Soon her crying slowed and she sat there, aware she was completely alone. She closed her eyes.Fergus....And she started crying again, giant sobs that wracked her body.
Looking up, the huge crown of the tall trees made her feel small and lost. She took long, deep breaths to calm herself.
He was a strong hound. Perhaps....
Haunting her was the image of him wounded yet trying to get up to protect her. She could see his sad eyes as she told him to stay. Was he alive still? She had to know.
“Foolish hound…stealing chickens,” she muttered miserably, rubbing her ankle. And Skye was most likely still tied to a tree, she thought. Sitting there crying was doing no good. They both needed her and she needed them.
With a sense of determination she stood and dusted the leaves off her trouse, and she began to walk, hobble really, since she accepted that she could not run, at least run well. She had been walking a while before she realized that her ankle no longer sent shooting pains up her leg and the dull ache was waning.
The shed was far up into the forest on the opposite side of the valley and below a tall ridgeline of granite that stood to the south. Keeping to the woods kept her hidden, but how long before they discovered she was gone? Could she still run if she were forced to? She had no pain and she could walk.
Be thankful, Glenna, for that, she thought. She trudged on, looking up at the sky through the trees to judge the daylight, aware there was still more than half the day left. She could make it before nightfall. One step in front of another over leaves and mulch as the sun slowly moved across the broad blue sky.
Eventually she crossed into a clearing with hard-packed ground that made her ankle ring with dull pain. The trees grew thicker and needles covered the ground and less and less light shone through to the forest floor. She licked her lips, which were as dry as her throat and tongue. She needed water, but shemoved on. There was water in the shed. She’d pulled it from the stream near where she had tied Skye.
Fergus…please be safe. Please be alive. She concentrated on walking…walking…. walking…walking…. Mouth dry. She just needed to get there. She had to get there.
A sharp, distant sound broke her focus. She glanced up to see nothing, then quickly darted behind a nearby tree and paused only a rapid heartbeat before she moved to another with a low branch, swung up, scrambling higher and up into the thicker branches, into heavier leaves, hugging the trunk before carefully settling quietly into a crook. Her heart was thudding in her ears as she tried to listen.
For a long time there was nothing. She slowly counted. Waiting. Listening.
The noise sounded again. The softest of sounds…just a barest crushing of a step. A horse? Boots?
Suddenly as quickly as it had come, the sound disappeared and there was a strange almost heavy silence, as if all the birds had flown away and there was no life in the forest but hers and whomever was out there.
Again she held her breath, ears sharpened, listening. There was nothing. She dared not move and she took short shallow, quiet breaths, afraid to give herself away.
There it was again…so close this time: the softest of footfalls.
Someone was below the tree.
She heard him breathe.
Oh Lord… She shifted ever-so-slightly to try to look through a small opening in the thick leaves.
“Hallo?” came the voice of Montrose.
Lud!Glenna’s heart jumped into her throat.
Was it really him? She sagged forward as if her bones disappeared and clung to the tree branch.
“How long are you planning to stay up there?”
“Montrose! It is you!”
His voice had come from the back side of the tree. “Montrose!” she called his name as she scrambled from the branches, sliding down the tree trunk before she hobbled to him. Nothing could have stopped her as she threw her arms around him. “You are here… Montrose, Montrose, you are here…”
He pulled her up against him. “Ouch!” He stepped back quickly, rubbing his chest. “Whatisthat?”
Glenna pulled the silver, jewel-encrusted chalice from beneath her tunic and held it up. “A gift from Munro.”
Lyall took the cup, frowning at it as he twirled it in his hands, then held it up. “Look there. Is that hair?”
Strands of coarse brown hair were caught in the large rubies on one side. “Most likely. Before I escaped, Munro’s head came in hard contact with it.”
He smiled slightly and handed her back the chalice, one arm still protectively around her. Looking down at her, his expression became almost unreadable. He seemed to be searching her face for something important and he raised his hand tenderly to her cheek, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. “I want to beat you senseless for running away.” His expression and tone belied his words, spoken tenderly and without anger.
