With the way the riders huddled their mounts together against the storm, he suspected they would soon seek shelter.
The squish of hooves sinking into the soft bank sounded.
That Renard’s men continued their search in such foul weather spoke volumes; they would stop at nothing to find him.
“Do you know them?” she whispered, pressing against him to peer over his shoulder.
Pain tightened in his chest. How could he nae? The bastards were the knights who’d slain his friend Douglas, the reason he now carried the writ. “Aye.”
“Who are they?”
He fisted his hands, tamping down the need for revenge.
“Colyne?”
A muscle worked in his jaw. “Men who want me dead.”
Thick, honey-colored lashes dropped to shield her eyes. “I . . .”
“What?” he asked, irritated by the reminder of her secrets.
“How did they find us?”
He made a quick survey of the knights, irritated by her avoidance of his question. After their kiss, he’d . . . What? Believed it would change their relationship to something deeper? If so, he was a fool.After Elizabet had married another, he’d understood too well how a kiss, nay matter the heat, guaranteed little.
“It has been raining too hard for them to have trailed us.” Colyne shrugged. “I doubt they know we are here.”
Above the ledge, a knight cantered past, then several more.
A fall of rocks clattered near the entrance. Through the curtain of rain spilling over the stone above, Colyne watched as the legs of a knight’s mount flashed by.
Alesia gasped.
“Steady now.” Mail scraped stone as Colyne reached for his dagger.
More rocks thunked down the muddied slope near the cave’s entrance. Through the blur of rain, another knight came into view. Mud sucked at his mount’s hooves as he rode toward the group of men a short distance away who had also started to descend the embankment.
Alesia inched closer. “What are we going to do?”
He counted twenty riders. Too many to take on alone, especially injured. “Hopefully they will leave in search of shelter.”
Several men cantering across the upper rim of the slope joined the main group.
With a sigh, Colyne relaxed his grip on his dagger. The rain streaming over the cave’s narrow opening had concealed their presence. In an effort to ease his throbbing shoulder, he shifted. As he turned, another sharp rock dug into his wound. He muttered a foul curse.
“What is wrong?”
“Naught.” They had more important things to worry about than his injuries.
A burly man, who appeared to be in charge of the horsemen, rode to the stream’s edge. “Wherever they are,” he shouted above the roll of thunder, “they could not have traveled past here.”
“They?” Alesia whispered. “How do they know we are traveling together?”
“Perhaps they stumbled upon the cave where you tended me,” he replied. “Or discovered the burials or other signs of us being together.”
“ ’Tis too dangerous to cross,” the lead man shouted back.
Alesia’s hand tightened on Colyne’s shoulder. “Look at the stream!”
