Part 35 (1/2)
She saw the branch...
Saw it, tried to turn from it...
And went down, her skull filling with pain.
Her vision filling with the mist...
And then darkness.
And something else.
*Interlude*
Grayson Davis's man had Annalise by the hair, dragging her into the copse. She did not come easily.
Bruce's heart cried out as she was thrown down upon the ground, a cry wrung from her lips as she went to her knees where she was cast, sliding until she came to a stop before Davis. Ah, and there she is, yer lady, Laird MacNiall. Filled with foolish pride, as ye would be. Ach! Y'd thought y'd bought her time, out of the forest, eh? Nae, foolish fellow. So now it is time fer heroes and legends to die, and fer rich men to die poor.
Her eyes met his. He pleaded with her silently, begged his forgiveness. Do whatever he asks. Live. The day will come when you will be set free....
She smiled at him and shook her head slowly.
”Annalise!” Her name was a cry of anguish.
Grayson Davis swaggered before him, gripped Annalise by the elbows and pulled her up to face him. ”Ah, Annalise. We have come to a moment of truth. Will it be the laird there, half dead as we speak, with none but torture ahead, or.. .they can take you from the forest before it begins. You can await me.”
”Obey him!” Bruce pleaded. ”Before G.o.d, obey him!”
She looked at Davis, as if weighing his words. She had never appeared more beautiful, proud or elegant, despite the mud caking her clothing, the scratches upon her cheeks, the wildness of her hair.
She seemed to deliberate long and carefully, then she looked back at Bruce and smiled again, a slow, sweet, . wistful smile.
”Time, my love. Time will tell the tale,” she said. Then she spit in Grayson Davis's face.
He struck her. Bruce roared with rage, but to no avail. The force of the blow sent Annalise down again, but her head remained high.
”b.i.t.c.h!”
She smiled, eyes even, leveled upon him.
”Y're judged! He is judged. Condemned.”
She shook her head. ”Ah, Grayson, what a fool. There is a far greater judge. And my laird husband and I can truly be judged in His eyes alone.”
”Not on this earth. Not on this earth! You had your chance!”
”And chose not to take it.”
”Annalise!” Bruce cried again.
But her eyes, her steady gaze, had been the last straw against Davis's temper. He wrenched the colors from around his shoulders and drew them around Annalise's neck. Her fair neck. Slender, graceful, delicate...
”Nae!” The great MacNiall, humbled, hung back his head, bitterly fighting the arms that held him, nearly fighting off the men. He watched as she gasped, choked, shuddered, jerked...death brutal despite pride. He struggled free from the arms that held him. He raced forward, then staggered in the mud, almost reaching her.
An ax had landed in his back.
But he did not die. Not quickly enough. He saw as Grayson Davis picked up his wife, limp as a cloth doll, and cast her facedown into the stream. He cried out in anguish and in rage, saw the blood before his own eyes...
”Fool! Who put that ax into him? He mustn't die, not yet!” Davis commanded. He walked to where Bruce had fallen at last, arms outstretched in the mud. He rolled him, forcing the blade more deeply into him, relis.h.i.+ng his enemy's anguish.
”First, castration. I want you to live for that! Then yer innards, great laird! Set to blaze before yer eyes. Eventually. . .yer head. And if y're living then, I'll see that the blade is dull and moves slow.”
He stared at Davis, shaking his head. ”It matters not what y'do to kill me. I am already dead. And yet, I will live Davis, fer y're cursed now, and I will live to see you fall!”
”Cut him!” Davis roared.
Mercifully, the ax had done its damage.
The great MacNiall stared into the trees as the blood blurred his vision. But in his mind, his heart, he was with her already.
*16*
Bruce was deep into the forest when he heard a heavy thras.h.i.+ng.
”Toni?” he called.
From a deep thicket, the noise continued, as if someone was hurrying toward him. He reined in on Shaunessy and waited, watching the area of lush growth. The green waved and jiggled. And the roan, Wallace, appeared. Riderless.
He quickly dismounted from Shaunessy, hurrying over to the roan. There was a scratch on his nose, but that had most probably come from a brush with a branch. The horse seemed all right, just spooked.
”Did you throw her, boy? Did you throw Toni?”
He shook his head, looking in the direction from which the horse had come. Toni could be out there, unconscious, bleeding. He gauged the direction; she'd been trying to follow the stream.
”Go on home, boy. Go on home,” he said, giving the horse a sound smack on the rump.
Quickly remounting Shaunessy, he drove through the thicket at the spot where Wallace had just appeared. An overgrown, slender trail brought him back to the embankment.
”Toni!”
He felt his sense of panic rising. Nudging his horse's flanks, he quickened his pace, mindful of the rocks, stones and slippery embankment.
Ahead, he could see that the mist was still high over the bubbling water. He reined in, eyes narrowing. There seemed to have been a shadow moving through the mist. A shadow...in human form. Then he heard the sound of a grunt.
”Toni!”
Dismounting from Shaunessy, he hurried on foot through the mist and water.
”Toni!”
He heard a soft groan. Then...