by Alisa Adams
He looked at Bluebell. The huge draft horse had enormous hooves and they were harder than any horse’s hooves he had ever seen.
“We ride tonight,” Tristan growled. “Gather six men who can be ready fast. I willnae wait for anyone.” Tristan turned to another of his men. “Yer in charge if we dinnae return by daylight. Lead these people on to Fionnaghall.” With those short clipped words Tristan strode over to Bluebell, threw the saddle on the big stallion, and leapt up onto him. He had kicked the huge horse into a canter before any of the men could answer him.
The warrior that had spoken to him spun around. “Weel now ye heard him. Let’s be off! Hurry men!”
Tristan aimed Bluebell straight up the mountain, the giant of a horse leaping into a canter as Tristan put his heels into the horse’s sides. The stallion bunched his haunches and bound up the hill. Even though it was dark, the horse was surefooted, taking big lunging canter strides up the hill, following the path of the stream that Cenna had taken earlier before turning east in the direction they had taken her.
9
Cenna awoke to a sharp nudge in her side. The pain of it accompanied by numbness in her wrists made her wince in pain. She felt the rough bark of the tree at her back and remembered what had happened and where she was. She opened bleary eyes to see Red Munroe looming over her with a sneer on his face. It was morning twilight and colorless but they were enveloped in grey. They were so high up in the mountain highlands that there were clouds drifting like heavy, ghostly fog in the wet air around them. Cenna was terribly uncomfortable. She felt damp everywhere. Even her clothes were damp. She was grateful for her wool tartan. Her skin under her tartan was the only part of her that felt dry and warm.
“Get up girlie!” Red Munroe said in a fowl burst of breath near her face. “Yer horse is ready, yer Ladyship,” he sneered again. He untied her from the tree, pulling and sawing at the ropes with no care for her aching arms or hands. Then he grabbed her by her upper arm and yanked her to her feet. He quickly tied her hands, in front of her this time, and gave her a few moments of privacy, shoving her none too delicately behind some scrub brush and ordering her to be quick about it. When she was done he yanked her forward by the rope attached to her wrists and threw her up onto a sorry-looking horse.
“Dinnae ye know how to handle a woman Mr. Munroe?” she chided him with a surly frown. “A woman is no a sack o potatoes to be heaved and shoved and thrown aboot!” Cenna glared down from her horse at him.
Red Munroe looked up at her as he glared right back. Then he threw back his head and laughed. He continued laughing as he turned and walked away to mount his own horse. He gave the signal for the men to move out and Cenna quickly snatched up the reins to her own horse in her tied hands.
One of the soldiers quickly came up beside her and grabbed the horse’s long lead rope that was attached under the horse’s chin to a crudely-made rope halter. He cruelly yanked on the horse’s head, giving a look over his shoulder to Cenna. That look was a nasty smile that let her know he was in charge of her horse, not she.
Cenna smiled cheekily back at him. His smile froze on his face as he noticed her smile. He turned his horse roughly around, pulling the poor horse’s mouth with his reins. He came up beside her and leaned in close to her, the stench of his unwashed body hitting her full in the face as she resisted leaning away from his threatening glare.
“Ye think ye dinnae have to be afraid o us, dinnae ye?” he said leeringly. “Weel now, I think ye should be afraid. Very afraid,” he said in a threatening voice. “Just like those villagers, and the woman I pushed over that cliff and all those other villages we have emptied out.” Then he pulled his arm back and struck her across the face. “I’ll be taking that smile off yer face meself!” he said with a cruel laugh.
Cenna put her chin up in the air. She stared unflinchingly at him. Refusing to let him see any pain she felt at his hand.
“Ye men have a bad habit of hitting defenseless women,” Cenna said, then lowered her voice to a hiss. “Aye, try that again with me hands untied why dinnae ye?” she softly taunted him. “But I know ye willnae, ye scunner. Tell me yer name then,” she said curtly.
