David Farland - The Sum of All Men

Gaborn glanced back as his mount leapt through some tall heather and plunged now into the deep woods. Gaborn's face was pale; he frowned in concentration. “I hear,” he said. “Hurry.”

Hurry they did. Gaborn gripped his horseman's hammer, and instead of weaving among trees, he urged his mount forward and struck down branches so that Iome and her father did not have to dodge them.

Iome feared this was a fool's race. Her father didn't know where he was, didn't know he stood in danger. He simply stared up, watching rain drop toward him. Oblivious.

Her father didn't recall how to sit a horse, yet the men chasing them would be master horsemen.

Gaborn responded to the danger by pushing them faster. When they cleared the large stand of pine, he raced his mount down a saddleback ridge, into deeper woods, heading west.

The sound of hooves pounding, the straining lungs of the horses' breathing, was all swallowed by great dark trees, trees taller than any Iome recalled ever seeing in the Dunnwood.

Here, the force horses ran with renewed speed. Gaborn gave them their heads, so that the beasts nearly flew down the canyon, into deepening gloom. Overhead, the skies boomed with the sound of thunder. The upper boughs of the pine trees swayed in the wind, and the trees creaked down to their roots, but no rain pounded in these woods. To be sure, fat droplets sometimes wove through the pine boughs, but not many.

Because the horses raced so fast through these woods, Iome did not mind that Gaborn followed the canyon, deeper and deeper, so that they twisted around the roots of a mountain and found themselves heading northwest, circling back, somewhat, toward Castle Sylvarresta.

But no, she decided after a bit—not toward the castle, deeper to the west, toward the Westwood. Toward the Seven Standing Stones in the heart of the wood.

The thought unsettled her. No one ever went to the Seven Stones and lived—at least no one had seen them in the past several generations. Her father had told Iome that she need not fear the spirits that haunted the woods there among the stones. “Erden Geboren gave us these woods while he yet lived, and made us rulers of this land,” he said. “He was a friend to the duskins, and so we are their friends.”

But even her father avoided the stones. Some said that the line of Sylvarresta had grown weak over generations. Others said the spirits of the duskins no longer remembered their oaths, and would not protect those who sought the stones.

Iome considered these things for an hour as Gaborn raced west, through woods growing more dark and hoary by the minute, until at last they reached a certain level hilltop, and under the dark oaks she could see small holes all around, down in the forest floor, and from the holes she could hear distant cries and armor clanking, the whinny of horses, and the sounds of ancient battles.

She knew this place: the Killing Field of Alnor. The holes were places where wights hid from the daylight. She shouted, “Gaborn, Gaborn: Turn south!”

He looked back at her; his eyes were unfocused, like one lost in a dream. She pointed south, shouted, “That way!”

To her relief, Gaborn turned south, spurred his horse up a long hill. In five minutes they reached the top of a mountain, came back out into a low wood of birch and oak, where the sun shone brightly. But with these trees, the limbs often came low to the ground, and gorse grew thick beneath them, so the horses slowed.

Suddenly they leapt over a small ridge, into a wallow where a sounder of great boars lay resting beneath the shade of oaks. The ground here looked as if it were plowed, the pigs had rooted for acorns and worms so much.

The boars squealed in rage to find the horses among them. A huge boar, its back coming even with the shoulder of Iome's mount, stood and grunted, swinging its great curved tusks menacingly.

One moment her horse charged the boar, then the horse turned nimbly, almost throwing Iome from her saddle as she raced past the swine, headed downhill.

Iome turned to see if the boar would give chase.

But the force horses ran so swiftly, the pigs only grunted in surprise, then watched Iome depart from dark, beady eyes.

Gaborn rode down a ridge through the birches, to a small river, perhaps forty feet wide. The river had a shallow, gravelly bottom.

On seeing this river, Iome knew she was totally lost. She'd often ridden in the Dunnwood, but had kept to the eastern edge of the woods. She'd never seen this river. Was it the headwaters of the River Wye, or Fro Creek? If it was Fro Creek, it should have been dry this time of year. If it was the Wye, then they had wandered farther west over the past hour than even she'd imagined.

Gaborn urged the mounts into the water, let them stand for a moment to drink. The horses sweated furiously, wheezing. The runes branded on their necks showed that each mount had four endowments of metabolism, and others of brawn and stamina. Iome did some quick mental calculations. She guessed they had been running the horses for nearly two hours without food or water, but that was the equivalent of running a common horse for eight. A common horse would have died three times over at such a furious pace. From the way these mounts gasped and sweated, she wasn't sure they'd live through the ordeal.

“We have to rest the horses,” Iome whispered to Gaborn.

“Will our pursuers stop, do you think?” Gaborn asked.

Iome knew they wouldn't. “But our horses will die.”

“They're strong mounts,” Gaborn said, stating the obvious. “Those who hunt us will find that their horses will die first.”

“Can you be so sure?”

Gaborn shook his head, uncertainly. “I only hope. I'm wearing light chain, the armor of my father's cavalry. But Raj Ahten's Invincibles have iron breastplates—with heavier gauntlets and greaves, and ring mail underneath. Each of their horses must carry a hundred pounds more than the most heavily laden of our beasts. Their mounts are fine animals for the desert, with wide hooves—but narrow shoes.”

“So you think they will go lame?”

“I've chosen the rockiest ridges to jump our horses over. I can't imagine their mounts will stay shod long. Your horse has already lost a shoe. If I'm any judge, half their animals are lame already.”

Iome stared at Gaborn in fascination. She hadn't noticed that her mount had lost a shoe, but now stared down into the water, saw that her mount favored its left front hoof.

“You have a devious mind, even for an Orden,” she told Gaborn. She meant it as a compliment, but feared it came out sounding like an insult.

He seemed to take no offense. “Battles such as ours are seldom won with arms,” he said. “They're won on a broken hoof or a rider's fall.” He looked down at his warhammer, resting across the pommel of his saddle like a rider's crop. Then added huskily, “If our pursuers catch us, I'll turn to fight, try to let you escape. But I tell you, I don't have either the weapons or the endowments to beat Raj Ahten's men.”

She understood. She desperately wanted to change the subject. “Where are you heading?”

“Heading?” he asked. “To Boar's Ford, then to Longmont.”

She studied his eyes, half-hidden beneath his overlarge helm, to see if he lied or was merely mad. “Boar's Ford is southeast. You've been heading northwest most of the past two hours.”

“I have?” he asked, startled.

“You have,” she said. “I thought perhaps you were trying to deceive even Borenson. Are you afraid to take us to Longmont? Are you trying to protect me from your father?”

Iome felt frightened. She was suspicious of Borenson, had not trusted the way he looked at her. He'd wanted to kill her, felt it was his duty. She feared he would attack her Dedicates, though Gaborn did not seem to worry about it. And when Borenson had said that he needed to watch Raj Ahten's troops, Iome had felt obligated to accept his explanation. Still, a worm of doubt burrowed in her skull.