King's Warrior (Renegade Lords)

“Oh, no, you do not understand—”

She gave a little cry as he pulled her out of the wagon, and she was fairly certain she heard a sigh drift out from under the canvas, “Dia ár sábháil,” then Tadhg appeared like some shade from Beyond, throwing back the canvas covering and rising to his full height in the fog, sword out.

“Leave her be.”

The guard, shocked to find an armed man appearing out of the mists, released her and tripped backwards. Tadhg leapt down and slashed his sword twice, back, forth, as he walked forward. The guard moved out of range, stumbling back to the edge of the riverbank where he stopped, hands up, the eyes on either side of the nasal of his helm wide and scared.

“You—” he stammered, pointing with one finger of his upraised hand. “’Tis you…the, the Irishman. Christ’s mercy—”

“Stop talking, Wiley,” Tadhg interrupted, reaching forward.

The man called Wiley thrust his hands further into the air. “Don’t kill me,” he rasped.

“I’m not going to kill you.” Tadhg tore a set of keys loose off his belt. “I’m going to teach you how to swim.” He slammed the heel of his hand into the center of Wiley’s chest and pushed him backward over the edge of the riverbank.

He toppled down the steep muddy banks like a bag of rocks, too shocked to make a sound until he splashed into the river, where he got caught up in a swirling current and was whipped away, all in an instant. There was a faint cry, then silence.

Magdalena’s jaw dropped. She took a tentative step toward the bank, peering down. “Will he die?”

“We should be so lucky. He is one of Sherwood’s favorites, for all the wrong reasons.” He grabbed her hand. “There’s an outcropping of rock twenty yards down he can make use of, should he be so inclined. Someone will hear his cries. Eventually.”

He tugged her to the gate, shoved her through, then himself. All was done in silence.

“Is your pony fast?” he demanded.

She jerked her gaze over, startled. “Fast? No, of course not, she is a cart pony—”

“Does she know her way home?”

“Home, why yes—”

He gave the pony a hard smack on the rump. She retorted with a startled kick of her heels then trotted off, down the street. Magdalena stared in amazement as Tadhg yanked the gate shut behind them.

He locked it with the ring of keys he’d taken from the guard, then turned and flung them into the air, using his whole body. The keys tumbled in an iron-black arc through the misty air, then dropped out of sight. A moment later they heard the smallest of splashes as they hit the river below.

Tadhg grabbed her hand, and they started running into the grey mists of dawn.

“BRINGING YOU with me was supposed to make things easier,” he complained as they ran through the wet straggly grasses bordering the single track that approached Saleté de Mer.

“Bringing me?” Magdalena said, flinging hair off her face. They ran crouched over, staying as low as possible, running as fast as possible. “You have abducted me.”

“I just rescued you,” he pointed out. “Again.”

She would have gaped at him had there been breath in her body. “Rescued me?” she panted as they ran. “You rescued me?”

“Exactly.”

She felt like slamming her body into his and toppling him over the cliff they were now hugging. Down below the river rambled, deep and cold. “The only reason I needed to be ‘rescued,’” she panted, “was because I was in grave danger, which you put me in, thus requiring rescuing.”

“You see my point.”

“I swear to you, Tadhg, I will stab you in the heart,” she gasped as she tripped on a downed tree, “once I…catch my breath.”

He helped her over the tree trunk, ever watchful, then suddenly turned and dragged her straight into the forest, putting them on a hidden path no one would ever have known was there, unless they were a wild, woodland creature. Or an outlaw.

Dark and protected, filled with freebooters and wild boars and wolves, the forest was both blessing and curse. All her excursions for flowers ended strictly at its borders. She’d never gone inside. Now, her hand clasped in an outlaw’s, she was running full tilt straight into one of the deepest of all.

She ran for as long as she could, and then a little longer, till they were deep inside. Shadows darkened and moss grew thick, hanging off the branches and furring up the huge tree trunks in all manner of strange and alien shades of green. Overhead, clouds built. Finally, she slowed.