The man smiled at her, a broad smile with a blackened, rotting tooth to one side of his front teeth. “I am Cormage, and why would ye be wanting to know me name?”
“Fer yer grave marker,” Cenna said matter of factly as she looked away from the man. She lightly touched the tip of her tongue to stop the trickle of blood on her lips. He had hurt her. She would not let him see the pain he had caused, but her head was still ringing from it. She could feel her lips swelling.
She watched as the men fell into a line within the heavy fog. Some riding, some walking. The fog drifted eerily around them and between them. Obscuring anything that was not within an arm's reach. The men could not see well, and certainly were not aware of where or how their horses were stepping. These men were not horsemen. Not at all. She had quickly noticed all their horses were barefoot. They had had their shoes removed recently, for the nail holes still showed along the sides of their hooves. So they had pulled the shoes to silence their horses feet, had they? she thought to herself. The poor horses would go lame, probably within hours as they trekked along the stony ground of the Highlands. The fools.
Cenna was able to guide her horse with her legs over any softer ground she could see, sparing its hooves from the rocks and stony places. The fog seemed thicker as they went along a steep ridgeline that followed a cliff face that loomed over them. The rock face dripping with dampness. That damp was everywhere, not just the heavy cloud they were in. They tried to stay in single file as they followed the cliff face, however, they soon started drifting apart. The clouds enveloping them, making a rider seem to disappear now and then. Cenna peered off to the side of the path, the side away from the cliff face. It dropped steeply off on one side. Cenna bit her lip gently. The dense clouds they were in gave her an idea, for many of the horses were stumbling along the narrow path, not able to see where to place their sore hooves. Finally, she saw her chance.
The man called Cormage was holding the lead rope to her horse as he led her along the narrow path. His horse was stumbling repeatedly. Cormage started around a sharp bend in the rock. Suddenly his horse took a bad step. The frightened man dropped the rope to get a better hold of his reins as his horse slipped, sliding sideways on some loose shale, one hoof going over the side. Cormage tried vainly to rebalance his horse. But it was too late. The horse could not balance on the narrow path with one hoof over the edge. The horse slipped further, falling sideways. Cormage flailed about trying to stay upright with his horse, but his efforts were in vain and his struggles unsettled the horse further.
Over the side they both went. Into a dense cloud of fog that swallowed them up.
Cenna stopped, peering into the heavy cloud to see their shapes—almost shadows—in the fog, as they went sliding down the mountain into what Cenna thought were the shapes of some brush and large boulders. There were also some eerie tall pines struggling up and out of the fog, leaning at an odd angle as if they were struggling to climb up the mountain and out of the clouds. Cenna looked behind her, peering again through the slowly swirling fog. The next soldier in line had not made the turn in the bend yet, and she couldn’t see the man around the bend in front of her either. She was alone on this narrow part of the mountain path.
Cenna hastily grabbed a dirk out of her belt, and looking to the shadow of man and horse down the slope, she flung the dirk with her two hands tied together. She threw it as hard as she could at the formless shadow of a man sliding down the hill. She watched with breath held as the dirk hit him. He threw up his head and arms and fell limply off his horse, dropping hard to the ground as he rolled away down the steep slope, disappearing out of sight into the white fog.
His horse continued sliding down into the heavy whiteness until the horse too could no longer be seen. Cenna bit her lip. She hoped the man’s horse was not injured and would find its w
ay to the bottom. She quickly untied the lead rope from her horse, flinging it over the side of the slope, and moved on.
No one seemed to notice when she came around the bend without Cormage. The denseness of the heavy, damp cloud that enveloped the mountain obscured all their figures. Everyone was intent on getting safely around that part of the mountain and onto the more open hillside, and hopefully out of the clouds. They stayed in single file, picking their way along the path.
Cenna noticed the men’s horses taking more and more uneven and slower steps as their hooves came down on the rocks. Little by little she dropped back into the fog until she could go no further, for a horse and rider was blocking her way. There were too many men still behind her for her to turn and break away from Red Munroe and his soldiers. The path was too narrow and much too dangerous in this thick fog to try to turn around even if the path was wide enough.
