“I’m ready to see if you can outrun this storm,” she says. “All while avoiding spectral armies who would do us harm.”
“That is the Yeavering in a nutshell, little mare,” I respond as she locks her hands around my waist. “One day I will take you to the Yeavering stone, and you will see for yourself exactly what this place is.”
My hooves explode in a cloud of dust as my shoes get a grip, and we forge ever onwards, up onto the moors as behind the storm follows.
Perhaps the scent was the rain and the lightning? I cannot be sure. All I know is it fades from my nostrils as we get higher and closer to the moor tops. Here the heather is pushing its way onto the track, obscuring it in places, and my hooves thump on the springy ground, forcing me forward, harder and faster.
“Over there.” I point across the moorland.
The sun is still high, and while we are being pursued by the storm, it’s clear enough to see the marching army, skeletal, spectral against the sky.
Hazel grips me tighter, and I pick up my pace. The armies march on the same route, not diverting for any reason. But woe betide if you end up in their path as many an unwary resident of the Yeavering has found out to their cost.
I am not, however, the unwary. I’ve had my run-in with the spectral armies of the moors, and I have no fear of them. I doubt my mate does either, not when she’s with me.
So we gallop on, over the moor tops, the sun attempting its own battle with the storm coming in behind. My hooves might be swift, but the storm is inexorable. It will always keep coming. The heather around us blooms as the rain catches up. No matter how fast I go, we are not going to outrun it.
I hear Hazel gasp as the first few large drops hit us, and very soon, the water is bouncing all around us, soaking me and her to the skin.
“We can seek shelter once we’re off the moors,” I cry over the noise of the storm. “But I doubt we’ll make the Bluecap’s lair today.”
HAZEL
Any disappointment I might have had at not getting to see Kaitlyn today is, literally, washed away by the most tremendous downpour from the storm we simply could not outrun.
I am pleased we only saw the spooky troops from a distance though. Something in the way they moved, almost predatorily, made my hair stand on end.
Warden isn’t wrong. The Yeavering is a very different place, even to the Night Lands, which now seem rather tame and quiet in comparison to this place.
Water runs down my neck, soaking into my clothing, which is also wet enough to wring out. The rain cascades over my boots and drips onto the ground as Warden slows his pace.
I am chilled to the bone, my teeth chattering. I lean into my big Brag in the hope he might be able to share some warmth with me.
“Little mare?” Warden queries.
“I’m freezing,” I respond.
“There are some dwellings up ahead. We should be able to find shelter there.” He increases his pace.
I’m not entirely sure how much longer I can hang onto him. My fingers don’t want to work, and I can’t feel my arms or my lower legs. Getting this wet, in a dress of this voluminosity, is not a good thing. The clammy fabric sticks to every single part of me, and even though we’re moving slower, it’s getting colder by the second.
I squeeze my eyes closed and concentrate on not falling off as Warden keeps on going. I can’t imagine he’s warm either, but he doesn’t seem to be shivering like me.
“Open up!” I hear him bellow and open my eyes.
We’re stood in front of a cottage. There are lights inside and I can smell woodsmoke. Warden pounds on the door.
“Open up, we need shelter,” he growls.
I want to open my mouth and suggest he use a different tone, but my teeth are chattering so much I can’t even speak.
The door does not open. There are no sounds at all from inside.
In the weird swirling way Warden changes from Brag to human, something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to, I’m in his arms instead of on his back. He clutches me to him as he tries the latch.
“I…don’t…” I get all of two words out, and my jaw clenches so hard I’m afraid I’ll break a tooth.
The door opens and there is a blast of warm air.
