Jane tried to keep her head down. Twigs and brush snapped around her as Gifford ran tirelessly on. He leapt and swerved and pounded through the trees and close underbrush, sure-footed and strong, and even when the forest became too thick for speed, he stubbornly continued forward.
They’d been going for a while when, as abruptly as he’d started, Gifford stopped. The other horse stopped, too, and Pet, who sat down a few feet away. For a minute they all just stood there, breathing hard.
“What are we doing?” Jane hissed.
The other horse began ripping up bites of grass. Gifford bobbed his head, as if acknowledging a good idea, and nibbled on his own patch of greenery.
“Gifford, this is not the ideal time to take a break,” Jane admonished him, leaning over his neck. “The soldiers are still close.”
Gifford shook his head so his mane rubbed across her face. She spat out horsehair, straining to hear anything under the wind rustling trees and the horse teeth grinding grass into a gross, green pulp.
“This is stupid,” she commented.
Then, without warning, Gifford turned on the other horse and bit the air close to his nose.
The horse—previously believing Gifford to be a friendly man-horse—reared up and screamed. Jane shrieked and clutched the pommel as tightly as she could while Gifford pushed forward, snapping and lunging at the other horse. He circled around him, blocking the jagged path of the way they’d come until the poor creature had no choice but to peel off into the woods.
They listened to the horse crash through the underbrush. Then Jane, Gifford, and Pet were alone.
Jane pressed her hands against her chest and dropped her forehead against Gifford’s neck. “That was mean,” she said, and reached forward to flick his ear. “He was a nice horse.”
Gifford blew out a breath and immediately began picking his way through the woods, doubling back to the deer trail.
So as to leave less of a trail, Jane realized. Now anyone who followed them here would likely follow the new trail the other horse had left, not expecting Jane and Gifford to go back the way they’d come.
“I see now,” Jane said. “I guess I forgot the plan. That was still mean, though. You should try to be nicer to the other horses. You’re herd animals. Who will you run with if he goes back to tell the others of your two-faced personality? Who will you compare apple notes with? Soon you won’t have any friends but me.”
They ran on and on until the sky turned a fiery red. They’d lost their pursuers hours ago, no baying dogs or thundering horses behind them now, but they still kept up a steady pace through the woods. She was just about to suggest that they make camp when they came upon a small, abandoned farm. Gifford paused at the edge of the trees, giving Jane a chance to appraise the tumbledown cottage and the barn tucked behind it.
“This seems a good place to spend the night, doesn’t it?”
Gifford made a noise that sounded like assent and she slid from his back to look around. Pet ran with her, tail flagged with canine joy, stopping every few feet to check for danger. They found none. The cottage was in bad shape, the thatched roof caved in and the rooms full of birds and mouse nests, but the barn still seemed intact. They could take shelter there.
Jane’s legs were shaky from riding so long, and her whole body felt weak with hunger, but she was able to haul open the barn door just wide enough for a saddled horse to fit through, and then Gifford trotted inside, pausing to nose at her shoulder as he passed.
“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. Oh. Sorry, G. Not you, of course.” She pulled the door closed. There was a rusty lantern hanging on the wall, and she moved to light it. Then she turned to Gifford. “Now let me take that saddle before you ruin it when you change.”
Pet zipped around the barn, sniffing here and there. Then, just as Jane was about to get to work, Pet ran back to the door and scratched to be let out. She looked decidedly uncomfortable.
“You should have gone before we came inside,” Jane muttered and opened the door a crack. Alone with her horse husband, Jane set about unbuckling the girth and relieving him of his humiliation. He shook and stretched at the sudden freedom, then—to Jane’s horror—rolled on to his back and rubbed himself against the dirt floor.
“Now that’s just ridiculous.” Jane snapped the blanket, making drops of sweat fly off, and laid it over a post to dry. The saddle followed.
It wasn’t long before sundown, so she dropped the cloak near him and dug through the saddlebag to search for additional clothing.
Nothing.
Instead she found a bag of cured meat and two containers of water. She’d drunk an entire flask of water and wolfed down nearly half the meat before she realized she ought to wait for Gifford to change, and give him the bigger share. Surely he was as hungry and thirsty as she was. He’d been on his feet all day.
“It seems we’re going to have to fight for the clothes,” Jane said. “One of us should get the shirt and trousers, and the other the cloak. As for the boots, they don’t fit me anyway, so you’ll just have to keep carrying me.”