Suzanne Barclay - Pride Of Lions

“You’re a Murray, then.”

“Ah, but we’ve not established that they are Murrays.”

Hunter ground his teeth in exasperation. Many’s the time he’d fenced with words. He did not like finding them so expertly wielded by another. And by a woman, at that. A small woman, he thought as he urged Zeus toward the end of the valley. Her head came only to the center of his breastbone. How fragile she’d felt when he’d lifted her clear of her faltering horse. The memory merged with that of watching her race down the steep slope, calling a warning to her kinsmen.

A small, brave woman.

Hunter shook away the notion. He had no business admiring a woman who must surely be Allisun Murray.

The main body of the herd was gone by the time they entered the pass into the valley. A few head of cattle, the very young and the very old, had fallen by the wayside. Some stood about, horns lowered, puffing hard. Others had collapsed on the turf, mayhap never to rise again.

“We’ll be all night rounding up the stock,” Hunter muttered. “And I fear my uncle has lost a goodly num—”

“Uncle!” She jerked her head around, giving him a shadowed glimpse of a white face dominated by large, dark eyes. Her eyes were filled with horror. “Jock McKie is your uncle?”

“Aye. I’m—” His explanation ended in a curse as his prisoner erupted into a storm of flailing limbs. He wore full body armor, but only woolen hose on his legs and arms. It afforded little protection as her booted heel cracked down on his shin. “Ouch! Damn you!” His grip on her waist loosened fractionally. He felt rather than saw her go for the knife at her belt. “Nay!” Seizing her wrist in his rein hand, he wrapped the other around her throat.

“Damn you!” she wheezed, struggles ceasing.

“Drop the knife.”

“Nay.”

Her bones were so fragile he could break them with a flick of either hand. She knew it, too. The pulse in her throat beat a wild tattoo against his palm. The cadence of it jangled every nerve in his body. An unsettling awareness washed through him, a primitive urge to capture, to conquer. Dieu, he thought, shoving the notion away in disgust. Not even in the aftermath of battle, when blood lust drove some men to rape, had he felt this unholy stirring. It must be the violent Border air. “I do not want to hurt you,” he growled as much to reaffirm his civility as to reassure her.

“Aye, you do.” She swallowed, shivering slightly.

That small shudder awoke something else in him, something equally primitive. The urge to protect. “Nay. I came here to put a stop to this senseless bloodletting. To prove it, I will let you keep the knife.” Doubtless a grave mistake, but he needed to atone for his rapacious thoughts. “Providing you sheathe it.”

“This is some trick.”

“It is not, I assure you I—”

Hoofbeats sounded on the trail behind them. Over his shoulder, Hunter saw riders, coming fast. Leading them was a great bear of a man with a distinctive white streak in his dark, shaggy mane. Not McKies. Likely more Murrays.

“We’ll settle this later.” Hunter let go of her and kicked Zeus into a ground-eating gallop.

“Faster,” urged his prisoner, peering back behind them.

“Not your kin, then, I take it.”

“Dod! Far from it. That’s Ill Will Bell, next of kin to Old Cootie himself. He’ll rape me, pry you out of your fancy steel suit and roast you over a slow fire till you give up your gold.”

“Aye, I’ve heard of the man.” Hunter concentrated on the rough way ahead. They raced flat out over bleak moorland, following the trampled wake of the cattle. They couldn’t sustain this pace for long. In the distance, he saw more of the straggling herd and hoped to come upon his men and the McKies.

“Go to the left,” ordered the woman. “There, between those two boulders.”

“The herd...”

“Too far. Your horse won’t last.” She grabbed the left rein and tugged hard.

Conditioned to instant response, Zeus wheeled, slipped between two black rocks and plunged down a steep trail.

The woman turned to look back. “They have gone by.”

“Either they missed the turn in the dark...”

“Or they have decided to go after the cattle.”

Hunter grunted and focused on controlling their descent. The moon had disappeared again, and he had no idea what lay ahead. The path—more of an animal trail, he guessed—was rock strewn, the hillside covered with trees. Dewy branches slapped at .his helmet and tugged at his tabard. “Where does this trail go?” he asked, sawing back on the reins to slow their progress.

“I—I have no idea.” Her words were punctuated by groans as she absorbed the jolts. “I do not know the land hereabouts.”

“You knew where to turn off,” he said, wary of a trap.

“I saw a break in the hillside and thought it might provide us with a way out.”

“And into what?”

“I—I do not know.”

The trail veered sharply to the right. Hunter eased Zeus around the turn, then stopped.

“What is it?” She looked up over her shoulder at him. Her features were indistinct in the gloom—-a pale face, and wide dark eyes surrounded by tangled hair. Was she beautiful, this fey creature with the stout heart and canny mind?

A sound scattered his musing. “Listen.”

“I do not hear anything,” she said, voice hushed.

The stallion did. His ears pricked forward, his great head swung to look back up the trail.

Far above them, Hunter heard the faint crunch of stone. He leaned down and murmured, “They are coming.”

She nodded, her hair tickling his cheek, teasing his nostrils with the faint scent of woman and heather. “They are not many, I think. One...two, mayhap.”

“Aye.”

“Do we go or stay?”

Hunter looked around at the thick pines, the black rocks that lined the edge of the trail. “’Tis not a place I’d choose to make a stand.” He edged the stallion into a walk. A few paces they went, each one filled with tension. It radiated from the slender body bolt upright before him. He saw the glint of steel in her hand and realized she’d drawn the dirk again. Oddly he didn’t fear she meant to use it on him this time.

“They follow,” she whispered.

Hunter nodded.

The trail dipped. The stallion’s hooves flirted with the edge, sending a hail of stones into unseen darkness. Hunter counted the beats till they hit bottom. It seemed a far ways off. “Easy, lad.” He nudged a toe into the stallion’s ribs, moving him over.

In that instant, something broke from cover. A rabbit.

The stallion screamed and sidestepped.

Into nothingness...

As they went over the edge, Hunter cursed, grabbed hold of the woman and kicked his feet free of the stirrups.

He hit hard on his back, grunted as rock dented steel. He tried to brake with his heels, groaning as his foot caught on a rock. Pain radiated up his leg. They bounced off the rock and slid down, like rainwater off a slate roof. Gravel clawed at his unarmored rump and rattled against his helmet. He spared a moment’s thought for the woman, protected only by her woolen trews and tunic, and clutched her tighter against his chest.

“Hang on,” he growled.

“Where?” Her fingers groped at his chest, his waist. “You’re slick as a great metal pitcher.”

Hunter chuckled. But the bit of mirth was short-lived. His back slammed into something solid. The impact drove the air from his body. The night exploded in a shower of bright stars.

Allisun’s head hit his metal chest with a resounding clunk, jarring her teeth, addling her wits. A moment, maybe two, she lay there collecting herself. Then the unnatural stillness penetrated her stupor.

They’d stopped sliding, yet the massive arms that had held her during the fall were still clamped around her.