He could taste sand. A horse jerked away from his side. An alarmed whinny. That wasn't his horse, Boltin didn't sound like that. The smell of blood was everywhere. Words in his ears.
"Go back to your post or she will be just the first."
Red.
There was blood in Lavendara's hair. Streaks of bright red through the cascading blonde.
"Ry!" Cwen.
Hands were beneath his shoulders. Looking up, he could see the sky strewn with stars. He could see one star, just a little more bluish than the rest.
The ground trembled with approaching hooves and he knew they needed to go. His boot soles were cut in half. His boots... No.... Never mind the cuts on his feet. Never mind that his body in those moments would not obey. Dizziness swam through his eyes and pain splintered through his bones. They were seriously outnumbered and outmatched. How many times had he hit the ground..?
That wasn't sand in his mouth, it was dirt. He'd fallen off the black colt. Before that, been slammed down, again and again. The kukri Silver had given him long ago had drunk the final blood of the massive enemy he'd fought. Sicarra and Dandy were terrified, but alive. Cwennie had come like the white bird from nowhere.
"We... won't get back t'Herne in time, Cwen.. Need shelter. Find us a cave. Run."