Cenna slowed her horse until the man who was behind her caught up to her. His horse was taking painful short steps as well, it’s head low to the ground trying to see. It’s rider was doing the same. So intent was he on looking down at the ground that he did not see Cenna beside him. Cenna got a good look at him, though. She remembered him well from the Macallan village. Swinging his torch at the poor villagers. She frowned at him.
“What’s yer name?” she asked him. But the man only spared her a sneering glance and ignored her.
“I asked ye yer name,” Cenna said again, insistently.
“Tis Fearghus if ye must know, but what is it to ye?” the man said with a contemptuous sneer.
Cenna had been watching for just the right place. She could see the tops of a patch of pine trees just down the slope from them in the thick swirling fog.
She pulled her leg back and with a sharp, quick kick, shoved the man off his horse. “It’s for yer grave marker,” she said to him, as he went flailing over the side of his horse and over the cliff.
He went tumbling down the slope, disappearing into the whiteness. She was just about to pull her dirk out when she heard his muffled cry, then all was silent. She quickly looked around her, worried that the men somewhere behind her had heard the man’s cry or that they would see the now rider-less horse beside her. She kicked the horse’s haunches so that it went trotting off in front of her, away into the fog along the path.
Cenna waited, listening for the horse’s hoof beats to recede into the distance and the fog, but had to move when she heard more of the men coming up the path behind her. She lightly put her heels on her horse and began once again to walk slowly along the path in the damp, white fog. She had just caught up to the others in front of her when she heard Red Munroe scream out her name. She came around a bend and the land opened up. The fog seemed to be less dense here as well, now that they were away from the cliffs.
Cenna saw Red and his men. They were all halted on their horses, clustered here and there, resting.
Each one of their horses stood still, resting a hoof, then picking it up to rest another, hanging their heads low in discomfort or pain, for the cliff path had been particularly stony and treacherous. Cenna’s horse moved easily on as she maneuvered it around the worst of the rocks. She smiled prettily as she passed Red’s men where they had stopped, their horses obviously in pain. She rode up to where Red Munroe was stopped. He was sitting atop his horse staring at her with narrowed eyes and a frown on his mouth.
“Ye screamed fer me?” she asked saucily.
“We’ll need to stop here and take a break, now that we are off the cliff path,” Red growled in frustration. “Our horses’ hooves cannae handle this mountain terrain.”
“Hmmm, I see that they cannae. Sich a shame that is,” she said with a little smile. “No hoof, no horse, dinnae they say?”
“I noticed yer horse seems to be faring well,” he said with a suspicious look as he peered around her, no doubt looking for the man called Cormage.
Cenna batted her eyelashes at him. “Perhaps I am just lighter?” she suggested sweetly. She certainly wasn’t about to tell him that if they would only guide their horses around the worst of the stony areas they would save their horses’ hooves and prevent the stone bruising they all surely had.
“Where’s the rope on yer horse? My mon was supposed to be leading ye, where is he?” he asked her in a loud, belligerent voice as his greasy hair shook around his face.
“He was ahead of me on the cliff path, then when I came around the bend I dinnae see him…the fog was so thick,” she said innocently as she shrugged her shoulders. Cenna noted that where Red Munroe’s hair touched the edges of his face, the man had pustules on his skin. Very likely from the rotting grease he used in his hair.
Red looked around for Cormage. More of the men were coming down off the narrow cliff path. He studied each man as they came to the open hillside and stopped to rest.
“Where’s Cormage and Fearghus?” Red bellowed to his men.
The men looked around quickly, watching the last few stragglers coming to join them.
“Tis Fearghus’ horse! There!” a man pointed up the slope from them to where a horse stood off by itself, grazing.
Red growled loudly. “Where is Scottie, Taran, and Sean?”
