Tantaerra felt it more than heard it: the pounding of distant hooves. Getting nearer quickly.
"I can't see the length of a spear in this grass," she snarled. "Who is it? More than one rider, it sounds like, but not much more …"
"Well counted," Armistrade replied, sounding amused. "Two riders. Telcanors who rode with Zreem when we were taken out of Braganza to begin this little jaunt. Full plate armor, riding hard right at us."
"Here they are!" a man shouted, and the foremost Telcanor appeared over the sea of grass, as he slowed his mount and veered aside to look down at them. "It's them, all right!"
"Good," the other rider called back, reining in his horse so hard it reared, bugling in protest. As it bucked and tossed its head, he grabbed up the crossbow hooked to his saddle.
"What're you doing?" the first rider asked incredulously. "We're supposed to capture them for questioning!"
"My orders are to the contrary," the second Braganzan replied. "Dead men tell priests and their speaking-spells no lies." He aimed his crossbow at his fellow Telcanor. "Any objections?"
The other soldier shook his head frantically, face pale.
Smiling tightly, the Braganzan with the crossbow settled a bolt into his weapon.
Smiling tightly right back at him, Tantaerra yanked the Fearsome Gauntlet onto her hand.
The world exploded, leaving her staggering, moaning, and tasting blood from her bitten lip. Visions crashed into her brain and each other, overwhelming her in a deluge of vivid overlapping scenes of the wielding of this or that gauntlet power. The simple, invisible fist-like ramming ability underlay the rest, so she seized upon it, fighting through the blinding chaos-and the moment she could see the Molthuni bowman, she let fly.
The invisible blow shattered the crossbow, at least one of the hands holding it, and the bowman's jaw as it smashed him clear out of his saddle. Teeth flew.
The other Telcanor stared at his fellow Molthuni, bouncing senseless in the grass, cast a look of wild-eyed fear at them, and wheeled his mount to frantically gallop away.
"Blast him down!" Tarram shouted.
Tantaerra let her gauntlet-clad arm fall.
"Blast him!"
Tantaerra shook her head. "No," she said sullenly.
"He'll report us, and come back with an army!" The Masked snarled.
"I've killed enough on this trip," she snapped back at him. "Watchguards, soldiers of both sides-I don't see that I had much choice, but I'm sick of it. Now catch that horse, before it decides to follow the other one!"
The Masked shot her a furious look, then sprinted to the snorting, head-tossing horse, caught its reins, and started to murmur soothing sounds to it. It shook itself and lashed out only once, but when he let it trot away, it circled back to him, then stopped and let him catch the reins again.
Still soothing the horse, The Masked swung himself into the saddle, circled to where Tantaerra stood watching, and plucked her up, a little less than gently, to join him.
The horse promptly snorted and tossed its head again, so Tarram kept it to a walk, and turned its head south. The sun would be setting soon.
Tantaerra kept quiet for some time, to give him time to master his temper, before saying, "I can't help but notice that we're heading east instead of south."
"Yes," The Masked snapped.
After riding in silence for a time, he added more gently, "No, I'm not thinking of trying to ride to Canorate, or right out of Molthune. I'm thinking we can't catch that Telcanor, so it'll be wiser to circle around to Braganza rather than heading straight for it-being as anyone he brings back to seek us will look first between Braganza and where you took such good care of our murderous friend with the crossbow."
"Sensible," Tantaerra agreed.
"Thank you. Now, being as you're smaller and lighter, and so shouldn't upset the horse as much as I would, I'm going to move you behind me, so you can go through those saddlebags. I don't know about you, but I'm ravenous-and parched, too."
"Humans," Tantaerra teased, as he twisted in the saddle and swung her less than gracefully around to rest against the saddle's high back. "If you didn't carry around all that unnecessary weight, maybe you wouldn't need to eat so-" Her voice died away.
Tarram must have felt her stiffen. "What?" he asked sharply. "What's wrong?"
She pointed, off across the rolling hills behind him, then remembered he couldn't see without turning.
"We're being followed," she told him quietly. "A lot of riders-armored, by the way they glint and flash in the sun-and coming fast."
The Masked sighed. "Of course we are. What else would make this day complete? Are any of them waving tentacles?"
∗ ∗ ∗
"Got a good firm hold on me?" The Masked asked.
Tantaerra sighed, thrust the stay-peg through the saddlebag flap she'd just managed to get open, and made sure she had a good grip on her partner. "Yes," she told him tersely, knowing what was coming.
"Good," he replied, as he bent low over the horse's neck and kicked it into a gallop.
The mount seemed to want to buck for a moment, then stretched out its neck and raced forward, fairly leaping through the grass in a great rustling hiss, a hissing that went on and on as its hooves pounded up a hill.
The Masked looked back, almost swinging her off.
"Warn me when you're going to do that," she snarled at him through clenched teeth, shifting her grip to his belt-hand clutching it, and stump thrust through it. Now, if she fell off, his breeches would be coming with her. Being as they'd probably have a heavy man inside them who'd undoubtedly land on her, that was probably less than wise, but …
No doubt their Molthuni pursuers were still right behind them, and probably gaining, too. It was only in bardic ballads that heroes ever outrode anyone.
They veered around the next hill, The Masked forcing their mount up a little valley into rising land of more rolling hills and sharper ridges. It was almost sunset, but this was all open grasslands, halfway from here to Lake Encarthan. There was nowhere to hide-and no way in all wide Golarion that their horse would be able to outrun the Molthuni forever.
A mere moment later, that was proven true. Their mount stumbled on something, faltered-and they were flying through the air, hooves flashing past their ears in a welter of dust and screaming, thudding horse, as their mount fell and rolled past them.
Tantaerra slammed into thankfully soft earth with teeth-jarring force, rolled over with her head swimming, and saw The Masked wincing and clambering back to his feet.
Then she saw what he was staring at.
The Molthuni were galloping right at them, a score of men or more, in full plate armor and with long lances lowered to spit them. Coming fast, the earth thundering now under the churning hooves, the horses snorting and tossing armored heads, the men snarling through their opened helms. Close enough now that they could make out individual faces.
Tantaerra heard her partner chuckle bitterly. A moment later, she saw why.
One rider had familiar face. It was the Mereir recruiter who'd confronted them in their room at the Hearth, back in Braganza.
"Well, this is it, my little pacifist," The Masked growled. "Where we die valiantly." He cast a longing glance at the Fearsome Gauntlet on her hand, but rather than grabbing at it, he did something that astonished Tantaerra. He hooked his arm around her, pulled her close, and kissed her.
His mouth was by no means as foul as she'd feared.
"Well, now," she grinned at him, when their unhurried kiss ended, "we'll have to talk about your aggressive advances upon my person, after."
"You think there's going to be an after?"