Further ahead, the towers set in the wall ringing the city were lit; the guards there had been roused as well, it seemed. Kesley surreptitiously cantered out of line and cut off down a dark side-alley, taking care that none of the guards were following him.
A few minutes later he reached the West Gate—smaller than the other three, and lightly guarded. Drawing his horse up before the guard-tower, he shouted: "Open the gate, you idiots! The assassin's escaped, and he's heading west."
"What are you saying?"
"I said open the gate. I'm Duke's guard. You're holding things up. The assassin's out there at large someplace!"
The door swung back.
"Thanks," Kesley yelled. He kicked the mutant's scaly hide to make the beast spurt ahead. He raced through the open gate and out of Chicago. The confused shouts of the guards echoed faintly in the distance as he urged the horse on.
Breaking out into the flat country that ran westward, he rode hard without any direction or destination in mind. Once he looked around and saw three riders about two and a half miles back, pelting steadily after him.
They were on to him then. He hadn't fooled them completely. But it had worked well enough to get him clear of the city and, if he could put more space between himself and Chicago before they turned the hounds on him, he'd be all right.
The road veered suddenly and split into a network of forks. Almost without thinking, he grabbed the south fork and urged the horse on. He didn't know the country at all down there, but there were cities—Peoria, St. Louis, Springfield, Cairo way down on the river. Somewhere between those empty names, he had heard there was a Mutie City—a regular refuge for mutants, a walled city of some sort where not even Duke Winslow's hand could reach.
He bent low over his horse's stringy mane and urged the gasping beast on. Glancing back, he saw his pursuers—and dim in the night was something dull and metallic grinding toward him down the flat road.