grandfathers from the time, a hundred years past, when gun-making was
still a known art. Ramrods were fitted below the barrels and the muzzles
flared like lilies. He'd back his new-found little guns of the Ancient
Kingdom against any such heavy instrument.

Jerran dived into what seemed a solid mass of brambles. Revel shifted
the girl and bent to follow; at that instant she grabbed the back of his
thigh and wrenched with all her might. He had been carrying her too low
again. The tug was just enough to throw him off balance, and rucker and
lady sprawled on the forest pathway, entangled together, struggling
frantically to rise, as the giant stallions of the gentry bore down upon
them.

CHAPTER V

The pretty daughter of the squire,
She came a-riding by;
Of sunlight was her fine long hair,
Of gray flint was her eye.

The Mink he takes her by the arm:
"Now you must come with me!
We'll dwell a space in the wild wild woods
Beneath the great oak tree!"

--Ruck's Ballad of the Mink

Revel saw the lead horse, a piebald brute with hoofs like mallets,
coming at him. The squire atop it was leaning down with the mane
whipping his cheeks, smirking at Revel as he drove his steed forward.

He made the fastest decision of his life. He could roll and save
himself, for he was quick as a lightning bolt; or he could keep hold of
the wench and try to preserve them both.

He could never have told what prompted him to decide to save the Lady
Nirea.

At any rate, he threw himself atop her, clamped his arms tight to her
sides, and rolled, not toward the brambles, for it was too late for
that, but to the center of the path. The piebald crashed by, swerving
too late to clip him; the other horses came at him in a solid phalanx.
He yanked her up, gaining his own feet by an animal contraction of body.
As the heads of the nearest stallions reached him he slipped between
them, holding her steady behind him, and praying to the Orbs (from force
of lifetime habit) to preserve them for the next minute.

Without Nirea it would have been simple; holding her safe behind him
while two lurching horses passed, that made it the trickiest thing he'd
ever done. As the squires' legs came abreast, one blink later, he took
hold of one of them which was clad in tight blue breeches, and hauled
down. Then he leaped forward between the horses' tails, twitching the
woman after him with a jerk that almost tor