"Come on," he called again to his straining team, and he cracked the whip once more.

Good fortune got them through the straight section of road without any serious entanglements, but Harkin knew that the flagstone path twisted and wound around many stones and trees, down into dells and into sharp-cornered turns over ridges. "Bah!" He snorted in dismay, and he pulled back hard on the reins, bringing the coach to an abrupt halt. Before the wheels had even fully stopped turning, Harkin looped the reins about the bench seat and leaped to the ground. "Stay inside, my prince!" he cried to Yeslnik as he ran past the door's open window and around the back of the coach.

He followed the rope to the grapnel, and found it secured underneath the carriage. Cunning powries, indeed! They hadn't hit the coach with a spear or anything like that, but rather had set a trap in the road to hook it from beneath.

Harkin started to bend and even dropped to one knee, starting under the coach frame to free it, but the thought of crawling on the ground, so vulnerably, with powries closing, had him gasping for breath. Instead, he drew out his short bronze sword and began hacking at the rope with all his might.

"You fool! What are you doing?" cried the prince, leaning out and hanging on the now-opened door. "Why have you stopped? I am the nephew of the Laird of Delaval!"

"We cannot go, my liege," poor Harkin tried to explain. He hacked with all his strength, and finally the rope snapped. Yeslnik saw it and cried out in dismay, and then he saw a spear come arcing in and hit the coach near Harkin.

"Get back in, I beg you, my liege!" Harkin cried, and this time Yeslnik didn't argue.

Harkin scrambled around the coach and back up into his seat. If he could just get them moving…