Marie Brennan - Doppelganger

Mirage stared fixedly at a spot between Mist’s ears and did her best to ignore the rain. It was doing nothing to lighten her mood.

Travel conditions were becoming increasingly worse as they moved into the foothills of western Abern, where the road was, often as not, a thin sheen of slick mud over slate. Mirage cast a watchful eye to her right. The path dropped away into a short, crumbling slope, and then flattened out into a streambed. With the dry weather lately, flash flooding was a distinct possibility. And that was the last thing they needed today.

Then they rounded a bend in the road, and Mirage changed her mind. No , this was the last thing we needed today .

Three Cousins, mounted on horses, were in the road, blocking their path.

Lightning cracked overhead as the two groups stared at each other.

“We have a message,” the center one said at last, pitching her voice to carry through the worsening rain. “Will you hear it?”

After a moment, Miryo nudged her horse forward, until she was just in front of Mirage and Eclipse. “I will.”

“From the Primes: ‘We gave you one final chance in hopes that you would understand and return to us. We grieve that you chose to ignore our words. Now we are forced to take steps on our own.’”

Mirage didn’t wait to hear a single word more. She lunged forward, grabbing the bridle of Miryo’s horse, and kneed Mist sideways off the trail.

She took the Cousins by surprise. Mirage risked a single glance behind her as she threw her weight backward in the saddle; they were still on the road, in disarray. Then Mist’s footing slipped and Mirage had to concentrate on riding her horse down the soaking wet, disintegrating slope.

Somehow they made it to the bottom in one piece. Mist gave a convulsive leap as she bit the foot of the slope and cleared most of the stream; to her right Eclipse had ducked low over the neck of Sparker, who was doing the same. Miryo’s horse floundered through the water behind them. And then Mirage heard shouting on the road above.

She looked back and up in time to see a knot of Cousins appear on the path, behind their original position, and plunge down the slope after them.

Void it. They had reinforcements .

Eclipse swerved right, and Mirage followed him. Dead ahead the land climbed sharply up again, and even if the horses could manage it in this rain they would lose too much time.

Mirage was worried. All three of their horses had been on the road for a long stretch without real rest; how would they hold up in an extended chase? Already Miryo’s gelding was falling behind.

Then a roar up ahead drew her attention forward.

The land in front of them dropped away again. The gully wasn’t nearly as steep, but it was filled nearly to the top with rushing, churning water: flooding from the rain. Mirage gritted her teeth and cued Mist with her heels; the only way across was to jump.

Mist cleared it. An instant later, so did Sparker.

And then, behind them, a crack, a horse’s scream, and a squelching, rolling thud.

Mirage reined Mist in so hard the mare stumbled. She looked back over her shoulder, and her worst fears were confirmed.

Miryo’s gelding was flailing in the mud, screaming in agony; one foreleg was clearly broken. Next to him, facedown and unmoving, was Miryo.

And just past her, on the other side of the stream, ten or twelve Cousins.

Mirage knew what she had to do. But she sat there, motionless, staring at the form of her fallen double.

Miryo wasn’t moving.

“Come on !” Eclipse roared.

The Cousins would be clearing the stream any second.

“Move your Void-damned ass!”

Mirage closed her eyes. Warrior have mercy. I do what I must .

She slammed her heels into Mist’s sides, and the mare leapt forward, into the teeth of the wind, away from the stream. Away from Miryo.

Leaving her to the Cousins.

Not all of them stayed behind at the stream. Mirage heard splashing, and guessed that at least a couple had not made the jump; of those who did, some reined in around Miryo’s fallen form, and the rest pursued the Hunters across the muddy ground.

Eclipse led the way, up a gentler slope and into the shadows of the trees beyond. Mirage was hard on his heels. They slowed as they passed between the first trunks; one misstep in here and their horses would go down. The only bright side was that it would slow the Cousins just as badly. And the two Hunters were more accustomed to riding under bad conditions than the witches’ servants; in wooded terrain like this, they had the edge.

The chase stretched out, with pursuers dropping away one at a time, fanning out to cover the area more thoroughly in case the Hunters diverged from their course. Mirage was numb inside; she let Eclipse choose their way without even paying attention to what he was doing.

She’d left Miryo behind.

There had been a dozen Cousins there. Not odds Mirage favored. Had she ridden back to the stream, even with Eclipse at her side, she would have gone down.

But she had left Miryo behind.

The betrayal stabbed her, a razor-edged knife twisting in her gut She could go back; she would , later, and try to rescue her double. But at that moment, when Miryo had gone down, Mirage had ridden on.

Leaving her behind.

Light pierced her eyes. The clouds that had blanketed the sky all day were breaking up; rain still fell, but in the west the sky was clearing enough to let the sun through. It was later in the day than Mirage had thought And they had just ridden out of the trees. Up ahead Eclipse twisted around in his saddle to look back at her.

“Have we lost them?” he asked.

They both reined in to listen and heard a crashing not too far behind. “No,” Mirage said grimly. “Although most of them are gone.”

The two Hunters urged their horses forward again, making for another small wood visible in the distance. They had not covered even half the ground to it, though, when behind them three Cousins broke free of the trees and sighted them with a triumphant cry.

The Cousins’ horses were fresher than either Mist or Sparker. Mirage, looking ahead, realized that they would not make the next patch of trees in time.

An unpleasant grin crossed her face; she was barely aware of it.

She cued Mist to slow ever so slightly, so that the lead Cousin would catch up to her sooner. Up ahead, Eclipse did not notice. Mirage kicked her left foot clear of the stirrup for just a moment, and then hooked her toe back in from the other side, so that the stirrup was twisted around.

The first Cousin had almost drawn abreast.

Mirage suddenly pulled her horse up short. As she did so, she swung her right leg clear of the saddle; her left foot in the twisted stirrup and her hands planted on the saddle’s cantle gave her a pivot point for a roundhouse kick that took the Cousin completely by surprise. Mirage’s foot slammed into the woman’s shoulder and threw her backward, clean out of her saddle and onto the ground. Her last sight, as she whipped her right leg around to drop herself back in the saddle, was of the woman rolling into the path of the second Cousin on their trail.

Eclipse had finally noticed what she was doing. He was pulling Sparker around in a circle, but Mirage kicked Mist forward and caught up to him. An unpleasant thud behind them told her the fallen Cousin had tripped up her compatriot’s horse.

Which left just one.

They reached the wood. Mirage reached up for a low-hanging branch and pulled herself out of the saddle and into an elm. Eclipse had anticipated this one; he grabbed Mist’s bridle and kept the mare moving forward, deeper into the wood.

The Cousin raced closer.

Stupid. One Cousin against two Hunters?