Blood of Ambrose by James Enge Page B

to the ground. Behind and below her Ambrosia heard Wyrtheorn give a sigh of exasperation. “The waste!” he exclaimed.
    “You're too thrifty, Wyrth,” Morlock said. “The stuff's as precious as it is useful, no more. We can gather more if we need it.”
    A hiss, a glowing cloud over her shoulder, and a thump on the ground below told Ambrosia that Wyrtheorn too had emptied his aethrium box and dropped it. By then Morlock was carefully clambering up the side of the floating horse. It was a ticklish business (for Ambrosia, with her broken hands, could not help) and they had descended almost halfway to the ground before he was upright on Velox's back in front of Ambrosia. Then he threw down a knotted cord and pulled Wyrtheorn up more swiftly. This was as well, because by that time they were beginning to fall more rapidly.
    “Morlock,” Ambrosia began, hardly knowing what she would say.
    “Don't worry,” he replied instantly. “Our weight just barely overrides the unweight of the phlogiston. We fall swiftly, perhaps, but will not strike heavily. However…”
    “Yes?” said Wyrtheorn. “Don't keep us waiting, Master Morlock.”
    “We are somewhat top-heavy, I expect. We should be careful not to overbalance while in the air.”
    “Hear that, Wyrtheorn?” Ambrosia said lightly. “None of your riding tricks, then.” He was already gripping her arms from behind with painful intentness.
    Wyrth laughed, and his grip eased somewhat. “Lady Ambrosia, I promise to behave.”
    They struck the ground. The impact was less than if they had leapt a fence. And they immediately found themselves flying upward and forward at a sharp angle.
    They all breathed deeply in relief. Wyrth's grip relaxed entirely. He said, “If—”
    The horse screamed.
    The sound was blood-freezing. Ambrosia felt Velox beneath her laboring with the effort of the scream. It was desperate and prolonged, expressing the last extremity of some dreadfully intense feeling—fear, or physical agony, she guessed. Behind her, through the last whistling rasp of the horse's scream, the harsh clear syllables of Dwarvish: Wyrth's expression of surprise and alarm, perhaps pity.
    “I never thought!” Morlock said bitterly. “He's an old warhorse that had been through many a battle and single combat. I bought him from a castellan of the northern marches. I was only concerned about the trial at arms. I didn't think he'd be afraid of flying.…”
    Wyrth, after his first shocked exclamation, fell silent. Ambrosia decided that she, too, would be silent. She understood the pain and horror her brother and his apprentice must be feeling. To an extent she shared it. But Ambrosia was not a softhearted woman; she had never had that luxury. To preserve her own life, for the chance of helping her descendant Lathmar, for the sake of the empire she had fostered, she would ride a thousand suffering beasts like Velox to their deaths. What was necessary she would do. But she realized that Morlock and Wyrth felt differently, and she would say nothing that might lead them to act on that feeling.
    They were descending again to the ground. The horse, still shuddering, drew up all his legs at once in a very unequine manner.
    “Terrified it is, rokh tashna ,” Wyrtheorn guessed. “It may tumble us this time, Ambrosii. Get ready to jump.”
    But there was no need. At the last moment Velox swung down all four legs in a driving motion that sent them plunging forward in a long flat arc.
    “He can't be in pain,” Morlock said in a troubled voice. “And—” His voice was drowned out as Velox gave another heart-shaking scream.
    Suddenly it occurred to Ambrosia that it was not a scream of terror at all.
    She laughed. “This is all your fault, Morlock.”
    He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder—a swift luminously gray glance that said everything. Yes, he too understood.
    “What are you saying, Lady Ambrosia?” the dwarf asked.
    “We've misunderstood, you see,” she