The cries of women and children gutted Phoebe, the knots in her body so painful she shook with it. Why would a merciful God allow this carnage? Why were the English so bloodthirsty and savage? Amidst the horror, anger, and hate pulsating through her veins, guilt slithered in. If only she had gotten here a day earlier to warn them.
Her breath came in loud pants, both determination and dread riveting through her. Phoebe jumped down and smacked her horse’s rear with a gloved hand so the animal would run to safety. She hid behind a cluster of oak and alder trees at the edge of the village. Phoebe opened her oversized reticule, pulled out the poisoned blow dart from Falcon and slipped it into the pockets she’d had sewn into her cloak. She put on the black velveted vizard mask, then took out the flintlock pocket pistol she’d purchased in Fort William. She primed the pan, closed the frizzen, cocked the hammer, then loaded the powder and ball in one fluid motion.
Pistol in hand, Phoebe silently stared at the chaos. Her breathing now tight and strained. Dust from the heat and smoke debris burning her eyes. Guilt and horror twisting her gut. Not only cottages, livestock, and crops burned, but bodies as well. The smell making acid roil in her belly. Could she save any of them?
Her eyes zeroed in on two tall, broad men speaking in English colloquialism, one with the twisted, angry face of a feral dog and the other with a face like a hissing snake. Feral Dog and Hissing Snake kicked down the closed door of the last cottageat the edge of the village and rushed in. It was nearest to where Phoebe hid and quietly watched, her heart thumping. It was the only cottage not yet on fire. The breaking of furniture and screams sounded from within the cottage.
A third armed man, stockier than the others, with a blazing torch in his hands followed Feral Dog and Hissing Snake. His twisted features protruding from a bearded face struck a chord with Phoebe.
“Drag the dirty rebels out!” Bearded Face bellowed.
Phoebe froze, her skin flaring with the heat of indignation as she placed Bearded Face. She’d seen his likeness in countless Jacobite pamphlets warning of the vilest and deadliest Jacobite enemies and their atrocities. And Lieutenant General Hughes Cope of the British Army, second to General Bolingbroke, was the worst of the lot. Feral Dog emerged from the cottage, dragging a crying, fighting boy who couldn’t be more than five, and Hissing Snake followed, kicking an old man out.
“Leave her alone, ye filthy English pig. Leave her alone!” The old man cried. He was struck in the head for his insolence by Hissing Snake with the butt of a musket. The old man fell to his knees on the muddied ground.
A blood freezing scream from inside the cottage made Phoebe’s grip tighten around the flintlock pistol. It was a scream from her past, from her nightmares, like the ones she’d made herself on the moors seven years ago. As long as there was breath in her body and blood flowing through her veins, she would never stand by and let a man do to another woman what Ross had done to her. Ever.
A maelstrom of fury and wrath detonated inside her with the awe-inspiring force of a tornado. She bolted from her hiding spot, flying past Ferel Dog and Hissing Snake straight through the door of the cottage, nothing but cold adrenaline and frenzy propelling her.
“What the devil …” Feral Dog bellowed.
“Who the hell was that?” Hissing Snake shouted.
Phoebe found Bearded Face, on the ground on top of a struggling fair-haired woman, sadistic pleasure twisting his oily features. He was punching her, her skirts half hiked up. The flaming torch he previously held lay atop a now mostly scorched and upturned wooden table six or seven feet away. Hughes Cope wasn’t wearing a blood red uniform, but Phoebe saw it on him nonetheless, vile, demonic, and hedonistic like Ross’s.
Icy detachment overtook the molten fury and wrath inside Phoebe. She aimed for the dead center of his head and pulled the trigger. Her hand jerked at the kickback, a metallic pop sounding. Blood and brain tissue spilled. Her stomach lurched at the red but she steeled herself.
Phoebe pushed the slumping body off the screaming woman and hauled her up. “Come with me. I’ll get you to safety,” Phoebe said. Urgency pummeling her chest.
“Where’s my Nathanial?” the woman screamed.
“Who?” Phoebe asked, tossing the gun aside, knowing she’d be dead before she reloaded. With her now free hand, she reached for the poisoned blow dart from her cloak pocket. Feral Dog, his face twisted with cruelty, came back into the cottage dragging and hitting the five-year-old fighting boy. Phoebe blew the dart straight into the thick pulsing vein on Feral Dog’s thin-skinned neck. It would take seconds for the spider’s poison to paralyze him. He dropped the boy and clawed at his neck.
“Run. Into the forest. Run!” Phoebe shouted to the boy. The thumping of her heart drowned out the sound of her voice.
But the boy was already running towards the woman Phoebe had just rescued. “Mama! Mama!”
“Nathanial, my precious bairn!” The woman, now sobbing, grabbed the boy in a fierce hug, lifting him off the ground.
Phoebe pointed the woman and boy in the direction of the forest. “Go. Run!”
Outside the cottage, Phoebe saw the older man was now on the ground, unmoving. Bright red seeped out from a hole in his chest. Hissing Snake stood over him, pistol in hand, unrepentant disdain and savage satisfaction itched in his features.
Her own chest tightened to a degree too painful for her lungs to inflate when the boy, in his mother’s arms, saw the dead older man and cried. “Grandpa! Nooo!”
The boy’s mother simultaneously shouted, “Papa!”
Without thinking, Phoebe lifted the front of her skirt and pulled the Damascus dagger from its sheath on her thigh. With all her might, she sent it whipping through the air, end over end, straight into the windpipe of Hissing Snake, who was now ploughing towards her. The dagger sank into his throat, stopping him in his tracks. He dropped his pistol, grabbing for his neck.
No one else seemed to take notice of them amongst the rest of the chaos in the village, for which Phoebe was grateful. She was out of weapons. She ran after the darting woman, who clutched the boy and was already disappearing into the forest.
Phoebe and the woman ran as fast as they could through darkness and trees, away from the burning village for an indeterminable amount of time. They’d have the advantage of a head start if any of the English followed. Her chest tightened, her legs throbbed, and she dodged countless branches.
The woman stumbled on a tangled gorse bush and fell forward, dropping the boy. Phoebe reached down for the fallen child to aid the woman, her lungs burning with pain and stitches needling her sides. When they all stood, the woman and boy eying her with flushed faces etched with stark gratitude, she pulled the vizard off to help with her quickening breath.
Just then, the dark silhouette of a tall, broad-shouldered man emerged from the trees ahead of them. Survival instinct and the need to protect made her step in front of the boy and his mother.
“Fifi?” The silhouette said in a hard tone.
