Authors: Christine Young
"Slade. You're not taking me to Bertram are you?" She was finally certain he wasn't going to Edinburgh and felt the relief swallow her and rescind all the terror she was facing now.
"Took you long enough to figure it out." His devilish grin sent a jolt of heat rushing through her despite the danger.
"Don't let your hopes get too high. I'm not taking you to your brothers--at least not right away. I mean to figure out a way to see you home without dying in the process."
Lainie sighed. She had not realized how much she wanted to go home. How much she was looking forward to the crashing ocean and the narrow land bridge that separated the castle from the mainland. Or how much she was looking forward to seeing her people. "Maybe Jericho gave up," she said.
"He might have given up on the thieving tavern girl, but if he's found out you're Lainie MacPherson, he won't give up on the bounty. Or," Slade said sardonically, "on the man who helped to blow his brother's ship to smithereens after he'd taken the gold."
"You?"
Slade nodded. "Stephan, Jamie and myself. Stephan used to be in the King's Navy and Jamie is Stephan's brother."
"What if Jericho goes after Stephan?"
"Jericho is smarter than that. Stephan has some hard men working for him--men who put the Navy behind them when Stephan left--men who sailed with Stephan, fought battles with them and killed pirates. Jericho doesn't have a death wish, and riding onto Stephan's estate would be tantamount to a death wish."
Lainie frowned.
"Are they armed and ready for an attack if one came?" she asked, knowing she hadn't seen any evidence of armed men when she was there.
"Bloody hell, do you think they're stupid? Stephan made more than one enemy of his own. He'd better be ready." Slade winked, “besides, there are the Scots who ride down from the hills and pillage.”
"Jericho has a lot of men," Lainie said, ignoring Slade’s last comment.
"Stephan has good men. Don't you worry about
Stephan.
He's a one-man army all by himself. If he didn’t have a wife and newborn at home, I would have asked him to ride with me."
With that, Slade reined Baby toward the slit. The other horse followed. The two packhorses fell into place despite the absence of lead ropes.
Slade didn't have to tell Lainie to be silent. She rode the way he rode, alert to every shadow and wary of every rock and fern growing on the steep cliffs. The dirk in her hand caught what little sunlight filtered between the deep shadows and gleamed.
There was no sound only an eerie, nerve tingling silence.
A light fog tumbled down the cliffs. As the day wore on, the mist grew thicker, seeming to hang in the air. There was no sound but that of creaking leather, the dry swish of a horse's tail, and hoof beats clattering on the hard rock.
The cliff walls began to widen, telling Lainie they were almost out of the narrow slit of rocks. Just ahead, the trail bent to the left around one more cliff, and to the right the walls seemed to fall away completely. In there place a raging river tumbled angrily over rocks and boulders.
Without warning, Baby tried to leap off the trail.
"Find cover!" Slade yelled at Lainie. She leapt off her horse and ducked behind a narrow ledge.
Men shouted and arrows flew through the fog-shrouded canyon. Some of the arrows were Slade's. He fired arrows at dark wraith-like shadows that had leaped from hiding behind the cliff that stood just ahead of his horse.
Slade's speed in drawing and shooting took the ambushers by surprise. His deadly accuracy shocked the men who survived the brutal onslaught of the first arrows. The mercenaries who were still able to move dove for cover in a tangle of flailing limbs and vicious curses.
With actions so fast they blurred, Slade pulled out another quiver of arrows and began shooting again before the men could recover.
"Behind us!" Lainie yelled.
Slade spun Baby around and fired so quickly the whir of arrows was buried beneath the sound of the deadly attack. Two of Slade’s arrows found their mark.
A deep brooding silence followed. The only sound she heard was the wild hammering of her heart. Lainie knew the deadly calm wouldn't last.
"Lainie, are you all right?"
"Aye. Are--"
The rest of Lainie's question was cut off by the ragged thunder of horses' hooves echoing down the trail. The sound came from behind and from ahead, rising around to her echo a blood red staccato inside her head.
"They've trapped us!" Lainie shouted surprised by Jericho's tenacity. "How did they get up there?"
"Mount up and go right!"
