So I started Keth-Selhan at a nice walk to warm him up. He was eager to go faster, probably sensing my own impatience, and that would have been fine if I’d only needed to go a mile or three. But I needed him for at least fifty, maybe seventy, and that meant patience. I had to rein him back down to a walk twice before he resigned himself to it.
After a mile, I trotted him for a bit. His gait was smooth, even for a Khershaen, but a trot is jarring no matter what, and it pulled at the new stitches in my side. I urged him up to a canter after another mile or so. Only after we were three or four miles out of Imre and we came to a good, straight stretch of flat road did I nudge him up to a gallop.
Finally given the chance to run, he surged ahead. The sun had just finished burning away the morning dew, and farmers harvesting wheat and barley in the fields looked up as we thundered past. Keth-Selhan was fast; so fast that the wind tore at my cloak, stretching it behind me like a flag. Despite the fact that I knew I must cut quite the dramatic figure, I quickly grew tired of the drag on my neck, unfastened the cloak, then stuffed it into a saddlebag.
When we passed through a stand of trees, I brought Selhan back down to a trot. That way he got a little rest, and we didn’t run the risk of rounding a corner and barreling into a fallen tree or slow-moving cart. When we came out into pastureland and could see our way clear, I gave him his head again and we practically flew.
After an hour and a half of this, Selhan was sweating and breathing hard, but he was doing better than I was. My legs were a rubbery mess. I was fit enough, and young, but I hadn’t been in the saddle for years. Riding uses different muscles than walking, and riding at a gallop is just as hard as running unless you want to make your horse work twice as hard for every mile.
Suffice to say I welcomed the next stretch of trees. I hopped out of the saddle and walked to give both of us a well-deserved break. I cut one of my apples down the middle and gave him the larger half. I figured we’d come about thirty miles, and the sun wasn’t even fully at zenith.
“That’s the easy bit,” I told him, stroking his neck fondly. “Lord, but you are lovely. You’re not half blown yet, are you?”
We walked for about ten minutes, then we had the good luck to come across a little creek with a wooden bridge running across it. I let him drink for a long minute, then pulled him away before he took too much.
Then I mounted up and gaited him back up to a gallop by slow stages. My legs burned and ached as I leaned over his neck. The drumming of his hooves was like a counterpoint to the slow song of the wind, endlessly burning past my ears.
The first snag came about an hour later when we had to cross a wide stream. It wasn’t treacherous by any means, but I had to unsaddle him and carry everything across rather than risk it getting wet. I couldn’t ride him for hours wearing a wet harness.
On the other side of the river I dried him off with my blanket and re-saddled him. It took half an hour, which meant he had gone from being rested to being cold, so I had to warm him up gently, slow walk to trot to canter. That stream cost me an hour all told. I worried if there was another one the chill would get into Selhan’s muscles. If that happened, Tehlu himself wouldn’t be able to bring him up to a gallop again.
An hour later I passed through a small town, hardly more than a church and a tavern that happened to be next to each other. I stopped long enough to let Selhan drink a bit from a trough. I stretched my numb legs and looked up anxiously at the sun.
After that, the fields and farms grew fewer and farther between. The trees grew thicker and denser. The road narrowed and was not in good repair, rocky in places, washed out in others. It made for slower and slower going. But, truth be told, neither myself or Keth-Selhan had much more galloping left in us.
Eventually we came to another stream crossing the road. Not much more than a foot deep at the most. The water had a sharp, foul smell that let me know there was a tannery upstream, or a refinery. There wasn’t any bridge, and Keth-Selhan made his way slowly across, placing his hooves gingerly on the rocky bottom. I wondered idly if it felt good, like when you dandle your feet in the water after a long day’s walking.
The stream didn’t slow us down much, but over the next half hour we had to cross it three separate times as it wound back and forth across the road. It was an inconvenience more than anything, never much deeper than a foot and half. Each time we crossed it the acrid smell of the water was worse. Solvents and acids. If not a refinery, then at least a mine. I kept my hands on the reins, ready to pull Selhan’s head up if he tried to drink, but he was smarter than that.
A long canter later I came up over a hill and looked down onto a cross-roads at the bottom of a small grassy valley. Right under the signpost was a tinker with a pair of donkeys, one of them loaded so high with bags and bundles that it looked ready to tip over, the other conspicuously unburdened. It stood by the side of the dirt road grazing with a small mountain of gear piled beside it.
The tinker sat on a small stool at the side of the road, looking dispirited. His expression brightened when he saw me riding down the hill.
I read the signpost as I came closer. North was Trebon. South was Temfalls. I reined in as I approached. Keth-Selhan and I could both use the rest, and I was not in enough of a hurry to be rude to a tinker. Not by half. If nothing else the fellow could tell me how far I had left to go before I came to Trebon.
“Hello there!” he said, looking up at me, shading his eyes with one hand. “You’ve got the look of a lad that’s wanting something.” He was older, balding, with a round, friendly face.
I laughed. “I’m wanting a lot of things, tinker, but I don’t think you’ve got any of them in your packs.”
He gave me an ingratiating smile. “Well now, don’t go assuming…” He stopped and looked down for a moment, thoughtfully. When he met my eyes again his expression was still kind, but more serious than before. “Listen, I’ll be honest with you, son. My little donkey has got herself a stone bruise in her forehoof and can’t carry her load. I’m stuck here until I come by some manner of help.”
“Normally nothing would make me happier than to help you, tinker,” I said. “But I need to get to Trebon as quickly as I can.”
“That won’t take much doing.” He nodded over the hill to the north. “You’re only about a half mile out. If the wind was blowing southerly you could smell the smoke.”
I looked in the direction he gestured and saw chimney smoke rising from behind the hill. A great wave of relief washed over me. I’d made it, and it was barely an hour after noon.
The tinker continued. “I need to get to the Evesdown docks.” He nodded to the east. “I’ve made arrangements to ship downriver and I’d dearly love to catch my boat.” He eyed my horse significantly. “But I’ll need a new pack animal to carry my gear….”