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“It must have come from that group up ahead,” said Percival. He moved to nudge his mount forward, but Heath shook his head.
“It wasn’t them,” he said confidently. “They all look fine to me.”
Percival frowned as he followed his brother’s gaze along the road before them, stretching toward the capital of Bryford. The only other travelers visible were a great distance ahead, but he didn’t dispute Heath’s claim. Percival was well used to his brother’s unerring eyesight.
“Someone, HELP!”
The shout came again, and both brothers turned their heads to their left, toward a small copse of trees. Heath hadn’t even noticed it, but there was a narrow lane branching off the main road not far behind them, heading into the grove.
“Come on,” he said, urging his horse off the road. His supposedly enhanced eyesight didn’t give him the ability to see through trees, so he had no idea what they would find. He pushed into the trees to the sound of further cries, Percival close behind him.
It soon became evident that whoever was in distress was on the laneway, not in the grove. Within moments Heath could make out a carriage between the thinning trunks, and a moment later, he emerged from the little copse. He gave an audible gasp, Percival’s exclamation coming from behind him.
Before them on the path was an overturned carriage. But it wasn’t just on its side. It was a mangled wreck. The lane ran alongside the bottom of a small cliff. By the looks of it, a boulder had detached from the sheer surface, and the vehicle had been unlucky enough to be passing underneath when it fell.
The woman who had shouted for help saw them as they came out of the trees, and she raced toward them, wringing her hands.
“Help!”
Heath hastened to dismount as she approached them, aware that Percival was doing the same. He could barely draw his eyes from the carriage. He had never seen such a wreck, and his first thought was that the woman was lucky to be alive. She must have been thrown from the vehicle when it overturned.
“Please!” she sobbed. “Can you save him?”
Heath had just noticed a man lying not far from the mangled carriage, presumably the driver. Focusing his sharp eyes on the man’s form, he noted with relief that his chest was rising and falling, and that his color was healthy. He must simply have been knocked unconscious.
Heath turned to reassure the woman—he was no physician, but he felt confident somehow that the man was fine—but the words died in his throat. The woman’s eyes were wild with panic, and an ominous feeling grew inside Heath as she clutched his sleeve. She wasn’t talking about the carriage driver.
Before either of the brothers could respond, a faint cry of pain reached them from the direction of the carriage.
“My son,” the woman wailed. “He’s trapped inside. He’s being crushed!”
Heath and Percival exchanged a look of horror before instantly springing into action. They rushed toward the carriage, Percival making for the boulder while Heath crouched down on the level of the ruined vehicle.
“Can you hear me?” he asked, squinting in through the wreckage.
A faint sob was all the response he received, but it was enough to encourage him that the child was alive, and conscious. Pulling a shattered panel of wood out of the way, he caught a glimpse of a limb.
“He’s over this side,” he called to Percival, gesturing. “Roll it the other way.”
The structure shuddered under the weight of the stone, the boulder dropping another inch toward where the boy was huddled. The whole wreck was clearly unstable.
“And hurry!” Heath called.
“But—” The woman’s confused exclamation told Heath that she’d approached right behind him.
He didn’t turn, keeping his eyes on what little of the child he could see, ready to tell Percival if the boulder’s movements were further endangering the boy. He knew why the woman was confused—the boulder was huge, too heavy for three men to shift, let alone one.
But Percival wasn’t like other men.
With a grunt, the young man put his shoulders against the mass, his muscles straining as he pushed. The day was warm, and he wore a tunic that exposed his powerful arms. The sight was familiar to Heath, but the woman stared in amazement at Percival’s bulging muscles as the boulder began to move. The crushed frame of the wooden vehicle crunched loudly as the rock rolled across it, and the child screamed again. Percival paused, his form straining with the effort of holding the boulder in place as he looked inquiringly at his brother. Heath nodded in encouragement for Percival to continue. The structure around the child hadn’t collapsed any further from the movement, and the boy sounded afraid rather than in great pain.
In less than a minute, the boulder was gone, and the wreck underneath it was exposed. The two brothers made short work of pulling the crushed panels of the structure away, to reveal a child of about six or seven, curled in a ball beneath the wreckage. The woman ran forward to scoop her child into her arms. The boy was blinking in the light, his face stained with tears, and he was bleeding from several superficial scratches. But he was moving normally, and his cries had ceased at his sudden freedom. Incredibly, he seemed to have escaped serious injury.
“Thank you,” the woman gasped, disregarding Heath and turning to Percival. “You saved him! How—how did you—?”
“We are honored to be of service,” said Percival gallantly, sweeping into a bow. “You should get that child to a physician.”
“And the poor driver,” interjected Heath from where he knelt beside the man. Even as he said it, the man stirred, opening his eyes slowly and letting out a small moan.
