“Here. Push up closer behind me,” she gasped to Orle. “Hug the pony with your knees. Hold to me, tighter.”
She moved off, though not as swiftly, toward a line of trees on the northern horizon. How far off was their cover? She could not tell, with everything blurred and gray. Farther, mayhap, than it looked. The rain might help obscure their tracks. Then again, the pony’s hooves might leave deep marks anywhere he trod in mud.
Naught to be done about it.
The pony seemed to have settled to her will, and Orle clutched her fiercely. Darlei increased the pace a little, doubt and hope warring inside her. If they did manage to elude any pursuit…
They had nothing. Not so much as a cloak between them. No food. No flask for water. Not even a flint.
Nowhere to go.
Her heart bade her to head for Murtray. Find Deathan. He would help her. But could he, with MacNabh being her husband?
Mayhap not. She would have to look after herself. And Orle. But oh, it would break her heart if never she saw him again.
*
The breath surgedin Deathan’s lungs and he cursed himself again for failing to fetch his pony. But he would run forever, if it meant finding Darlei. He had soon lost sight of MacNabh and his party, falling behind. And the world seemed a mad place, devoid of direction.
How did MacNabh know which way to head?
The party had originally ridden roughly northward, after studying the ground. Deathan followed the trail left by MacNabh’s ponies. But he was alone, stranded in a world that contained naught but sodden turf, bracken, and wet. Rivulets ran in all directions, the water tumbling down from higher ground. Streams where none had been before. He leaped them, wondering what he would do if he caught up to MacNabh. To MacNabh and Darlei.
He wanted to kill the man.
But he could not, not in front of MacNabh’s men. Not unless he could convince MacNabh to finish the fight they’d begun back in the stables. A fair fight.
His sodden hair slapped against his back with every step. His boots were heavy with wet, and the rain ran down his face like tears, but he loped on. How much of a head start had Darlei got?
If she made it away from MacNabh, he would find her. Find her even if it took him the rest of his life. They would live wild as vagabonds if they must. So long as they were together.
He gave a fleeting thought to his mother, whom he might nevermore see alive.Mam.Those bonds were strong.
Was it true that they met with the same people, the same souls, life after life? If so, he might hope to meet with his mam again.
She’d been so ill when he left. By all that was holy, he hoped he would meet her in some other life, if not this one. Would feel the love and comfort of her presence.
It seemed, as he ran along that trail toward either failure or his future, that he could feel his life—his lives—stretching behind him, the places he had been and the deeds he had done reaching back and back, as night extended past the mist of morning. He ran a line connecting the long-ago with the future. He must believe. If he failed to reach Darlei now, the wheel would turn and they would, aye, meet again. He must hold that as his reality.
But och, he wanted her now.
Ahead, he thought he caught a hint of movement and paused, his lungs working like bellows. Through the rain he could just glimpse a row of trees, dark through the gray. Was that where Darlei had gone? If so, she might have a chance, once under cover.
He blinked furiously and thought he saw three blurry forms hesitating there. The grass ahead was thick. Perhaps MacNabh and his men sought to determine which way the women had gone.
He must be there, if and when MacNabh found them. He must be in position to draw his sword and challenge the man, end it once and for all.
He drew breath and ran on.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Dark gathered beneaththe trees, a dense stand of fir, but the higher branches shut out some of the rain that had hit Darlei’s skin so hard it felt fit to flay her. Perhaps, she thought a bit frantically, it merely began to grow dark.
How would they see to ride when dark did fall? Oh, but their situation proved perilous. MacNabh followed them. That was,someonefollowed. She’d stolen a glance over her shoulder at one point and seen blurry shapes behind. She could not tell who it was. But it would be MacNabh or his men.
“Can we stop?” Orle begged in Darlei’s ear. “I do not think I can hold on.” Her arms, tight around Darlei’s body, trembled with strain.
“Nay.” Darlei could say no more.
