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ad and snorting. He seemed quite happy to be reunited with his evil master.
Said evil master patted the horse’s neck, spoke a gentle Irish word, then began walking again. The horse ambled along behind as if his owner wasn’t carrying a wounded woman in his arms.
Perhaps this sort of thing happened all the time.
“You could put me on the horse,” she pointed out.
His gaze swung to her. “Could I?”
“Indeed. It would be easier and—”
“How fast do you think you could run away on a horse?”
She pressed her lips tight and said no more.
They left the ruined little track behind, her spirits sinking like a rock in a pond. Trees towered on every side, draped with vines and moss.
He moved through them quite comfortably, even with her in his arms, as if she weighed no more than a basket of rose petals. She wondered briefly if Sir Bennett could do so, with his weak ankles.
“Do you know these woods?” she asked.
“I know all woods.”
That was not remotely reassuring.
The land began to rise. The climb grew steeper, then the land stopped abruptly at an edge as high as a cliff. Below stretched a ravine, like a cloven hoof pressed into the center of the dense forest. At the bottom was a clearing, banded by trees, and farther on, the river.
His arm tightened, pressing her closer to his body. “Hold on,” he warned.
She gave a cry of alarm then he leapt over the lip of the hill and, because he was a madman, followed a trajectory straight down the side of the steep hill.
Bits of earth and pebbles shot out from beneath his boots as he all but loped down the hill, her in his arms.
“Are you mad?” she gasped, clinging desperately to him.
“Hold tight,” he said, as if she would not, then he let go of her with one arm and reached back, dragging his gloved hand behind him as they galloped down the hill, his horse following valiantly after.
He and the horse were both full mad.
Somehow they got to the bottom.
“You a’right, lass?” he asked.
She could barely draw breath. “Yes, of course. I do that sort of thing regularly.”
He exhaled a small breath that could be laughter but was more likely irritation, and strode with her across the clearing to a mossy, downed log, where he dumped her, quite unceremoniously.
“Well,” she gasped, tucking her skirts in beneath her.
He turned to his horse, patted the creature, and began unsaddling him, all the while speaking to the beast in a gentle, soothing voice, a low masculine rumble that was not unpleasant to hear, especially as darkness had closed in hard down here beneath the trees.
At least he was kind to animals.
He dumped the saddle and all his packs beside the largest tree, then quickly dug a small pit a few feet away from Cassia. He lined it with stones. Still not speaking to her, he got to his feet and walked off into the darkness.
She half-rose off the log. “Wh-where are you going?”
“Firewood,” was his expansive reply.
