But which way to turn? Then, despairing of
what to do next, she seemed to hear a distant roaring.
A waterfall.
The black stallion's muzzle and forequarters were flecked white with
foam, and his neck was streaked with blood. His flanks were heaving
from his exertions and injuries. Loathe to go on like this, she turned
him and rode down another little dip and then up again to the next
higher rise. She was ascending a rising series of gently rolling grassy
steppes, interspersed by long wide strips of gently sloping meadows and
successive narrow courses of green trees.
Then she came to the last rise, and slowed her horse again.
The muted, distant sound of the waterfall became an open roar as she
pulled her horse abruptly to a dead halt barely in time, before she
would have plunged over a steep drop-off.
The waterfall upstream descended in a streak of white from the crest
above, arcing and fanning out majestically from a high ridge. At the
waterfall's base shimmered a wide pool, whence emerged the continuation
of the deep fast-flowing stream before her. The undercurrent sucked and
churned violently as it passed immediately below her position.
After much hesitation, Si'Wren pulled gently on one of her reins,
turning her steed upstream towards the waterfall, as she brought in her
heels and pressed lightly against the black's heaving flanks, urging
him forward along the edge of the bank, seeking some way to get safely
down and across.
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