CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

The hogs came fast, their dead eyes flushed with anticipation

At the same time Trinket shouted ‘Charge.’

She slapped her feet against the flanks of her horse and as though it had been waiting for this signal, Trinket’s horse bared its teeth, and opened its eyes into large round ponds of determination, and made a sound like a bugle call to war, and jumped.

Without thought, Jane kicked her horse’s flank. Her horse jumped, and a moment later it followed Trinket’s horse into a gallop, nose to bum, their hooves thundering against the narrow path, straight toward the attacking hogs.

The hogs slowed, confused by the reversal of normal attack procedures where they got to do all the attacking and the prey got to be frozen with fear.

Trinket pulled a leg up onto her horse's withers, then she sprang up and landed with one foot on the horse’s back, and one foot on the loin. She made a warbling sound and waved her arms and looked crazy and haphazard. Her thrip coat poured out into the air behind her.

The eyes of the shuffling hogs were drawn up to the thrip. They stepped one either side of the path, and a change came into their faces, and Jane could see they were getting ready to attack Trinket. The hogs shrunk into themselves, coiling up like springs, ready to release. Their dead eyes moved in the arc of Trinket’s approach.

With bared teeth, Trinket's horse thundered between the hogs.

The hogs burst upwards and threw themselves across the rump of the horse. Their long fingers, bristled and grey and weeping fluid, swiped to grab Trinket around the ankles and calves. They were going to drag Trinket over the rump and tail of the horse, dragging her to the ground.

Except, just as the hogs lunged, Trinket stepped back and sprung into the air. The hogs hands swiped underneath her rising feet, and grasped at nothing but air.

The hogs slumped over the back of the lead horse while Trinket flew backwards through the air, one leg extended, one leg up, her arms out like a ballerinas. She landed, legs akimbo, across the withers of Jane’s horse. Her shoulder blade hit Jane in the face so hard that Jane’s nose spurted with blood.

For a moment the two hogs squealed and bounced on the croup of the front horse. Their snouts were in the air and their rubbery black tongues were lolling, and their voices were raised in squeals that sounded like confusion. Their long fingers dug into the hide of the horse, tearing at the hide, drawing out lines of blood.

They were slowly sliding from the horse, and their hooves swung in under the horse and clumped against the horse's legs. The horse began to stumble. Somehow the horse stumbled on and kept its feet. Then, still galloping, it bucked so that its body mushroomed into the air, bent legs, arched back, head down, like a rodeo mustang.

The hogs were strong and savage and stupid, but they weren’t dexterous and they weren’t nimble and they couldn’t hold the bucking horse.

Down they went, with nails tearing strips into the flesh. They fell into the dark swamp, and although they tried to keep their feet they were travelling too quickly and they landed sideways amidst the ferns and mangroves and sharp sticks and stinking mud.

An instant later both horses were past the fallen hogs and galloping through the silent forest of paperbarks and dead oaks and ferns and paddle weed.

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Jane pressed herself up hard against Trinket’s back and wrapped her arms around Trinket’s middle.

Over Trinket’s shoulder Jane could see the rump of the lead horse and she could see the open wounds where the Swamp hogs claws had dragged. She had a horrible feeling that the claws of a Swamp hog might contain poison.

The path meandered through the dry forest and the horses finally slowed, at first into a canter, then suddenly, with no real prompting, they dropped back to a walk.

They were on a straight stretch of wide sandy path, and the trees were sparse so that the horses walked through a spill of moonlight.

It appeared that hogs either hadn’t given chase, or if they had they were a long way behind. This didn’t stop Jane from suddenly turning, imagining that she could feel them approaching. The hairs on her neck were standing up, and her nerves were jangling.

The path ran along a rocky ridge before descending toward the Milkstone river. The eastern sky was becoming lighter with the approach of dawn and Jane looked over Trinket’s shoulder at the giant monolith of White mountain. It was a dark triangle against the brightening sky, and it was so big it filled Jane with a feeling like worship.

‘Not long now,’ said Trinket, ‘and we will be at Speckled Duck landing.’

Somewhere, a long way to the south, lightning slipped across the sky, lazy, and without sound.

‘We will send the horses home once we get to the landing,’ said Trinket.

‘Will your horse be alright?’

‘I will treat the cuts with yellow syrup.’

The morning kept rolling in until overbright sunlight filled the east, while the sky to the south was filled with a blackness of storm clouds.

Soon Jane and Trinket arrived at the Milkstone river. The river was a mix of murky brown and deep blue water. Trees and white clouds reflected on the river’s surface. On a stretch of meadow beside the river, Jane almost fell from the horse into the meadow grass. Never had she experienced this level of exhaustion.

Trinket alighted from the horse and immediately went to the first horse. Gently, she ran her fingers around the wounds. The horse stood still with its head up, and it seemed to be listening to Trinket working on the wounds.

Reaching into her thrip cloak, Trinket took a small flask from an inside pocket. Jane recognised the flask as being the same flask she had seen back in the marketplace in Wyld Fell, just before she had the first encounter with the Governor.

Trinket poured the yellow syrup down the length of the slashes, and when the syrup touched the hide of the horse it made a sizzling sound. A trail of steam rose from the wound.

The horse became very still.

When she was finished with the yellow syrup Trinket went to the head of the brown horse and worked her hand up and down its neck. The horse bent its head toward the ground and Trinket whispered in its ear.

After a moment she let the horse be, and she sat beside Jane who was laying amidst a stand of blue flowers.

‘They will need to rest for a moment,’ said Trinket. ‘Then I will give them a slap to send them home.’

Jane shut her eyes.

She was almost asleep when she heard a noise, like wind rushing through branches. She opened her eyes and saw, straight overhead, a flock of ravens. There were hundreds of ravens. Perhaps thousands. They were flying in a large slump, an unkindness of purpose.

‘The birds of death,’ Trinket said quietly.

‘What does that mean?’ asked Jane.

‘There is always a raven present when someone disappears. We call them the birds of death.’

The flock of birds continued for several moments, then the sky cleared.

Trinket squatted in the grass, and doodled in the dust. Using a stick she drew a star, then a moon, then a small girl with an angel's wings. She didn’t even seem tired.

Laying with her cheek in the dirt, Jane watched an ant climbing a stalk of grass, its six black legs gripping the grass like pincers, its antennae pushing up and down. Flying insects droned and moved through the grass in brown clouds. The heat in the rising sun stung Jane’s bare legs.

Jane shut her eyes. Her eyelids were leaden.

When Trinket spoke Jane heard her voice as though it was coming through in a dream. Trinket said something about the storm in the south, and how big it would be later that day.

Jane breathed out, and dust skittered away from her nostrils.

It seemed only a moment later when Trinket shook Jane awake.

‘The ship is arriving.’