The rose-gray mare was game. She might be cautious of anything that cast a shadow, but having decided to run, she ran with all her heart and concentration. She stretched out long, galloping in earnest now, and Samarkar got herself as deep into the saddle as she could and called on the heat that came from within. With a sharp scent like lightning, the green aura flared before her, quick and sharp, a gust of hot wind that deflected the arrows and pushed back the violet fire. It flickered and trembled, guttering with each thump of Buldshak’s hooves, but it held until the first flight of arrows spun wide. When it shivered out, Samarkar grasped after it—and found nothing.
Samarkar gasped, lightheaded, mocked from within by Yongten-la’s voice saying You will never be a powerful wizard. This was the first real test of her powers. Was all she was good for calling light, gusts of air? The toys of apprentices? The world spun around her, and it took all her strength to cling to the saddle and ride Buldshak’s rolling gait.
An arrow sizzled past her from behind, invisible in the gloaming, and a few more pattered like sharp rain all around. The one Temur must have loosed would have slain the veiled horseman on the right, but like a storybook hero, he caught it in his hand. Nameless, she thought, and wondered if it was he who had called the fire. And even more, she wondered where they had come from. Had they pursued Hrahima this far, or was there something still more subtle going on?
But another arrow followed, and this one took the horseman through the throat. He rose up in the saddle, toppling back, hauling on the reins, and the horse beneath him reared in confusion and fear. It stepped wide, the road-edge crumbling under its hoof, and Samarkar wished she dared close her eyes as it tottered, toppled, and fell.
The dying man fell silently. The horse screamed all the way down. The line of fire—burned on.
Where in the ten thousand hells was Hrahima?
When Samarkar glanced back over her shoulder, she saw Bansh at a run and gaining on Buldshak, having passed Payma’s gelding somewhere along the way. Temur stood sideways atop the saddle, a third arrow on his bowstring, the nock pulled back to his ear.
Hair blown free of Samarkar’s braid lashed her face, stinging the corners of her eyes. Temur loosed; his arrow flew toward the second horseman, and this one did not trouble himself to catch it. He batted it from the air negligently, without seeming to turn his eyes. He sat straight in the saddle of a dark, elegant mare of evident Asitaneh bloodlines. When he lowered his right hand again, Samarkar saw the flash of a small blade. He shouted something in a fluid, quicksilver tongue she did not know.
The five archers still standing crouched to lay down their bows and—as one—stood again with heavy spears couched against the road behind.
No horse would charge against that, not without the weight of a hundred others pushing it from behind, especially when coupled with the fire. Buldshak broke stride and whirled, her haunches nearly touching the road, turning in twice her own length, as another flight of arrows from above spent itself harmlessly against the road where she would have been. Samarkar was thrown hard against the pommel and the left stirrup, losing the reins as she scrabbled at wood. Her fingers strained, and something in the palm of her right hand popped with a sharp, lancing ache. She caught a squeak of pain between her teeth and swallowed it just in time to see Bansh and her rider loom out of the dim light.
There was just room for two horses to pass. Not at a gallop, and not when one rider was balanced on the saddle as if it were the branch of a tree, half crouched, swaying, reaching into the quiver for his fourth arrow. Temur heard the hooves, looked up, and Samarkar saw his gaze lock on hers in the instant before the horses drew abreast.
Buldshak was on the inside of the road. Bansh came up over her forefeet, her own trim forehooves clattering on the crumbling edge of the road. Stones rattled; the mare wobbled. Samarkar reflexively reached out with her left hand even as she knew there was nothing—nothing—she could do to keep horse and rider from the long emptiness below.
But Temur did not fall, though his feet skipped on the saddle leather. He lost the arrow. His right hand caught the tall cantle, and he swung beside Bansh’s haunches for a moment while Samarkar frantically clawed after her own reins. Down the pass, riding hard on her stockier mount, Payma was coming, standing crouched over her stirrups, braid bouncing against her shoulders with each stride. More arrows from above feathered the road around her and her gelding, but through some grace none seemed to strike home.
“Come on, girl, come on,” Samarkar whispered, leather cutting her hands. She drew back slowly, fearful for her own mare’s balance, dreading that at any moment she would hear the sound of Temur and Bansh plummeting to their deaths.