Page 156 (1/2)

"Ye already are, fool Dinna fash yourself, nay haraol than out here,crash punctuated his stateh the trees a few feet overhead, shearing branches as it went Chain shot, Jaht automatically, even as he ducked in reflex, bowels clenched

Hobson jerked in terror, swinging the barrel of his ain, and his eyes ith surprise, as a red stain flowered slowly on his breast He looked down at it in puzzle like a wilted steun, sat down quite suddenly, leaned back against a fallen tree, and died

Ja, and saw Geordie Chisholm behind hi at Hobson’s body as though wondering just how that had happened

The booh the branches and landed nearby with a thud Ja hih Fowles, who had got hirabbed Fowles’s ar the pool of vo Fowles by waist and shoulder, and dragged him toward the shelter of the copse behind them "Geordie! Geordie, help ot Fowles onto his feet and half-dragged, half-carried hi as they went

The air was filled with the pungent scent of tree-sap, oozing froly of Claire’s garden, turned earth, churned earth beneath his boots, the fresh-turned earth of furrows and graves, and Hobson sitting in the sun by the log, the look of surprise not yet gone from his eyes

Fowles stank of voht he would vo blood again, and clenched the o back down

Soun in his left hand, raised it by reflex, fired one-handed He stu whoever he had fired at turn and run, sh the trees

Fowles had his feet back under hi Geordie to it He fell to one knee, groping for powder and shot, ripped the cartridge with his teeth and tasted gunpowder tinged with blood, poured and ra pan, checked his flint--all the while noticing with a sense of be in the least, but went about their business with a deft calh they knew just what to do

He raised the barrel and bared his teeth, only half-conscious of doing it There were un to bear on the first With a last shred of conscious thought, he jerked it higher and fired above their heads, thein his hands They stopped, and he dropped the gun, ripped the dirk fro

The words seared his throat, raw froh fro that it was just so that Hugh Fowles had done, and he had thought it foolish then

"Run!"

The ht do, he turned at once after the slowest, bounding over the broken ground, a ferocious joy flooding his legs, bloo in his belly He could run forever, the wind cold on his skin and shrill in his ears, the spring of the earth beneath hirass and rock

The lanced back over his shoulder, and with a shriek of terror, ran full-tilt into a tree He threw hi the springy crack of ribs beneath his knee He gripped a handful of hair, slick and hot with greasy sweat, and jerked back thethe nakd throat that lay before him, stretched and defenseless He could feel the shock of the blade on flesh, the hotness of the spurting blood, and wanted it

He gulped air, panting

Very slowly, he drew the knife away fro with need, as though he had been dragged fro seed

"You are my prisoner," he said

The , tearsto speak, sobbing, but unable to draw enough air to uely, it occurred to Jamie that he had spoken in Gaelic; the rip, lish words, buried soh his brain

"You arefor air betords

"Yes! Yes! Anything, don’t kill , hands clasped to the back of his neck and shoulders hunched around his ears, as though he feared Jamie would seize his neck in his teeth and snap his spine

At the thought, he felt a dim desire to do so, but the thruain, as his heartbeat faded in his ears The wind no longer sang to hih the leaves above There was a popping of distant gunshots, but the boom of the artillery had ceased

Sweat dripped fro