Falling in Love by Dusty Miller

realize there was not a single
drop of blue water as far as the eye could see. The island, the
lake, and the distant pale smudges of the lakeside villages on
distant hillsides were all gone. They were on a wide expanse of
arid flatlands, rising up in the far distant horizon into long
fingers of hills, with a fading suggestion of blue-green to
indicate that there might be trees and even water there.
    This can’t be right.
    This can’t be real.
    This wasn’t real.
    This isn’t happening to
me.
    Her mind reeled, and she opened up her
mouth to speak, but it was no good. No sound came out.
    Mouth open, she stared around,
wild-eyed in dismay. But there was no water in sight and the truth
of it was sickening. What in the blue Hades was happening
here?
    Had she finally gone mad after
all?
    It was all she could do just to hold
on.
     
     
    The Sun Was High
Overhead
     
     
    Time dragged on, four or five hours of
the morning, maybe longer considering their early start. The sun
was high overhead.
    The reality of it quickly became
apparent and this wasn’t a dream. Even so, some of the dread had
worn off.
    Any appeal due to sheer novelty the
situation might once have had, was gone now. The sun blazed in the
sky, and while the hills had gotten much closer, much bigger now,
the land between shimmered in the heat haze and the man Kenn’karr,
whether rescuer or captor, she knew not which, was conserving the
water for the horse.
    It was a logical
explanation.
    Her upper arms ached in the biceps
from holding on all frickin’ morning, and after a while her hands
dropped lower and lower. Finally, she had gotten somewhat used to
the horse’s odd gait, for occasionally it sped up for three or four
steps on its own mysterious initiative. She settled for keeping her
hands on his hips, or even grabbing onto the back of his belt. Her
curling fingers were held in place by the pressure of warm muscle
and skin.
    It was no time for
squeamishness.
    She was just stretching her back up to
her full height. They were cresting a small hillock, and she was
craning around for one last disbelieving look, to reassure herself
that the lake was indeed gone when a series of cries came from off
to the right and a decisive kick of the man’s heels sent the horse
galloping.
    It’s a good thing she was clinging to
his belt, or she would have gone off the back, and his left hand
came around and gave her a quick haul forwards. Jayne grabbed on
for dear life, gaping off to the right, which she thought was
south, to an escarpment. It was crumbling at the base and
pock-marked with caves, split and opened by fissures and cracks and
small dry watercourses coming in from the side. They’d been angling
towards it for over an hour. There was another cliff half a mile,
maybe more, to the north.
    Dull black figures, hideously painted,
almost naked they were, ran along the top of the cliff and poured
out of small hiding places along the boulder-strewn slope leading
down from the bluff.
    “ Oh, my, God!” They were
all running pell-mell with weapons of various types, some had two
or three slender spears clutched in their hands and what looked
like throwing sticks.
    They were coming straight at
them.
    They were deformed men, with long arms
and short legs and they were painted like zebras, faces etched in
horrible, multi-coloured masks. The first spear fell short and she
said a quick expletive as the horse lowered its fine-boned head,
its legs went horizontal fore and aft in one solid blur, and the
thing really took flight.
    Her barbarian friend ducked low over
the horse’s neck, arms wrapped around it, and all she could do was
cling low to his back, gasping and half-weeping, and trying not to
fall off. She thought her heart would come out of her chest. More
of the attackers raced out on an angle, trying to get out in front
of them, heading them off. She could see a notch in the valley wall
over Kenn’karr’s shoulder up ahead of them and that was the way
they all seemed