Page 81 of This Dark Descent
“For the Harbingers!”
Mikira sent up a prayer to whoever was listening that they survive the melee to come.
“For Sendia!”
The bell rang.
The first fumbling seconds of the race were the same mess of hooves and barked curses as the others. Horses tossed their heads and struggled to find space. Mikira tried desperately to put distance between her and Gren, whose eyes were still locked on her. She got Alren’s horse between them, losing ground in return. Hooves clattered against wet earth. Overhead, thunder echoed, and the first sprinkles of rain misted her skin.
The herd of racers evened into a steady flow as each horse found room to run. She’d lost track of Gren, but Talyana was at her back, a second set of eyes.
The beginning of the course followed the dirt track of the Traveler’s Road, a stretch that would become an all-out sprint on the return. Ahead, the Grey spanned the width of several streets, its current unusually quick for the summer months. Water crashed against jagged rocks and splashedover the banks, running swiftly even in the shallows, where the riverbed bore a thousand small stones to overturn unsteady hooves.
It’d been enchanted with speed.
“Kira!”
Talyana pointed upriver at a bridge. The herd of riders was splitting between those with speed, who could handle the detour, and those chancing the quick waters and uneven footing of the Grey, their horses likely charmed for surefootedness.
With their horses enchanted for speed, she and Talyana veered toward the bridge. Alren Zalaire raced ahead of them, thundering across the painted wood. Just as they reached it, some horses began leaping into the air, others jerking to a halt.
“There’s a gap!” Mikira called back to Talyana as Alren’s horse landed on the other side.
“We’ve got a strength charm!”
They drove their horses between two riders picking their way back across the bridge, choosing the river over the jump. Mikira freed a knife just as the nearest rider swung at her with a baton. She ducked flat to Atara’s withers and heard a thud behind her.
Whirling, she spotted the rider on the ground and a grin on Talyana’s face—that quickly vanished. Mikira spun frontward again—the gap in the bridge was nearly two and a half horse lengths.
This time, she didn’t even think about stopping Atara, only lowered her head, lifted off the saddle, and balanced her weight—Atara did the rest. She arced over the gap and landed soundly on the other side.
Talyana’s horse landed easily alongside them, and the melee began as the two paths reconverged outside the edge of the Silverwood.
Mikira caught the flash of a blade and heard the gurgling scream of a rider seconds before they fell from their horse, vanishing beneath the stampede of hooves. The high whinny of another horse cut above the noise as a spotted bay’s forelegs gave out beneath a wicked slash.
Nausea turned Mikira’s stomach, but she kept her focus on Atara. They had room to run now, drops of water flying from the hooves of horses ahead of her. Talyana rode close to her side, a throwing knife in hand. When a woman sent her mount careening toward them, dagger drawn, Talyana buried the blade in the woman’s shoulder.
They barreled into the Silverwood, seeking out the checkpoint in the center, where they would secure a flag before flying back to the starting line. The ground began to slope the deeper into the wood they got, the terrain growing rockier and littered with bone-white branches to leap. Ahead, the ground jutted sharply upward in a steep hill, hitting the cliff face of the Anfell Mountains. Through the canopy of leaves, Mikira could just make out the plateau partway up where the flags waited.
“Take the straightaway!” Talyana called a moment before Mikira realized what she meant: the hill was sheer enough that switchbacks had been cut into the face, granting weaker horses an easier alternative, but a longer one. Cutting straight from base to plateau was another steeper trail, and Mikira sent Atara right for it.
Her pace faltered when they hit the slope, but she charged upward, her labored breathing audible over the strike of hooves in wet earth. Arabella’s horse ran ahead of them, and two more galloped along the switchbacks.
A flash of metal, and Talyana cried out, clutching her arm where a knife had grazed her. Mikira sought the culprit, but the rider was already up the switchback on the other side, left behind as Atara and Talyana’s horse crested over the top of the hill onto the plateau.
Flags had been positioned all over. Some were tied to pulleys in the trees that rose and fell, bringing the flags in and out of range of a rider traveling on horseback at lightning speed. Others were accessible only by horses capable of navigating the pile of boulders ahead, requiring a surefootedness charm.
Mikira leapt off Atara’s back, going for a set of blue flags on the ground, but no sooner had she snatched one up than it dragged her backdown—it’d been enchanted for weight. Atara circled around her as she reconsidered her strategy. They could take the extra weight, but it would wear on them over time, and look suspicious to Rezek if he saw her with it. Atara couldn’t navigate the boulders, which left the speed flags.
“Duck!”
Mikira dropped to the ground at Talyana’s shout, a baton swinging over her head. Atara spun on the attacker, her teeth clamping down on the rider’s arm. The woman screamed, and her horse reared, but Atara didn’t let go. The rider tumbled to the ground with a crunch of bone, her eyes rolling up as she fainted.
“It’s okay,” Mikira pressed a hand against Atara’s chest. “Let go.”
It took a moment for the mare to obey, but she finally released the woman, and Mikira swung back into her saddle. Several other riders were locked in combat or attempting to retrieve flags, but Arabella and Dezaena already had theirs and were heading back down the hill, Alren not far behind. She sought some sign of Gren, but the chaos was too much.
“I’ll watch your back!” Talyana positioned her horse between them and the others. “Get the flag.”
