DARE THE WILD WIND (2 page)

Was it Iain?  She couldn't risk turning to see.  Then another report of a musket cracked out from the meadow below.  A horse screamed, and a mixture of curses echoed up the mountain.  No second set of hoofbeats gave chase up the rocky trace. 

As she fled across the clearing, she had cringed at the new explosion of a musket, expecting to feel a quick hot flash of pain.  Now she knew it had been Iain who fired.  The first shot he took had missed.  But it had held the dragoons briefly back.  Only one of the Englishmen had reached the edge of trees, and no more would quickly follow.  Iain had stayed in his hiding place, to shoot the horse from under the next of the dragoons to gain the mouth of the trail.  And given her time by blocking it.

But she still had too small a lead on the man behind her.  On he came, on a horse as swift as Gypsy, undaunted by the choked and narrow turns of the trail.  And Brenna couldn't shake the dread that it might be the tall noble who confronted her in the glen.

He could easily overpower her, even if she was forced to wield her dirk.  And his arrogant appraisal in the meadow told her he would exact instant retribution for the humiliation of his men. 

Gypsy's forefeet struck a shelf of loose, frost
shattered rock.  Slipping, she stumbled, and Brenna felt the bunched muscles of the mare's hindquarters propelling her headlong into a fall.  She fought to keep Gypsy's head up, to keep her seat in the saddle.

Then, greathearted and game, the chestnut scrambled for her footing and won, her momentum carrying her up and on again.  But they had lost vital ground to their pursuer.  Brenna could hear his horse, closer now, shortening the gap between them. 

There was no hope of reaching Lochmarnoch.  From the pace of the animal behind her, Brenna knew his horse was fresher than her beloved Gypsy.  On the empty moor that swept from the wood to the keep's high walls, he would have a fatal advantage.

Brenna took one last gamble.  A web of trails broke away from the trace they rode, more clogged and treacherous even than this stony track, some fit only for a man, or a child, on foot.  But one of them would ta
ke her to her old girlhood lair. 

Familiar landmarks told her the half
obscured fork was only a little way ahead.  But the man behind her was the devil's own horseman, and no fool.  His ears were as keen as hers.  If he failed to see the small brambly opening in the thick wall of firs, he would hear the pound of Gypsy's hooves along the tree shrouded track. 

Yet Brenna didn't dare pull Gypsy in just beyond the screen of undergrowth and trees on the chance he would thunder past.

She had one other choice.  A noisy rill, swollen by melting snow, ran just beyond the next twist of the main trail.  And it lay beyond the all
but concealed fork that branched to the safety of a hiding place none but Brenna and two others had ever found.     

Racing past the turning to their cave, Brenna prayed she still had enough of a lead.  Then she galloped around the notch in the trail, and plunged down into the small rushing stream.

Barely the stride of a tall man across, even in its spring freshet it was a simple matter to ford.  But Brenna wheeled Gypsy upstream along its bed.  Icy water boiled to the chestnut's hocks and splashed on Brenna's skirts and booted feet, but the current wasn't too strong for Gypsy to breast.  Only a few more yards, and they would reach the first jog in the small swift burn, out of sight of the trail and the horseman who pursued them.

Brenna kicked the lathered Gypsy forward, to round the crook in the stream with only seconds to spare.  Despite the muffling din of the rushing water, Brenna made out the hard clatter of hooves as the Englishman's animal left the low bank of the brook.  With relief, she heard his horse land on the opposite side in one jump and bound ahead up the empty trail.

Reluctantly, Brenna drove Gypsy forward.  They had to be out of earshot once her pursuer discovered he could no longer hear any sound of flight on the track in front of him.  By then, Brenna hoped he would have little clue to which of the forks in the trail she had taken.  And memory hadn't betrayed her. 

Only a little way upstream, the trail Brenna recalled dipped to cross the burn they followed.  Guiding her horse up onto solid ground again, she turned toward the cave, keeping Gypsy to a walk that would grant her merciful rest.  And, on the carpet of needles on this long unused trail, it was a pace that would carry Brenna in near silence past the hearing of anyone who pursued her. 

