Chapters (102)
Lesser priests and acolytes bolted up and chanted curses. The skeleton hesitated. Billowing robes blocked his path to the horses. Other transgressors grumbled and stepped farther back into the hovels.
“They’re wiser than you,” Tembe shouted. “They refuse to abandon the supreme god’s judgment and desecrate our horseflesh.”
Djola wanted to curse them all, but refrained from wasting heart spirit. Leading the black mare, he stomped through witchdoctors and priests to the hovels. Other horses followed. “Death comes one way or another. This way is freedom too,” he shouted. A few brave souls ventured from every door. “Escape! Claim your lives!”
“What life would that be?” A transgressor yelled from the shadows, a girl. “We saw what you did.” Unusual to hear an adolescent woman speak where grown men had lost their voices. “You might be worse than what we already suffer. Why follow your orders?” She asked a good question.
“There are better gods than these mountain fiends,” he replied. “Somewhere there is free air to breathe. Time runs out for Holy City.”
A horse stepped among the transgressors, unafraid. A storm of a woman, sporting a mop of golden hair and freckled skin, threw her arms around its neck and wept. The horse nuzzled her heaving sides. Priests and dancers howled outrage, but transgressors poured from the hovels. They hobbled around the sundial courtyard and gripped amiable steeds. Stumbling over priests, they pulled each other onto even frisky beasts. Bushy tails whacked bald heads; dung splattered naked feet. Horses dumped a few transgressors onto sharp crystals then nibbled shoulders, but trampled any priest who came near—like pratfalls from a carnival act. Tembe seethed at desecration as the golden-haired woman hauled herself onto her horse’s back and trotted off.
“Wait.” A young witchdoctor tried to calm a skittish yearling and got dragged toward the trees. A handsome fellow with long black hair and almond eyes, he threw himself onto the horse and charged after the golden-haired woman. “Wait for me.”
“Ride fast, ride far, across the river.” Djola spooked the horses into a gallop.
Racing across the meadows, they jumped disintegrating corral walls and charged onto the Empire Road. Ragtag escapees clung to their steeds as if it were a matter of life and death. They hadn’t lost all spirit. When thundering hooves were a distant echo, the few remaining transgressors retreated into their hovels. The festival crowd hooted.
“Did that Kyrie witch send a demon to free transgressors?” someone yelled.
“Kyrie would never do something like this to Ice Mountain,” Tembe yelled back.
Barbarians reached for absent weapons and clutched air. Northern chiefs made signs to ward off evil. Priests and acolytes tore at their beards and wailed. Tembe and the cooks ululated. Drummers accompanied their distress. Finally believing their eyes, the good Empire citizens stomped over each other to escape the doomed plaza.