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“Don’t worry about him,” Fern barked. Her stag turned on its haunches. Unlike their horses, the beast wore no saddle or bridle. “Go!”
10: TO THE ROARING FALLS
THEY PUSHED EAST, plowing through dense pine woods all the way. It slowed all of them except Fern down. However, Ailsa noted how the stag doubled back often to ensure they weren’t lagging behind.
And all the while, Ailsa kept glancing over her shoulder as she clung to Rùn, her fingers tangled around the reins and a handful of mane.
It was a terrifying ride in many ways.
Despite all the days she’d traveled with Darach and gotten used to the horse’s stride, actually riding the stallion, controlling him, was another matter altogether. There were times, as Rùn leaped over fallen logs or jumped burns at the bottom of gullies, when she just squeezed her eyes shut and held on. Often she just prayed that she’d stay in the saddle and not end up crushed beneath those hooves.
And with every furlong they put between themselves and Craeg Aonaranach, Ailsa’s muscles unknotted and she breathed easier. She never wanted to set eyes on that Gods-damned place ever again.
Even so, her ears strained for the sounds of pursuit. There was no doubt that Niall would send warriors after them.
But they’d had a head start, and they hadn’t wasted it.
It was clear from the moment Ailsa had seen the waiting horses and stag that Fern had planned this meticulously.
However, there was no time to ask her how she’d managed it or how she’d involved Darach so cleverly.
That conversation would have to wait.
It was an irony, really, that Fern had made her move today, for Ailsa and Kayla had been readying an escape of their own—set for the following morning. They’d taken a couple of blades from the workshop—small enough to hide easily, yet sharp enough to be lethal in a fight. Kayla had planned for them to steal laundry-women’s clothes afterward and slip out to the river with baskets of washing, the way any Circines lass might.
In retrospect, it never would have worked. Not with the whole broch hunting them.
She knew that now. It had taken Fern’s guile and Darach’s beast to get them safely out of the fort.
Ailsa’s gaze cut left and right as Rùn thundered up a hillside. They’d broken free of the pines for the first time during their flight.
Where was Darach?
Was he still in the clag-doo’s form?
Was he running ahead of them, behind them?
Her breathing grew shallow as she swept her gaze around. Was he hunting them?
She knew firsthand the instinct that took him when he shifted. There was no reason why he wouldn’t see the three of them as prey.
Reaching the top of the hill, she found Fern waiting for them.
Drawing Rùn up, she leaned forward, her hand stroking his sweaty neck. The stallion’s sides heaved, and when Kayla hauled her cob to a halt next to her, she saw the foam that flecked the horse’s lips.
They’d been racing east for a while now. The rain hid the passage of the sun, but the glow through the gray curtain of cloud above warned that noon had passed. The horses needed to rest, even if the stag looked like he could bound on for the rest of the day without stopping.
Gaze returning to Fern, Ailsa saw that the huntress wasn’t focused on her. Instead, she sat tall on the stag’s high back, her gaze narrowed as she stared west.
Twisting in the saddle, Ailsa struggled to catch sight of what she was looking at. But all she could see was a dense, dark carpet of conifers dipping and rising from a craggy landscape, and sheer-sided mountains that thrust up, dark and threatening against a smoke-colored sky.
A heavy drizzle had followed them since Craeg Aonaranach.
Yet now, she spied the curtain of heavier rain that swept in from the north over the lonely peaks of the Goatfells.
They were about to get drenched.
“What can you see?” Kayla asked. She too had marked Fern’s surveillance.
