Her first priority was to catch up with Halldor O’Donar.
Finding him before the others did would be no challenge for her skills. Patrick MacDowylt was a fine warrior, but he thought in a straight line, just as her brother did. Though they’d refused her entry to their meeting, she’d listened in on them as they’d made their plans to follow the trails to the ferry that would carry them across the water to Skye.
Halldor, on the other hand, was a much more complicated thinker, more devious and cunning. She’d learned that much about him in the short time they’d spent together. He’d be keeping one eye out for the Beast as much as he would for Mathew. Especially now that he knew Torquil already had sent parties of men to find the boy.
If she were in Halldor’s place, she’d figure the smart thing to do was to keep off the main trails, cutting cross-country in an attempt to catch up to the young minstrel before Torquil’s men could. And if there was anything her time with Halldor had taught her about the big warrior, it was that he would do the smart thing.
Cross-country it was.
A trill of excitement blossomed low in her stomach and she pressed her heels against her horse’s flesh, urging speed.
Very soon, she would once again be in her big warrior’s company.
Seven
STAY AWAY FROMme!” Mathew screamed, molding his body against the cold, hard walls of the shallow cave.
Sharp, jagged rocks dug into his back as he shrank down upon his haunches. Frantically he felt around on the ground, searching for a stone, a stick, anything he might use as a weapon against the hideous monster that advanced on him.
“Return to me what is mine!”
The demand echoed in his ears, beating at his mind. And all the while, the pulsing red eyes floated closer and closer.
What was this creature, thisthing, that it could spike such panic in his heart and tighten his stomach in a knot of fear? It had no arms or legs to use against him, no visible way to hurt him, and yet his chest threatened to explode with his fear.
“Leave me be!” he shouted, tossing a handful of pebbles in the creature’s direction.
Maniacal laughter emanated from the apparition as the stones passed through the eyes, raining harmlessly to the ground beyond.
“What are you?” Mathew whispered.
As if in response to his question, the laughter grew louder and moved closer.
Mathew’s fingers brushed against something warm and metallic and he tightened his grip around the hilt of his new sword. With a yell of triumph, he hoisted the weapon high into the air in front of him.
Instantly, the laughter ceased, and with an earth-shattering roar the glow of the monstrous red eyes blinked out and disappeared.
Mathew sat up with a start, the mysterious sword he’d stolen from Tordenet clutched tightly in his hand. His memory of the glowing red eyes clouded his vision. Perspiration slicked his face and body, and his arm trembled under the weight of the weapon as he fought to slow his racing heart.
“What are you?” he demanded aloud.
“Only Dobbie Caskie,” a quavering voice answered. “And please, good sir, be so kind as to lower yer blade. I mean you no harm. As you can see for yerself, I dinna even carry a weapon of my own.”
Shaking off the hazy vestiges of his nightmare, Mathew made out the form of a boy on the other side of his campsite, holding one of Mathew’s bags of precious supplies open in his hands.
“You say you mean me no harm, but how am I to believe you when it’s my possessions you steal,” he accused, rising slowly to stand, the sword still held protectively in front of him.
“It’s only food I seek and nothing more. I’m fair starved, I am.”
The boy looked as if he could be telling the truth. Perhaps only a year or two younger than Mathew, this Dobbie character was thin as a rail and filthy enough that he could be living out here in the woods on his own.
“Put down my things. If hunger is all that drives you, there’s food left from my evening meal in the pot by the fire. Yer welcome to that.”
Dobbie dropped the bag he held and pounced on the pot, digging his first two fingers into the stale porridge to scoop it into his mouth.
Mathew sank down to sit on his blankets, unable to watch the boy’s ravenous eating. He remembered all too well the pain of an empty stomach. After his father’s death, when his uncle had seized Castle Glenluce, whether or not the MacFalny boys were fed was of little interest to the new laird.
This boy had all the markings of a runaway, just as Mathew had once been. Unlike this lad, he’d had the company of Hugo and Eleyne when he’d set off on his own. If not for Hugo’s light-fingered gift for thievery, they all might have starved.
