Remember, this thing is small. It's not like the wolfships. It'll ride over the waves, not crash through them. So we're safe as houses." He wasn't sure about the last two statements, but they seemed logical to him.

As he poured carefully, Arrow's head turned toward the sound. The horse made a low grumbling noise in his throat. "Hold your horses," he said. The he laughed. It seemed absurd to say tat to a horse.

But then, in his lifetime, Halt had often ignored what was technically legal. Technicalities didn't appeal to him. All too often, they simply got in the way of doing the right thing.

Shut up, Axl!" he whispered fiercly. "If you want to break your neck, do it quietly or I'll break it for you.

It formed into small drops on his weather beaten features, drops that rolled down his cheeks. Strangely, some of them tasted like salt.

Would you have done that in his place? Would you have left him and gone on?" "Of course I would!" Halt replied immediately. But something in his voice rang false and Horse looked at him, raising one eyebrow. He'd waited a long time for an opportunity to use that expression of disbelief on Halt. After a pause, the Ranger's anger subsided. "All right. Perhaps I wouldn't," he admitted. Then he glared at Horace. "And stop raising that eyebrow on me. You can't even do it properly. Your other eyebrow moves with it!

The sun was trembling on the brink of the world, the shadows at their longest, and they still had several kilometers to go.