David Brin - The Practice Effect

She stepped out of the cart. “I think I had better walk now.”

“You can’t! Your feet will start swelling again!”

Linnora smiled. “Climbing uphill, you all cannot pull me as quickly as I can hobble. It is time I started doing my own part.” She took Dennis’s arm.

Arth clucked at the donkey, who pulled gamely at the lightened cart.

Dennis glanced back at the line of dark figures behind and below. They seemed larger already. The soldiers jogged on, and sunglints flashed from their weapons.

The fugitives turned and continued their climb toward the heights of the southern pass.

Both pursuers and pursued slowed as they approached the crest.

Now that Linnora was walking after a fashion, Dennis considered cutting loose the cart, or at least abandoning the little glider that lay bundled in the back. But although it would lighten their burden, for some reason he relented. A lot of practice had been invested in those things. They still might be useful.

The limit to their speed was Linnora’s pace, anyway. She knew this. Her face grew hard as she forced herself onward. Dennis dared not interfere or force her to rest. They needed every moment.

His own legs hurt, and his lungs complained in the thinner air. The ordeal dragged on for what felt like hours.

It took them by surprise when, suddenly, a new vista opened before them to the south—a new watershed. Worn out, finally they slumped to the ground at the crest of the high pass.

Linnora looked out over the chain of mountains, like stalwart giants glowering in an arc to the south. This side of the peaks lay in shadows as the afternoon sun sank slowly to their right.

“There,” she said, pointing to a series of glacier-girdled peaks. “That is my home.”

To Dennis, the mountainous realm of the L’Toff looked like they might as well be as far away as the gentle hillsides of Mediterranea, back on Earth. How could they ever make it that far, pursued as they were?

Dennis stood in contemplation for a moment, catching his breath as Arth and Linnora sipped from one of the canteens Surah Sigel had provided.

Dennis looked at the twisting road that fell away before them to the south, along the flanks of the mountain. He turned and looked at the little cart that had served them so well so far. He whistled a faint tune as he felt an idea begin to emerge.

Could it work? It would be a desperate gamble, for sure. Probably it would get them all killed in a short time.

He glanced at his compatriots. They appeared almost done in. They certainly couldn’t outmarch the troopers who were only a little way behind them.

“Arth,” he said, “go keep a lookout.”

The little thief groaned. But he got up and limped back up the road a piece.

Dennis poked under the nearby trees until he found a pair of stout sticks. He cut some rope from a coil Surah had given them and set to work attaching the sticks to the cart, along the railing just above and ahead of the rear wheels. He had hardly finished when there was a cry.

“Dennizz!”

Arth waved frantically from the northern edge of the pass. “Dennizz! They’re almost here!”

Dennis cursed. He had hoped for just a little more time. The Baron’s northerners were certainly fine troops. They must be pushing their human limits to maintain such a pace.

He helped Linnora into the cart even as Arth tumbled back to them. Arth began tugging at the exhausted donkey’s tether, shouting imprecations as the animal became stubborn.

“Leave it alone,” Dennis told him. He went over and cut the tethers, setting the creature free. Arth stared in surprise.

“Get in, Arth, there in back,” Dennis told him. “From here on, we all rid e.”

The commander of the Blue Griffin company of the Zuslik garrison puffed alongside his troops. An ache tore at his side, where his laboring lungs complained in agony. The commander clamped down hard. He was determined not to be left behind by his men, most of whom were young volunteers from noble families, few over the age of twenty.

At age thirty-two, he knew he was getting too old for this. Perhaps, he thought as he wiped away the sweat clouding his eyes, perhaps he should arrange a transfer to the cavalry.

He spared a moment to glance at his men. Their faces were strained and sweaty, too. At least a dozen of his two score had fallen out already and were lying, gasping, by the side of the road all the way down the mountain.

The commander allowed himself a faint smile even as he fought for every new breath of thin air.

Maybe he would put off that transfer for a little while yet.

The minutes of agony seemed to crawl by. Then, at last, the pass crested under them. His feet felt feather-light as the slope flattened. He almost collided with the man ahead of him, who slowed down and pointed.

“There…! Just... ahead…!”

The commander felt jubilant. Baron Kremer would be generous to the one who reclaimed the foreign wizard and the L’Toff Princess. His reputation would be made!

At the summit a clump of his soldiers, hands on their knees, were breathing raggedly and staring downhill. The commander, too, stopped there and blinked in surprise when he came into view of the southern slope.

Only a few yards away a little donkey grazed contentedly, leather straps hanging loosely from its harness.

Down the road, only a hundred yards or so, three people sat closely together inside a little box. He could tell at once that they were the fugitives he was after. They appeared to be just sitting there, helplessly waiting to be captured!

Then the commander noticed that the box was moving! No animal was pulling it, yet it moved!

How…?

He realized suddenly it had to be the wizard’s work, “After them!” He tried to shout but managed only a croak. “Up! Get up and after them!”

About half of his men got raggedly to their feet and staggered after him down the road.

But the little box was only speeding up. The commander saw the smallest fugitive—the little thief he had heard was instrumental in the escape from the castle—glance backward and flash them a sudden,, malicious grin.

The box swung swiftly around a bend and out of sight.

“Watch out for that turn!”

“I am watching out for the damned turn! You just pay attention to the brakes!”

“Breaks? The cart’s broken? Where!”

“No! Brakes! Those two sticks… When we’re coming near a turn… twist those sticks so they rub against the rear wheels!”

“Dennis, I seem to remember a very tight turn just ahead—”

“What did you say, Linnora? Where? Oh, no! Hold on!”

“Dennizz!”

“Dennis!”

“Lean hard! No! The other way! Princess, I can’t see! Get your hands off of my eyes!”

With a shuddering hum that vibrated their very bones, the cart squealed around the hairpin, then shuddered and swept on down the sloping highway. Rough scrub bushes and scraggly trees whizzed by them.

“Hooeee! Izzit over yet? Can I leggo these broken stick things? I don’t feel so good….”

“How about you, Linnora? Are you all right?”

“I think so, Dennis. But did you see how close we came to that precipice?”

“Uh, fortunately no. Look, will you check on Arth, please? I think he fainted.”

The road ran straight for a little while. Dennis managed to get the cart running stably.

“Umm… Arth is coming around now, Dennis, though I think he looks a little green.”

“Well, slap him awake if you have to! We’re starting to speed up again, and I want him riding those brakes. You’d better help him by practicing them as well as you can!”