Betrayal in the Highlands (27 page)

Edith’s smile broadened—seductive, with a hint of malice. She produced a bottle from underneath her cloak and held it out to the Lord of the Highlands. Norb reached for it then wavered. Edith pushed the bottle at him. Even through the shadows, Edmund could see Norb’s hands tremble as he took it from her.

Edith motioned to a nearby building, a crudely painted sign shaped like a large-breasted woman proclaiming it to be The Buxom Barmaid. Head bowed, Norb flinched a nod. He uncorked the bottle and, drinking as he went, followed Edith inside.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Edmund found Abby sitting in the darkness behind Molly’s house, exactly where he had left her.

“Come on.” He pulled her to her feet.

“What happened?” she asked, evidently noticing there was no blood on his sword. “What did he say?”

“Nothing. We have to get out of here.”

“Why?”

Edmund guided Abby past the now-darkened kitchen window.

“Norb was—”

From inside the dilapidated house, Molly started to sing softly. Her gentle voice floated out to them. Edmund stopped.

She’s happy? How could she be happy in a place like this? And with him!

“Ed?” Abby prompted.

How—?

Abby’s harsh hiss brought him back to reality.

“What happened? Why do we have to go?”

Edmund tried to push Molly’s singsong voice out of his head so he could think. He still held Abby’s arm. Somewhere in The Buxom Barmaid, Edith was talking to Norb. Dread and foreboding continued to bear down upon him.

“Edith is here,” he forced himself to say. “She’s with Norb.”

“So what does that mean to us?” Abby asked. “Ed … ? Ed?”

She kicked his shin.

Edmund cried out.

The singing stopped.

Edmund pulled Abby away from the window and, putting a hand over her mouth, flattened against the outside wall of the house.

The kitchen curtains opened. Edmund could sense Molly next to him, separated by mere inches of warped lumber. Then the curtains closed again.

He led Abby away.

“We have to get out of here,” he said once they were safely out of earshot. He led her through Rood’s desolate back roads, which wove amid the ruined buildings.

“Why? Edith knew you were coming here.”

“I can’t tell Norb not to talk about the diary while Edith is with him.”

Besides, she scares the crap out of me.

“We’ll try again tomorrow night,” he said.

“Try what again?” She followed Edmund as he circled around a clump of makeshift tents, the once-red coals of a campfire dying to a dull ocher. “Are you really going to kill him? I mean, I understand the reasons. I just want to know what to expect, that’s all.”

They hurried to the wall surrounding the city and found their rope still attached to the tree limb.

“Are you going to—?”

“I don’t know!” Edmund snapped.

A couple of vacant lots over, somebody picked through the rubble of what used to be Rood’s granary, perhaps searching for food.

“Look,” he said, “I can’t just kill somebody—I can’t! Especially Norb.” On the verge of tears, he added, “We were friends.”

“But you’re going to have to kill him, Ed.” The shock of her words made him look up abruptly. “You know that, right? Otherwise …” Her voice drifted off into the night.

Edmund took in her beautiful face, searching for some sort of emotion in her bright eyes and soft smile, something other than pain and despair.

“I don’t pretend to know everything that’s going on,” she said, “but I know some—more than you realize, perhaps. And I know something about life.”

Edmund wanted to laugh at this, but he couldn’t find the energy.

“When it comes to your life versus somebody else’s,” she went on, “you always have to pick your own, unless you love the other person more than you love yourself.”

He nodded.

“So you’re going to do what you need to?” she asked.

Edmund stared through the darkness toward Norb and Molly’s house. Exhaling, he pushed the rope into Abby’s hands. “Climb up. We have to return to camp or Pond will start looking for us.”

Abby looked at him for a moment. Then she put on a smile—a mixture of sympathy, respect, and something else Edmund couldn’t quite discern.

“I’m sorry things are so complicated,” she said. “But everything will work out. Just give it a little time.”

“You’re starting to sound like Pond.”

Abby might have blushed. In the dark, Edmund couldn’t tell.

“Speaking of whom …” He pointed to the rope.

“Right. See you on the other side.”

She climbed up the rope with the ease of a monkey. Edmund, huffing and grunting, followed close behind.

