Not as it would have many lifetimes ago.
Better yet, the darkness of the wood was just ahead. Wispy fingers of mist swirled there, almost luminous in the fast descent of the gloaming. A few more steps and the shadows would engulf him, erasing his presence until he chose to show himself again.
Much as the purpose of that next meeting galled him.
Not that it mattered.
He had no choice, after all.
And whether the Raven acted on his warning or nae, the outcome would remain the same.
Entirely in his favor.
Pleased — if such a one as he could ever truly be so — the figure stepped into the trees.
And as soon as he did, night began to fall on Dare.
Chapter Twelve
Ronan held back a curse as his little cavalcade jingled through the scudding mist. He stared into the gloom, his jaw locked and his entire body wound tight as a bowstring. He shifted in his saddle, so stiff he might have been hewn of graven stone.
Had he truly praised the saints not so long ago?
Well earned as such paeans might have been, he was now of an entirely different mind.
Several hours and many cold and drizzly miles after the bull attack, he felt more like challenging than praising long-dead holy men. Truth be told, at the moment, he was more than capable of calling out anyone.
Friend, foe, and, aye, even those of otherworldly nature.
A black wind was whistling past his ears, each icy, indrawn breath burned his lungs, and his fingers felt frozen on the reins. Squaring his shoulders, he sat up straighter, refusing to grimace.
That small victory he would claim, difficult as it was.
Every inch of him flamed with pain, especially his ribs, though the day’s bitter chill had taken care of his throbbing toes.
Blessedly, he could no longer feel them.
Would that the rest of him wasn’t proving so susceptible to every jarring, jolting bit of the long journey home.
Even his head throbbed, the annoying pounding in odd rhythm with his garron’s endless, clip-clopping hoofbeats.
As for his ribs, he’d known they were cracked not long after leaving Creag na Gaoith, when he’d halted to shrug off his travel cloak, twist around, and sling the mantle’s voluminous warmth over Buckie’s onion creel.
Thetwisting roundleft no doubt, that one simple movement sending a white-hot fire-vise to clamp around his chest. Fierce and scalding, the pain stabbed him, stopping his heart and cutting off his breath.
Only his pride — and his lady riding beside him — kept him from crying out.
Just as pride and her presence wouldn’t let him show his disappointment now on noting how dismal Dare looked silhouetted against the bleakness of what promised to be a particularly black wet night.
Thick, billowy mist poured down the braes, and the deep green tops of the pines near the curtain walls were already sinking from view. High above, an early moon broke through the clouds, silvering the rolling spread of the moors and the long slopes of rock and heather.
But then the moon vanished, slipping from sight and leaving Dare’s gatehouse to loom before them.
Night-darkened and formidable, the machicolated walls stood out against the blackness of the trees, the double towers’ gloomy face making the brief autumn sun of Creag na Gaoith seem a distant memory.
A muscle began to twitch in his jaw.
This was Dare at its worst.
