“Let me go!” Caitlin cried, fighting him. “I have to help these people!”
“Ye’ve done all ye can,” he growled, his grip tightening. “Bella will do the rest. See there? Alice’s men are coming. Who do ye suppose they are looking for? If we stay here, we’ll be captured! Ye canna help anyone if ye are dead!”
Caitlin blinked and saw a group of mounted men cantering cautiously into the carnage, looking around as if searching for something.
“Kai!” a voice cried, and Caitlin saw Conall and the rest of Kai’s band some distance away, helping injured people to the healer’s tent.
Kai glanced at the riders who were drawing steadily nearer, and Caitlin could see the indecision on his face. The riders were between Kai and his men.
“Get out of here!” he bellowed at them. “Diving Osprey! Diving Osprey! Dun Cator!”
Caitlin had no idea what he was talking about, but the words seemed to mean something to the others. Conall nodded, then they turned and limped off in the other direction, losing themselves amidst the wreckage before Alice’s men could see them.
Kai took Caitlin’s arm, and marched her in the other direction, weaving between the debris and away from the riders. Suddenly, he halted.
“Thank ye, Lord,” he muttered.
Magnus’s horse was up ahead. Miraculously, the beast seemed unharmed, but she had gotten the reins tangled around a post, which is probably the only reason she hadn’t bolted as far away as she could get.
As it was, the horse’s flanks were lathered with sweat and her eyes rolled in terror. Kai released his grip on Caitlin and approached the beast slowly, talking soothingly. At first, the horse stamped and tried to back away, but as Kai reached her and began slowly stroking her nose, she began to calm.
Carefully, Kai untangled the reins. “Good girl. Naught to worry about now.”
He glanced anxiously back the way they’d come. Caitlin couldn’t see Alice’s men anymore, but she knew they would be coming.
With a quick movement, Kai secured the reins then turned back to Caitlin. “Up ye go,” he said urgently, holding his hands out to give her a boost. Caitlin put her foot in his hands and let him help her up into the saddle.
Kai grabbed the horse’s mane and swung himself up onto her back, settling into the saddle behind Caitlin. He wrapped one arm around her, holding her tight against his chest as he kicked the horse lightly and the beast broke into a trot, eager to get away.
Kai guided them carefully through the wreckage and away from Alice’s men, moving as quickly as possible.
Caitlin didn’t want to look, but couldn’t help herself. Her eyes darted through the wreckage, seeing the dead and the injured, hearing the cries as people called out for loved ones. She felt as if she was abandoning them.
I’m sorry, she thought. She hoped that Bella could do what was needed.
As they made their way further away from the site of the explosion, the wreckage began to recede and they passed through areas untouched by the devastation. Here they encountered frightened people looking around in bewilderment, calling to each other to find out what had happened.
“Send word to the local sheriff,” Kai told them. “And the laird. If any of ye are skilled with healing, go help the injured. Ask for a woman named Bella. She could use yer aid.”
Finally, they reached the edge of the fair and Kai nudged the horse to a faster pace. Soon they were galloping through the trees, faster than Caitlin had ever ridden before. She clung tightly to the saddle horn as they raced through a stretch of thick forest until finally, they burst out onto a wide open plain.
Here Kai pulled up the horse and turned around to face back the way they’d come. They’d traveled so far that the fair—or what remained of it—was barely visible in the distance. Kai’s gaze swept the landscape below, his expression full of fury and determination.
“I dinna think we’ve been followed,” he said at last. “But we canna linger. They still might be able to pick up our trail.”
For a long time, they rode in silence, Kai’s arm still around Caitlin.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said suddenly.
She looked over her shoulder at him. “Like what?”
“Like what ye did for that woman. Like the way ye organized everyone, treated those people’s injuries. Ye didnae tell me ye were a healer.”
Caitlin said nothing for a long time. “I was a paramedic,” she admitted at last.
“A paramedic?” The word sounded strange on his lips. “Is that a healer?”
“In a way. I attended accidents or when people were taken ill suddenly. It’s what I trained to do before...before I ended up here. That’s how I knew it was gunpowder in Alfred’s barrels. I’d seen it before because we were trained to recognize explosives in case of terrorist attack.”
