. It took a great deal to frighten Taizu, but she was living a great deal with memories tonight. He longed for daylight, and dreaded it; and saw it coming in the dimming of the stars.
"Sleep," he said. "Can you?"
A sigh beside him in the dark. She leaned against him, a grating of armor-plates, hers and his, and she put her arm around him. In a little time she went limp that way, and he lay back on the embankment, in the grass, trying not to fall asleep himself, or lose track of the horses that grazed on their leads, the leads wrapped about his left hand. It would be so damned easy. And he was being a fool, he thought: the young could go so much longer.
But he knew how to sleep in the saddle. If she was rested she could shepherd him while he caught a nap. They could go off the road in the morning, cut across the rocky highland fields—leave tracks, gods knew, thanks to the recent rains, but he wanted to be tracked, if not closely; he trusted that the peasants who had hidden from them would describe them to anyone who asked.
And draw their pursuers away from Mon. Gods hoped.
He moved finally, pushed at Taizu. "Sorry. We can't stay longer."