Cenna sat up straight on her horse, looking around. Her eyes were narrowed. That hadn’t been her doing. Was Tristan close? Had Tristan taken care of those three men whose names Red had just called out?
“The fog took the men,” one of Red’s men said fearfully. “Spit back Fearghus’ horse but swallowed the men,” he whispered.
Cenna rolled her eyes at that.
“Aye, thick as soup it was on that mountain. And they were swallowed up,” another added in a hushed voice.
“Mayhap their horse lost its footing and they fell over the side…” Cenna interjected casually into the silence.
“But that’s Fearghus’ horse, but where’s Fearghus then?” one of the men challenged her.
Cenna shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps the horse managed to regain his footing but the rider fell off?” she asked. “Horses have four feet after all, better to stop themselves from falling.”
The men stared thoughtfully at her.
After a time, just as Cenna was becoming uncomfortable, another man spoke up, “Aye, Cormage was a turrible rider, he was. Turrible. I imagine he all but pulled his horse over the side if he was about tae fall off. Held on fer dear life and wouldn’t let go and pulled the horse over the cliff with him,” he tsked as he looked at the ground, imagining it.
The men all tsked as well, deep in thought at Cormage’s tragic plight.
“And Scotty and Taran and Sean, why the fog was so thick in places ye couldnae see the hand in front of yer face. They probably just walked off the cliff side, not being able to see it…” a man said.
This was followed by more tsking.
Cenna looked around at the men, her lips twitching as she tried not to laugh or even smile. Her eyes landed on Red, who was looking at her. She quickly schooled her face and tsked as well, her eyes downcast as if she too was thinking of the sad plight of those men and Cormage and his horse. In truth, she did know otherwise. That Cormage was very likely dead and that his poor horse would very likely be showing up at some village at the base of the mountain where the villagers would be glad at the unexpected gift of a horse.
10
Tristan had never felt such fear. He rode the big draft at a pace far too fast for this mountainous terrain, but he had to follow them. Red Munroe and his men did not appear to be taking any precautions. They clearly were taking the most direct route through the mountains, staying on paths that wound their way around the rocky peaks. It was a dangerous route—fast, if you had a reliable mount that had hooves for this terrain. They did not. But he did. The giant draft horse stallion climbed the hills with strength and ease. He took the stony footing without a care or a single misstep. Tristan found himself praising the big horse, even using the name that his sister-in-law had given him. Bluebell. Such a feminine name for th
e most burly, muscular, intimidating horse he had ever met.
Tristan knew his men were behind him, somewhere. The soldiers of the Highland Black Watch Army were excellent trackers and he was not trying to hide his trail. No, in fact, he and this monster of a horse were barreling their way through bushes and scrub brush and over rocks and logs. He felt the big horse would go through those as well if he could. Tristan did not hold him back, but urged him on.
He had to find Cenna.
He had to get her back.
He couldn’t imagine anything beyond her being safe. His body—in fact, all his muscles—were tight with strain. He did not want to think of what Red Munroe was capable of doing to her.
He found where they had rested briefly for the night.
Tristan clenched his jaw in fury. They had tied Cenna to a tree. He moved on, following their trail as they left their camp.
As the way got steeper and the footing more and more rough and stony underfoot, Tristan started to notice a separate set of hoofprints that was veering away from the worst of the stony areas. This set of hoofprints was traveling a bit off the path where there was dirt and leaves and pine needles to walk on.
He knew this was Cenna. She would make sure whatever horse she was on would not get stone bruises. Could this mean she was no longer bound? She had access to her dirks. Unless Red Munroe had discovered the secret of her leather belt and the unusual silver adornments that went around it. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed that those adornments were dirk handles.
Tristan followed their trail. Daylight had yet to break as he followed the winding path along the side of the mountain. He looked up and stared at the austere cliff face that hung over him in the fog caused by the low-hanging clouds. There was dampness everywhere. The fog seemed alive as it writhed and coiled in the air about him. He slowed Bluebell to a more cautious walk so that he could see his way.