Chapter Thirty

“Let me ask you something,” Abby said as they jogged through the woods outside of Rood’s walls. Many of the larger trees had been felled, leaving ugly stumps and deep gashes in the ground where they had been dragged off. Several times they had almost tripped over them as they ran through the smoky night.

“What is it?” Edmund replied. “We have to get back to Pond and Fatty.”

“If she asked you, would you go back to her?”

“Back to who?”

“Back to Molly.”

Stride slowing, Edmund glared at Abby, tormented by the improbability of her question and the pain it produced. Then he remembered how she’d held him as he cried and how they’d come within inches of kissing in the darkness behind Molly’s house. For a second, he felt torn between two worlds: one tied to a simpler but unrewarding past; the other sailing off somewhere into the unnerving mists of a perilous future. Was his destiny with Abby? He didn’t know, but part of him wanted to find out.

Standing so close to her, Edmund noticed Abby’s right eye had a tiny green fleck near its pupil. Why that made him want to smile, he hadn’t a clue. It was all so ridiculous. She was beautiful, and young, and from wealthy family; he was middle-aged and stuttered. And then there was the danger forever hunting him. There was no reason he should even hope to end up with Abby. Yet his pain lightened whenever she was near. His spine straightened, as if part of the burden he’d been carrying for so long had just slipped from his shoulders. He wanted to kiss her, but the timing didn’t seem right. In fact, as they’d run from Rood, Abby seemed to grow increasingly annoyed by something. She had barely spoken a word to him since they’d climbed over the wall. But now …

“Answer the question,” she demanded.

“Look, Abby …”

More weight seemed to slip from his shoulders. He stepped toward her, trying to take Abby’s hand in his. But she pulled away and folded her arms across her chest, dark brown eyes narrowing.

Not that expression again. She was just starting to like—

Behind him, there was a peculiar whirling sound, like something flying through the air. Abby opened her mouth to scream.

Chapter Thirty-One

Something slapped across Edmund’s legs as he turned. He looked down to see a bola winging around his knees, quickly binding them together. A shriek erupted from Abby, piercing the calm night. Edmund’s immobilized legs buckled in mid-turn, and he began to fall as another bola whirled in from the darkness to his left. Its thick leather strap struck him across the chest; its two iron balls spun around him like circling sharks.

Stocky figures with long muscular arms surged through the shadows, coming from all directions.

Abby dropped her dagger, hands clapping to her mouth as she screamed again.

Legs bound and upper arms fixed firmly against his body, Edmund thudded to the ground, the side of his head bouncing off last autumn’s leaves. Then an all-too-familiar voice drifted from the dark woods.

“Nice throw, Mr. Gurding, I must say.” Kravel strolled out from behind a thornberry bush. “Nice throw indeed.”

Edmund shouted up to Abby, “Run! Run, Abby! Run, now!”

Hands still pressed to her mouth, Abby blinked down at him, terror in her eyes. She staggered back a pace and turned to flee when three goblins leapt out from behind trees and converged upon her. One threw a net. The other two tackled her, driving her face-first into an exposed tree root. Blood spurted from her nostrils.

Kravel sauntered toward Edmund, scimitar propped on one shoulder. “Don’t harm the girl.”

“Not yet, at any rate,” Gurding added next to him.

Struggling against the bola’s strap, Edmund extended one arm as far as it could go and, straining to reach, grasped the smooth steel of Abby’s dagger lying in the leaves. He dragged the weapon to him and frantically began to saw at the leather lashing his arms against his body.

“Well, well,” Kravel said, looming over Edmund. “I told you he’d come back, Mr. Gurding. We just had to be patient.”

“Predictable.” Gurding shook his helmeted head. He hoisted a spear as Edmund continued to slice at his bindings. “You’d think he’d learn.”

“Now, now, Mr. Gurding. Let’s be pleasant.” Kravel poked Edmund in the ribs with the point of his sword. “Please desist, if you’d be so kind, Master Filth. All is lost, as I am sure you’ll soon agree. Drop the dagger.”

Edmund snapped through a leather strap.

“You won’t kill me, Kravel,” he said, throwing the bola from his chest, arms now unhindered.

“True,” Kravel replied thoughtfully.

He kicked Edmund in the face.

Edmund’s head snapped back, mouth and nose awash in blood.

