“Got ye!” he said with a broad toothy grin. Dropping to his knees, he grabbed her hands as she raised them to try to fendhim off, wrenching at the ties of his breeches with his other hand. “I’ll have first taste, and the lads can have a go once I’ve sapped yer strength, lassie!”
Oh nae, ye won’t!Taking aim with her knee, she jerked it upwards between his legs and got him hard in the gaowán. He doubled up with an oath, his face going red.
“Ye fooking bitch!” he screamed and lunged at her, but she rolled away and scrambled to her feet. With a quick look around, she sank into a crouch and waited as he clambered to his feet clumsily and lumbered at her with a howl of fury. She grabbed his flailing arm and flipped him onto his back hard enough to wind him. As he came down with a heavy thud, his head hit a large tree branch with a severe crack, and he lay still.
Breathing hard, she waited a moment and then approached him cautiously. His head lay at an odd angle and his eyes were open, staring sightless at the canopy overhead.
Her stomach turned over, and she backed away with a whimper.
The mare was standing a ways off, her withers shivering and her head down. Aihan caught her bridle, did her best to sooth the beast, and mounted, her limbs shaking with shock and reaction. It had become very dark under the canopy, and a loud crack of thunder overhead was the only warning she got before the roar of heavy rain hitting the trees shrouded her in a wall of sound.
The rain was so heavy it penetrated the canopy, and she was soaked in minutes. It was so dark she could barely see with the lack of light and the blinding rain. She had little idea in which direction the road lay, nor if more of the men might stumble across her as she tried to navigate her way through the maze of trees, and prayed to the Great Spirit that the mare would not sprain a leg in a hidden pothole or stumble over a fallen branch.
It felt like over an hour later that she finally emerged at the edge of the forest into open fields. The light was grey, and greatheavy clouds loured overhead, still disgorging rain, although the intensity had eased back a bit. It made no difference; she was soaked anyway and shivering with cold and shock. Her hands and feet were numb, and even her face, into which the rain pelted, felt numb with cold.
She pulled the mare up for a moment to try to get her bearings. She was on the crest of a ridge which dropped away to the right and left. Ahead the ground rose higher, and the trees were behind her. By her best guess, the road should be to her right. She turned the mare and began the descent down the slope, hoping to find the road and not the remainder of her pursuers.
She found both. Emerging out of the rapidly worsening light, the shapes of two riders moving down the road brought her up short. There was nowhere to hide, and if she could see them, surely, they could see her if they turned their heads and looked. As she sat there, two more emerged from the gloom on the other side of the road, and one called out to the others something in Gaelic that she couldn’t understand.
The two on the road paused for the other two to catch up. All four of them then continued on the road, talking among themselves, seemingly oblivious to her presence. She was just beginning to relax her tense muscles when a prickle down her spine alerted her to danger. She turned in the saddle as a fifth horseman loomed up out of the dark behind her and shouted to the other men. For a moment she thought it was the one she had done battle with under the trees come back to life, but then she registered that this one was of slimmer build and lacked the bushy beard of the group’s leader.
She had little time to react, as his shout had alerted the others to her presence, and they swarmed up off the road to surround her with their horses. She was penned in by five men closing in on her.
She pulled the mare up into a rear. The beast kicked out with a loud whinny, then charged through the gap between two horsemen as Aihan urged her on with violent kicks, riding hard down the remaining slope for the road and disappearing—she hoped—into the gathering gloom as the men behind her shouted in confusion and gave chase.
Damn it, she couldn’t outrun them, their horses were bigger. She dived off the road on the other side, plunging into a thicket of brambles that scratched both her and the mare, causing the mare to scream in pain. She winced, but forced the mare forward through the brambles and out the other side. The mare could break a leg in the dark like this, but perhaps the men would hesitate to follow her for the same reason.
She heard their shouts behind her as they hit the brambles and, judging from their curses and the receding sounds, they had decided to pull back. With a sigh of relief, she slowed the mare to a walk and plodded forward for some distance, shivering in the saddle. The rain had eased, but it was full dark now, and she had little idea where the road was from here.
A sharp wind cut an icy swathe through her wet clothing, and she huddled over the mare for warmth. Reaction was setting in and fatigue sapped her strength. Her numb hands had trouble gripping the reins, and they slipped from her fingers. She tried to grasp the pommel, and she felt her body slipping in the saddle. The little burst of fear woke her up and she jerked upright in fright and stared into the gloom, trying to penetrate the darkness.
