“Are you all right?” said Reville.
“No!” said Blade.
In fact, he was only very badly bruised. In the days that followed, he kept finding new black horseshoe shapes on new, unlikely parts of his body. But no bones were broken. Reville assured him of that. It seemed that all Thieves Guild members learned quite a bit about healing. And about making other people do what they wanted, Blade discovered. As soon as Blade was sitting up, moaning, Reville said, “Good. Now translocate us both to where those riders are.”
Blade shuddered. “No. I can’t. I’m not going to get ridden over again.”
“Just take us to a hundred yards behind them,” Reville said. “You can do that.”
“Why?” said Blade.
“Because I want to catch up with them before they do anything to Sukey, of course,” Reville said.
“But there’s about half a hundred of them. What can we do?” Blade protested.
“Only twenty or so. I’ll think of something,” Reville replied. “Come on. Think of Sukey.”
Sukey, in Blade’s opinion, was not worth thinking about. He had only gone after her because, what with the dark, and the way she was screaming, he had woken up and thought it was still that morning when the soldiers tried to escape from the dome. Sukey’s screams had been very like Shona’s. He had realized it was Sukey and not Shona while twenty horses—only twenty? Well, that made eighty hooves—were each individually treading all over him. Now he did not want to move. But Blade was low and aching and feeble, while Reville was well and strong and worrying about Sukey. Reville won.
They translocated. A hundred yards ahead, a tight little group of horsemen trotted over the moor away from them. All of them were in black except for one rider in the midst of them who was in pale blue. Blade’s heart sank. He knew who these were. Escaped soldiers. They could be the same group who had ambushed the bandits. Reville was right to be worried about Sukey. “There’s nothing we can do!” Blade moaned.
“We keep following. They have to stop sometime,” Reville said.
Blade could still hardly walk. He let the riders get well ahead and then translocated himself and Reville again. They did that all day until, finally, in the evening, the group stopped and made camp. Blade sat in an exhausted, aching heap and let Reville creep away to investigate.
Reville was gone nearly an hour. “This isn’t going to be easy,” he said, arriving back suddenly in the twilight. Loaves, pieces of cheese, and a wine bottle thudded down in the heather beside Blade. “They’re keeping Sukey right in the middle. They’ve got ropes tied to her ankles and her wrists, and each rope is around a man’s wrist the other end. But they don’t seem to be hurting her. They seem to be arguing with her most of the time. I got close enough to hear her telling them all the bad things that would happen to them if they didn’t let her go, but that was all. Lucky they don’t keep any kind of a guard on their provisions. Let’s have supper and think.”
Blade ate ravenously. Reville ate dutifully to keep his strength up. He really was wretchedly worried about Sukey, Blade realized. “Are you in love with her or something?” he asked Reville incredulously.
“Don’t sound so astonished. She’s wonderful,” said Reville. “Yes, I am in love with her, if you must know. I never thought I could be before this. Ice cool, I used to call myself. Cynical. I was all set to marry an heiress for her money. But now I’m going to marry Sukey or die.”
“She’s a tourist!” said Blade.
“So?” said Reville. “I don’t hold it against her. And she’s promised to stay here with me.”
Blade found this hard to believe. He thought Sukey must have been leading Reville on. It would be like her. So, the sooner they got Sukey back from those soldiers, the sooner she could disillusion Reville and the sooner Reville could return to sanity. “What are you planning to do?” he
said.
“Go in there as soon as they’re asleep and cut the ropes,” Reville said. “Obviously. I’ll do it alone. You’re like a dragon with corns. I suppose it’s those bruises. You wait here.”
“For transport,” Blade said bitterly. “Thanks.”
But Reville’s plan did not work. He came back disgustedly at dawn with more food. “One of the four is on watch all the time,” he said, moodily tossing Blade a loaf. “I think they may have spotted us following them. Try keeping us further back today.”
They tried that for the next two days. Blade’s bruises hurt more, and Reville became almost too tired to steal food. The evening of that third day Blade pointed out that, amazing as it was, no one had tried to hurt Sukey yet and the two of them were not going to be much use to her as they were. He explained that he could catch up with the soldiers, even carrying Reville along, from anywhere up to fifty miles away, and he suggested that they have a day’s rest. Reville did not agree. He and Blade had a nasty argument. It only ended when Blade burst into tears, tore his beard off, and threw it at Reville.
“Oh,” said Reville, staring at him. “I was forgetting you’re only young. And I tell you, it wouldn’t take much to make me cry, too. All right. A day’s rest. We move in when we’re fresh.”
That was the evening the Horselady called in all the horses.
This time it was Reville who got trampled. After the argument, both of them fell asleep, close together for warmth, with heather piled on them for further warmth. The last thing Blade heard was Reville demanding to know who the stupid fool was who decided that the tours always started in autumn, until even from a deep sleep, Blade heard and recognized the drumming of eighty hooves. He translocated without properly waking up, and settled down to sleep again a hundred yards away. He found Reville in the morning by the groans.
“Gods!” Reville howled. “I tried to get up and run! A mistake.” After a long pause he added, “You know, I don’t think I was sympathetic enough when this happened to you.”
“Look on the bright side,” Blade said. “The kidnappers are walking now.”
Unfortunately Sukey’s captors seemed to have decided that someone had stolen their horses. For the next few days they were so watchful that Reville did not dare limp too near them. They sprang up at the least noise and stabbed their swords into bushes. And they guarded Sukey as if she were the most valuable thing in the world. If they had not been forced to abandon quite a heap of provisions when the horses left, Blade and Reville would have starved as they hobbled along behind. As it was, they had more stale bread than they could carry.