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Page 260
to help with the horses. He glanced anxiously at the buildings across the road and growled curses again at the flickers of light behind the windows. They were burning from the back already. He raised a shout to abandon whatever was not yet packed and get to horse. Then, just as his voice died, as if it had been playing with him, giving the illusion of a chance of safety, the wind rose again. In minutes, the buildings were gutted and in front of the appalled eyes of the men and women rushing out of the house, a sheet of flame burst out through the roofs with a roar that drowned even the shriek of terror that rose with the fire.
Geoffrey could never remember what had happened in the next few minutes. The milling horses and shrieking people, the wall of fire that roared and leapt, sticking out long tongues of flame toward them as if in derision of their puny efforts to save themselves, the wild physical effort of forcing struggling, hysterical women into the arms of men nearly as helpless with fear and onto the backs of fighting, rearing horses all blended inextricably into a mad nightmare of futility. Yet it was not futile. Somehow everyone was cleared out of the house, mounted, and driven out past the worst of the burning.
In the relative quiet of a churchyard in an area from which everyone seemed to have fled, reason and order were restored. Geoffrey and Tostig took hasty council together, examining the sky because they were out of sight of any flames, and trying to judge in which direction the fire was spreading. They agreed that it was moving north and east toward them but that it was hopeless to try to go west because the flames had reached the river on that side.
"I am afraid we will never get to the bridge before the fire does," Geoffrey said. "The roads will be choked a mile back, and with this bunch of fools that will begin to scream and weep and frighten the horses, I dare not take a chance on being caught. Let us try to ride south and see if we cannot come around behind the flames to a safe place."
The cavalcade got under way again but did not advance far. Soon their way was blocked by men and horses retreat-

 
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