Page 41 of Laird of Flint
He hadn’t fallen into the ravine. Not yet. But he was hanging by one arm, gripping his axe, which was caught on the narrow lip of a boulder. Every muscle strained as he fought to keep from twisting and dislodging the blade.
She crept cautiously forward, kneeling beside him.
Once, long ago, she’d saved a lamb from falling into a well. She’d managed to grab one of its forelegs and hauled it up over the stone wall.
“Here,” she said, extending her arm. “Take my hand.”
He shook his head. “I’ll only…pull you down…with me.”
He was probably right. The warrior was no lamb. He was as big as an ox.
An ox!
“Hamish,” she decided. “Hamish can pull ye up.”
“The coo?”
“Aye.”
“Do you have…a rope?” he gasped.
She grimaced. He’d used her rope to tie up the Boyles.
“Hold on,” she said, wondering if he could. He’d already held on a long while.
She shrugged out of her plaid. Then she began tearing off the rags of her disguise, knotting them together.
His axe blade made a forbidding scrape as it slipped, grinding against the boulder.
He held his breath. His arm shuddered.
Her heart pounded as she tied the rags with frantic fingers.
“Almost,” she breathed, securing her plaid to the last rag.
Shivering in her thin leine, she rose on trembling legs to loop the tied rags around Hamish’s neck. She ducked under his head to secure the line. Then she fed out the makeshift rope and dropped it gingerly over the edge toward him.
The fingers of his free left hand could barely reach the cloth of her plaid.
She clucked to Hamish to summon him closer.
The axe made a sinister shriek as it twisted again on the rock.
Hamish stepped forward.
The plaid lowered toward the warrior another few inches.
Then, with a loud crack, the edge of the boulder chipped off, and the axe fell away.
At the last instant, the warrior seized the plaid in his left fist.
She gasped as the rag rope suddenly went taut. But Hamish, the loyal beast, stood steady, as if rescuing warriors from certain death was something he did every day.
Coaxed a few more paces forward along the path, Hamish hauled the Viking up out of danger. The man was able to crawl onto his hands and knees to catch his breath.
It was then Carenza noticed he’d never let go of his axe. She supposed it was a warrior’s instinct to die with his weapon in his hand. But now she wondered if she should be worried.
It was then she also realized, in her zeal to make the rag rope, she was now half-naked, clad only in her trews and thin leine.
