"Wait. Hold on." Rose shook her head. "The barefoot man was real?"
"You’ve heard of him?"
She nodded slowly. "My mother told me about him. But he can’t be real, can he?"
"I dinnae ken. I only ken I don't want to lose you in the Wildwood."
"Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere."
Yes, you are, Lennox thought. When they reached the stone circle, she was going back home to wherever she came from, and he needed to get used to the idea.
He wanted to protect her, to look after her, to find out why she had that scared look in her eyes, where that fear had come from. He wanted to know everything about her, but he refused to ask any questions. It would only make it harder to bid her farewell when she went.
So he'd said nothing. He'd just held her and breathed in her scent and tried to prepare himself for their last day together.
"We had better move," he said. "Where’s the horse gone?"
"I don’t know. It was right there when I woke up."
"There is someone trying to stop us," Lennox said, looking down at the hoof prints in the moss. "That knot would not have come loose on its own. It went this way. I only pray the stone circle is near. On foot, we are an easy target."
They began to walk. What light there was failed to illuminate the floor any brighter than a deep gloom. They had to concentrate to make out the hoof prints they were following. It was some time before Lennox realized they were lost.
"Where is the trail?" he asked, stopping suddenly and looking behind him.
"I don't know. I was following you."
Lennox held the staff out in front of him, closing his eyes and feeling it throb with suppressed power, tugging him forward. "This way," he said decisively. "The circle is not far."
They stopped when they reached a stream but the water was brackish. Lennox spat it out after a single mouthful. "I do not like this," he said, swilling it with his finger. "Something wicked lies before us."
"I feel it too," Rose replied, glancing about her. "I don't know what but..." She lapsed into silence.
They moved from one patch of light to another, occasional breezes moving the foliage enough to allow a brief glimpse of the sun far above them.
Lennox tried climbing a tree to help with their bearings but was forced back down, the branches not strong enough to support his weight any higher than a few feet off the ground.
"We keep moving," he said, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. They were getting close to something, and whatever it was, it wasn't good.
To distract himself, he thought about what Quinn had said. He wanted to get this done quickly and then once he was sure she was safely home, he could move out of the Wildwood as fast as possible and then get to Rievaulx.
Get the staff. That was the first step. Done. He was holding it firmly like a club, ready to use if anyone might appear before them. Get her to the stone circle. They were almost there. The sense of magic was growing with every step. Then she had to hold the staff. Then what? She would travel home.
Would she vanish in front of him in much the same way she had appeared? Should he ask her to stay?
He decided against it. What could he offer her? A life of violence and uncertainty. Fearing invasion from sea or land whenever another noble took a fancy to the Highlands?
A light appeared.
In the distance, it was glowing through the trees. He stopped, waving Rose into silence. Creeping forward, he moved toward the sound. The light grew, the source becoming obvious. Ahead of him was a clearing. Peering around the side of a blackened dead tree trunk, he saw the stone circle for the first time.
It was set in a large clearing, the grass around it yellowed and dying. The sunlight had gone, hidden behind a thick black cloud high in the skies, thunder rumbling in the distance. A storm was coming.
The stone circle wasn't empty. Six vertical monolithic boulders ringed a flat stone in the center that was clearly the altar. In front of each rock there stood a man in a dark brown cloak, a hood over each faces. The men were chanting in low tones, each of them holding a silver key up to the air.
Lennox didn't recognize the language they spoke but the noises were guttural and the sound chilled his blood.
An instant later there was a flash of lightning that filled the air with burning bright light. It ran from one key to the next and then a bolt shot across the clearing and sent Lennox hurtling backward.
