Free Regret (Lady of Toryn Trilogy) by Charity Santiago Page B

arm and wrapped her leather belt around both the arm and the stick as many
times as she could, tying a knot to secure the makeshift splint. At least she
could prevent it from being injured any further until they got back to Toryn.
    Lord Li’s breathing was steady
but light. Ashlyn looked over at where Drake’s horse lay, its sides heaving.
She couldn’t force the animal to move, and they’d already run so far. She bit
her lip, wondering if anyone had followed them. No one had confronted them yet,
so maybe she was in the clear. What should she do?
    The plan was, if they got
separated, to meet up back in the city, but that would be a difficult trek to
make without a horse. Maybe if she waited a bit, the horse would recover enough
to take them back, even if it was just at a walk. If not…Ashlyn supposed she
could probably drag her father, although she’d have to construct some kind of stretcher
that she could pull behind her. It would be very slow going.
    Right now the most important
thing was to get under some kind of cover. Ashlyn sat quietly, listening to the
sound of running water. She knew she wasn’t close enough to the beach to hear
the ocean, so she was probably close to the lake. Was there a cave behind the
waterfall there? She frowned, trying to remember. It had been so long.
    Drake’s horse startled her by
lifting its head at that moment, stretching its upper lip out comically as it
tested the air with its nose. Ashlyn got to her feet, wincing at a slight pain
in her ankle, and walked to the gelding. One foreleg was stretched out in front
of it, and she ran a hand down the coarse hair, noting that the leg was already
swelling, but did not appear to be broken.
    She didn’t know if heal worked on animals or not, but she
wasn’t very skilled with the magic anyway and it would be very risky to attempt
to heal a patient who couldn’t say what was wrong or where it hurt. Ashlyn sighed,
chewing on her lower lip as she debated what to do. Her father wasn’t very heavy
and the horse could probably handle his weight, even with the injured leg. If
she could somehow manage to get her father on the horse, they could at least
get to the lake and seek out shelter. The issue would be getting her dad on and
then convincing the horse to get up.
    She looped her hands under her
dad’s arms, holding at the apex of his arm and shoulder, and grunted as she
tried to drag him towards the horse. The first attempt only moved him a few
inches, and Ashlyn gritted her teeth. She dug in her feet, bent her knees and
hauled as hard as she could. As thin as he was, her dad was still much bigger
than her. “Your bones are heavy, old man,” she groused as they moved along,
inch by painful inch. “I’m never letting you give me a hard time about my weight,
ever.”
    Her stomach grumbled loudly when
she finally got her father to the horse, and she realized suddenly that she
hadn’t had anything to eat in more than a day. Well, plenty of time for that
later. With some effort, Ashlyn managed to prop her dad up against the side of
the horse, soothing the animal when it seemed a little bothered by what she was
doing. Eventually she was able to get Lord Li’s leg over the saddle, and from
there she pushed him up so that he was lopsidedly lying on the horse’s back, as
much on the saddle as she could get him. Now it was just a question of getting
the horse up without her dad falling off.
    Ashlyn picked up her makeshift
weapon harness where it lay next to a tree, noting that it had torn when she’d
gone flying. She’d have to fix it somehow. Sighing, she picked up the reins off
the ground and moved back to stand beside the horse’s belly. How is this going to work? She held the
reins in her left hand and hooked the weapon harness over her right wrist so
she could grab her dad’s leg with that hand. “Okay, mister,” she muttered.
“Time to give me a hand here.” She tugged upward on the reins.
    Fortunately, Drake’s gelding