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animal charged past River into the night, its reins trailing on the ground.
    River turned and helped Oaks up.
    Talen quickly buckled the bridle on the chestnut gelding. He tied the reins to a post to keep him still and fetched the blanket and saddle. By the time he finished adjusting the stirrups to fit the length of his legs, River was back at her mount, cinching up the belly strap.
    River said. “Get the horses in the pen. Get them running.”
    Talen ran out of the barn and caught movement at the house.Someone had been at one of the windows. “The house is awake,” he shouted and ran to the pen that held the other horses. He opened the gate. Beyond the pens, at the far end of the field, Tenter, a number of Fir-Noy, and the dog master burst out of the trees.
    “They’ve found us!” Talen yelled back. “There’s no time to saddle a third.” The horses in the pen began to move. He ran around the edge of the pen, clapping and hollering. The horses startled. One found the open gate and darted out. The rest followed, and then the horses River had chased out of the barn joined them out in the yard.
    The door to the house burst open. An older man and what appeared to be his son stepped out with clubs. “What’s going on here?” one demanded, but Talen yelled and clapped, and the rest of what the man said was drowned out by more than a dozen horses galloping past him.
    Oaks rode out of the barn on the black mare River had saddled. River vaulted to the saddle of the chestnut gelding.
    “See here!” the older man shouted.
    Talen ran to River, took her outstretched arm, and swung up behind her on the saddle. Then she put her heels into the horse. The horse surged forward, and he clung to it with his thighs.
    He felt the horse through the legs of his trousers. Felt its flanks with his bare feet. The animal’s rotted soul and Fire were all about him, and the desired flared up his rotted legs.
    Ahead of them Oaks put his heels into the stallion’s flanks, and the animal shot after the mob of horses they’d scared out of the pen and barn. Talen glanced back.Tenter was running full out, taking impossibly long strides, approaching the house, the dogs trailing behind him.
    “Go!” Talen shouted. “Go!”
    River kicked the flanks of the gelding again, and they shot away from the barn, but he could see they weren’t going to outrun Tenter. The dreadman was already rushing past the pen, his half black, half white face looking like something out of a nightmare.
    River was wearing her strung bow across her chest and back. “Give me your bow!” Talen said and grabbed it, sliding it up and over her head. He snatched an arrow from her quiver, nocked it.
    They galloped past the house. The strapping son rushed forward and tried to strike River with his club, but she leaned away from the blow and kicked him hard in the arm. The club went flying. And River and Talen flashed past.
    Tenter was already in the yard, rushing past the barn, his face all business and murder.
    Talen continued to hold the horse tight with his thighs, the Fire and soul of the beast calling him, and brought the bow around, but the bow was too long, and he had to cant it sideways to avoid the horse’s rump. Talen drew the string. His muscles bunched as they had thousands of times. His father had been the captain of a hammer of Koramite bowmen. He’d made sure his children had learned the art. Talen brought the string back as far as he could at this angle.
    Tenter saw it and, incredibly, put on some speed.
    That’s right—come closer. At this range that brass cuirass wasn’t going to provide much protection.
    Tenter took two more strides. One more and he’d have the horse’s tail.
    “Go back to your pig lovers!” Talen shouted, then released his arrow.
    Tenter dove off to the side. The arrow flew past him, its white, goose feather fletchings flashing in the moonlight, and almost took one of the men of the house. Talen turned and grabbed another two