A small waterfall curtained the haven of her childhood.  Gypsy had cooled and recovered her wind, and dismounting, she let the mare drink and then led her along the narrow shelf of rock that ran between the rushing torrent of water and the smooth
worn wall of the cliff.  Gypsy followed without balking.  Centuries of churning water had hollowed the cave into the fissured rock and ground and laid a bed of sand at its mouth.  Beyond it, bare damp stone slanted to the roof of the cave, but there was space to spare to hobble more than one horse inside.

How often all three of them had done exactly that.  Nearly from the time Brenna could trail after the other two, they had built small fires in the cave, roasting squirrels and rabbits they had snared.  And sworn never to reveal their secret place. 

They had never found any signs of habitation in the cave but theirs.  With brands of wood as torches, they had discovered simple scratchings, crude drawings of animals far different from the roe and
red deer and grouse they saw in the forest and on the moors.  But no dead ashes from fires someone else had built warned them one day they might be evicted from their childish lair.

Brenna paced on the sand, her stomach twisting with worry for Iain.  He had risked his life for her.  And he could have lingered too long in reach of the English dragoons. 

She blessed his caution in watching for her from the trees instead of the abbey.  Inside its walls, he almost certainly would have been trapped.  From the spot in the forest where he laid his ambush, he at least had some chance of escape. 

He knew the forest above
Lochmarnoch Castle even better than Brenna, but she couldn't be sure he had slipped safely away.  If the dragoons had fired scattershot into the forest, Iain could have been wounded, even killed.  She couldn't bear to think it.  She could never live with her guilt if the teasing, high spirited Iain had sacrificed himself to keep her from the hands of English soldiers.

Then a welcome voice made her whirl with a rush of relief.

"I see Gypsy is still the fastest horse between
Inverness and Loch Rannoch."

He came leading his own mount, a bay ridden harder even than she had driven Gypsy, lather still clinging in patches to his shaggy winter coat.  And Brenna saw the torn strip of cloth awkwardly wrapped and knotted around one arm.

"Iain, you've been shot."  She rushed to him.

He made a quick dismissing gesture.  "By the grace of God, only grazed.  I thought this was where you'd ride."

"Let me see," she insisted. 

"As soon as I hobble my horse." 

Brenna didn't argue.  She couldn't know how far behind Iain the dragoons were.  It wouldn't do to have the bay wander out of the cave at the wrong moment.  When he was done, he allowed her to unwind his crude bandage.  He had been right.  The wound was still bleeding and ugly, but the shot had passed cleanly through.

"We'll need to wash it," she said.  "It's going to hurt."

"Not half as much as when I cauterize it," he said with a grimace as she pulled away the last of the bloody cloth. 

"We should do that now," she told him.  He shuddered as he thrust his arm into the icy water cascading from the high ledge at the mouth of the cave.

"Look around you," he said, setting his teeth for a second.  "Do you see any firewood in the cave?"

"I can find what we need," she reminded him.

"Not with King George's dragoons scouring the trail behind me.  I was far enough ahead of them I didn't lead them here, but they could stumble across the waterfall by accident."

"This can't go long without risk of corruption," she objected.

Iain shook his head.  "In another hour or so, I can find enough dead wood for a fire.  The soldiers will pull back at dusk."

Brenna knew not even English dragoons would risk breaking their necks in unfamiliar woods at night.  She tore a wide strip of linen from her petticoat.  "At least let me bandage it again."

Her worry lessened when she saw the wound already bled less.  As she bound it, Iain braced his back against the wall of the cave. The question that drove her to meet Iain burst from her at last.

"What word do you have of
Cam?" she asked, suddenly afraid to hear the reason Iain had come.  "He's not...?"

At the quick fear he saw in her face, Iain let out a soft, reassuring laugh.  "No Englishman can kill the MacCavan. 
Cam is alive and whole, and healthier than I am at the moment."