As Slade spoke, he pointed Baby toward a path that seemed to branch off from the main trail. It led onto a narrow path paralleling the rapids they’d just come upon. They raced past the bodies of the two ambushers and into the small opening, kicking up mud and loose rocks as they went by. Within a hundred yards, the trail took a steep bend around a jut of solid wet-slick rock.
Lainie clung to her horse with knees and heels, wishing she'd had the presence of mind to bring her own bow and arrows while the horse took the obstacle course at a dead run. Feeling useless in a desperate situation didn't sit well with her, but it wasn't the first time.
She was looking over her shoulder when the horse skidded on the slippery rocks. The horse went down to her knees, and then righted herself with a force that sent tiny bits of mud and water flying.
Using some of Slade's more colorful language, Lainie swore beneath her breath then muttered something about her stupidity.
After that Lainie stopped looking behind her and focused on keeping herself on her horse.
A mile later the trail began to rise more steeply beneath the horse's pounding hooves. The fog thinned to a light mist then cleared to reveal a clear bright day. Between the cliff walls, the sky was a brilliant blue.
Water slid from the ragged cliffs in tiny rivulets to join the rampaging river and the trail became dangerously slick and uneven. Even the tough, agile horses nearly came to grief more than once.
"Stop," Slade called.
Lainie reined in the mare. She turned to ask a question, but all she saw was Slade spurring Baby the way they had come.
The two packhorses gathered close to Lainie's horse as if they could give reassurance. She bent over to check the rigging on the packhorses. Everything was fine.
Stillness echoed up the cliffs. While the sound of water rushing downstream, sent Lainie's nerves ricocheting in a dance that seemed to last forever and left her trembling. The packhorses snorted and gathered closer but showed no inclination to run. Lainie's heart hammered so hard she was afraid it would burst from her chest.
I hate it when you leave me alone, Aaron Slade. I hate when I don't know if you are going to come back to me.
The roar of the river that didn't seem to end was worse than the fight with arrows whizzing by her head and men screaming as they died. She cringed in fear as she waited for Slade. Images of death danced through her head, and it wasn't her own death she saw. If she closed her eyes, she saw Slade lying in a pool of his own blood. No, she cried out silently to herself.
"Slade," she whispered. "Don’t die."
Unwilling to wait any longer and praying Slade wasn't lying dead somewhere, Lainie kicked her horse hard and raced down the trail to see what had happened to Slade. The little mare laid back her ears, flattened out, and galloped despite the tentative footing. Lainie clung to the mare with cramped, aching fingers.
Lainie saw him and her heart skipped a beat. He reined his horse around just as she flew toward him. The mare leaped a boulder, sprayed mud and nearly went down on a stretch of wet-slick rock. Lainie's hood fell over her eyes. She didn't dare push it back.
When the mare had all four hooves under her again, Lainie tried to rein in her horse, but the little mare had panicked.
"Lainie!" Slade called out. "Stop!"
Sweet Jesu, she wanted to stop. But the mare had other ideas.
Slade spurred his horse to catch up with Lainie. He managed to reach her and grab hold of the reins. Lainie's horse reared as she was hauled back in a skidding, sliding stop.
"Of all the damn fool--" yelled Slade.
"You're not hurt?" Lainie asked urgently, reaching toward him as if to touch him then withdrawing her hand. She wanted to feel his warmth, needed the reassurance only he could give her.
"--things to do. Of course I'm not--"
She inhaled a long, deep breath, closing her eyes and opening them again before she spoke. "I didn't hear anything. The silence made me crazy, and I called your name,” she said, pausing for a long moment. “You didn't answer." She closed her eyes and looked down, hiding the tears that welled in her eyes.
Then she looked at Slade and searched him for any sign of injury. Once more, she wanted to reach out and touch him, to run her hands across him to make sure.
"I'm fine," he said in a clipped voice, his green eyes shimmering with both anger and fear. "Except that you damn near made my heart stop. When I saw you running your horse between the rocks and the river, I thought you were going to go over the ledge or that you’d fall off and get trampled beneath the mare's hooves or worse get caught up in the rapids."