Ohmygod I want to live I want to live I don’t care I want to live!
And hard on the heels of that thought:Well, this is a helluva time to figure that out!
The horse stumbled and recovered. Slate’s stomach did not. Wet grasses slapped at her legs and face like whips.
I could jump off. That’s probably safer, right? Right?
Part of Slate’s brain agreed. The part that was holding onto the horse was not convinced.
The slope leveled out. The horse staggered, caught itself, and ran. Rain poured into her eyes again.
It’s an old river bed. Oh god, we might live after all.
If I can just get it to slow down—
She searched her clenched hands for the reins. There weren’t any. Mane, saddle, a chunk of saddle blanket. No reins.
She’d dropped the reins at some point, or the horse had managed to flip them over its head, or something. Regardless, they weren’t there. Shit.
If she let go, she could reach down and grab for them.
If she let go, she was going to fall off.
If she fell off, she was probably going to die.
Well, maybe just one hand…She pried her fingers loose.
The horse hit a patch of rock and skidded on two hooves. Slate shrieked and grabbed tight again.
I can’t stop it. It’s going to fall down and I’ll break my neck and die or break my legs and die of exposure or—
There was a yell behind her.
She looked over her shoulder, and there, as she should have known he would be, riding like a lunatic or a demon, was (former) Knight-Champion Caliban.
That idiot. That wonderful idiot.
I take back all the times I thought about letting Brenner kill you.
His horse pounded down the streambed behind hers. Lightning sizzled, illuminating the whites of its eyes. Caliban didn’t look much calmer himself. He was hunched over his horse, and if his sodden grey cloak hadn’t been glued to his back and the horse’s haunches by the rain, she wouldn’t have known who it was.
Well, he’s still on the horse, so it’d be a good bet it wasn’t Brenner, and he’s giving chase, so it obviously wasn’t Learned Edmund. Okay, I could have figured it out even without the stupid cloak.
Her horse skidded again. Coherent thought dissolved briefly into a screaming welter ofIdontwanttodieIdontwanttodieshitshitshit—!
Caliban was shouting something, but she couldn’t make out the words. He was slapping his horse’s rump with something—it looked like the flat of his sword—and it was running, ears back, and somehow, madly, he was gaining.
He shouted again.
“I can’t hear you!” she yelled back.
Thunder smashed anything he might have said in response. Her horse squealed, and she had to stop looking over her shoulder and clutch desperately at it. She was hunched so low that every stride cracked the back of the horse’s neck against the side of her head.
Could he really catch up to her?
Hey, it’s a math problem. I’m good at math! If a horse traveling at twenty-six miles an hour going west is intercepted by a horse traveling at twenty-nine miles an hour going northwest, will their paths cross before or after the first horse breaks its rider’s neck?
She giggled hysterically. Rain and the horse’s mane lashed her face raw, and she giggled anyway.
