He cast about for a hiding place. The onion field was a shallow, bowl-shaped depression between three hills, about thirty paces long and half that wide. Other than Tol himself, the only thing in it that morning was a chest-high pile of compost his father had dumped the day before. Formed from the family’s refuse collected all winter, mixed with the scrapings of the chicken coop, it was a malodorous heap.
Tol didn’t hesitate: He sprinted for the compost pile, leaping nimbly over the newly turned sod. Better to lie in filth than be trampled by a warrior’s charger, or hacked to death by an iron sword!
Before he reached cover, a lone horse appeared in the cleft below the north hill. Tol’s panicked dash halted abruptly when he spied the coal-black beast. It was an enormous animal, and it was riderless.
When the horse galloped by, eyes bulging, teeth bared, foamy sweat streaking its ebony neck, Tol saw why it was so terrified. Gripping the animal’s mane was a man’s hand, fingers tightly knotted into the long strands. Severed below the elbow, the limb thudded rhythmically against the horse’s neck. Blood stained the blaze on the horse’s chest.
Hardly had the first runaway steed gone by when two more rounded the base of the hill. Neighing frantically, they weaved this way and that, almost colliding. They shied from Tol and cantered off. One animal had a wound on its rump, but neither bore a rider, or even part of one.
Someone blew a ram’s horn close by. The sudden blast sent Tol scrambling again for the compost pile. With the wooden blade of his hoe, he began hacking out a niche large enough to hide in.
He’d made only a shallow hole when a fourth horse appeared. Unlike the others, this animal had a rider, slumped forward over its neck. The horse came on at a steady trot. He was a magnificent stallion, broad and strong, the color of morning mist. Heavy mail trapping coated him from head to tail, the small iron rings sewn to rich crimson cloth. He came directly to the amazed Tol, and stopped. The reins fell from the unmoving rider’s hands.