"Cole, check in with me every hour, but keep your mind open for a call if you can," Iris told the Mentalist in a low voice. Before leaving the castle, she'd changed back into her rainbow armour and cloak, golden side out, and replaced her pouch and daggers on her belt, adding her gauzy performing gown to the pouch's contents. "If there's trouble, I'll signal with 'red alert', okay?" She looked up just in time to see a magnificent jet-black horse trot out of a wall of Rose's smoke, wearing the fanciest tack she had ever seen on a live horse (merry-go-round ones didn't count)."Wait up, Rose!" Iris called as the Storyteller passed out props, then mounted and scooped up the Starbuckian. "Wouldn't it be out of character for just one of us to have a horse? Either we should all be mounted or riding in a wagon or we shouldn't have any horses."
If Rose or Kimmy heard, they didn't answer. Iris scanned the area and saw some horses on a ridge not far away. With silent gratitude to a talented man who'd died in an accident shortly after she'd added some of his CDs to her collection, she put her fingers to her lute strings and began playing and singing, knowing she couldn't duplicate his concert but hoping his song would help her.
"Horses are creatures who worship the Earth.
They gallop on feet of ivory.
Constrained by the wonder of dying and birth,
The horses still run, they are free.
"My body is merely the shell of my soul,
But the flesh must be given its due.
Like a pony that carries its rider back home;
Like an old friend who's tried and been true.
"I had a vision of eagles and horses
High on a ridge in a race with the wind.
Goin' higher and higher, faster and faster,
On eagles and horses I'm flying again."
One horse raised its head as if it heard her call, then another, until there were enough for all the newcomers. Iris felt a questioning presence in her mind.
*We go to face Venger in the guise of wandering performers and a back-up rescue party, to rescue a child and recover stolen goods! Will you aid us?* she asked.
The question changed to an unvoiced agreement, and the horses galloped toward the group. Iris turned to face the others.
"By all the Gods!" gasped Halphas. "She DOES carry the lute of lore!"
"Venger can neither control nor destroy it," Salmack mused.
Iris made careful mental notes of the guardsmen's words. *Better keep a close eye on Salmack,* she thought, hoping Cole might sense her concerns. "I think they'll be tame for us to ride," the Minstrel told her friends. "Just be careful and treat them with respect."
"Why couldn't you have been part of our group from the beginning?" Sheila asked rhetorically.
Iris smiled a bit wistfully. "The album I took that song from came out in 1995, and I don't know how much older the song itself is. Besides, back then I wasn't into John Denver's music."
Since Rose had halted her horse when she heard hoofbeats, but merely paused and waited for the others when she saw what was going on, she was still in sight. A quick improvisational song later, and the horses for the "traveling performers" wore trappings similar to the ones Rose's steed had, but of lesser quality. The horses for the rescue force/back-up wore plain, sturdy tack.
"NOW we can go." Iris swung into her saddle and the others of her group followed. Together, they rode after Rose, while those who would stay behind made their preparations.
((Is this okay? I figured we'd cover more ground quicker and have a better chance if all of us were mounted. The horses Iris summoned are normal horses, the equivalent of riding horses for the "performers" and light war horses for the rescue party. The lyrics are from "Eagles and Horses", from the John Denver two-CD set The Wildlife Concert.))
