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.
At any rate, he threw himself atop her, clamped his arms tight to her sides, and rolled, not toward the brambles, for it was too late for that, but to the center of the path. The piebald crashed by, swerving too late to clip him; the other horses came at him in a solid phalanx. He yanked her up, gaining his own feet by an animal contraction of body. As the heads of the nearest stallions reached him he slipped between them, holding her steady behind him, and praying to the Orbs (from force of lifetime habit) to preserve them for the next minute.
Without Nirea it would have been simple; holding her safe behind him while two lurching horses passed, that made it the trickiest thing he'd ever done. As the squires' legs came abreast, one blink later, he took hold of one of them which was clad in tight blue breeches, and hauled down. Then he leaped forward between the horses' tails, twitching the woman after him with a jerk that almost tore the arm from her body.