The creature’s face was inches from his own, and he felt its breath fan his face as it shuddered one last time. Then the massive body dropped between John’s outspread thighs and lay still.
John scuttled backward until he was leaning against a tree, his heart pounding. He stared at the boar, half certain that the creature would wake up and tear him to pieces after all. He ran his hand over his face and through his hair, felt it come away sticky with the creature’s blood. Or was it his own? His leg was grazed, his breeches torn along the side of his knee, and his foot ached. There were gouges and tooth marks on his boot, and he wiggled his toes, made sure nothing was broken.
He was lucky. Damned lucky. He took a flask of whisky from his belt and saluted the boar before he drank, his hands still shaking.
An hour later, his kill was loaded on the back of the garron, and he was leading the horse down the mountain slope.
He’d done it.
This time, he was going to win, and there’d be no dispute about it.
* * *
Gillian woke with a blazing headache. She smelled damp earth and knew she was lying on the ground. She tried to raise her hands, but they were bound behind her.
She remembered Rabbie Bain capturing them, breaking Callum’s arm. They’d walked until Rabbie called a halt. He shoved Callum to his knees and raised the dirk over him. She’d cried out, rushed at the outlaw, but Rabbie had been ready for that. She’d run into his fist.
Her jaw hurt like the devil under the gag around her mouth.Too tight, she thought. She couldn’t swallow or speak, and she was thirsty.
She moved her head slowly. Callum was beside her, bound to a tree with strips of his own plaid. His eyes were black and swollen, his face and throat so bloody she barely recognized her handsome kinsman. He was conscious, but she saw the glazed effects of pain in his eyes. He was staring at something above her.
She turned and looked up. She recognized the clearing and the spreading branches of the ancient oak tree that had grown in the glen since before Bannockburn. It was a part of the wood that was remote from the castle. The tracks that led here were seldom traveled because there were boar nearby.
Gillian heard a grunt, and twisted again. Davy MacKenzie sat looking down at her from the back of a garron, his posture stiff, his eyes wide above a tattered strip of plaid that was tied tight across his mouth. He looked surprised to see her, stared at her as if he expected her to do something. Then Gillian realized that he had a noose around his neck. A taut length of rope was slung over a high branch of the oak. Gillian felt her belly tighten with horror. The horse danced under the Mackenzie, and Davy screamed uselessly behind the gag. Rabbie Bain was standing behind the garron with a sword in his fist, laughing and poking the animal, teasing it into capering and sidestepping. She tried to scream, but the gag blocked the sound. Rabbie turned his attention to her.
“Awake at last are ye? Just in time. I’m about to hang Davy. Now ye can watch,” the outlaw said.
Gillian gaped as the outlaw raised the sword, ready to bring the flat of the blade down on the garron’s rump. Davy groaned.
She felt horror and rage. She was tied, helpless. Davy was about to die, and she could do nothing to save him, or herself, or Callum. She struggled against the knots until she felt blood trickle over her hands, but they held tight.
Rabbie watched her, enjoying her panic. “After Davy, I’ll hang your clansman. I’m going to save ye for last, use ye, enjoy doing it. Yours won’t be a quick death, mistress. This time, there’ll be no escape. I’ll make ye beg for death.”
He laughed again as he raised the sword. For an instant he held it high. Then he brought it down. Gillian screamed again, but it was too late. She heard the slap of the blade on the garron’s rump, watched as the horse leaped forward and raced out of the clearing. Poor Davy MacKenzie was left behind. His big body jerked backwards and swung.
Gillian screamed into the gag, but all that came out was a muffled howl.
* * *
John led the heavily laden garron down the mountainside. The beast was anxious, shying at every sound. It was the smell of the boar, perhaps, since the morning was fine, and only the sound of birdcalls disturbed the peace of the wood. He was looking forward to the look on Donal MacLeod’s face when he walked through the gates at Glen Iolair with his kill.
The toe of his boot hit something on the path, sent it skittering past the garron’s hoof, made the horse snort and caper. John bent to see what it was. His mouth dried at the sight of Gillian’s dirk. He knew it was hers—it was the same one that he’d used to cut the boughs for their shelter. Warning prickled along his spine. She’d never be out in the wood without her dirk, and she wouldn’t be so careless as to drop it. Her bow was here, too, a short distance away, and a quiver of arrows.
Then he saw blood splashed across the bent blades of grass next to the path.
“No.” Dread made his belly curl into his spine. John let the garron go and followed the blood trail into the undergrowth.
* * *
Davy MacKenzie was grunting, fighting for breath, Gillian watched him kick as the noose tightened, killing him. She pleaded with Rabbie, but behind her gag the words were useless. She struggled harder against her bonds, but Davy was turning purple, and Rabbie Bain stood beneath him, laughing. “I could pull on your leg, Davy, lad, give ye mercy, hasten your end.” He grinned down at Gillian. “What say ye, mistress? Or should I let him swing until the last, suffer for his sins?”
Gillian screamed again, but there was no one to hear.
* * *
John moved carefully, staying low. He wished he had a sword or the damned spear he’d used to kill the boar. All he had was a dirk and the bow strapped over his shoulder. But those weapons had been enough to kill the boar.
He heard the sound of a slap, a sharp report that startled the birds, sent them flying from the trees. A horse screamed in surprise, and the underbrush crackled. Hoofbeats shook the ground and he threw himself out of the way as the garron raced past him, its eyes wild with panic.
