“Ah, youth,” Doc said with a sigh, and removed a wedge of cheese from the pocket of his frock coat. It was hard and crunchy on the edges, but still edible. There was movement in the bushes. Doc dropped the cheese and aimed the LeMat, thumbing back the trigger. Then he spotted the squirrel nibbling an apple and withheld firing. The miniball from his weapon would leave nothing of the squirrel to cook for dinner. It was the one drawback of big-bore blasters. Game had to be at least as large as a fox, or it was a waste of ammo. Retrieving the cheese from the ground, Doc wiped it clean, cut away a suspicious area and continued to eat.
“You know, horses are like wags, aren’t they?” Dean spoke from the foliage. “Got to constantly watch this and feed them that.”
“True words, lad. But I would love to meet the wag that could make more wags,” Doc said, taking another bite. “I daresay humanity lost something important when we stopped riding.”
Returning to the others, Dean passed out the apples, keeping a couple of the best for his mount.
“Here, girl,” he said, offering the fruit. The pinto lifted its head and sniffed the offering, then took the whole apple in its mouth and started crunching.
“Careful fingers,” Jak warned, feeding the fruit to his mount. The horse was a young dappled stallion, lean muscles rippling under its coat. “Can’t see good. Take finger accidentally.”
“I know,” Dean replied, stroking his horses neck. “I watched Dad before doing mine.”
“Smart move,” Mildred acknowledged, coming over and inspecting the mare. “Damn, I thought she was limping. That’s a bad cut on the fetlock. You better clean that with witch hazel before it gets infected.”
“Me?”
Mildred went to her mount and came back with some bandages and a plastic bottle. “A rider tends his own horse,” she explained, giving him the bottle and cloth rags. “They trust you more that way.”
Speaking soft words, the boy tended the animal. It shook at the sting of the witch hazel, stomping its hooves, but he got the cut thoroughly cleaned and wrapped tightly.
“Gaia, they found us,” Krysty said, standing and dropping the partially peeled apple from her grasp.
Seconds later, howls sounded from the east.
“Mount up,” Ryan commanded, rushing to his stallion.
He checked the belly cinch, then climbed into the saddle. Shaking the reins free from the bush, he started off at a brisk canter. The rest did the same, then kicked their horses into a full gallop.
“Thank God spurs haven’t been rediscovered,” Mildred said, holding the pommel and bending low over her animal. “Come on, girl, faster!”
At top speed, the companions crossed a field, jumping over a low hedge and starting a flight of robins.
“Fuck!” Jak cursed, glancing over a shoulder. “Give away position!”
Angling away from the soaring birds, Ryan led the companions over some irregular terrain to where a broken expanse of a paved road peeked out from the grass.
After a hundred yards, Doc reached into his saddlebag and found his last container of black powder. Slowing to the rear of the pack, the old man leaned low in the saddle and shook it out, the wind spreading the powder into a fine spray. Stuffing the empty powder horn into a pocket of his frock coat, Doc slumped in the saddle, concentrating on staying mounted.
The sloping land flew beneath the pounding hooves of the horses, the baying of the hounds rising and falling as the dogs found the companions’ trail, lost it and found it once again.
Ryan heard the low moan of winds whistling in a ravine. Moving to the south, the warrior saw that the land was cracked wide alongside the weedy field. Slowing his mount, he trotted close to the edge. The division was shallow, only a sheer drop of one hundred feet, but there was a bridge only a few hundred yards behind them. The structure was a box trestle, dripping with ivy and hanging moss. Older than predark, it looked solid and that was a gamble he was willing to take.
“No way we can jump this,” Krysty said, fighting to retain control of her mount. The horse was trying to walk in a circle to get away from the chasm. She pulled on the reins to keep the animal under control. “Whoa, girl. Good girl. Easy does it.”
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