43

You leap from the saddle, narrowly avoiding being pulled off the tree-bridge. Your horse and the hideous creature both disappear from view, quickly swallowed up by the spray from the waterfall. As you land on the slippery wet wood, Paido’s horse rears up on its hind legs, its forelegs kicking the air and its eyes rolling madly. He fights to control the animal but it is wild with fear and, with a crack of splintering wood, its hind hoof shears through a rotten branch; it totters on the brink. Paido swings his legs clear and abandons his doomed horse barely seconds before it falls into the watery abyss.

Turn to 31.