Reynevan waved his arms around frantically, pushing away the furiously attacking creatures. Yelling in terror and disgust, he tore off the ones that were clinging to his nape and hair. Some he knocked off, beating them away like balls. Others he caught and crushed, but the rest scratched his face, bit his hands and nipped his ears. Beside him, Scharley was slashing blindly with a sabre, splashing black bats’ blood around. At least four were clinging to Scharley’s head and Reynevan saw trickles of blood running down the penitent’s forehead and cheeks. Samson fought in silence, crushing the creatures crawling all over him, grabbing several at a time. The horses were frantic, kicking and neighing in panic.

Scharley’s sabre swished just above Reynevan’s head, the blade brushing against his hair as he swept from it a huge, plump and unusually vicious beast.

“Flee!” roared the penitent. “We have to get away! We can’t stay here!”

Reynevan spurred his horse, also suddenly understanding. They weren’t normal bats, but monsters conjured up by magic, which could only mean one thing—they had been sent by their pursuers, who would also soon appear. They set off at a gallop, not needing to spur their horses since the panicked steeds had shed their tiredness and were flying as though chased by wolves. They couldn’t lose the bats, however, which were attacking, diving and falling on them relentlessly. It was hard to defend themselves at full speed. Only Scharley was winning, wielding his sabre and cutting down the huge creatures as he galloped with such skill he might have been born and spent his entire youth in Tatary.

But Reynevan, as usual, was more hapless than Jonah. The bats were biting all three of them, but it was Reynevan who was quite blinded when one of them clung to the hair on his forehead. The little monsters were attacking all three horses, but Reynevan’s was the only one into whose ear a bat crawled. The horse thrashed around, whinnying frantically. Shaking its lowered head, it kicked and jerked its rump up with such force that Reynevan, still blinded, shot from the saddle like a stone from a catapult. Now free of its burden, the horse broke into a headlong gallop and would have fled into the forest had Samson not managed to seize its harness and rein it in. Scharley, meanwhile, jumped from the saddle with sabre raised and rushed among the juniper bushes where Reynevan was rolling in the tall grass with bats swarming over him like Saracens over an unsaddled paladin. Yelling terrible curses and vile insults, the penitent slashed with his sabre, splashing gore around. Beside him, Samson was fighting in the saddle with one hand and holding two struggling horses with the other. Only someone as strong as him could have pulled off a trick like that.