Terror shot through her and she tried to throw herself out of the way but her body didn’t seem to want to work properly. She was only able to crawl a few paces before she collapsed again.
The wagon driver shouted something and the horses whinnied as they skidded to a halt just a few paces away. Her heart was pounding in her chest, her skull was slowly splitting in half, but she still had the presence of mind to think,what is a cart doing up here on the plateau?
“Have ye lost yer wits?” the wagon driver bellowed. “I could have trampled ye!”
The driver—a large, fat man with wobbling jowls—climbed down from the cart and advanced on her. He was dressed in a blue tunic and matching pants and with some kind of tartan wrap around his torso.
“Sorry,” Caitlin muttered. “I...um...came over all funny.”
“Funny?” the man shouted. “Is that what ye call it? I’d call it downright bloody stupid!”
The headache was starting to recede, dissipating as quickly as it had arrived. Maybe she was coming down with something. That would explain the headache and the disorientation. If that was the case, she needed to get back to the hotel as soon as possible. The thought of a hot meal, warm bath, then curling up in bed had never been so appealing.
Bracing her palms on the damp ground, she climbed carefully up to standing. A wave of dizziness shot through her and for a second, she thought she might fall again, but she gritted her teeth, took deep breaths until it slowly passed, and she was able to look around.
She was still in the copse of oaks, but the trees looked different. They were smaller for a start, with much more undergrowth beneath them. They went on for as far as she could see and there was no sign of the cliff and the lowlands beyond.
She frowned, confused. There were other strange things too. The wagon was wooden and seemed to have no engine. It had large, spoked wheels and was pulled by two massive horses that looked like Clydesdales. What kind of farmers used wagon and horses these days? Most used tractors, surely?
The fat man was still yelling at her. He was gesticulating wildly, his face red with anger. She caught snatches of what he was saying: “... bloody fool woman ... be at home with the bairns not wandering the countryside ...”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, hoping to placate him. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I just got a little disoriented, that’s all.”
The man snorted. “Disoriented? Ye’re a daftie, that’s what ye are. What are ye even wearing, lass?”
Caitlin glanced down at herself. She was wearing her climbing gear; leggings and top, harness, carabiners, and hands in their fingerless gloves. The gear reminded her that she needed to get back down the cliff before it got too dark.
“I’m a rock climber,” she explained.”I came up to the plateau and—” she trailed off, scratching her head. And what? None of this looked familiar. Had she fallen down and hit her head? Was that why this all looked so strange? “I...um...I seem to have gotten a bit lost.”
“Rock-climbing?” the fat man said incredulously. “What kind of madwoman are ye?”
He was beginning to get on her nerves. Okay, so she’d nearly caused an accident but that wasn’t an excuse to be such an asshole about it, was it? And besides, he was a fine one to talk about what she was wearing. Had he looked in a mirror lately? His blue tunic ensemble and tartan wrap looked like he’d hired it from a fancy-dress shop.
“I just need to figure out where I am and then I’ll be on my way, okay?” she snapped. She slung her pack from her shoulder, rooted around inside and took out her GPS tracker. It would tell her exactly where she’d wandered to and how to get back to the cliff.
The man’s eyes widened when he saw the device in her hands. “What is that?”
“It’s just my GPS,” she said, holding it up so he could see the screen.
A look of terror stretched his features. He quickly made the sign of the cross. “This thing be demon-sent!” He lunged and knocked the GPS out of her hand, sending it falling to the ground a few paces away.
“Witchcraft!” he bellowed, staggering back. “Witchcraft!” He turned and Caitlin saw there was a second man, sat on a horse and wearing a low-brimmed hat, watching the encounter in silence. “Conall! Do something! She’s a witch!”
“I beg your pardon?” Caitlin said incredulously. “Is that some kind of joke? And what the hell do you think you’re doing, knocking my GPS away like that? You could have broken it, you idiot!” She took a step towards him but he backed away, face pale and sweaty.
“Conall! Do what I pay ye to do and save me!”
But the man in the wide-brimmed hat didn’t move and it was pulled so low that Caitlin couldn’t see his face. The fat man stared at him for a second, gave a loud ‘harrumph’, turned to climb back onto his wagon—then stopped abruptly.
A third man—one Caitlin hadn’t seen approach—was sitting on the wagon seat, a giant of a man with midnight hair and a short black beard. He grinned at the fat man and gave him a jaunty wave.
“Going somewhere?”
The fat man’s eyes grew wide. “Where did ye come from? Conall!” he yelled. “Bandits!”
Now the hat-wearing man looked up and Caitlin got a glimpse of gray eyes in a tanned face. “Actually,” the man said in a smooth voice. “These are my friends.”
The fat man gaped and spun around in a circle. Caitlin looked around too and saw that two other men had emerged from the trees. One was a flame-haired man with twin swords—swords?—strapped across his back, and the other was a tall man with a mop of messy blond hair and stubble on his chin. All of them were dressed as strangely as the fat man. What the hell?
