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Page 272
so violently that she could not utter a sound.
Suddenly, the street was full of a cloud of ash so thick that Joanna could barely see and some of it was so hot that she felt as if her hands and face were being stung by a myriad of tiny bees. Dimly, she heard Knud shout in alarm, but a roarthe mindless malevolent bellow of a crowd gone maddrowned his voice. Then Knud's horse reared and screamed. Instinctively, Joanna's hand tightened on the lead rein. It would have been wiser to release the animal, but she had no time to think of that. Her own mare reared also, and as Joanna curbed her sharply, she lashed out and struck Knud's horse slantwise on the shoulder. That blow, added to the pain of a burning smut which had landed on his rump panicked the horse completely. With a second scream of terror, the animal pulled away to obey instinct and flee from pain and fear, wrenching the rein from Joanna's hand with such force that she was nearly torn from the saddle.
Knud had run back up the street when the first gust of hot ash had been sucked into the lane by an errant downdraft. He was just in time to see his horse tear free and gallop off toward the Chepe. His eyes were on his mount; he did not realize that Joanna's own rein had also been wrenched from her hand and that she had lost a stirrup. In fact, his mistress rode as well as he did, and it never occurred to him that she could be in trouble. His one thought was to recapture his horse before it hurt itself. He did not hear Joanna's startled cry as her mare bolted, terrified by a suddenly loose rein, a smell of fresh fire, and the odor of panic that rose from hundreds of people.
The animal knew only one thingthe scents that generated fear came from behind. Without her mistress's guidance, Joanna's mare flew before her terror, away from the smell of fire and fear and toward the smell of water. She ran straight for the water, indifferent to the bends of the lane except to avoid running headlong into a solid object. At the second bend, Joanna's frail hold upon her saddle was lost, and she was flung against the corner of a building and thence to the ground to lie still like a broken doll.

 
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