With Grip’s silent encouragement, El Cohete attempts to climb several phantom trails, always sliding back toward Luck in mud or turning away.
“What about the dog? Maybe he can find a way out,” Ivy calls to Grip.
“Gone,” he has to shout back to be heard. “And your fox. Didn’t you notice?”
A deeper fear settles in the pit of her stomach, now nearing the panic of facing risers, yet Ivy is not sure why.
The bank is not so high, perhaps fifteen or twenty feet, that they could not climb out to level ground on their own—though Ivy feels unsure how she might manage in her skirts. But a trail for the four horses to traverse could be miles away.
Hooves slosh through inches of water now. Ivy leans against Luck’s shoulder, squinting fruitlessly to see below. How can rainwater rise so fast? Is this what has them alarmed?
“Here,” Grip calls back. “Have to try leading them.”
Elsewhere halts beside Luck as Ivy reins in, Luck tossing her head and backing several steps. Afraid she will rear, Ivy lets her have her head, but she leaps forward.
Sam jumps down from the saddle beside her and catches Luck’s bit. “Will they lead at all?” he calls.
“Jumpier than crickets in a frying pan!” Melchior shouts behind them.
“More reason to get out.” Grip seems to have El Cohete starting up a trail from the gorge, though Ivy can scarcely see man or horse, even as shapes.
Luck tries to leap back as Sam pulls her toward an apparently solid earth wall by the bridle, calling to Ivy, “Just stay there.”
But Ivy is already pulling her leg from the brace amidst a crushing heap of soaked skirts. She drops to the ground and feels a rush of ice consume her stockings. She had not before been alarmed by the holes starting in the stitching and edge of the soles of her boots. It made them cooler. She never imagined she would wish them to be waterproof.
“I can take her, Sam.”
“No, she is—” his words are jerked away as Luck rears, dragging both of them through inches of water. Elsewhere follows Sam, who will not relinquish his hold on the mare’s head but pulls her back to all fours. He shoves a clump of tangled reins into her hands. “Take him! I have her.”
Melchior and Chucklehead push against them, the former shouting at them to go. Ivy tries to pull Elsewhere after Grip, but cannot see him at all now, blind with rain and darkness. Elsewhere will not follow.
“He won’t come with me, Sam! You’ve got to take him. I can hold her.”
Something strikes Elsewhere’s quarters—end of reins from Luck or Chucklehead—and the gelding leaps, Ivy staggering with him. Ahead, Grip shouts back to them to move and she follows his voice, finding a meager foothold as rocks slide under her boots. Again, Elsewhere stops. She is just shouting at Sam to go ahead of them when she hears something rumble, feels the world shudder, and looks pointlessly skyward for thunder.
Sam drags a plunging Luck past. Ahead, Grip is once more cursing in Spanish. Melchior cursing in English behind her, shouting at her. Mixing above the thunder and human voices, terrified neighing of their horses beats through her ears.
Then something cold, massive, hard as steel smashes into Ivy like a stampede. She screams, feeling her body thrown against Elsewhere, then the rock and earth wall with no more of her control than if she had been a blade of grass in a tornado. Her mouth fills with water, covering her, driving her back, spinning her like a top—all in blackness, an expanse of water and earth lifting up to destroy her.
She bashes off the wall to strike something of flesh and bone, metal and fabric. She grabs for Melchior, feels his hand on her arm, her back, catching for an instant onto cotton. Chucklehead’s saddle horn smashes into her gut and she lets out an explosive breath underwater. Hands and feet flailing, she catches leather saddle thongs, then something thick and solid, the side of either pommel or cantle, before water rushes down her throat and Melchior is ripped away.
Crashing off horse and saddle, which she will not relinquish, she bashes again into a rock wall, then bursts free of the surface. She clings on, completely blind, sucking in water one second, air the next, down and away as Chucklehead seems to be swept over on his back underwater.
Trying to scream, kicking wildly as if pushing herself to any surface might be possible, nothing but air matters anymore. And that saddle. Cannot let go.
Wham—something slams across her side, striking her false ribs, sending waves of pain through her body. Another crash across her foot, her shin, her head as debris ripped along by the current seeks her life as much as the river.
