The Lotus Thief novel · Chapter 5 of 32

Chapter 5: The Edge of Chandra

They rode through the afternoon and the trees got taller.

By evening the road was a track and the track was a line of packed dirt between roots.

Bua stopped at the last of the open ground and looked back.

"Nothing," he said.

"They're behind us."

"I know."

They slept in turns. Ton took the first watch and Bua lay down with his coat folded under his head.

He was asleep in a minute, the way soldiers sleep.

Ton sat with his back to a rock and watched the dark.

At the second watch he woke Bua with a hand on his shoulder.

"Riders. Six, maybe seven."

Bua was up and had his boots on before Ton finished the sentence.

They rode hard through the dark for an hour with branches slapping at their faces.

The horse stumbled twice and kept going.

Then the trees opened into a clearing and they pulled up.

Ahead of them the forest began in earnest.

The trees were huge, wider than houses, and the ground between them was black.

The air coming out of it was cold and smelled of wet stone.

"Chandra," Bua said.

"Nobody goes in."

"Then nobody's followed us in."

Behind them a horn sounded, low, twice.

Ton turned in the saddle.

Torchlight in the trees. Coming fast.

"Your uncle's men?"

"Khem's household wears brown and gold. Yes."

"How do they know you went north?"

"The messenger told someone. Or the checkpoint guard did."

"He rode south."

"Then the checkpoint guard."

They walked the horse toward the tree line.

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