The land rose in a steep slope up and away from the sea. Adair turned his head to look back several times, thinking how small and perilous the settlement appeared, perched there at the very edge of the water. When they entered the trees, he could no longer look back.
A dark and heavy sort of wood it was, one in which Adair could not see an end ahead. No trail or path ran here. Toren, who rode first, seemed to choose his way at random. Kerr followed Adair in silence. Adair could feel the man’s glare between his shoulder blades.
What if they take me out here and kill me? Send word after back to Erin saying I suffered some accident. Father would never know different.
To break the silence and chase off such dark thoughts, he asked, “How much territory does my uncle hold here?”
“He has managed—weha’ managed—to carve out a fair swath. Shall we take ye to the farthest reaches so ye can see all?” Toren asked over his shoulder.
And leave me there, no doubt, Adair thought.
He knew the woods and the hills back home, had run them all his life and hunted there often. Just thinking on that, he felt a tug of longing for the land he loved so well. Nothing like this place where the wood made night of the broad day, shutting out the sun.
Father could scarce have done anything crueler than sending him here.
“Ye ha’ other neighbors who came from Erin?”
“Aye. MacDonough to the south o’ us and MacGillean to the north. Bradana is set to wed wi’ Mican MacGillean’s son.”
“Is she?” A new spear of feeling pierced Adair’s chest.
“Aye, to make firm our alliance wi’ them. That will keep us stronger, see. We have had to fight for this place against the tribes that were here—Alban tribes—when Da arrived. Mayhap your father back in Erin does no’ understand that.”
Perhaps he did not. Adair could not be certain what Father imagined when he pictured Alba. Not this.
He began to think Toren led them in deliberate circles. Not much time had passed before he knew himself hopelessly lost. The land climbed gradually and then it did not. He could no longer hear or see the ocean, only the birds that sang.
Abruptly, they emerged into an open space where sunlight slanted down so brightly that it made Adair blink.
“There,” Toren said.
A small herd of deer grazed on the far side of the clearing. They raised their heads at the appearance of the men and ponies but did not flee.
“Would ye like the honor?” Toren asked, and passed Adair his bow. A single arrow.
Another test, was it? And not a difficult one. Accepting the weapon, Adair dismounted from his pony and blinked again to clear his vision. Nocked the arrow and raised the bow.
A sudden flurry. A flicker of light and darkness as if a cloud had passed over the glade. The deer scattered without seeming intent, as if they dispersed by magic. Suddenly gone.
As were Adair’s two companions.
Gone.
He breathed out a puff of air. He should have known. Kendrick’s two sons had not brought him out here to hunt but to be rid of him. Whether with Kendrick’s knowledge or not, he could not say.
He stood still and listened.
He should be able to hear them. Passage through so thick a wood would not be silent. Only, he could hear nothing.
Even the birds had stopped singing.
Another shiver, brother to the one he’d felt when this jaunt was suggested at breakfast, quivered through him. He could not hear the deer moving away or the men and ponies.
It did indeed reek of magic.
“Where are your fellows?” he asked the pony. It should know how to find them. It would most likely know the way home.
Its ears twitched, but it gave no other sign of being willing to help him. A fine joke, this, on the part of Kendrick’s sons. Fine at least here in daylight. But once the dark came down, he would be stranded here in country he did not know. With only the knife he always wore, a bow, and a single arrow for defense.
