“He’s here. He’s fine,” she confirmed. A moment later, Enth lurched from the trees and ended up standing before Penthos’s horse like a prisoner awaiting sentencing. “I said he’s fine,” Cyrene repeated. “We got into some bother with a Doomsayer, but that’s all taken care of.”

She wasn’t sure what Dion or Penthos could discover of what had gone on, with their particular abilities. Certainly the magician had that constipated look that suggested he was contemplating arcane matters—either that or being on a horse truly did not agree with him. Dion just asked sharply, “A Doomsayer?”

“Enth killed him,” Cyrene confirmed, and Lief whistled appreciatively.

“Two for two,” he noted. “Nice work.” And, when Harathes snorted, “So what’s your score, eh? A number between nought and one?”

The warrior of the church scowled, and split his glower between the thief and the man-spider.

“We will ride with all speed to Cad Nereg,” Dion told them. “We cross into the Dark lands and find the Shadow Canyons. The creature shows us our path, and then we take the fight to Darvezian. Then we are done.” She sounded almost sick for it. “Get the creature mounted.”

It turned out that horses did not like Enth, and the feeling was plainly reciprocated. It was known that, like dogs, horses had a little of the Light in them, making them fit servants for men. Enough of the Light, plainly, to recognize Darkness. It did not help that, after the first refusal, Penthos tried to take direct charge of the situation and force Enth onto the luckless beast by sheer willpower. As Penthos, too, had no real affinity with horses, this just resulted in more and more rearing and bucking and complaints from the horse until Cyrene stepped in.

She, of all of them, knew horses. She was the only one of them truly at home on the road or in the wilds. She calmed the creature, speaking to it gently, putting her hand to its head, letting a bond between them grow, until it stood still and steady.

“Now,” she told Enth, and with admirable care he got into the saddle, his movements a close copy of the way he had seen humans do it before. He sat a horse almost as badly as Penthos, but he had that stillness to him, that went some way toward reassuring the animal, and when the other beasts set off at the chiding of their human riders, his steed plodded along behind, the need to keep with its fellows overriding its uneasiness over what was on its back.