The Horse and His Boy - C. S. Lewis [39]
“Friends, we are in Archenland!” said Bree proudly as he splashed and churned his way out on the Northern bank. “I think that river we’ve just crossed is called the Winding Arrow.”
“I hope we’re in time,” murmured Hwin.
Then they began going up, slowly and zigzagging a good deal, for the hills were steep. It was all open, park-like country with no roads or houses in sight. Scattered trees, never thick enough to be a forest, were everywhere. Shasta, who had lived all his life in an almost treeless grassland, had never seen so many or so many kinds. If you had been there you would probably have known (he didn’t) that he was seeing oaks, beeches, silver birches, rowans, and sweet chestnuts. Rabbits scurried away in every direction as they advanced, and presently they saw a whole herd of fallow deer making off among the trees.
“Isn’t it simply glorious!” said Aravis.
At the first ridge Shasta turned in the saddle and looked back. There was no sign of Tashbaan; the desert, unbroken except by the narrow green crack which they had traveled down, spread to the horizon.
“Hullo!” he said suddenly. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” said Bree, turning round. Hwin and Aravis did the same.
“That,” said Shasta, pointing. “It looks like smoke. Is it a fire?”
“Sand-storm, I should say,” said Bree.
“Not much wind to raise it,” said Aravis.
“Oh!” exclaimed Hwin. “Look! There are things flashing in it. Look! They’re helmets—and armor. And it’s moving: moving this way.”
“By Tash!” said Aravis. “It’s the army. It’s Rabadash.”
“Of course it is,” said Hwin. “Just what I was afraid of. Quick! We must get to Anvard before it.” And without another word she whisked round and began galloping North. Bree tossed his head and did the same.
“Come on, Bree, come on,” yelled Aravis over her shoulder.
This race was very grueling for the Horses. As they topped each ridge they found another valley and another ridge beyond it; and though they knew they were going in more or less the right direction, no one knew how far it was to Anvard. From the top of the second ridge Shasta looked back again. Instead of a dust-cloud well out in the desert he now saw a black, moving mass, rather like ants, on the far bank of the Winding Arrow. They were doubtless looking for a ford.
“They’re on the river!” he yelled wildly.
“Quick! Quick!” shouted Aravis. “We might as well not have come at all if we don’t reach Anvard in time. Gallop, Bree, gallop. Remember you’re a war horse.”
It was all Shasta could do to prevent himself from shouting out similar instructions; but he thought, “The poor chap’s doing all he can already,” and held his tongue. And certainly both Horses were doing, if not all they could, all they thought they could; which is not quite the same thing. Bree had caught up with Hwin and they thundered side by side over the turf. It didn’t look as if Hwin could possibly keep it up much longer.
At that moment everyone’s feelings were completely altered by a sound from behind. It was not the sound they had been expecting to hear—the noise of hoofs and jingling armor, mixed, perhaps, with Calormene battle-cries. Yet Shasta knew it at once. It was the same snarling roar he had heard that moonlit night when they first met Aravis and Hwin. Bree knew it too. His eyes gleamed red and his ears lay flat back on his skull. And Bree now discovered that he had not really been going as fast—not quite as fast—as he could. Shasta felt the change at once. Now they were really going all out. In a few seconds they were well ahead of Hwin.
“It’s not fair,” thought Shasta. “I did think we’d be safe from lions here!”
He looked over his shoulder. Everything was only too clear. A huge tawny creature, its body low to the ground, like a cat streaking across the lawn to a tree when a strange dog has got into the