The wagon went north up the middle of the riverbed with everything closing on it.
Gravel turned and slid under the rims in a constant grinding rattle. The bay was fighting the harness every third stride and Halden had both arms locked on the reins with his boots against the footboard. Dust hung in the air behind them and did not settle, because there was no wind down there to move it.
Ghouls came down both banks in loose lines, picking their way through the scree, unhurried, forty or fifty of them spread across two hundred metres of eroded wall.
More came up the bed behind, out from between the standing stones.
James had the three skeletons walking inside two metres of the wheels. Ronan had not left the driver's board. Finn was fighting backward alongside the tailboard rather than forward. Cillian had the whole open bed to shoot down and was using it. Maeve stood at the front wheel with one hand on the frame, calling sides.
