Highland Enchantment (Highland Brides) (29 page)

The closest man exchanged his bow for a sword.

Liam increased his grin. "A strapping lad like you afraid of a simple juggler," he said. "And I am not even armed." He lifted his other hand to prove his point, but as he did so, he tripped a tiny string. Black powder poured from the bottom of his hose. Heart pounding, he took one more step, but as he did so, he scratched the steel of his shoe against a rock. He leapt just as the powder exploded.

The nearest horse screamed and reared. His rider yanked the reins, and the steed, pulled off balance, careened over backward, pinning his master beneath him.

Liam rushed forward. The horse thrashed, struggling to get up, and Liam leapt aboard.

They were running in a heartbeat, dashing through the woods. Behind him, he heard the screams and hoofbeats of the others. They were following him. Rachel would be safe. All would be— Pain sliced through him like the blade of an ax, swallowing his senses. Blackness raced toward him. He fought for lucidness, for control. He must not fall, but he couldn't stop the earth. It flew toward him. His body struck it, but it didn't hurt him, only seeming to echo through him like a haunting dream. Hooves thundered momentarily against his ears. Voices hummed around him, and then all went silent.

Not eighty rods away, Rachel cowered in her hiding place.

Where was Liam? What was happening?

Men yelled. Hoofbeats drummed, but the noise subsided in a minute. Even the sound of the horses' nervous tramping grew still, and then, after an eternity of terror, Warwick's voice came, rasping through the woods like the hiss of an evil adder.

"We have your love, Lady. He is unconscious and badly wounded, but I think you can yet save him."

Rachel lurched, ready to leave her sanctuary, to run to Liam, but a flash of evil struck her mind.

She trembled at its onslaught, grabbing Dragonheart as she crouched back into hiding.

Perhaps Liam was already dead. Perhaps she was already too late. Perhaps she could do nothing but save herself and the amulet. Terror and duty warred inside her. But the truth came to her slowly, stealing through the horror, through the fear; even if Liam had survived thus far, Warwick would not allow him to live, not if she showed herself. For then she would no longer have even a smattering of bargaining power.

Silence spurred through the woods, accented by nothing more than Rachel's own labored breathing.

"He's bleeding badly," Warwick called.

Nausea shook her. Gripping the amulet harder, she squeezed her eyes closed, but the tears still escaped, eking between her lids. Her throat tightened in agony.

"Twill be on your soul if he dies!"

She must go to him. She must! she thought, and reached for the opening in the tree. But just then a vision of Liam's dead body flashed across her mind. She mewled like a wounded animal and hunched deeper into the tree's hollow.

If she revealed herself now, all would be lost. She could do nothing for Liam now. Nothing. But when darkness came she might have a chance. There might be some hope.

She must wait. Wait and pray that Liam would regain consciousness in time to aid their escape.

Twas her only hope, she thought, but just then she felt a sharp stab of evil in her mind.

Warwick! She recognized him immediately. He was searching for her, trying to find her hiding place.

She tried to turn her consciousness aside. But he was already in her mind, wearing at her nerves, gnawing at her thoughts. Terror sliced through her. Sweat beaded her brow. She tightened her grip on Dragonheart and wrestled the powers of hell.

Home! She saw it in her mind. Her cousins! They were there, their faces hazy at first. But in a moment they were clearer, and then clearer still, as if they stood before her in the flesh. Their laughter swelled around her, their hands took her own, and they led her down from Glen Creag to the quiet stream where they often played.

The song of the water here was sweet and melodious. A goldfinch tittered. The sound mingled with her cousins' silvery laughter. The smell of sun-warmed grass filled her nostrils. Contentment took her soul.

Twas there that Rachel fell asleep, lying on the grass with the sunlight warm against her face and the water chanting stories of love and happiness.

A scream ripped through the woods.

Rachel woke with a jolt. Her head thumped against something solid. Darkness. Everywhere.

Where was the meadow, the singing water, the...

A scream again! And suddenly she remembered all. She was alone in the woods. Liam had been wounded and taken. And there was no one to save him. No one but herself.

The next scream was like that of a wounded beast, filled with the agony of endless centuries.

