Page 65 of The Faceless Mage

Now to escape Garimore entirely.

She stole the first horse she found—a staid carriage horse standing in its stall behind an elegant mansion only a few blocks from the palace. She took a bridle, but nothing else, more concerned with distance than comfort. Her hopeful theory was that the Raven had tracked her by smell—given how often he seemed to be sniffing her. If she rode, he would be less likely to catch her scent, and if she changed horses often, it would confuse him further.

That first horse took her to the edge of Hanselm, where she traded it for a courier’s mount while he lounged inside an inn, drinking rather heavily for a man charged with delivering official messages.

She was in luck—the horse was fresh, and still carried the courier’s bags with all of his gear. There was a blanket, an oil-skin slicker, a tinderbox, and several other useful items that might have been packed specifically for her.

So she left him the carriage horse and hoped he would be drunk enough that it would take him till morning to notice that he’d been robbed.

Once mounted, Leisa turned her horse’s head north and carefully set aside every pain, every question, every regret. There was no room for second-guessing, no time to waver in her resolution. She would mourn Zander and the others after she returned to Farhall. After she was safe in the capital city of Arandar.

And she would eventually stop to wonder whether the Raven ever thought of her. Whether he would ever break free of his chains.

But she must not allow him to catch her. Everything depended on her ability to outrun him, and so outrun him she would. She tapped the horse’s side with her heels and urged him into a trot down the road and into the night.

* * *

Leisa alternated between walking and trotting until dawn began to lighten the sky, not willing to risk her horse’s legs by going any faster in the dark. But the moment she could make out any small variations in the road, she urged her mount into a ground-eating canter until he’d worked up a considerable sweat.

Then she dismounted, and they walked. Garimore was nearly flat farmland for miles in any direction, so it would not be difficult for any pursuer to spot her. Taking that into consideration, she knew it would be necessary to take a different route than her enemies would expect. So at the first possible opportunity, she turned east. Then north again, then east. And the moment the farms began to thin and give way to wild, uncultivated land, she turned off the road and plunged into the brush.

She traded horses again at a farm on the edge of a half-wild orchard and continued on. When her new mount began drooping with weariness, they stopped for a few hours. Leisa catnapped, while the horse stripped a small patch of grass.

At each stop, she avoided the corners of her mind where her link with the Raven lurked. If she could feel him coming, she didn’t want to know about it. Didn’t want the sensation of looming dread weighing her down.

She had enough other problems—the worst of which was the pain from her legs. She was no novice—she’d learned to ride at a young age—but didn’t do it often, so her legs had been rubbed raw by the saddle long before the end of the first day. Each following day, the pain grew worse, and when blood stained her trousers, she was forced to stop and wrap her wounds before continuing on.

Leisa thought it had been three days when she crossed into Eddris. She was not fool enough to believe it would stop her pursuers, but hoped it would slow them down. Hoped she’d gained enough distance to win this deadly race.

And yet, she was rapidly approaching a level of exhaustion that would eventually pull her out of the saddle. She’d slept only a few hours, and only when conditions were too rough to continue in the dark. What little sleep she stole in those hours was broken and fitful, marred by dreams and constant wakefulness as she jumped at every shadow, every sound, every hint of pursuit or lurking presence.

Once into Eddris, it grew easier to avoid habitation. It was a country of hunters and foresters, deep valleys, and silent, wooded hills. But this also meant that the going grew slower, and as Leisa’s path gradually turned north, towards Farhall, she hoped desperately that she had not made a mistake. They were now covering only a few miles per day, and it was growing harder to hide her tracks.

But still, she forged on, until the fifth night when she could no longer hold herself in the saddle. She finally collapsed near a small stream, and was forced to drag herself to its edge for a drink. Her horse, though not as weary as she was, seemed almost as grumpy. Once she managed to regain her feet long enough to remove his saddle, he spent the next five minutes rolling in every patch of dirt he could find.

Somehow, Leisa held herself together long enough to rebandage her wounds with mostly clean strips of her blanket. She ate the last of the food she’d stolen from a Garimoran farm, then huddled on the ground, shaking with pain and weariness and nerves.

She could feel him now. No matter how hard she tried to push it away, the Raven’s presence had grown too insistent to ignore. She’d walled off that part of her mind, but he’d smashed through her walls. He was coming—powerful, dark, and implacable. The strength of his compulsion drove him after her, an unrelenting taskmaster that would never let him stop, never let him rest, never let him sleep.

But Leisa could go no further. Not without an hour’s rest. Not without a moment to close her eyes.

Then she would get up, drag herself onto the horse’s back, and move on.

Only an hour.

* * *

She awakened with a start, instantly aware that she’d slept too long.

It was still dark, but he had not stopped. He was so close now. And in the woods, he could move faster on foot than she could on horseback.

Coming to her feet, Leisa nearly screamed at the pain from her legs but didn’t pause on her way to repack her gear—only what she could carry on her back. She set her horse free, not caring where he went, knowing that her pursuer was too close for it to matter.

With panic mounting in her chest, she took off into the woods—north, as fast as she could run.

Which wasn’t that fast. Exhaustion weighed her down, and fear robbed her of breath. But she still ran when she could, keeping to thinner patches of forest where the moon could light her path.

She couldn’t fail now. Not when she’d come this far. Not when Farhall was still in danger.

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