er
high breasts and lean aristocrat's profile outlined against the dark
black-green of the woods behind her. Now she turned her head to look up
at Nirea.

"What in the seven hells are you doing in that rucker's outfit? Where
are you going?"

"None of your business. Get out of my way."

Jann stepped forward and grasped the bridle at the roan's mouth. "Get
down here, you young whelp. I'm going to beat you--and then hand you
over to Ewyo to see what's to be done with you."

* * * * *

Nirea never knew, though afterwards she thought of it often, whether she
touched her horse's ribs deliberately or by accident. All she knew was
that suddenly he had thrown his forequarters up into the air, that Jann
was screaming, twisting aside, that the roan was smashing down....

[Illustration]

Jann lay on the grass, and her profile was no longer aristocratic; nor
were her breasts smooth and sleek and inviolate.

Nirea sobbed, dry-eyed, turned the roan away, leaned over to push open
the gate, and cantered off down the silent road, numb with horror, yet
conscious of a small thrill of gratification, somewhere deep in her
feral gentrywoman's soul. Nineteen years of knuckling under to Jann, of
taking insults and cuffs and belittling, were wiped out under the
flashing hoofs of her roan stallion.

Now where should she ride? She was a rebel herself, molded into one by
her father's actions and her memories of the Mink. If he were dead, that
great chocolate-haired brute, then she would simply ride straight away
from Dolfya until she found a place to live, and there plan at leisure.
But if he were alive, then she would be his woman.

She touched the horse to a gallop, and sped toward the only place she
could think of where she might get news of him: the mines.

Someone scuttled off the road before her; she reined in, peered
unsuccessfully into the darkness, and called softly, insistently, "If
you're a rucker, please come out! Please come here!"

A rustle in dry brush was her answer. She tried a bolder tack. "It's the
Lady of the Mink who commands it!"

After a moment a man stepped onto the road from a clump of bracken. Red
were his hair and beard in the moon, and the white walleye stared
blindly. Fate, chance, the gods--no, not the false, horrible globes, but
whatever gods there might be elsewhere--had crossed her path with Rack,
the giant whom she trusted more than any other rucker.

"Rack!" she cal