stream, sometimes bending far away. They rode over it for three hours, and then
Smhee said, ‘There’s an old adobe building a quarter-mile inland. We’ll sleep
there for a while. I don’t know about you, but I’m weary.’
She was glad to rest. After hobbling the horses near a stand of the tall brown
desert grass, they lay down in the midst of the ruins. Smhee went to sleep at
once. She worried about her family for a while, and suddenly she was being
shaken by Smhee. Dawn was coming up.
They ate some dried meat and bread and fruit and then mounted again. After
watering the horses and themselves at the river, they rode at a canter for three
more hours. And then Smhee pulled up on the reins. He pointed at the trees a
quarter-mile inland. Beyond, rearing high, were the towering cliffs on the other
side of the river. The trees on this side, however, prevented them from seeing
the White Foal.
‘The boat’s hidden in there,’ he said. ‘Unless someone’s stolen it. That’s not
likely, though. Very few people have the courage to go near the Isle of
Shugthee.’ . .
‘What about the hunters who bring down the furs from the north?’
‘They hug the eastern shore, and they only go by in daylight. Fast.’
They crossed the rocky ground, passing some low-growing purplish bushes and some
irontrees with grotesquely twisted branches. A rabbit with long ears dashed by
them, causing her horse to rear up. She controlled it, though she had not been
on a horse since she was eleven. Smhee said that he was glad that it hadn’t been
his beast. All he knew about riding was the few lessons he’d taken from a farmer