Her stomach twisted.

"Did you hear that, Lady Forbes?" Warwick's voice echoed in the woods.

She didn't answer, didn't move. Indeed, she could not, for her own roiling fear held in a grip as tight as death.

"But of course, you heard. For you are near. I am certain of that. You would not leave him. Not you, the Lady Saint."

The lady saint! The name mocked her. She was a coward. A traitor. Liam had risked his life to save hers, and how did she repay him? By letting him suffer while she hid like a whipped cur.

"You can yet save him, my lady. Tis not too late."

Hope soared through her. She squeezed toward the opening, but suddenly Dragonheart snagged on an unseen obstacle. She yanked at it, frantically trying to pull free, but it was caught fast.

"He is asking for you."

She pulled at the chain again.

"Pleading for you to come." Warwick's tone was insidious, and suddenly, even through her haze of unearthly sleep and hopeless terror, Rachel realized his ploy. She leaned her head back in her narrow lair. He was merely trying to draw her out. Cause her to make a mistake. He was
not
certain she was near. He only hoped.

She had that one small advantage.

But perhaps Liam was already dead. Perhaps it was someone else who had screamed. Perhaps Warwick had killed Liam and would kill her too.

Icy claws of fear and hopelessness slivered through her. But with hopelessness came a relief of sorts. She tightened her fist and found that Dragonheart was no longer caught. Instead, he lay in the warmth of her palm. His ruby heart glowed even in the dimness of the hollowed tree, mesmerizing her.

Yes, she would probably die, but she would not die foolishly.

Liam was alive.

He sat not far from the fire, his back braced against a blackened tree trunk his head slumped to his chest. Warwick stood slightly behind him, his face once again shadowed by his cowl. Some yards away, two men gazed off in opposite directions, but if there were others, Rachel couldn't see them.

Warwick spoke. Though she felt the dark hiss of his voice, she couldn't hear the words. But in a moment he reached toward Liam.

The Irishman's head jerked up. His gritted teeth flashed in the light of the fire, and perspiration shone on his face, but he didn't scream.

"So brave!" Warwick hissed, and reached to twist the arrow again.

A keeling moan of agony issued from between Liam's teeth.

"You may as well scream. Your lady love has left you to die. And with an arrow through your back. How dreadful," Warwick rasped, and reached forward again.

The moan turned into a low-pitched wail.

The sound tore through Rachel's soul. Her legs felt stiff. She forced them to move, one first and then the other. And yet it was as if they belonged to someone else.

"She could have saved you," Warwick said, "but she chose to flee. You might as well—"

"I am here." The words came from her own lips, but they seemed distant and remote. She felt numb and heavy, as if her own body was asleep and she only watched the scene from somewhere far above.

Yet as Warwick jerked in her direction, she felt the blow of his attention. Not directly, but as if she were buffered by a gray, muffling cloud.

"Lady," he sighed.

Liam's head jerked up. Dark and vague, his eyes held the dull horror of a hunted beast's. "Nay!"

He groaned the denial, but the word was cut short in a moan of agony when Warwick reached forward again.

In a second the sorcerer stepped toward her, one hand outstretched as if to ward off her worries. "So you have come."

"Aye." She didn't retreat, maybe because she could not, maybe because she had lost all sense, had fallen into another dimension, where nothing was real, where horror and pain and misery could not quite touch her. "Aye, I have come."

"Tis good. You are just in time. Our Liam is fast fading."

"He is not
our
Liam."

"Oh, aye, he is." Warwick's voice registered surprise. "Surely he has told you."

She said nothing.

"He is my son."

No. It couldn't be true. Twas a lie. Her mind roiled with the horror of his words. She stumbled back a step, but her heart was already steadying her. It didn't matter. Parentage did not change the man. Her mind cleared gradually.

Warwick's two warriors had turned toward her, she realized, and behind her someone moved.

She didn't know how far away, nor did she know who it was. Yet she sensed an evil presence.

"Twill do you no good for your men to take me, Warwick." Her words echoed dully through the forest, as if they came from someone else, someone who didn't taste the bitter gall of terror. "For I am alone."

