“They won’t get away. Not now.” The silver-haired man who spoke was holding a spade raised and ready in his knobbly brown hands, but his shoulders sagged as if they’d already been defeated. “Tilda … if we try to protect these poor children, who will protect our grandchildren?”

“Don’t try to protect us.” Rosalind glared into the shadows beyond the trees, where faint clanking sounds could already be heard. She raised her sword-stick threateningly. “We’ll take care of ourselves.”

Giles was shivering visibly, but for once, he didn’t disagree. “We’re truly sorry for any trouble we’ve brought upon you.” His voice wobbled, losing all its vibrant performing strength. “None of us ever wanted that to happen.”

“But … no!” Tilda shook her head fiercely, wrapping her arms around her chest. “I can’t bear it. We’ve let them take so much already. To just stand here and watch children be stolen, without even trying to protect them—!”

“We won’t be taken.” Cold certainty formed in Cordelia’s chest as she stepped back, finding a clear patch of ground. “No one here needs a battle,” she told her triplets. “They just need us gone for their own safety.”

“How?” Tilda demanded. “Even if you run back toward that awful forest, you’ll never outrace them. You’re only half their size!”

Cordelia looked up at Tilda’s desperately braced body … and at the hungry people all around them, with nothing more than spades and plant hooks to defend themselves from the dukes’ armed soldiers.

… Her family’s soldiers, whether she liked it or not.

Rosalind was right: none of this was fair.

“We’ll lead them away from you,” Cordelia promised, “and we will help you if we ever can.”

Rosalind jerked a nod. “We certainly will.”

Giles gave Tilda a weak smile. “You’ll be in my songs, too, from now on—and you won’t ever be forgotten.”

Cordelia turned horse in a single, violent lunge of power. The ragged group around her gasped and stumbled back in shock.

The big muscles in her haunches flexed. She shook back her thick mane and let out a high, trumpeting neigh that echoed across the landscape in furious challenge to all attackers. Her triplets scrambled swiftly up onto her high black back …

And she lunged forward, breaking through the last of the shadowy trees to gallop past the marching soldiers and across the wide, flat fields beyond, with shouts and angry clanks of armor pursuing them into the night.

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Being a horse was fantastically useful. Once the soldiers were left behind, Cordelia slowed to a steady, ground-covering trot. It wasn’t long after that before Rosalind and Giles started calling out for her to stop—but with both of them safely trapped on her back, none of their noisy threats made any difference.