Page 1 of Highlander's Escaped Prisoner
Prologue
The man was in great pain, but he was using every ounce of willpower he had to ignore it. He had to keep on running.
His entire focus had narrowed down to the effort of putting one foot in front of the other and covering as much ground as he could. As soon as his escape was discovered, a pack of hunting dogs would be hot on his heels, and they were ruthlessly efficient trackers. The only way to avoid them was to cross the River Baldoon at its widest and shallowest point, but that was still, by his estimation, at least a quarter of a mile away.
Faster, faster, faster,he told himself over and over again. The words in his head had taken on the rhythm of his uneven footsteps, but no amount of urging could take away the agony of the wound in his leg. He gritted his teeth and tried to concentrate on reaching the river ahead, and after a while, he realized that he was making slow but steady progress. The thought spurred him on to greater but even more painful efforts.
One thing favored him; the moon that night was a giant silver disk in the sky, brighter than it would be for another month, shining in a black and cloudless sky. While not being as bright as day, it was gilding the shapes of bushes, rocks, and any other obstacles in his path, making his path much easier to follow.
The river was drawing near; he could see the moon’s radiance laid across it, a straight path of shimmering silver light. He had never seen anything more beautiful in his life, and if he had had the breath, he would have sighed with relief, but he never got the chance.
“Halt!” came a voice from the darkness under the looming forest beside him. He was astonished, even in his dire circumstances, to realize that it was a woman’s voice, but his need to get to the river was so great that he ignored it. A woman could be easily dealt with.
“Stop, or I will shoot you!” called the voice again, closer this time, so close that he could hear the hoofbeats of the woman’s horse behind him. “You will not get away! Give up now!”
The voice was more threatening this time, but again, foolishly, he paid it no mind.Nearly there!he thought.
He heard the twang of the bowshot clearly in the still night air, but the arrow landed almost instantly, no more than ten feet in front of him, and he had little time to stop running. He skidded to a halt, his feet braking so suddenly on the damp grass that they slid from underneath him and he landed on the ground on his backside with an audible thud. A stab of pain shot upward from his wounded calf. He heard the rider dismount and walk over to him and felt her presence as she stood over him. His eyes were screwed shut in pain.
“Well done, sir,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You know that I could have killed you had I felt so inclined. You are fortunate that I am in great good humor this evening, I have had two glasses of wine, and the moonlight is not good enough to shoot by. Otherwise, I could have wounded or killed you and let the wolves and boars dispose of you.”
He lay still, stunned and winded for a moment. His breath was misting in the cold as he took in great gulps of air and tried to collect himself and recover from his desperate flight. There was no hope of crossing the river now, and he did not relish the thought of dying in agony with an arrow embedded in his back or being eaten alive by wild animals. He lay on the ground, groaning and holding on to his wounded leg.
“I told you to stop, did I not?” the voice demanded. “You would have saved yourself considerable pain if you had only listened.”
Finally, he was able to open his eyes and look upwards into the face of the woman who was glaring down at him. Even in the bright moonlight, he could see very little of her. It was only when she knelt down beside him that he could see her face in any detail, but he also noticed the gleam of a lethally sharp dagger clutched in her hand.
Her gaze traveled from his head to his feet and came back to the deep cut on his leg. She pointed to it. “What happened here?” she asked curiously. “Did someone stab you?”
He shook his head wearily. “No,” he replied. “I tripped over a tree root and fell on a sharp stone.”
“While you were running?” she asked. She felt the wound with surprisingly gentle fingers.
Keep her talking,the man thought. He could not relax, but he could converse with her and hopefully gain her sympathy. “No, I was walking yesterday.” He flinched and clutched at the wound again. “It opened up again when I fell.”
“Then perhaps you should not have been running,” she replied, somewhat smugly. “I warned you to stop, and I am an expert archer.” She smiled somewhat smugly and turned to look fully into his face.
God, she is so beautiful,he thought, looking at her heart-shaped, full-lipped face. He could not see the color of her eyes in the half-light, but he had the impression that they were blue or green, and her hair was fair.
“Stand up,” she said suddenly, “and do not even think about trying to escape from me, or I will have no hesitation in shooting you in the back. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” he said, with a sigh of defeat. “I do.” It was only when he stood up that he realized that he was towering over her. He had the advantage of size, but she was armed to the teeth.
“What are you going to do with me?” he asked.
She grinned and polished the dagger with her sleeve. “Wait and see,” she replied.
1
Earlier, in the morning of that same day…
Nessa Guthrie yawned and stretched as she opened her eyes to greet another day. She had not slept well, and her eyes felt gritty and sore as she tried to rub the sleep out of them, so she was not best pleased when her maid, Maudie, came in with a happy “Good morning, mistress! Time tae be up!”
She was bearing a cup of hot spiced ale that she placed on the table beside Nessa’s bed, then threw open the heavy brocade curtains to another bleak April morning. Nessa flinched as the sudden daylight assaulted her eyes and mumbled a greeting to Maudie, who plumped up her pillows and helped her to sit up.
“Ready for breakfast, mistress?” she asked, her round face beaming with good cheer.
Nessa, who was still trying to drag herself into wakefulness, shook her head. “Not yet, Maudie. I think I had one too many glasses of wine last night.”
