The Camelot Spell - Laura Anne Gilman [51]
“Why can’t the two of you just get along?”
Newt shrugged. “Because he talks more than he knows. And because it’s fun.”
Ailis looked heavenward, as though searching for help in understanding the male mind, then collapsed back onto the grass with a sigh.
None of them wanted to stay near the troll corpse any longer, so as soon as Gerard returned wearing dry clothing and leading the two horses, they decided to move on.
“Do you have any idea what happened to your horse?”
Newt stood up and brushed himself off, then put two fingers into his mouth and let out an astonishingly piercing whistle. Gerard’s horse snorted and shifted, while Ailis’s stood placidly. Newt waited a few seconds and then whistled again.
“I guess it wasn’t as well-trained as you thought?” Gerard started to say, when the sound of faint hoof-beats on the road came to them and Newt’s gelding appeared. The saddle was slightly askew, and the horse’s eyes were a little wild, but it otherwise looked unharmed.
“Good horse,” Ailis praised it. “Good…” she looked at Newt expectantly. “What’s his name?”
Newt looked blank. “Horse?” There had never been a need for it; he was the human and the horse was the horse, and that was that.
“Loyal,” she decided.
“That’s a good name,” Gerard said, surprising everyone.
“Loyal, then,” Newt said in a tone of humoring a madwoman. He adjusted the saddle and made sure the girth was tight around Loyal’s belly, then tied his boots by their laces and hung them around his horse’s neck and swung, barefoot, into the saddle.
“So?” He looked down at the two of them. Ailis looked at her own shoes drying on the grass, and did the same as Newt, grimacing at the way the saddle felt against her wet clothing.
Gerard had already forced his feet back into his boots and mounted easily. Now he unrolled the map. It was glowing again.
“North,” Gerard said, tracing a finger along the path of the glow. “We go north.”
More confident in the map now, they started across the field, bypassing the town entirely, riding at a slow, steady trot. They had two of the three talismans, yes, but time was quickly running out. Midnight would mark the end of this fourth day of the seven Merlin had said they had. They had to move faster, or risk losing Arthur and his entire court forever.
They’re doing rather well, don’t you think? Merlin was proud, despite himself.
Smart enough, but no smarter. You could have chosen better. Nimue’s voice was scornful.
They chose themselves. That’s how it goes, if you care to remember.
Such frail reeds. How can they possibly grow into anything to depend on? And they’re moving too slowly.
How much faster could they go? He was indignant at the slur on their behalf. They’re children.
There are no children in this country, she replied. You’ve eaten them all up, you and your precious king.
And Merlin sighed, unable to argue.
They rode for several hours, stopping only to build camp when it became too dark to see the ground in front of them, although the map in Gerard’s hands glowed with a faint, insistent blue light, as though trying to push them on.
“Enough,” Ailis told the map sternly. Gerard merely stared at it, trying to decide if it was a magical warning of some sort. “We have to sleep. Otherwise we’re going to be even more stupid than we were at the bridge, and get ourselves truly killed.”
She could have sworn an oath that she heard the map let out a tiny sigh, and the light flicked off.
Gerard’s eyes went wide. “How did you…”
Ailis shrugged, then walked back to where Newt was building a small fire a few paces away from where they had placed their blankets. She was beginning to forget what a bed felt like.
“I’m too tired to eat,” Newt said when she offered him the wrapped-up chicken from the tavern.
“I’ve never been