The Golden Fury

Chapter 59

An arrow took one of the bestial faces in the eye, then Mat swung in beside him as their horses pounded through the trees. They were running toward the river, he realized, but he was not sure it was going to do any good. The Trollocs sped after them, almost close enough to reach out and grab the streaming tails of their horses. Half a step gained, and the catchpoles could drag them both out of their saddles.

He leaned low on the gray's neck to put that much more distance between his own neck and the nooses. Mat's face was nearly buried in his horse's mane. But Aldira wondered where Thom was. Had the gleeman decided he was better off on his own, since all three Trollocs had fastened on the boys?

Suddenly Thom's gelding galloped out of the night, hard behind the Trollocs. The Trollocs had only time enough to look back in surprise before the gleeman's hands whipped back and then forward. Moonlight flashed off steel. One Trolloc tumbled forward, rolling over and over before landing in a heap, while a second dropped to its knees with a scream, clawing at its back with both hands. The third snarled, baring a muzzleful of sharp teeth, but as its companions toppled it whirled away into the darkness. Thom's hand made the whiplike motion again, and the Trolloc shrieked, but the shrieks faded into the distance as it ran.

Aldira and Mat pulled up and stared at the gleeman.

“My best knives,” Thom muttered, but he made no effort to get down and retrieve them. “That one will bring others. I hope the river isn't too far. I hope ...”

Instead of saying what else he hoped, he shook his head and set off at a quick canter. Aldira and Mat fell in behind him.

Soon they reached a low bank where trees grew right to the edge of the nightblack water, its moonstreaked surface riffled by the wind. Aldira could not see the far side at all. He did not like the idea of crossing on a raft in the dark, but he liked the idea of staying on this side even less. I'll swim if I have to.

Somewhere away from the river a Trolloc horn brayed, sharp, quick, and urgent in the darkness. It was the first sound from the horns since they had left the ruins. Aldira wondered if it meant some of the others had been captured.

“No use staying here all night,” Thom said. “Pick a direction. Upriver, or down?”

“But Moiraine and the others could be anywhere,” Mat protested. “Any way we choose could just take us further away.”

“So it could.” Clucking to his gelding, Thom turned downriver, heading along the bank. “So it could.” Aldira looked at Mat, who shrugged, and they turned after him.

For a time nothing changed. The bank was higher in some places, lower others, the trees grew thicker, or thinned out in small clearings, but the night and the river and the wind were all the Briae, cold and black. And no Trollocs. That was one change Aldira was glad to forgo.

Then he saw a light ahead, just a single point. As they drew closer he could see that the light was well above the river, as if it were in a tree. Thom quickened the pace and began to hum under his breath.

Finally they could make out the source of the light, a lantern hoisted one of the masts of a large trader's boat, tied up for the night beside a clearing in the trees. The boat, a good eighty feet long, shifted slightly with the current, tugging against the mooring ropes tied to trees. The rigging hummed and creaked in the wind. The lantern doubled the moonlight on the deck, but no one was in sight.

“Now that,” Thom said as he dismounted, “is better than an Aes Sedai's raft, isn't it?” He stood with his hands on his hips, and even in the dark his smugness was apparent. “It doesn't look as if this vessel is made to carry horses, but considering the danger he's in, which we are going to warn him of, the captain may be reasonable. Just let me do all the talking. And bring your blankets and saddlebags, just in case.”

Aldira climbed down and began untying the things behind his saddle. “You don't mean to leave without the others, do you?”

Thom had no chance to say what he meant to do. Into the clearing burst two Trollocs, howling and waving their catchpoles, with four more right behind. The horses reared and whinnied. Shouts in the distance said more Trollocs were on the way.

“Onto the boat!” Thom shouted. “Quick! Leave all that! Run!” Suiting his own words, he ran for the boat, patches flapping and instrument cases on his back banging together. “You on the boat!” he shouted. “Wake up, you fools! Trollocs!”

Aldira jerked his blanketroll and saddlebags free of the last thong and was right on the gleeman's heels. Tossing his burdens over the rail, he vaulted after them. He just had time to see a man curled up on the deck, beginning to sit up as if he had only that moment awakened, when his feet came down right on top of the fellow. The man grunted loudly, Aldira stumbled, and a hooked catchpole slammed into the railing just where he had come over. Shouts rose all over the boat, and feet pounded along the deck.

Hairy hands caught the railing beside the catchpole, and a goathorned head lifted above it. Off balance, stumbling, Aldira still managed to draw his sword and swing. With a scream the Trolloc dropped away.