I wrote quite a while in this book and was astonished when a chilly feeling made me look up and out and I saw how low the sun was in the sky. I leapt up. clutching Diary and pencil dangling on its tape (nearly frayed through in places now) and looked for Urns. He was in sight—actually I shouldn’t think he’d ever let me out of his sight, which is both possessive and protective, especially in a place like this—and though I didn’t like to call and attract I don’t know what monster’s attention, he soon looked up, saw me standing watching him, and came at once. He extended to me a claw with a rather mangled lizard, but I showed him it was to be his own and he swallowed it and I mounted.

Dusk fell around us like the drifting settling of unnumbered tiny mauve motes.

I’m such a fine heroine, so fit to save almost-lost causes. Never underestimate the army.

Soon, in the dusk, I came upon a Southern encampment, just settling down for the night and all heads turning startled as I, equally startled, spurred Urns right through them, spattering the sparks of the fire they were just in the process of lighting.

Well, I thought as we settled back into a steady canter, that’s done it. How often does a girl on a Northern bird ride through their camp and on? But I was on them so suddenly in this dark, wooded country, I didn’t have enough warning to skirt such a sizeable camp. There’s no sound of pursuit. They must have decided to let me go—I’m only one, and not even a soldier. That’ll teach me to think myself so far ahead that I can afford to relax. Of course, they must know more about this terrain than I can—which river-loops to miss, for instance. I had a head-start when I set off but I might well have ruined everything.

Later still I was hunched in thought on Urns lolloping along under a starry sky, when I became aware that his crest was rising and he was giving slow throat-snarls. Almost at once I heard a whirr, felt something yank me off the saddle. I cried out. The lasso dragged me on the ground, though one foot (luckily the good one) was still entangled in the stirrup and Urns was rearing and would soon be charging in the opposite direction.