It could not keep pace with her needs.

All that was physical, all that was living in her had to be unleashed.
Spades gained the level forest.

How the great, brown-green pines seemed to bend their lofty branches over her, protectively, understandingly.

Patches of azure-blue sky flashed between the trees.
The great white clouds sailed along with her, and shafts of golden sunlight, flecked with gleams of falling pine needles, shone down through the canopy overhead.

Away in front of her, up the slow heave of forest land, boomed the heavy thunderbolts along the battlements of the Rim.
Was she riding to escape from herself?
For no gait suited her until Spades was running hard and fast through the glades.