She looked up and saw a pale bit of cloud above, a thin wisp covering the moon; as she watched, it dissipated and the moon, round and majestic, peeked through the clouds and shed a silvery light over the rain-soaked landscape. Deep shadows thrown into strong contrast with the silvered highlights ofglistening tree branches to her right and up ahead told her she was heading for another stand of trees.
She turned to the left, which was, she hoped, the direction of the road. Praying that the light would continue long enough for her to find it again, she pushed the poor mare forward. Clinging stubbornly to the pommel with her numb fingers and keeping her back straight, she peered ahead. When she hit the road again, she sagged in the saddle with a relief so strong it brought tears to her eyes. She kept moving forward, swaying in the saddle with fatigue, her only thought to keep moving until she found some form of civilisation. Out here in the cold and the dark in the soaked terrain, smelling strongly of earth and water, she felt as if she were the only person alive in the world.
She had been alone a lot in her life, but she had never felt so lonely as she did in that moment. The knowledge that Liang was dead bit deep, and the pall of grief that had receded while she fought for her life came creeping back, enveloping her in its dark embrace. A fierce longing for the warmth and strength of Mac’s arms swamped her and her throat tightened, but she swallowed the ache, refusing to give into the tears that threatened. Thinking of him only underscored her loneliness out here in the dark and wet and cold. Lost and alone in a foreign land. She blinked, her vision blurring, her senses swimming.
The moon’s cold light continued to illuminate her path forward, and she just held on, swaying in the saddle, her heart beating in time with the mare’s steps.
A shout from behind her jerked her out of her daze, her heart jolting into a race, and she looked back over her shoulder to see a figure on horseback getting closer. Terror gripped her, and she urged the poor mare forward. But the animal was spent and could manage no more than a limping trot.
Then her ears caught the content of the shout: “Aihan!”
Mac!Had her longing conjured him? Or was she asleep and dreaming?Her heart clenched, and she scrabbled at the mare’s reins and pulled her to a standstill. The animal gratefully stumbled to a stop and stood, her withers shivering and legs trembling, her head down, blowing through her nose. Aihan clung to the pommel, trying to fathom how he could be here in the dark and the cold and the wet miles from home.How has he found me?She swayed, tears of relief stinging her eyes and clogging her throat.
“Aihan!” He brought his horse alongside hers and then his arms were round her, and she collapsed against his solid warmth. She was shaking with cold, shock, and relief, shedding wracking sobs into his chest as he hauled her bodily from the mare’s saddle into his lap.
“I have ye love, hush!” he soothed. “It’s alright, Hana, I have ye!” His lips pressed kisses to the wet hood of her cloak, and his hand ran down her back as his arms held her tight.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Col’s relief at finding her alive was rapidly becoming displaced by alarm at the state she was in. She was soaked and shivering violently, wracked by sobs that tore his heart in two. He reached into his pocket for the flask of whisky he carried, removed the cap, and offered it to her. “Here, lass, take a sip of this, it’ll warm ye.”
She took the flask and drank. Coughing, she lowered the flask and gasped then drank again. Slightly shocked, he took the flask back and rubbed her back as she collapsed against his chest with a sort of moan. He took a quick swig himself for he was cold as well, though not soaked through as she was, his plaid kept dry by his oiled cloak. Then reaching round her, he recapped the flask and slipped it back into his pocket.
Rearranging her in his lap, he took the mare’s reins and turned both horses back towards Teviothead. He had no very clear idea of how long he had been trailing her, but he thought it was at least three hours, maybe longer. The darkness had closed in early because of the appalling weather, forcing him to a slower pace than he wanted. His main priority now was to get her somewhere warm and dry. He thought he had spied a buildingjust off the road a little way back when the moon had come out—perhaps a barn?
Watching the side of the road for a sight of the barn, he didn’t see the group of riders up ahead until they were almost upon him. Five men on horseback, one leading another horse with a long object slung over its back. The moon chose that moment to emerge fully from the clouds and illuminate the scene in bright silver light. Six men on horseback—how many of them were roaming this road tonight? A cold prickle ran down his spine and his arm instinctively tightened round Aihan, making her raise her head and look ahead.
