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His hands were shaking; it was hard to tie the stocking round his head Still, the small action made him feel better Now, then He’d cliy peaks, andthe rocks and heather

If you were lost in the wilderness, the usual caution was to stay put; wait for soht, if the only people looking for you were ones you didn’t want to be found by

He looked upward, through the snarl of branches He could see small patches of sky, but the rhododendrons rose nearly twelve feet over his head There was no way to stand up; he could barely sit upright under the interlacing branches

There was no way of telling how big this particular hell was; on their journey through the mountains, he had seen entire slopes covered with heath balds, valleys filled with the deep green of rhododendron, only a few a sea of leaves Then again, they had detoured round sles of the stuff, no more than a hundred feet square He kneas fairly close to one edge of the thing, but that knowledge was useless, with no idea in which direction the edge lay

He beca Shock, he thought dimly What did you do for shock? Hot liquids, blankets Brandy Yeah, right Elevate the feet That much, he could do

He scooped a shalloard little depression and eased hi the clammy, half-rotted leaves over his chest and shoulders He propped his heels in the fork of a ste

They wouldn’t come in after him Why should they? A lot better to wait, if they were in no hurry He’d have to come out eventually--if he still could

Any movement here beloould shake the leaves above, and pinpoint his ht; they undoubtedly knehere he was now, and were si for his next move The patches of sky were the deep blue of sapphires; it was still afternoon He would wait till dark before he moved, then

Hands clasped together on his chest, he willed hi beyond his present situation Brianna Let hie or bewilderment, now; there was no time for that

Let him pretend that all was still between theainst hier on his body The generosity of her nakdness, freely given And his ht with the world Gradually, the shivering eased, and he slept

He woke so the sky, though not the ry, too, and with a desperate thirst Well, if he got hile, at least he could find water; strea aard as a turtle on its back, he turned slowly over

One direction was as good as another On hands and knees, he started off, pushing through crevices, breaking branches, trying his best to go in a straight line One fear haunted hiht of the Indians; he could so easily lose his bearings,in endless circles, trapped forever The stories of the hunting dogs had lost any eleeration

So his head on the branches overhead He gritted his teeth and kept on, a few inches at a time Crickets chirped all around his let him know that the inhabitants of this particular hell didn’t appreciate his intrusion He couldn’t see anything at all; it was al, though: The constant effort heated hie in his scalp and dripped from his chin

Whenever he had to stop for breath, he listened for some clue--to either his location or his pursuers’--but he heard nothing beyond the occasional night bird’s call and the rustle of the leaves all around He wiped his sweating face on his sleeve and pushed on

He didn’t kno long he had been going when he found the rock Or not so much found it as ran headfirst into it He reeled back, clutching his head and gritting his teeth to keep fro from the pain, he put out a hand and found what he had struck Not a boulder; a flat-faced rock A tall one, too; the hard surface extended up as high as he could reach

He groped to the side, andnear it; his shoulders stuck in the narrow space between He wrenched and heaved, squir on his face

Doggedly, he rose up onto his hands again--and realized that he could see his hands He looked up, and around, in complete amazement

His head and shoulders protruded into a clear space Not led forward, out of the claustrophobic grip of the rhododendrons

He was standing in an open space, facing a cliff wall that rose on the far side of a srew in the soft dirt beneath his feet Astonished, he turned slowly round, gulping great lungfuls of cold, sharp air

"My God in heaven," he said softly, aloud The clearing was roughly oval in shape, ringed by standing stones, with one end of the oval closed by the cliff face The stones were evenly spaced around the ring, a few of theed from their places by the press of roots and stems behind them He could see the dense blackbetween and above the stones--but not one plant greithin the periooseflesh ripple over his body, he walked softly toward the center of the ring It couldn’t be--but it was And why not, after all? If Geillis Duncan had been right…he turned and saw in the s on the cliff face

He walked closer to look at thelyphs, some the size of his hand, others nearly as tall as he was; spiral shapes, and whatA nearly closed circle, that looked like a snake chasing its tail Warning signs