When the guards errupted from their resting spot at the sound of a yelp, Marley hurried over towards the leader's horse. He had dismounted some time ago, and was now pacing back and forth in search of the perpetrator. As he was suitably occupied satisfying his big manly ego, Marley steadied his horse and started searching pockets, hands tied as they were.

She navigated by feel, since the horse's saddlebags were far above her line of sight. None of these damned things felt like whistles or earrings! She cursed violently under her breath, the words slithering out left and right between clenched teeth.

Then, her fingers brushed against something soft to the touch and vaguely round. She looped her fingers around it and pulled out one jay-feathered earring, then the next. She stabbed their hooks through her shirt and started searching for the whistle. It should be around here somewhere, shouldn't it?

Then again, if she were a guard and knew that the whistle was the thing to be wary of, she wouldn't keep it in the same place as the earrings. She'd keep it on her person. She eyed the guard captain suspiciously for a moment before she felt the cool smooth metal beneath her fingers.

So much for the bolder race.

She snatched up the whistle, even as a thunderous crash errupted from the underbrush and Feivel came charging out, brandishing a bloodied sword. She half-expected him to errupt in a wild war cry, but instead he raced towards the leader with a silence that came only once he was in the open air. He swept towards him, the guard barely turning in time to block and parry.

Even as they engaged, the leader of the guards started shouting towards the soldiers who had pursued him into the forest, and Feivel started heading towards the leader's horse.

Marley watched them, watched the swords clashing against one another, watched their eyes, mostly. Feivel's eyes were set and determined, grimly resigned to Fate. The guard's were wide with surprise, or perhaps fear. There was no way that he was still surprised, this much later, that they had been ambushed.

And just as the rest of the guards lumbered out of the underbrush and the forest, there was a quiet clatter as the sticks that made up Kendra's cage fell to the ground, tangled in a mess of wasted twine. Marley turned towards her, but she was more occupied in Janice and keeping her safe.

Especially once the guards grabbed their bows and started firing.

Kendra felt an arrow fly through the air towards her, and she immediately flung up a wall of little pebbles between her and their attackers. ~Janice!~ she squeaked. ~Heels in the horse and let's go!~

But Janice was frozen solid, staring in horror as Feivel snarled and scratched his way free of the leader of the guards and Marley intercepted him to pass off the whistle. She stupidly stood between the two men, and Feivel had to reach to block for her.

Kendra knew that their chances of escape hinged on Marley and on Feivel, so she quickly caused the earth beneath the guardcaptain to surge and start to rise. He overbalanced, and fell backwards, even as Feivel put the whistle to his lips.

The clear, shrill sound overtook the horses, causing them to dance and mill around. Feivel grabbed one and tossed himself on its back in a far less graceful way than he'd ever managed riding bareback. And Marley grabbed one in a way that suggested she'd lived in the saddle sometime long before.

Even as they claimed horses, the arrows in the air increased, and Kendra pulled more little rocks through the air to block them, using currents of wind to deflect them where they missed the rocks. It was exhausting work, and only after a moment did she realize that the horse she was perched on had begun to move forwards at a startling speed.

They were soon out of range of the bows, and Kendra curled up in the saddle, too tired to fly fast enough to keep up, and too exhausted to want to do anything but balance and focus on the retreating trees.

Later, they'd catch up with Lina and the girls, camp out for the night, exchange stories - how exactly Feivel had gotten free, where Marley found the earrings and the whistle, how Kendra had managed to saw through the twine of her cage with the sharp rocks she'd been collecting the entire journey. It was exhausting, and it had been a long journey, and Kendra, for one, was ready for it to be over.

Unfortunately, the way Feivel kept staring out acrosst he open plains, it was only just beginning.

Gleb had bought horses. It was an easy enough answer to their predicament, but it did make Gershwin feel a bit uncomfortable, riding something that had not been snatched by skill and ability, but instead the coin of the realm. He did not feel any sort of kinship with the mighty palamino beast beneath him, as it was.

Nor did he particularly care for the bay on which Tem rode daily, or the grey which Gleb had chosen. They were good enough horses in technicality, but there was missing from them a fondness and a flair which Gershwin knew all good horses needed.

And with a blind man in their party, Gershwin dared not excite this flair within them.

So they trundled through the grasslands on horseback, though Gershwin felt they were more akin to pack mules. They hunted at night, and within three days, they were at the foot of the mountain.

Gershwin wanted nothing more than to hope they didn't have to go up it.