The gentry came yelling in their wake. A gun banged. Were they shooting at him? Not with the woman slung down his back. The priests might sacrifice a squire's daughter without a murmur, but no gentryman ever harmed a gentrywoman under any circumstances. It was likely a warning. That was why they kept whistling the dogs back, too, for the enormous brutes could rip a human to scarlet rags in twenty seconds, and not even a squire's command stopped them once they'd tasted blood. He had reached the trees and the wide path. He plunged into it, Jerran beside him; the older man was panting heavily now, but running as strongly as ever. "A little behind me, Revel," he husked out. "See you follow me close." Jerran knew where he was headed ... Revel surrendered all initiative to him. The ground thundered beneath him to the pounding of the horses. He looked back as he ran. They were almost upon him, gay and gaudy in their scarlet, green, fawn and purple hunting clothes; their faces were bloodless, malevolent, and entirely without pity. Several of them carried guns, the long clumsy weapons handed down to them by their grandfathers from the time, a hundred years past, when gun-making was still a known art. Ramrods were fitted below the barrels and the muzzles flared like lilies. He'd back his new-found little guns of the Ancient Kingdom against any such heavy instrument. Jerran dived into what seemed a solid mass of brambles. Revel shifted the girl and bent to follow; at that instant she grabbed the back of his thigh and wrenched with all her might. He had been carrying her too low again. The tug was just enough to throw him off balance, and rucker and lady sprawled on the forest pathway, entangled together, struggling frantically to rise, as the giant stallions of the gentry bore down upon them. CHAPTER V The pretty daughter of the squire, She came a-riding by; Of sunlight was her fine long hair, Of gray flint was her eye. The Mink he takes her by the arm: "Now you must come with me! We'll dwell a space in the wild wild woods Beneath the great oak tree!" --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink Revel saw the lead horse, a piebald brute with hoofs like mallets, coming at him. The squire atop it was leaning down with the mane whipping his cheeks, smirking at Revel as he drove his steed forward. He made the fastest decision of his life. He could roll and save himself, for he was quick as a lightning bolt; or he could keep hold of the wench and try to preserve them both. He could never have told what prompted him to decide to save the Lady Nirea.