“Aye. The hound has gone after them. I will need ponies. A few men.” A small party would make for a better pursuit. “If I cannot reach them before he gains his stronghold…”
“Aye. Go. Tak’ wha’ ye need.”
“And ye.” Adair clasped the old man’s hand. “Keep alive till we return. She will need ye.”
Rohracht nodded. His wife fell upon him, fussing over the man even before Adair walked away.
With nothing more than his sword, a knife, and the flint in his pocket, Adair left Rohracht’s settlement behind. Dabhor had chosen their ponies and did his best to keep up with Adair as he rode off. Quick as they’d been, Adair feared they had lost too much time.
The ground showed evidence of Mican’s departure back through the turf and up along the rise from whence Adair and Bradana had first arrived, until the ground turned to stone and the possible trail veered in several directions. Dabhor tried to convince Adair to scout for signs, and further time was lost, all while Adair sweated.
He meant what he’d said to Rohracht. If they did not retrieve Bradana before Mican reached his own stronghold, he did not believe they could succeed in getting her back.
Mad lass with the valiant heart, throwing herself to the wolves that way.He could still see her, stepping up fearlessly. Her thoughts all for him.Him.The third son of an Erin chief with little to recommend him.
Save her love. If he ever amounted to aught, it would be her love that made him so.
Still, he thought as Dabhor scoured the ground for sign, he should have done as his first instinct argued, taken her and sailed for Erin. Got her clear away out of danger.
If he was too late…
He closed his eyes against the pain of that thought, and it seemed as if the land spread out before him.
“Alba,” he whispered, “lead me.”
A bird flew off in a flurry of wings southward, giving a wild cry.
“That way,” he told the men.
They went on over stone, across the hill, and through the forest as the day grew strong around them. They passed the site—a fire not long dead—where Mican and his men must have spent the night, waiting for dawn. That told Adair he headed the right way.
All four of them were quiet, searching for signs. No glimpse of a party ahead. No sight of Wen, upon whom rested Adair’s greatest hope.
Wen had gone ahead, and the intelligent hound could find Bradana. So long as the valiant animal did not go rushing in and get himself slain.
Help us, Adair said silently to the land itself. This wild and dark-hearted place where he’d been exiled.Save her for me.
“Master Adair,” said Dabhor, who drew his pony up. “We are veering too far west. Mican’s holding is almost due south from here.” Worry stood stark in the man’s eyes. “It will no’ tak’ much to lose them.”
“Aye.”
Adair scanned the forest ahead of them, crowded with trees and looking nearly identical in every direction.
Again he closed his eyes. “Show me.”
As soon as he opened his eyes, a flash of russet brown caught his attention. A deer slipping off.
“That way,” he said, desperation rising to near choke him. “And hurry.”
Chapter Forty-One
True, raw feardid not set in until Mican had hauled Bradana up on his pony with him and ridden away. Up till that moment she’d been so focused on saving Adair, on doing whatever she must to avoid a battle that could cost his—or her grandsire’s—life, she’d spared no actual thought for herself. Had no room for it.
Now, though, galloping headlong farther and farther away from those she loved, she looked squarely at what she’d done, and the terror came rushing in.
She would do the same over again, aye, to spare the man she loved. Only now she had to deal with the consequences.
Could she get away?
