He arose and came over to her as though to examine her bonds. His hands clamped the chain and he tested the hand-forged links. One of them twisted and spread apart. Quickly he wrapped a strip of her green cape around either length of chain and her leg.
Ylda slipped away. Hardan busied himself binding the priest and priestess of the only gods and then followed. Almost he had reached the river when the silvery light of the four moons of Osar shone from beneath a pear-shaped cloud above the distant eastern hills.
Instantly the river flats were lighted bright as their beloved Wetlands. And a guard, rousing from his half-sleep in the white brilliance, saw Hardan's moving shape. He cried a warning.
Hardan knew the need for stealth was gone now. He ran to the river bank where Ylda waited, took her hand, and flung himself out into the sluggish muddy stream. He swam directly across and there, taking her in his arms, headed into the vine-tangled growth of scrub ossa and knotty brel. And at its edge he halted long enough to send a shout of defiance back at the clustering sarifs.
After that he wasted no more breath. Downstream he threaded his way until a crook in the river piled a welcome wall of blue clay and shale between the camp and them. Here he again took to the river and a few minutes later they were running breathlessly across the moonlit plain beyond toward the hidden maars.
"Tricked them that time," chuckled Hardan, saddling their mounts. "We'll circle eastward toward the Blue Malsalms and then head back toward Aba."
Ylda put her slim fingers on Hardan's arm and squeezed. It told him, more than words, that she was happy to have escaped and that as yet she was breathless.
He lifted her into the saddle and then mounted himself. It was so easy now—a day's ride away from the river and then a southward swing until they could head directly westward back toward Aba and the river trail to the Wetlands....