Brenna shut her eyes for a second.  "Thank God."

Her last glimpse of
Cam rose up before her again.  Proud and invincible, he had ridden away last August at the head of his clan.  Three feathers in his bonnet, he led the march to join the young Stuart prince when he unfurled his standard at Glenfinnan. 

There was no man like Cameron MacCavan in all the
Highlands.  Brenna had tagged after him and worshiped him from childhood.  And loved him when he grew to manhood.       

Broad
shouldered and muscular, in a land of fierce and powerful men, he was the strongest and swiftest in three counties.  But he could be as gentle as a boy.  And his leonine head could rock back with laughter, shaking the thick mane of russet curls that tumbled over his wide brow.  She had traced the lines of his bluntly chiseled features and kissed him goodbye seven months ago when he rode off to war.  And vowed again to wed him no matter what her half brother Malcolm could say.

"Why is it my cousin inspires such loyalty in women?"

Brenna opened her eyes to see Iain's plain, honest face twisted in an odd regretful smile.  "Can no creature of your sex spare a little pity for me?"

She tightened the knot of his bandage.  "Whenever we offer our pity, you spurn it," she scolded him in jest. 

"Perhaps pity isn't the word I seek," he joked in return.     

"Pity is what you should have for at least one girl I could name in your village," she said tartly.  "If you hadn't come to my rescue at the abbey, I'd be sorely tempted to read you a sermon on the subject."

He recoiled in mock horror.  "No sermons.  Gratitude is enough, and there isn't great need for that.  If my horse hadn't pulled up lame, there'd have been no cause for you to be insulted by those English dogs."

"Lame?" Brenna looked up. "How did you outrun the dragoons?"

"My horse picked up a stone in his shoe just after I left the village.  I had to turn back for a fresh mount."

Brenna thought how lucky it was he had.  "All the same I am grateful, Iain.  You didn't fail me when I needed your help."

Iain flushed faintly at her praise.  "I made that promise to
Cam, and long ago to you."

They had all of them sworn eternal allegiance, when
Cam and Iain had been ten, and Brenna only eight.  Brenna loved Iain as much as any kinsman.  He had taken the place of the brother Malcolm never had been.

"What of
Cam, Iain?" she asked softly.  "Why did he send you?"

"He rides to
Lochmarnoch Castle."

"Now?" she cried, jumping to her feet.  "Why did he have you call me here?"  Did he mean to lay siege to her brother's keep, and w
ant her safely out of its walls?

"He won't arrive until the morrow," Iain said.  "And he couldn't trust the message I brought to a letter your brother might intercept.  He wanted me to prepare you.  And to tell you he won't be able to take you with him."

Brenna stared at Iain.  "He comes to Lochmarnoch and means to leave me behind?"

"He comes to treat with your brother, and to sway new support to the side of the Prince."

"But he can't," Brenna burst out.  "The chiefs of the clans who gather tomorrow are loyal to King George.  They'll take him prisoner, or try to kill him."

Iain responded with a crooked smile.  "You forget my cousin's charm.  Do you know any man in the
Highlands who'd be glad to kill Cam?  They may dislike his politics, but he thinks they'll hear him out.  He'll ride under the white flag of truce."

Brenna knew no man was better liked by his neighbors than Cam.  Or none had been better regarded before the Young Pretender landed on the white sands of Arisaig, and Cameron MacCavan had joined the Rebel cause.  But she knew Malcolm too well to believe he would listen.

"My brother is treacherous as a viper.  He can't be trusted to honor a flag of truce."

"
Cam has a certain acquaintance with Malcolm's ways," Iain reminded her dryly. 

Something ran up the back of Brenna's neck on small cold feet.  Malcolm would welcome
another guest to the castle.  Suddenly she realized neither Cam nor Iain knew.

"Iain, it won't be just Malcolm and his men against him at Lochmarnoch.  Malcolm expects an emissary from the Duke of Cumberland to arrive in the morning."