Keane moaned, writhing away from her.
“Oh, God, I knew—”
Another arrow screamed through the air, passing near Sorcha’s ear.
“It matters not,” Keane said raggedly, stains of scarlet discoloring his tunic. With an effort he whistled to his destrier. The war-horse was nervous, prancing anxiously, nose to the wind, his great ears flicking toward the woods. Keane hauled himself into the saddle as Sorcha climbed on Leah’s little mare, yanked hard on the bridle, causing the jennet to rear as they turned.
“Run, you bloody nag,” she yelled at the jennet. Her horse jumped forward, and Sorcha leaned low in the saddle, digging her heels into the mare’s flanks, urging the tired bay to keep up with the longer, steady strides of Keane’s charger.
The frozen ground whirled past and wind tore at Sorcha’s face, bringing tears to her eyes. She could barely breathe, and fear grasped her heart in its terrible, clawlike grip. They couldn’t die; not like this! Please, God, not like this!
Another arrow whizzed past Sorcha’s shoulder and she glanced backward for just a second, long enough to see a band of outlaws moving out of the shadows. Filthy and ragged, five men she’d never seen in her life rode rangy horses, without using their hands. Bowstrings held taut, arrows in place, they took aim. “Oh, God, save us,” she murmured, her throat constricting in terror.
“This way!” Keane shouted, turning into the woods again. The road they took was little more than a deer trail that wound through the dense undergrowth, and at the base of an ancient oak, split in several directions.
“We’ll never lose them if they live here in the woods,” she said as the horses slowed to a trot and picked their way through the gloomy undergrowth.
“We’ll lose them,” Keane vowed, though he had to hold on to the pommel of the saddle to keep himself astride.
As often as Sorcha had ridden in the woods, she’d never ventured this far from the castle. The dark forest felt hostile. Tall firs kept the ground in shadow while bare, black-barked oaks reached skyward and thorny, leafless briars rattled in a wind that was as cold as death.
“They’ll expect us to double-back,” Keane told her as they took a fork in the path leading farther north, away from Prydd.
She bit her lip anxiously. “Should you not rest?” she asked, eyeing the pained set of his mouth.
“Not yet.”
She watched as even more blood stained his tunic, but she said nothing. Keane was a proud man, and this time, Sorcha feared, his pride would become his undoing. “Please, let us stop. We can hide—”
“Nay!” His skin was taut and white around his mouth. With determination, he clucked his horse forward. “We must return to Prydd by nightfall, but ’twill be a long ride as we needs make our circle wide so as not to run into the outlaws again.”
She thought of the horrid creatures who had tried to kill them. “Who were those men?”
Keane shrugged.
“But why would they attack us?”
“For money,” he said with effort.
“I have no coin—”
“Ransom, then. You’re the baron’s daughter, are you not?”
“The baron is away.”
“Tadd is at Prydd.”
“Tadd wouldn’t pay a single gold piece for my release,” she muttered as they finally turned southeast, beginning to double-back.
“It matters not. Now, hush, lest they hear us.” His gaze held hers for just a second, and she saw death in his kind eyes. “Ride silently, and should I … be unable to stay astride, leave me and take my horse.”
“Keane, no—”
“Do not thwart me on this, woman. ’Tis our only chance!”
He kicked his mount onward. She saw him wobble in the saddle, and her heart leapt to her throat. He held on, but she knew he would not stay conscious much longer.
Hours later, they arrived at the gates of Prydd. Sorcha’s body was numb from the cold, her fingers rigid in the frozen leather reins. Keane slumped forward, falling off his destrier as his wounded body finally gave out.