Jakyr stopped at running streams only long enough for both of them to take care of the needful while the Companions got a drink. At noon, with the sun blazing down on the snow, and Mags’ stomach growling, they didn’t even stop long enough to eat. Jakyr put bags with sweetened grain in them over the heads of both the Companions so that they could eat while they loped toward whatever it was that Jakyr wanted to reach by nightfall, and Jakyr handed Mags a cold meat pie, some cheese, and an apple after they had both mounted up. All four of them ate while moving, with Jakyr glancing back over his shoulder from time to time, though what he could see through the trees, Mags could not venture to guess.

He was used to hard work, but this was harder than anything he had ever done in his life. He had thought he was used to riding, but it was not riding like this. He found entirely new muscles to stretch and strain as the Companions scrambled up and down slopes, or vaulted over fallen trees, and he fought to stay balanced. And every time he went in one direction while Dallen went in another, he got another tooth-jarring jolt.

Finally, in late afternoon, when Mags was wondering if they were ever going to see another human being again, they broke through the trees and onto the surface of a much wider, cleared road. Ahead of them, the eastern horizon glowed blue and clear, with only a few wispy white clouds tracing across the brilliance. A few more paces, and they were at the top of a ridge, and Jakyr finally pulled up to peer back the way they had come. Mags turned to look, too.

Sure enough, the western horizon was a far different prospect than the eastern. Absolutely black clouds boiled across it, like a wall, and they were moving fast.

But they were moving more northward than eastward, and Jakyr sighed with relief. “The worst of it’ll miss us, or at the very least, we’ll be in good shelter in town, provided we keep moving until sundown,” he said, and looked at Mags with some concern. “Can you handle a gallop till then?”

“T’ not get caught in that? Aye,” Mags said, with a shudder. “That’s naught t’ chance with.” He had seen the sky like that before, when storms had all but buried the buildings around the mine. This was not something he wanted to meet while in the open. He had too-vivid memories of the kiddies desperately tunneling through the snow with their half-frozen hands to try and get to the kitchen, because the food was certainly not going to be brought to them, and it was better to lose fingers and toes than to starve.