“I mean when I had to get it todoanything. My feet don’t reach the stirrups. Fuck, this was a stupid idea.”
Bucket shook his head, snorted, and began to walk after the distant dust cloud.
“Oh,” said Fern. “Maybe thiswillwork.”
Then he began to trot. Without Astryx’s steadying weight behind her, Fern bobbled in the saddle and felt herself slipping sideways. “Shit!” She grabbed the saddle horn and tried to hook her tail around Nigel’s sheath.
Bucket broke into a canter, and it was all Fern could do not to judder right off the side of him.
Then he was galloping, and she held on for dear life.
Fern had never moved so fast in her life. Not once during their journey had Astryx ever urged Bucket into a flat-out gallop, and the sheer speed of him took her breath away.
He wassignificantlyfaster than Persimmon drawing a wagon.
They barreled through one of the streamlets and sheets of snowmelt fountained up from every hoofbeat.
The dust cloud grew closer and closer. Fern’s eyes teared up at the speed of their passage. After the first floundering moments, she bit the reins between her teeth and used both paws to clutch the leading edge of the saddle beside the horn, her belly thudding up and down, cloak snapping as Bucket thundered toward their quarry. Her head boomed with every impact.
As they neared the wagon, Fern could hear an angry caterwauling from inside it, like a badger in a barrel, and she realized it was Zyll.
Bucket slowed his pace and drew alongside the buckboard until Fern stared over at an open-mouthed Staysha, whose eyes were wide in astonishment. The lute case she’d clobbered Fern with sat beside her. Her face and hands looked lacerated, and one cheek was going purple.
Apparently, Zyll’s dangerous smile wasn’t just for show.
Fern spat the reins out of her mouth and hollered, “Stop your horse, shit-face!”
The Silver Sparrow’s incredulity transmuted into fury. “You should have stayed put,” she yelled. “You’re going to break your damn neck. There’s nothing you can do from the back of that horse!” She snapped Persimmon’s reins for emphasis. The horse fought to move faster as the wagon jounced dangerously behind her.
Fern stretched forward and pressed her nose against Bucket’s neck, delirious with pain and anger and something like madness. “Run her off the fucking road, Bucket!”
But Bucket was a smart horse.
Ahead of them another streamlet approached, wider than the one they’d just passed. Boggier.
Bucket increased his speed, then angled in front of Persimmon as the ribbon of water drew ever closer. Fern glanced back over her shoulder as Staysha tried to steer her wagon out from behind him, but Bucket matched her move, obscuring her view.
Then he slowed down, and Persimmon had no choice but to do the same.
The bigger horse trotted through the muddy stream in sloshes of earth and water and Persimmon followed, then foundered to a halt as the wagon’s wheels sank into the silty stream bottom.
“Good horse!” cried Fern, as Bucket pranced in a wide curve and returned to stare balefully at Staysha, apoplectic on the buckboard of her wagon, angrily snapping the reins and urging Persimmon forward.
This time, there was nobody to help push.
Persimmon snorted and reared, then strained with all her might, dragging the wagon forward another few feet, until the front right wheel dipped into a hidden hole. The entire wagon canted sideways, and Fern heard a terrific crack as the front axle broke.
Staysha squawked and spilled overboard to splash into the water and mud of the stream. Her lute case tumbled end over end after her until it popped open in the mire with a muffledBONG. Water filled the case around the exposed lute, and it began to sink.
At Fern’s urging, Bucket approached, standing shin deep in the current.
“You’re not going anywhere, now,” she said.
Staysha struggled to her feet, her burgundy doublet and trousers caked in mud, black hair escaping her jeweled clip in a wild tangle. Baring her teeth, she drew the belt knife at her waist.
“We can take her,”whispered Breadlee.
“Um,” said Fern, as her guts filled with ice. “I actually hadn’t thought this far ahead.”
