Waterdance Read Online Free PDF Page B

Just see how far you get.
    Her passenger groaned weakly at every jar, and Peri remembered the blood on the trampled grass and realized she had no idea how badly he might be hurt. For all she knew, he might be dying.
    No. If he’s that important to the Sarkonds, they wouldn’t have just left him lying there untended in that bad of shape. They wanted him alive. NEEDED him alive, to go to so much trouble when it would’ve been easy enough to put an arrow through his heart.
    Then a crossbow bolt whistled past her, driving all other thoughts out of her mind.
    Oh, Bright Ones—never thought they’d have Agrondish crossbows. With Bregondish horses, I thought they’d have Bregondish saddle bows or longbows, that I could stay out of range—
    She bent down as low in the saddle as the high pommel would allow, relying on the equally high cantle to protect her, just as it had protected generations of Bregondish warriors. Abolt thunked solidly into the cantle and Peri blessed the saddle, the hours she’d spent in it, the craftsmen who had made it, the ikada whose leather covered it—
    Then the horse beside her screamed and faltered, dragging against the tow rope. Peri glanced over and groaned in dismay as she saw the bolt solidly embedded in its right rear leg.
    Have to be cut out, she thought automatically. A few stitches and a blackthorn ash poultice and—never mind that!
    Grimly Peri drew her knife and cut the lead rope. No longer held back by the second horse, Tajin leaped forward with new energy. A quick glance over her shoulder, however, gave Peri no encouragement—the four horses behind her had spread out, cutting her off. She couldn’t turn back; the only possible route was north, toward the Barrier.
    All right, then, she thought grimly. The Barrier it is. But those roots had better take effect soon.
    By the time she neared the Barrier, Tajin was beginning to strain under the hard pace and the double load, although he maintained his speed—if she asked it of him, he’d run till he dropped. Peri could still hear the other horses behind her, but despite Tajin’s heavier load they had drawn no closer; Peri hoped that meant the horses were starting to feel the effects of the soporific roots and beginning to slow, but she dared not count on it. She lowered her head, bracing herself, gripped her rope-bound burden more tightly, and rode directly at the shimmering wall.
    A tangible shock ran through Peri as she struck the Barrier, exacerbated as Tajin shied instinctively, then stumbled hard, nearly falling; Peri’s long-trained riding skill was all that kept her and her rescued captive in the saddle as Tajin gathered his feet under him again. Peri cried out from the shock and from the pain in her bruised ribs as she jolted in the saddle. The bound man in front of her cried out, too, and went completely limp—unconscious, Peri hoped, not dead.
    Then they were through the Barrier, and Peri glanced around frantically for cover, straining her eyes in the starlight.
    There was no cover to be seen. Tajin stood on what had once been plains not unlike those in Bregond, but here there was not even the concealment of tall grass, of thorny thickets. The ground was scorched and blackened, blasted bare of any life not only by fire but magic as well during the wars, and doubtless tainted, too, by the continuing magical presence of the Barrier. Peri shivered and reluctantly urged Tajin to continue north. She’d fare no better following the Barrier east or west, and who knew where the Sarkonds might come through? Her best chance was to get away from the Barrier, find some kind of hiding place, let her pursuers pass her, and then double back later.
    She rode on miserably. In many places sandy soil had been fused by fire and magic into shiny rock-glass that could easily lame Tajin despite his stout shoes; in other places drifts of ash could conceal holes deep enough to snap a horse’s leg. Peri dared not push Tajin beyond a slow, careful