Rigid leather soars upward: Chucklehead rearing once more skyward. Ivy draws in water and air at the same time, acrid taste of copper and dirt filling her mouth, a single breath, vomiting muck at the same time. Chucklehead’s mane lashes her face. She throws herself against him, one arm around his muscular neck, the other finding the saddle horn. Then under, crashing into another wall, across the gorge floor, the horse beating with all four legs against the tide.
She can feel him kick off ground below, both their heads once more breaking the surface. This time they stay above, Ivy sobbing for air, clutching him with more strength than she knew she had, Chucklehead fighting for purchase below.
The water level, though still spinning them along with terrifying speed, drops to his back. The stallion finds his feet for a moment, kicking against the gorge floor as if to outrun the torrent, but his enthusiasm is ill-timed. Another sweeping wave crushes into them, hurling him sideways. Ivy is thrown face-first into another spray of water and mud and debris, taking in a mouthful, feeling thousands of nameless objects crash off her body and that of the horse.
He smashes to mud and rock below, dragging along the bottom, crushing her arm across his neck. One of his flying hooves catches her shin underwater and what scant breath she has is knocked from her in a scream of bubbles.
He fights free, lunging for the surface, dragging her along like a doll. Water hammers in her ears, slaps her face, calls her back with its deadly clutch at her clothes. Cloak ripped away while dress and chemise act as shackles.
Chucklehead lunges into the gorge wall, scrabbling with forefeet for purchase. He falls back, water only up to his shoulder, up to Ivy’s chest as she hangs off his right side. He strikes out for the far bank, part swimming, part leaping, carried with the water. At last, he strikes onto a trail she cannot see, gives a great kick upward, and throws both himself and Ivy clear of the flood. Another stride, heaving up the bank at an incredible angle, a third, and he pulls the two of them to level ground of the scrub plain.
Blind, gagging and choking, Ivy is thrown from her slippery hold on the last jarring impact of his climb to freedom, feeling soaked earth crash against her as she falls, legs swinging through open air below.
Fingers digging desperately into mud as rain pelts her, she rams her toes into the rocky wall and clings on for her life. She lifts herself, clawing forward on shaking arms, kicking off as the wall crumbles, then dropping on her stomach across solid ground. On hands and knees, she struggles away from the edge, vomiting muddy water which seems to have filled her stomach, her lungs, all of her skin up to her eyeballs. Gagging and spitting, her arms give out and she falls in wet brush, sobbing, screaming, mostly unable to find breath for either as she clutches her ribs, choking out muck and fragments of debris as large as whole leaves and tangles of desert grass.
Pain signals pop through her body, sending bright bubbles bursting before her lids. She tries to look up, see through darkness and mud, but falls back, feeling she is spinning. Pain and lack of oxygen and shock beat on her senses until she has none left.
And to think ... she was glad for rain.
To Be Continued In
Book Three
Thank you for reading Lightfall Two: Fox, Flight, Fire. If you enjoyed this book, please leave a quick review on Amazon to let others know! Your support makes independent authors and series like Lightfall possible.
Continue the jour
ney with Lightfall Three: Luck, Lost, Lady.
About the Author
Author of fiction from short stories to epics, designer of award-winning book covers, lover of travel and ice cream, Jordan wrote her first novel at age sixteen and has found it easier to write a book than remember to keep up a blog ever since.
She lives near Seattle with two dogs and a vast array of people who speak in her head until she turns their voices into novels.
Find more Lightfall titles, leave reviews, or get in touch on Jordan’s Amazon Author Page and at www.jordantaylorbooks.com.
Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Eighteenth
Nineteenth
Twentieth
Twenty-First
Twenty-Second
Twenty-Third
Twenty-Fourth
Twenty-Fifth
Twenty-Sixth
Twenty-Seventh
Twenty-Eighth
Twenty-Ninth
Thirtieth
Thirty-First
Thirty-Second
Thirty-Third
Thirty-Fourth
Thirty-Fifth
To Be Continued
About the Author
Lightfall Two: Fox, Flight, Fire (Lightfall, Book 2) Page 17
