Si'Wren reached up and slapped hard with the flat of one hand on the flank of her horse. At this, he finally bolted, jerking her bodily off her feet as she clutched desperately onto the lunging stallion's mane with the fingers of both hands.
She felt nothing when she heard the arrow in her shoulder snap off against the stallion's heaving flank. Her feet bounced once on the ground as the stallion lunged forward, and she dropped and bounced her feet again in a coordinated leap and sailed upwards with a sharp two-fisted pull on his black flowing mane, and she twisted her torso and legs upwards with the benefit of the transferred momentum and leverage.
Suddenly she was up and riding, with the black stallion's hooves pounding the earth in a thundering tempo as he carried her swiftly away and left all behind. Si'Wren was so small and light that her horse ran virtually unimpeded, whereas her pursuers were large men equipped with heavy weapons and armor, all of which was a respectable burden for their mounts.
Ignoring the stub-end of the arrow in her numbed shoulder, Si'Wren ducked her head down and dropped her eyes to the neck of her steed, hearing the steady blast of breath from his muzzle as the shafts of two embedded arrows vibrated in a rhythmic blur to the thunder of his galloping hooves.
Small rivulets of blood pulsed redly from the arrows as he maintained his breakneck gallop, and Si'Wren wondered at his unrelenting power in the face of such injuries as his hooves pounded, pounded, pounded the ground tirelessly with the wind whipping his black mane into her bowed face and stinging her eyes to wind tears.
He might be wounded, but her beautiful black was a fearless meteor. A horse could run itself to death for it's master, but Si'Wren only wished to escape her pursuers. But what of the black's injuries?
Knowing she must soon stop or risk his death by overexertion, Si'Wren turned her head to look back and saw many attackers separating themselves from the battle to ride after her, and cold fear filled her soul. She looked ahead again just in time to avoid getting knocked off by a low-lying bough as she entered a copse of trees and quickly became hidden in their depths. There had been many men riding after her. Could she possibly outrun them all?
She had been ready to mount up when the attack came, and she could hear the sound of something slapping lightly and rhythmically on the back flanks of the black stallion, and remembered the pair of leather saddle bags containing her writing kit together with the clay tablets in their sturdy bamboo frames. Little good they would do her now, for no longer could she fight the Evil One with mere clay words, and the Emperor himself was past all saving.
She burst out of the far side of the trees and began to ride up a grassy knoll. The black stallion pounded up the rise and she drew back on the reins at the crest, slowing him to a halt at the top and looking back as she paused and listened to the distant pounding of hooves.
She watched with anxious eyes as they appeared out of the far line of trees below, and as they burst out into the open, the pursuit spied her almost immediately, and shouting wildly they swerved in unison, whipping their mounts in merciless pursuit of her.