"Alone?" The wizard canted his head, and it seemed, even from this distance, that he held his breath.

"I don't have the dragon," she intoned.

"Run." Liam's command was no more than a whispered plea, but she heard it none the less, felt it curl through her soul like the pungent scent of wood smoke. "Please, Rachel."

She tightened her fist around nothing and braced her knees, lest they spill her to the earth.

"You do not have the dragon," Warwick said, his voice taut as he nodded. "But you know where it is."

"Aye. I know."

"Then I think, maybe we can convince you to share that knowledge," he said, stepping toward her again.

Laughter echoed through the stillness suddenly. The sound was eerie. Eerier still when Rachel realized it had come from her.

"Could it be that after all this time you know so little of the dragon that you would believe that?" she asked.

The woods were as still as a tomb. Not a soul seemed to breathe until the sorcerer spoke.

"What do you mean?"

"You could never force the truth from me, Warwick." She said his name out loud, disdainfully, even though the effort made her ache in some deep indefinable way. "Never."

"I think you overestimate yourself, my lady."

"Nay, I do not." She felt, abruptly, very old. As ancient as the sky, as stoic as the sea. "And if you do not tell your minions to stop where they stand, you shall regret it."

His laughter was raspy. "And what would you do?"

She was filled with coldness, as if the warmth of the sim had never touched her. "I will kill myself."

The dark cowl shook spasmodically, as if he denied her words, but she continued.

"The dragon hones what gifts the wearer already holds. Surely you know that much about this thing you covet so," she said, and nodded once, for she could feel his thoughts and knew that he believed her. Perhaps stranger still was the fact that she believed her own words. "Aye," she added, raising her chin slightly. "It hones one's God-given gifts."

"Then your threat has no sting, Lady, for you are a healer," he rasped.

She smiled the grim expression of one who expects to die. "Healing and death are but a heartbeat apart. Surely you know that, Warwick. Stop your men or I shall do what I say."

"Halt." His command was low and quiet, but she knew it was obeyed. He spread his hands peaceably before him. "Tell me where the dragon is." His voice was wheedling, and maybe in another world it might have been bewitching, but not now, for she was far beyond sanity's gates.

"Put the Irishman on a horse."

"What say you?"

"Tell the man behind me to put the Irishman on a horse."

A chuckle issued from beneath the cowl. "You may have powers, my lady, but so have I. Surely you do not think our Liam can yet save you."

"Nay, I do not," she admitted, but the words • sounded like someone else's, spoken from a thousand leagues away. "When he is safe, I will bring you the Dragonheart."

"Nay." Liam's denial was little more than a whimper of agony, yet she heard it, rasped in pain as he tugged at his bonds. "Nay, Rachel."

"Aye." She didn't dare look at him, didn't dare risk the trance that held her. "Set him free and you shall have what you covet."

She felt the wizard's thoughts on her, and did not try to hold him out. Instead, she let him pillage her mind, and there he saw her blank, dark hopelessness.

"Cut him loose," Warwick rasped.

A man hurried from the darkness to her right, bent, slashed Liam's bonds, and pulled him to his feet.

"Nay, Rachel! Nay!" Liam pleaded.

She tried to block out the desperation of his voice, to hold up the insulation that had buffered her thus far, but the trance was fading. Her knees shook, and for a moment weakness washed her like a deadly tide, almost drowning her.

"You shall live," she whispered.

"Nay," he repeated, but he was already being dragged to a horse.

The firelight gleamed off the broken shaft that protruded from his back.

Rachel swallowed the bile and fought back reality. "Please, Liam," she whispered. "For me.

Tis all I ask."

She opened her eyes. Their gazes met in the firelight's glare, and for a fragmented instant, their thoughts clashed. Not the thoughts of Dragonheart superimposed over her own, but the raw thoughts of her tortured heart—thoughts of hope and togetherness.

"Nay," she whispered, but it was not verbalized, only moaned by her soul, and before she could say it aloud, he was being pressed onto a horse.

With a grinding effort, she pulled her attention back to Warwick. "Promise you will let him live," she whispered. "You will take him to the road and set him free. Promise on the dragon."