Judith E. French by Shawnee Moon

Author:Shawnee Moon [Moon, Shawnee]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Cailin ran until she thought that her heart would burst from the strain. She didn’t know how long she’d been running, but she knew that her pace was slowing and her hunters were growing closer with every step. Skull Face was twenty yards behind her, shrieking like some fiend from hell and swinging his tomahawk around his painted head. Two more savages closed in on her right. She didn’t know how many were on her left, but they were farther back.

A stitch in her side had become a red-hot poker that jabbed deeper into her vitals each time her foot hit the ground. Sweat and blood from scratches on her face ran into her eyes and threatened to blind her. Her fingers had clutched Sterling’s knife so long and with such fervor that she could no longer feel the bone hilt in her hand.

Her prayers had dwindled to a desperate litany consisting of a single word, uttered over and over with each strangled exhale. “God ... God ... God ...” She fixed her eyes on a single object, a tree, a fallen branch, or a pile of leaves. All she had to do was to run a few more feet, another wagon’s length ... an easy task, even for a clumsy child. And when she reached that goal, her gaze sought another, and that became her prize.

Still, she knew that she could not keep running. She must turn and fight. But where? How?

A swirl of bagpipes sounded in her head. For an instant, she smelled the smoke and heard the cannons of Culloden Moor. Madness ... Madness beckoned to her like a mirage of sparkling water to a woman dying of thirst. She had only to yield to the siren call of the piper’s tune, and she could rest beside the fallen Highlanders. She could laugh again with all those dear ones and feel the touch of her mother’s hand on her cheek.

Instead, she forced her weary legs to a burst of speed, leaped over a rotting windfall, and darted under a low branch to find herself in the wild strawberry meadow.

She stared around her in shock, then stumbled and nearly went down. She’d believed that she was leading her tormentors away from Sterling. Instead, she’d guaranteed his discovery and death.

“Yi-yi-ya-yee!” Skull Face cried.

She glanced back over her shoulder. He was so close that she could see the engraving on his silver nose ring. His nostrils were flared; his hooded ebony eyes gleamed with bloodlust.

Defeat sliced through her sinews and washed over her in a choking black tide. There could be no escape from Satan’s hellhound. Cailin opened her mouth to utter her death scream and watched as Skull Face tripped and sprawled full-length in the grass.

Her own bittersweet laughter lent wings to her feet. She sprang away and began to run again. Just ahead, not a hundred yards from the forest edge, a giant oak reared from the sea of wildflowers. There! There she could stop and make her stand with a solid wall at her back and Sterling’s steel blade in her hand.

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