Free From a High Tower by Mercedes Lackey

any attention, but someone galloping as if the devil was after him certainly
would.
And the latter would be remembered, which was not something she wanted.
    Lebkuchen—her mare—greeted her with a whicker, but tossed her head with displeasure when it became apparent that Giselle intended to saddle her and ride in the darkness. No horse liked being ridden in the dark; it was too easy for them to make a misstep and break a leg. But Giselle didn’t have any choice.
    Everything was still there, and it was not long before Giselle was leading the mare, laden down with packs and her hunting rifle and supplies, down a street she knew let out directly onto the road northward. She had chosen the direction deliberately, to lead away from the abbey and her tower, despite every instinct she had screaming at her to head straight for that shelter. Instinct might tell her to run for her den, but reason told her that was the last place she should go. Just in case . . . in case someone had recognized a landmark or a village in some story “Gunther” had told, and thought to look in that direction. There were such things as telegraphs in the world, and every police station had one. Word of a fugitive could travel far faster than she could, and she might find herself riding into an ambush.
    Every nerve was screaming with stress by the time she got across the bridge and onto the highway, where she could mount. Lebkuchen seemed to have picked up on her nerves. Despite her profound distaste for traveling at night, she transitioned almost directly into a trot, her hooves thudding briskly into the dust of the highway.
    Finally on the move, Giselle hunched over in the saddle, her insides knotted with fear and guilt, her mind awash with so many emotions she couldn’t keep track of them.
What have I done?
was uppermost, most of the time. Odious as that captain was, and sadistic, she had never meant to kill him—she hadn’t really meant to
harm
him. All she had wanted to do was incapacitate him long enough for her to escape. In her mind, she’d planned on making him unconscious until she got out of the irons, then she would lock the door, tie him up, gag him, and leave him in his bed. Probably the humiliation of being left that way by a
girl
would have kept him quiet. She tried to remember the things that Pieter and Joachim had taught her, had said to her, about situations like this, but she couldn’t recall a single word.
    I killed a man.
Not directly, and not on purpose, but a man was dead, and she had been the cause. What possible justification was there for that? That he had intended to harm her?
That doesn’t make it right. . . .
    Her thoughts were interrupted by one of the sylphs coming to fly beside her.
“Master, there is no one on the road. Where do you wish to go?”
    She passed her hand over her sweat-damp face. “Find me another Master to shelter with,” she said, finally, because she would rather trust her judgment and punishment to one of her own than to those with no magic. And she
would
have to give herself up to
that
sort of judgment, of that she was certain. She had used magic to kill, and anyone who did that and did not give herself up
would
find herself hunted down by the Bruderschaft in short order. That was, at least in part, what they did.
    As Lebkuchen sped on through the night—a night lit by a bright, full moon—and she continued to wrestle with her guilt, she scarcely paid any attention to where they were going. She only knew it was well past midnight by the moon when the sylphs chivvied her off the highway and down a narrow little path through what looked—at least in the darkness—like near-virgin forest. Lebkuchen slowed to a hesitant walk immediately; deciding that her mare’s safety was of more importance than her own comfort, Giselle dismounted and followed the sylphs, leading the mare carefully around the worst of obstacles,