Free Chains of Gold by Nancy Springer Page A

halt, and we sat stock-still in astonishment. He looked up at us with bright black eyes. He was a small brown man, gnarled, as if he might be very strong for his size, and, oddly, he stood on brown feet quite bare in the snow. I could not think that I had ever seen him before.
    â€œI have heard many rumors,” he said, “of runaways from the Sacred Isle.”
    We had not thought that folk this far away could have heard any such thing, and we glanced at each other in consternation. The man saw the look and laughed softly.
    â€œNo fear,” he said. “I am no spy. I only wanted to tell you. Look behind you.”
    â€œThank you.” Arlen cleared his throat, finding his voice hoarse with a stranger after all these weeks. “Could you spare us some bread?”
    â€œLook behind you, I say.” The small man turned away from us and went back inside his earthen home. Arlen and I glanced at each other, uncertain whether the bread was forthcoming, for the fellow’s manner had been neither friendly nor hostile. We waited a moment, and then Arlen shrugged and sent Bucca trotting onward.
    Before we had gone far we came to a windswept esker. The sand and rock of those mounds did not make good footing for a horse, and any other time Arlen would have skirted it. But this time he sent Bucca struggling up the slope, and when we topped the esker ridge we stopped and turned and looked back the way we had come.
    No more than a mile distant a band of horsemen was approaching, more than a dozen in number, armed horsemen; I could see the glint of their helms. And they were coming on at the gallop.

SIX
    There was no question of our outrunning them. Bucca was worn down from poor feeding and much work; he had become slow and sadly docile. We had to stand and fight. And I knew Arl was not yet so starved as to be docile.
    He swung a leg over Bucca’s neck and slid to the ground. Then he boosted me into the saddle and handed me the reins.
    â€œFlee,” he said. “Go, find safety.”
    â€œNonsense!” I flared at him, and he must have known my refusal was final, for he smiled a little, grimly.
    â€œWell then, go and see if you can find me a weapon.” He started stacking some of the larger rocks together, making a sort of breastwork for himself.
    There was a homestead beyond the esker, half hidden by a fringe of larch. I rode Bucca down there—I had never ridden by myself before, and I grabbed his mane for balance as we skittered down the rocky slope. but as soon as we reached the meadowland I kicked Bucca fiercely for speed, and he was a good horse; he did not fight me for mastery, but galloped me into the garth. Folk fled before us, and I did not waste time asking for succor, but looked about me. There were a pitchfork and a spade standing against the wall. Without getting down I was able to seize them, hanging onto the horse’s neck, and after I had struggled upright again we were off. I stopped Bucca at the bottom of the esker and tied him by the reins to a thorn bush. Then I hurried up the slope afoot, using the handle of the spade as a staff to aid me, and was relieved to find Arlen where I had left him.
    â€œThey’re just behind the copse, yonder,” he said in a low voice.
    â€œHave they seen you yet?”
    â€œI think not, or they would have been here before now.”
    He was hunting about as he spoke, looking for sizable stones. A few large boulders jutted from the top of the esker, looking like fangs, and he had built a hasty wall around them. I put down the pitchfork and spade and started filling my skirt with egg-sized stones to throw. Then the horsemen trotted out from behind the copse and spied us, gave a shout. Arlen picked up the pitchfork as they charged toward us.
    â€œIf you have any sense at all,” he told me, “you’ll flee.”
    I glared at him.
    â€œRae—” It was a different tone, an endearment and a plea. I touched his