In fact, a suspicion lurked in the back of her mind perhaps Need had had something to do with it. There was no way of telling, and it could all be just sheer coincidence.

Still, there was no doubt that it had saved her.

Always provided she could find some shelter before it washed her away.

And wouldn’t that be ironic, she found herself thinking wryly. Saved from the Karsites only to drown in the storm! Whoever says the gods don’t have a sense of humor....

Fifteen

Fifteen

I’m glad Hellsbane can see, because I can’t. Kerowyn’s eyelids were practically glued shut with fatigue. She rode into the Skybolts’ camp in a fog of weariness so deep that she could hardly do more than stick to Hellsbane’s saddle. The mare wasn’t in much better case; she shambled, rather than walked, with her head and tail down, and Kero could feel ribs under her knee instead of the firm flesh that should be there.

She rode in with the rain, rain that had followed her all the way from beyond the Karsite Border. Or maybe she had been chasing a storm the entire time; she wasn’t sure. All she did know was that the rain had saved her, and continued to save her as she traveled—washing out her tracks as soon as she made them, for one thing. It also seemed as if it was keeping those supernatural spies of the Karsites from taking to the air, for another; at any rate she hadn’t felt those “eyes” on her from the moment the rain started to come down. And last of all, the mud and rain had completely exhausted her pursuers’ horses, who had none of Hellsbane’s stamina.

From the exact instant when the first storm hit, she’d been able to make her soggy way across Karse virtually unhindered. She hadn’t been comfortable, in fact, she spent most of the time wet to the skin and numb with cold, but she hadn’t had to worry about becoming a guest in a Karsite prison.

Her only real regret: she’d had to ride Hellsbane after the first storm slackened; that rock hadn’t broken her ankle, but it had done some damage. A bone-bruise, she thought. She wasn’t precisely a Healer, but that was what it felt like. She’d hated putting that much extra strain on the mare, but there was no help for it.

Luck or the sword or some benign godlet had brought her across the border at one of the rare Menmellith bor derposts. She’d introduced herself and showed her Mercenary Guild tag, and her Skybolt badge; she’d hoped for a warm meal and a dry place to sleep, but found cold comfort among the army regulars.

They damn near picked me up and threw me out. Bastards. They could at least have given me a chance to dry off.