The Rogues by Jane Yolen & Robert J. Harris

Author:Jane Yolen & Robert J. Harris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

17 TAKEN

The laird set off—toward Kindarry House, I supposed—while Rood rode in the other direction, with me slung across his saddle like a sack of oats. I couldn’t lift my head high enough to check where we were going. All I could see was the damp turf and heather passing beneath the horse’s hooves, the tracks of small animals by the side of the path, and the roots of trees.

All the while we traveled, I refused to think about what was surely going to happen. I didn’t dare think of it. Instead I worried about my poor family. How they’d never know my fate or how I’d found—and then lost—the Blessing.

My stomach heaved again. This time I’d nothing left to bring up but bitter-tasting bile.

At last we stopped, and Rood grabbed the back of my shirt. With one swift yank, he pitched me to the ground. I landed on my belly with a thud that jarred my bones and made crimson sparks shoot across my eyes. I managed to turn onto my back and stare up at the sky, where the stars were already coming out.

Goodbye, stars, I thought. For a moment I thought they dimmed in answer. Or else it was my eyes playing tricks. Then Rood’s flushed face loomed over me, an ugly, disfigured moon.

“Now ye’ll get payment in full for all yer trickery,” he said. “Come on, get up, ye gowk! I’ll not carry ye.” He bent over and put an arm under my shoulder, dragging me to my feet.

My knees started to buckle right away, and he had to support me.

“Just a few steps,” he said, heaving me forward, one hand locked on my upper arm, the other clutching the front of my shirt.

I hadn’t the strength to struggle or the voice to protest. Squinting through the twilight, I saw bare, craggy hills ahead, rising like a row of badly carved tombstones. Before them yawned the rocky edge of a steep precipice.

Fuzzily, I thought: I know this place. One of our lambs strayed here last year and fell to its death. Recalling that frail, broken body, some last flash of resistance sparked in me. I wouldn’t—I couldn’t—go down like a lamb.

Twisting away from Rood, I tried to wrench my arm free. He looked surprised, then angry at this last show of resistance.

“Damn you, Highland scum,” he cursed, punching me hard in the belly, then chuckling as I doubled over. He gave me a contemptuous shove and I stumbled forward, trembling with pain and fever. “That will teach you to hold out on the laird.”

Perhaps, I thought, perhaps it might not be such a bad thing to die, to meet my mother again. Perhaps in spite of all the Reverend McGillivray had told us, there was a small chance I might sneak into heaven through some back door kept open for daft boys.

“Nearly there now, lad,” Rood said, his voice strangely low, cozening, even sweet, as though he’d heard me musing on heaven. “Don’t worry. Ye willna even have to jump.

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