“Ed!” Abby sobbed as goblins bound her with coarse ropes.

“But, as you can imagine”—Kravel caressed the edge of his scimitar—“there are so many things that we can do to you. Would you like us cut out your other eye? Or worse? Now I suggest you just relax and enjoy the pleasure of our company as we return you home.”

Edmund spit blood. His arms were free and he had Abby’s dagger, but he was still prone on the ground, knees bound together while seven goblins pointed their weapons at him.

“Let the girl go.” He wiped blood from his nose; it smeared across his left cheek in a bright red arc. “I’ll come with you.”

Kravel and Gurding considered Abby, hands now secured behind her back, a thick rope tied around her neck like a leash. A goblin guard pressed his sword edge to her throat as she gasped for breath. Abby closed her eyes and attempted to swallow, blood dripping from her face.

“Very pretty,” Kravel said, nodding his approval. “I think His Majesty will enjoy her as well. Maybe even more than he did Molly, if such a thing is possible.”

Bastards!

You can’t let this happen. Not again!

“She is pretty,” Gurding agreed. “But she’s a bit young, isn’t she? What could she possibly see in him?”

“Who knows, Mr. Gurding? Perhaps Master Filth here has recently acquired a substantial sum of money.”

Edmund’s teeth gnashed.

“Let her go!”

He considered throwing the dagger at Kravel. After all, the grinning goblin was only a few feet away. But Edmund was on the ground and couldn’t put his weight behind the throw. Further, even if he was lucky enough to kill Kravel, it wouldn’t improve his situation; he’d be weaponless and at Gurding’s mercy.

“No …” Kravel studied the crying Abby. “No, I’m afraid not. You’ll both come with us, I think. You obviously fancy her, and having her with us will make you think twice about using any of your magical abilities, whatever they may be. Plus, she appears pleasant to have around, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Gurding?”

Abby started to shout for help, but a goblin shoved a soiled rag into her mouth.

“I’m just glad she’s thin,” Gurding replied. “Do you remember carrying that other one all the way back home? Miserable ordeal. My arms ache just thinking about it.”

Do something!

What?

“Yes, she does cut a more slender figure, no doubt.” Kravel wiggled his fingers at Abby while Abby’s muffled wails echoed through the empty woods. “We’ll have one of the lads carry her and little Molly, rank having its privileges and all that.”

An idea appeared to occur to Gurding. “Hey! Who do you would think would win in the Games—this one or the one with the big breasts?”

“Fighting against each other?” Kravel pondered the possibility. “Oh, that would be splendid, wouldn’t it? It’s certainly something to consider mentioning.”

We have to get out of here
…

You can’t fight them all. And they’ll kill Abby even if you could run away.

Gurding studied Abby lying face down, hands tied behind her back, three goblins standing guard over her. One had his boot planted on the side of her face, pushing it into the blood-covered leaves.

“This one is leaner. But the other likes to kick and scratch.”

“Yes, indeed. Not to mention bite,” Kravel said. “Why, I wonder who Master Filth would bet on. How about it, Filth? Who would win in a fight to the death? Your new love or the old one?”

Kravel and Gurding grinned at Edmund as he tried to saw through the leather straps binding his legs. Kravel’s boot cracked Edmund’s head back again, sending an explosion of blood and spit into the air.

“Drop the dagger, Filth. I’d hate to ask you a third time. All is lost. You and your attractive young friend here will be coming with us.”

His remaining eye tearing up, Edmund’s vision went in and out of focus. If it swelled shut, he’d be done for.

“Come, come.” Kravel reached for the dagger. “Give me the weapon and let us move this merry reunion along, shall we? It will be just like old times.”

As he lay trying to clear his mind from the last blow, Edmund felt the ground shudder. At first he thought it was the rumble of some distant thunder, but the clouds visible through gaps in the leafy canopy were thin wisps, glowing white as they slipped past the nearly full moon. Then he believed it was his imagination, or perhaps he was descending into unconsciousness.

“What’s that?” Gurding asked.

Kravel’s hunched shoulders straightened, scimitar at the ready.

As his captors scanned the surrounding darkness for the cause of the quake, Edmund sliced through the binding around his knees. Upon hearing the leather snap, Kravel turned back to Edmund, noticed what he’d done, and drew his boot back for another kick.