Duke and Sean’s original two browns saw it and shrieked in utter frustration and terror. Blazer trumpeted a fierce command. The next thing Sean and Sorka knew, both horses had been spurred by well-placed dragonet stabs across their rumps into a headlong stampede which the massed fair of dragonets aimed north and west. Rein, leg, seat, or voice had no effect on the two pain-crazed horses, for whenever they tried to obey their riders, they got another slash from the vigilant dragonets.

“Whatinell’s got into them?” Sean cried, hauling on the hackamore that he used in place of a bit in Cricket’s soft mouth. “I’ll break his bloody nose for him, I will.”

“No, Sean,” Sorka cried, leaning into her mare’s forward plunge. “Duke’s terrified of that cloud. All of mine are. They’d never hurt the horses! We’d be fools to ignore them.”

“As if we could!”

The horses were diving headlong down a ravine. Sean needed all his skill to stay on Cricket, but his mind sensed Blazer’s relief that she had succeeded in moving them toward safety.

“Safety from what?” he muttered in a savage growl, hating the feeling of impotence on an animal that had never disobeyed him in its seven years, an animal that he had thought he understood better than any human on the whole planet.

The headlong pace did not falter, even when Sean felt the gray stallion, fit as he was, begin to tire. The dragonets drove both horses onward, straight toward one of the small lakes that dotted that part of the continent.

“Why water, Sean?” Sorka cried, sitting back and hauling on Doove’s mouth. When the mare willingly slowed, Duke and the other two bronzes screamed a protest and once again gouged her bleeding rump.

Neighing and white-eyed with fear, the mare leapt into the water, nearly unseating her rider. The stallion plunged beside her, galled by the spurred talons of Sean’s dragonets.

The lake, a deep basin collecting the runoff from the nearby hills, had little beach and the horses were soon swimming, determinedly herded by the dragonets toward the rocky overhang on the far side. Sean and Sorka had often sunbathed on that ledge; they enjoyed diving from their high perch into the deep water below.

“The ledge? They want us under the ledge? The water’s fardling deep there.”

“Why?” Sorka still asked. “It’s only rain coming.” She was swimming beside Doove, one hand on the pommel of her saddle, the other holding the reins, letting the mare’s efforts drag her forward. “Where’d they all go?”

Sean, swimming alongside Cricket, turned on his side to look back the way they had come. His eyes widened. “That’s not rain. Swim for it, Sorka! Swim for the ledge!”