The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater [135]
But it doesn’t matter. Corr knows what I want without me having to speak, and he surges out of the bunched capaill in the rear.
There is a narrow corridor open right to the very front where the three front-runners are fighting it out. Last year I would’ve been through that hole with Corr and they would have been counting the lengths between the rest of the pack and Corr for the remainder of the race.
But I don’t take that move.
I wait.
PUCK
It only takes a minute for Dove to be bitten and another few seconds for me to be cut by some razor-sharp edge that I don’t think can be horse teeth. I don’t have time to look at the wound or guess what has cut me. We’re trapped in a crush of bodies. Even over the rush of the wind in my ears, I hear their squeals and roars, the clucks and growls as they fight.
From the slice in my thigh, I feel the disconcerting heat of blood running down my leg but no pain, yet. Whatever cut me was sharp enough that the wound was clean.
Dove is beginning to panic. Movement to her right makes her jerk her head sharply enough that the rein rips open one of the searing blisters on my palm. I see white all the way around Dove’s eyes.
I need to get out of here. Sand stings my cheeks and the corners of my eyes, but I can’t spare a hand to swipe my skin. I don’t see how we can move forward until the capall uisce to my right charges into the ocean, tripping over the waves, twisting in the air before throwing its rider.
It’s Finney. I see his eyes meet mine for a bare second, his hands pedaling through the water, and then his bay capall’s dull teeth snap shut on his cheekbone.
Then I’m past them and they’re gone and it’s only seething water that sprays a dark pattern on Dove’s shoulder. And I’m sick, sick, sick.
Suddenly, there is a narrow path where before there was a capall uisce. If I pull through the right, using some of Dove’s precious strength, we might get clear.
It won’t do any good to save her speed if we die in this fight. I press my calves into her hot sides and suddenly, it clicks. Dove finds her stride and we pull free of the little tempestuous pack that we were trapped in. And there, hanging behind the leaders, I see a red stallion under blue colors, and Sean Kendrick folded neatly on top of him.
I sweep blood off the bite on Dove’s shoulder. It’s not deep, but guilt pricks me anyway. I say sorry to her and she flicks a trembling ear back. I let out a barest length of rein. She’s still terrified, but for a moment, I have her attention.
Focus. I think about riding on the cliffs, holding her steady, keeping her even. I remember the uisce mare leaping from the edge of the cliff. The secret is to remember the race while the others forget everything but the ocean. I can be steady.
SEAN
There’s a newcomer on our right, and Corr, mad at the touch of the sea, snakes his head to bite at them. I check him and the horse beside us jerks but holds steady. Black-tipped ears. Smaller than Corr. Smaller than any of the horses on this beach. Ordinary muscles pumping and moving beneath her skin.
It’s Dove, matching us stride for stride, feathers fluttering on her saddle pad. I glance, once and then again, at Puck and then Dove. Dove’s been bitten, but not deep. Puck’s bleeding, too. But unlike Dove’s untidy bite wound, Puck’s is clean and long, the material of her breeches sliced. It was a knife that did that, not a horse. Someone angry that she was on the beach with us. To think too long on that is to be furious and to be furious is to lose focus, which I can’t afford.
Because in front of us is chaos. The worst of it is the noise — the panting of winded capaill, the groaning as they fight, the continuous thunder of the hooves, the hissing of the sea. The squeals and the shouts and behind it all, the screams of the crowd. The noise would drive a horse mad even if the November ocean didn’t.
A capall in front of us twists and wheels inward, its rider avoiding the ocean at all costs. Another two shove and squabble, slowing enough that we move past them.