She was little seen in Baen-Tar these days after all, and the guards only knew tales of her wildness from her childhood. There were two such guards at the door, with no view of the window, and she knew there would be no one in the courtyard below. She'd checked the moment she'd been quartered in Sofy's chambers.
She ran much of the way to the stables, darting through back roads and lanes wherever possible, slowing to a walk when there were people about, for fear of attracting attention. But the line of sheets trailing from the window of Sofy's chambers had doubtless been seen by now. She could only hope that the speed with which a message would reach Koenyg would not be as fast as she was.
The confusion of activity on the first day of Rathynal about the stables was a blessing and she passed unnoticed in her long cloak amidst the stablehands, junior nobles and soldiers. Peg seemed pleased to see her and offered no complaint as she saddled him in haste. She rode at civilised speed up the road toward the gates, passing yet more inbound traffic.
She announced herself to the guards at the main gate, hood thrown back, and received only frowning looks and a gesture to proceed.
Low cloud scudded above the hills as she rode toward the Baen-Tar cliff, grey and ominous, the farther, steeper hills shrouded in mist. Descending the cut, she saw a gathering of horse and men upon the eastern slope. They were barely dots on the paddocks, but there seemed a predominance of black to their uniform—a colour favoured by the northern provinces in battle.
“Damn,” she muttered to herself, as a chill seized her heart. She had moved as fast as she could, but Koenyg had been faster.
She urged Peg into a fast trot down the rock-paved incline. Then they were at the bottom, and she kicked with her heels, pulling Peg off the road and onto the grass, where he accelerated into a joyful gallop.
She headed for a road which cut between walled paddocks toward the nearest tents. Peg saw her intention, and she let him choose his own angle of approach, hurdling a drainage ditch and then thundering onto the earth road between paddocks. She took the bends between low stone walls at speed, cold wind stinging her eyes as she tried to peer ahead and guess the best route between walls and encampments of tents, men, horses and carts. Upslope and around, she reckoned, going the long way about.
She leapt a fence as the road turned, racing across a paddock, sheep scattering in a bounding, woolly sea as she turned downhill, headed for the camp's outer edges. Leaping several walls, she then jumped a gate to rejoin another road. Peg wove through several more bends, cutting corners that flashed by with a speed that few horses could have hoped to match. And then they were coming onto the lower slopes, where the paddocks fell away more sharply toward the forest below.
Sasha turned right along a narrow trail, wondering if any of the encamped soldiers would take note of the big black horse, and alert others…but she could not see any men about the nearest tents. Peg cantered as fast as the winding trail would allow, past a rickety farmer's shack and a pair of work-worn men tending plowed rows of vegetables…and there, against the wood-walled town houses ahead, was the Taneryn encampment, isolated in its field. A line of riders in black emerged from the town's streets ahead. Banners whipped on the wind, too distant yet for her to see, but it was obvious her time was short.
The trail straightened enough for her to get a good run at the next wall. Peg sailed over, and then it was a mad gallop across the paddocks, clearing several more walls and scattering livestock, before jumping a final wall and landing on the road she and Jaryd had ridden the other night. It forked where she recalled and then it lay before her, the Taneryn tents on the slope, the Taneryn banner flying atop a tent pole, cart horses grazing and tethered near their carts. Upslope, a dark line had formed. Mounted soldiers and banners—a red sword upon a black background. Ranash, Hadryn's northern neighbour. An opposing line was moving to confront them, a ragged assembly of Taneryn men and horses.
The gate leading onto the paddock's lower slope was open, and Sasha swerved Peg through it, racing uphill toward a