Arc 4: Chapter 2: Stormclouds Over Garihelm
“Move!” I barked, swinging myself up onto the bench.
Emma snapped the reins and started the chimera forward without hesitation. The creatures, the scadumares, moved like liquid night. They looked thin and elegant, but they had the power of ancient destriers.
The coach began to move, quickly picking up speed.
It wouldn’t be enough. Good as Rosanna’s beasts were, we’d been at a dead stop and the war carriage had momentum. The bulky creatures pulling it, closer to huge front-heavy bovines than horses, lacked the grace of the scadumares but more than made up for it with sheer brawn and stamina.
Emma saw the same thing I did. She spat out an angry curse, then jerked on the reins. I nearly lost my seat on the rain-slicked bench as the black mares took a sharp left down a narrow side street, acting without hesitation. They were well trained, and didn’t so much as nicker in protest.
Our passengers were in for a bumpy ride.
Behind us, the trihorns let out angry bellows as the target of their goring rush eluded them. They wouldn’t be able to make that sharp a turn, not with their mass and the huge armored carriage they pulled.
Crossbow bolts cracked through the rain. One embedded itself in the coach’s burgundy wood less than a foot from my head, a second vanished into the rain, and a third splintered against the side of a building.
The coach almost tilted onto its side with the turn. I grit my teeth, holding on for dear life, then we righted and were on.
Then the priorguards vanished down the street we’d just turned off, lost behind the buildings.
“They’ll find a way around,” I said, raising my voice over a rumble of thunder. “And I doubt that’s the only one. You have our dropoff?”