Even before Laurent had hit the ground, the man had drawn his sword.
Damen was too far away. He was too far to get between the man and Laurent, he knew that, even as he drew his sword—even as he wheeled his horse, felt the powerful bunch of the animal beneath him. There was only one thing he could do. As the spray of water sheared up from under his horse, he hefted his sword, changed his grip, and threw.
It was, emphatically, not a throwing weapon. It was six pounds of Veretian steel, forged for a two-handed grip. And he was on a moving horse, and many feet away, and the man was moving too, towards Laurent.
The sword drove through the air and took the man in the chest, ramming him into the ground and pinning him there.
Damen swung off his horse, and landed on one knee on the wet stones beside Laurent.
‘I saw you fall.’ Damen heard the rough sound of his own voice. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘No,’ said Laurent. ‘No, you got to him.’ He had pushed himself up into a splayed sitting position. ‘Before.’
Damen was passing a hand from the join of Laurent’s neck and shoulder down over his chest, frowning. But there was no blood, no protruding bolt or fletching. Had the fall injured him? Laurent sounded dazed. Damen’s attention was all on Laurent’s body. Concerned with the possibility of injury, he was only distantly aware of Laurent looking back at him. Laurent’s body was very still under his hands as the water from the stream soaked into his clothes.
‘Can you stand? We need to move out. It’s not safe for you here. Too many people want to kill you.’
After a moment, Laurent said, ‘Everyone to the south, but only half the people to the north.’
He was staring at Damen. He had clasped the forearm that Damen had extended to him, and used it to lever himself up, dripping.
Around them, there was no sound but the rushing of the stream, and a slight rattle of river stones; Laurent’s gelding, who with a massive push of its hindquarters had heaved itself up minutes ago, saddle askew, was now moving a few paces off favouring its left foreleg ominously.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Laurent. Then he said, ‘We can’t leave him here.’
He wasn’t talking about the horse.
Damen said, ‘I’ll do it.’
When it was finished, he walked out of the undergrowth and found a place to clean his sword.
‘We have to go,’ was all he said when he returned to Laurent. ‘They will notice when he doesn’t report back.’
*
It meant sharing a horse.
Laurent’s gelding had a limp, which Laurent, on one knee, drawing a steady hand down its lower leg until it pulled its hoof up sharply, pronounced a sprained ligament. It could follow on a lead carrying the packs, he said. It couldn’t carry a rider. Damen brought his own horse over, then paused.
‘My proportions are better suited to riding pillion than yours are,’ said Laurent. ‘Mount. I will mount behind.’
So Damen swung into the saddle. A moment later he felt Laurent’s hand on his thigh. Laurent’s toe nudged into the stirrup. Laurent pushed up behind him, shifting until he was snug in position. His hips fitted unselfconsciously to Damen’s. Once he had settled, he clasped his arms around Damen’s midsection. Damen knew this about riding pillion: closer, it was easier on the horse.
He heard Laurent’s voice from behind him, a little more oddly strapped-down than usual, ‘You have me over the back of your horse.’
‘It’s not like you to give up the reins,’ Damen couldn’t help saying.
‘Well, I can’t see the way over your shoulders.’
‘We could try some other arrangement.’
‘You’re right: it should be me in front and you carrying the horse.’
Damen closed his eyes briefly, then spurred the horse forward. He was aware of Laurent behind him, damp, which could not be comfortable. They were lucky to be in riding leathers rather than armour, or they would not be able to do this easily, jabbing and poking into one another. The horse’s rolling gait pushed their bodies together in constant rhythm.
They had to follow the stream to hide their tracks. It would be an hour perhaps before it was noticed that the outrider was missing. Another interval before they found the man’s horse. They would not find the man. There were no tracks to follow and no obvious place to start searching. They would decide: was a search worthwhile, or should they keep on their way? Where to search and what for? That decision would also take time.
Even riding double with a pack horse, evasion was therefore possible, although it was pushing them far out of their way. Damen took them up out of the stream bed several hours later, where the thick undergrowth would mask their passing.
By dusk they knew that they did not have an Akielon army following them, and slowed. Damen said: ‘If we stop here, we can build a fire without too much fear of discovery.’