The Jack of Souls (Multi-award winner!)

Chapter 12b - Unholy Heximony

Caris let loose with a bizarre shouting whinny, and the horses lunged as one for Rudy and the doors.

Harric grabbed the Iberg's mane and hauled himself astride as it lunged through the doors and shouldered Rudy into a straw rick. The moon cat clawed its way from the horse up Harric's sleeve and his shoulder, where it clung like a burr, its long neck craning about, blank white eyes wide and bright. From its fur, a whiff of Iberg perfume.

Through the yard they raced with the thunder of twenty horses behind them. Three stable boys cheered as they cornered the yard and dove into the road behind the inn, galloping for the gate. Caris passed him on her own mare, Rag, which she must have saddled while Harric emptied the stalls. From that moment Harric made no effort to steer, for he knew the stallion followed Caris, and it was just as well, for its jarring stride sent stabs of pain through his ribs, and it required his full attention to minimize the jolts without stirrups.

With every stride the witch-stone in the cargo slip of his tunic also swung against his ribs like the clapper of a bell, but he dared not remove a hand from the mane to detain it. He managed to hunch his shoulders and cave his chest in such a way that the tunic cradled it far from his skin, but the jolts still tortured his sides, and there was nothing he could do to keep the claws of the moon cat from needling at his collar.

The gates stood open as the old knight had promised. They dashed through and onto the Hanging Road carved from cliff above the river, now bloodied by the light of the Mad Moon glaring over the Godswall. Four score iron-shod hooves sparked and rang up the hard rock grade, then thundered across the trestles over canyons. To their left, the vast, black gulf of air above the river; to their right, vast curtains of echoing stone.

A bubble of triumph rose from his lungs and escaped in a shout of joy.

Free! He'd done it, and he was free!

He lifted a hand to the cat, which had clambered to a more comfortable station in the crook of his neck and shoulder. "And you, my little beast, are free to stay on!"

After a mile the road rounded a bluff and dropped toward a wooded valley that intersected the main river from the east. As they curved down toward the forest Harric gazed across the valley to the far side where the road rose up again, resuming its course across the cliff face and burning in the light of the Mad Moon like a path of fire.

When the road dove beneath the canopy of trees, the herd slowed, hoof beats abruptly muted on earthen road. Splashes of moonlight illuminated the path, and soon the camps of emigrants sprouted along the landward side. Men and women stood at fires, faces reflecting firelight and curiosity as they peered to the road. At one, he glimpsed the unmistakable figure of the peasant priest in his tent-like smothercoat, squinting out with worried brow.

The camps dwindled, and they rode through stump lands where wood had been cleared to fuel waterwheels. On the water side they passed a tooler's yard with docks and the makeshift structures of its tiny wharf.

As soon as they crossed the rocky ridge near the middle of the valley, the caravan camps ceased altogether, and Caris finally slowed the herd to a walk. She stopped them in a shallow stream that crossed the road, where they stood blowing and snorting like tooler's bellows. The Iberg's stallion was hot and sweaty under Harric. Harric's ribs were ablaze from the jarring and his legs ached from clasping without stirrups. He groaned in general misery.

Behind them, the distinctive cadence of the Phyros grew louder beyond the crest of the ridge. The herd began to shy. Caris maneuvered Rag beside Harric and motioned for him to climb over to sit behind her saddle. He guessed that calming the herd would be too much near a Phyros.