Eric Flint - Much Fall Of Blood

Vlad mounted. If it was him who was being pursued, then let them follow him. The countess had risked much to free him. Two things were important: that he repay her for that, and that he should stay free.

They rode hard cross-country along a break of trees which screened them from the village. The gypsy rode with casual skill, Vlad with grim determination. As a boy, he had been in the saddle very often. Even if the horses had shrunk he had not forgotten the skills entirely.

Presently, the gypsy slowed his horse to a trot. They came to a small copse left on the age of a field. Two other men in similar bright ragged clothes were waiting, holding two horses that looked rather familiar.

They mounted up. "What took you so long?" asked one, grinning. "We thought the two of you had decided to stop for lunch."

That reminded Vlad of the hunger that he had complained of on stopping at the hamlet. Alas, he had never even tried the "porklot," or anything else.

It appeared that his new escort had no intention of letting him eat, either. They rode on, pushing the horses hard. The route they were following kept along the bottom of a shallow depression and next to a marshy stream. It also kept them away from the skyline. Vlad realized that they must surely be locals to know this area so well. It would be very difficult for anyone to follow them by sight.

But he had little spare concentration for possible pursuit. Lack of practice at riding, and not having eaten since very early that morning were having an effect.

"He's going to tumble out of that saddle soon, Angelo," said one of the other riders.

The dark, gray-eyed gypsy looked at him. "True. We need some shelter, Grigori. Somewhere we cannot be seen too easily."

The man he had referred to as Grigori pointed. "There is a haystack and an old barn just over the lip. Maybe half a mile. Or there was last time I was here."

"And how many seasons ago was that?" asked the third gypsy sardonically.

"About five, I think. But stone barns tend to stay to the same places, although they keep moving the haystacks."

"It's getting across the lip that worries me," said Angelo. "Grigori, let me hold your horse. Go back and see how far back they are."

The lithe, curly-haired gypsy slipped off his horse. The more Vlad had looked at that horse the more he was sure that it was one that had been ridden by one of the outriders. The man loped off with a long-legged easy stride. He looked, to Vlad's blurred vision, almost like some great predatory animal gliding away.

But Angelo did not let the rest of them stop. He pressed on, leaving Grigori to catch up.

Vlad decided, when Grigori caught up with them a few minutes later, that the man must run like the wind. "Can't see them," he panted. "I'd say that they were a good two or three miles back."

He vaulted into the saddle with an ease that Vlad could only envy. "Let's go and find that barn, he said. There was a good place for rabbits close to it."

Somehow, Vlad managed to stay in the saddle until they reached the shabby stone barn. But as they arrived, he felt himself starting to fall.

He could not remember how he came to be lying against the edge of the haystack, with his collar loosened. But there was the delicious smell of cooking meat.

"A stupid idea to light a fire if you ask me," said the gypsy whose name Vlad had not yet discovered. "As well to tell the foe where we are."

"They are not very good at eating raw meat," said Angelo. "And smoke is a clear scent marker to you, Radu, but not to them. Ah. I see the Drac is awake. Do you need your rabbit very well cooked, Lord?"

"I would eat anything right now, cooked in any way, or even not cooked at all." Vlad took the wineskin that Grigori held out to him.

Grigori laughed and punched his companion in the ribs. "We could have given it to him raw, after all. Maybe even with the fur on."

Angelo, in the meantime, was cutting slices off the rabbit which they had been grilling over the open flames of a small camp-fire. He speared them on the end of the knife, and handed it to Vlad. "Eat, Drac," he said encouragingly.

Vlad swallowed some of the wine from the wineskin they held out to him. It was far from the finest vintages. In fact, it was something he would have turned his nose up at a few days ago. Now it tasted powerful and magnificent.

The rabbit flesh was extremely rare, barely more than charred on the outside. Grains of coarse salt clung to it. Vlad did not think he had ever tasted anything finer. He washed it down with some more of the red wine from the wineskin. "My thanks," he said, already feeling better even after the first few morsels.

"Cut him some more," said Grigori. "I have seen a wolf eat slower."

"But not you," said Radu, taking out his knife and cutting some more of the meat to hand to Vlad.

"Eat up and be quick," said Angelo. "We have a way to go before we reach a secure place. Once we are in the mountains we can take things a little slower, but here we are too easy to find. And trust me, Drac, you do not want them to find you."

Very shortly, far too soon and after far too little food, Vlad found himself being thrown up into the saddle again. They had to do that, because he found that his muscles had already begun to stiffen. He still had had no chance to establish just who they were and where they were taking him.

They pressed on, going back down into the shallow valley and riding on into the gathering darkness. The horses were tired now, only able to walk. Vlad was beginning to wonder if they had successfully drawn the pursuit after them and away from Elizabeth. He was beginning to wonder about the nature of the huge creatures he had seen driving off the horses. He was beginning to wonder also about his good-natured gypsy companions, and just where they had suddenly come from and how they had come by the horses.

Most of all, he was wondering just when he would be allowed to get off his horse. By the time they finally stopped, though, he was too exhausted to wonder much at all. All he wanted to do was to rest and to eat. And sleep. Yes, sleep, and he did not care if he had to sleep on the ground-just as long as it was somewhere off a horse.

However, they must have made some allowances for his royal blood. The gypsies found him a haystack to sleep in, which they plainly considered the height of luxury. And that night, do did he.

In the pale predawn, the gypsies rousted him out of the haystack, and they set off again. Somewhere they had acquired fresh horses. The saddles were still the same, but the horses were not. The gypsies were skilled in choosing cross-country trails that avoided dwellings. The countryside was changing around them. Ahead were ridges spiked with pine trees.

Vlad could not remember very clearly just what his home had looked like. He hoped that Poienari Castle would loom suddenly from one of these ridges, but they seemed too small to be the mountains that he remembered. Perhaps that was like the way horses had shrunk in the time that he had been locked away. The mountains of his memory had definitely seemed both bigger and bleaker than these. Still, the sight of the ridges lifted his spirits, even though it did nothing at all for his aching thighs and sore posterior.

They rode up into a valley and off towards a scattering of rocks. Hidden among these was a narrow cave entrance. "We should be safe enough up here," said Angelo, reining in. "Radu, you take the horses on and let them go a few miles from here. Most likely they will find their own way home."

Vlad was unsure about what was happening to his life, but apparently he had fallen among horse thieves. He deeply and intrinsically disapproved of dishonesty. After he had begun to speak, it occurred to him that this was perhaps not the wisest time to berate the gypsies, but he did not think first.