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Perhaps he’s sleepin’ where I can’t see him. Or perhaps he’s guardin’ the perimeter.
Either way, she would have to avoid him, along with the two men who were posted at the edges of the camp, keeping guard. With any luck, they would be too tired to notice her escape.
Standing up as slowly and as carefully as she could, taking care to not make a sound, Nimue braced herself against the oak tree, hesitation gripping her in a vice. But there was no time for hesitation, she reminded herself. It was then or never.
With a decisive nod, she turned around and sprinted out of the camp, and no matter how much she tried to be silent, the leaves and the dirt on the ground crunched under her shoes, quickly alerting the men to her escape.
“Hey, lass!” she heard one of the men call, and soon, much sooner than she would have liked, she could hear the shouts and bellows of Chrisdean’s men as they were rudely awaken and ordered to run after her.
As Nimue ran, bushes and low branches scratched at her legs, tearing off pieces of her skirt. She could feel the gashes on her skin, the thorns and the bark splitting her flesh, but she didn’t dare look down to see if she was bleeding lest she trip on her own feet and go sprawling onto the ground. Instead, she looked straight ahead, ducking and dodging every time she encountered a big branch, her breath coming in labored puffs, her eyes stinging and watering from the cold as she ran through the breeze. Her knees trembled from the speed of her run and the force of her steps. Her lungs burned with exertion, but she refused to give in to her desire to stop.
I’ll be hidden in the trees soon enough. They willna be able to find me then.
Or perhaps, if she were lucky, she would find a hut or even a village where she could hide for the remainder of the night. Surely, someone would be kind enough to return her to the castle, and if no one did it out of kindness, then someone was bound to do it for the gold that her father would surely pay for his daughter’s safe return.
Her heart thumped in her chest, not only because of her efforts but also because she could hear the men behind her, chasing her through the woods. She could tell that some of them were on horseback, and she could even hear Chrisdean’s booming voice as he shouted over the commotion.
“Find her!” he ordered his men. “Dinna let her get away!”
As Nimue ran deeper and deeper into the woods, she could hardly see anything around her. The moonlight was blocked by the highest branches, the thick foliage creating an unwelcome shade that drowned everything in near-darkness, and so she didn’t see the root that protruded from the ground. Her feet tangling in it, she fell face-first onto the rough earth, and a groan escaped her lips, one that she quickly swallowed, fearing that Chrisdean and his men would hear her.
She stayed there, frozen, for several moments. The men approached her, their voices becoming increasingly louder and their footsteps thundering in her ears. If she stayed perfectly still, she thought, then there was a chance that they wouldn’t see her, that they would walk right past her. Her dress was dark enough to blend in with her surroundings, after all, and the white of her sleeves and her collar had been soiled with mud and dirt to the point that they were hardly visible.
Chrisdean’s men had surrounded her by then, all of them walking past her as she lay next to the tree with the giant roots, curled up by its base. She could hear them whisper to each other while others were calling for her by name or title.
“Me lady!” a voice that she didn’t recognize called. “We willna hurt ye, that’s a promise. Come out!”
“There’s na reason to be scared!” another voice said, rougher and deeper than the last. “Nothin’ will happen to ye if ye show yerself!”
Nimue didn’t believe them. Chrisdean had sounded particularly vicious as he commanded his men to find her, and she doubted that he would be kind with her if he got his hands on her. Besides, she didn’t have any reason to trust them.
Their voices began to fade soon, and Nimue thanked the Lord for helping her go unnoticed. She didn’t dare move, though, not when the men were still so close. Instead, she stayed where she was, curled up by the tree, her entire body shaking with fear and excitement at the prospect of a clean escape.
“Got ye.”
The sound of Chrisdean’s voice caught Nimue by surprise, and though she flinched, not a sound came past her lips. Her eyes widened as Chrisdean grabbed her and pulled her to her feet, and only then did she begin to scream and fight once more, trying to get herself free.
“Let me go, ye bastard!” she said, trying to yank her arm out of Chrisdean’s hand, to the point where her shoulder clicked and protested under the pressure. “Let me go!”
“That’s not a verra nice way for a lass to talk noo, is it?” Chrisdean asked. He seemed so unperturbed that Nimue only hated him even more, frustration building up inside her until she reached for Chrisdean’s sword without thinking. The movement seemed to have caught him by surprise, and Nimue pointed the tip at his throat once she pulled it out of its sheath, a grin spreading over her face.
“What noo, hmm?” Chrisdean asked, and though he sounded confident, the fact that he was as still as a boulder betrayed his fear. “Will ye kill me, lass? Do ye have what it takes?”
Nimue frowned at that, her head tilting to the side as he regarded him. “Aye, of course, I do,” she said, the mere notion of her being incapable of killing someone making her laugh. “Do ye think that I willna kill ye because . . . what? Because I’m a woman, and I’ve never killed anyone else? Weel, me Laird, if this is how ye treat women, then I’ll gladly kill ye.”
“Put the sword down!”
In her desire to kill Chrisdean and be done with it all, Nimue hadn’t realized that they were surrounded by his men, who had become alerted to her presence by her shouts. She looked around and saw a dozen blades aimed at her, glistening under the faint moonlight, all of them thirsty for blood.
Nimue weighed her options. She could either kill Chrisdean and risk her own death, or she could drop the sword and bide her time once more, with the hopes that she could attempt another escape later. The men were bound to be more careful with her after this incident, but it was better than being dead.
Hesitantly, Nimue lowered the sword, though she didn’t drop it. It was a ridiculous thought, but for a moment, she imagined herself fighting all of Chrisdean’s men. She would never beat them, that much was certain, but the thought put a small smile on her lips.
With a heavy, resigned sigh, Nimue grabbed the sword by the blade and handed it to Chrisdean, who snatched it out of her hand. “I suppose ye’ll want to tie me hands noo?”
“Aye, I think I should,” Chrisdean said as he gestured at two of his men to grab Nimue. They did so without hesitation and immediately began to drag her back to their camp, the rest of the men following close behind.
“One day, ye’ll pay for this,” Nimue told Chrisdean, glancing at him from over her shoulder. “And trust me, that day willna be too far in the future.”
“Weel, until then, ye’ll have to deal with me and I with ye,” Chrisdean said. Once again, his composure and lack of agitation were driving Nimue insane.
Who is that man? I dinna ken anythin’ about him apart from his name. And how can he talk as though nothin’ happened?
Once they were back at the camp, the two men placed Nimue by the fire, where everyone could keep an eye on her, making sure that she couldn’t attempt to escape once more. Her hands were quickly tied behind her back with a rope, and in the end, she decided that there was nothing else to be done that night. She couldn’t run, she couldn’t escape, and she couldn’t fight them. All she could do was sleep and hope that once she awakened the next morning, she would have a clear head, capable of formulating a plan.
