Page 95 of Forbidden

“Duncan!”

Heart beating frantically, Amber ran after him.

“Easy, lass,” he said, catching her up in his arms. “You’ll scare the horses.”

“Put me down! You’ll hurt yourself more!”

Duncan’s smile flashed whitely beneath his mustache as he saw the concern in Amber’s eyes. He set her on her feet, took a few quick steps, and grabbed Whitefoot’s rein.

The mare minced nervously but didn’t fight Duncan’s hand. He turned, lifted Amber, and set her astride her mare in a single easy motion. Then he smiled up at her.

“Simon’s blow hurt more than—” Duncan began.

“But you’re bleeding,” Amber interrupted.

“I’ve let more blood to a leech than to that outlaw’s pig sticker.”

Before Amber could say anything more, Duncan turned, caught up his own horse, and mounted it with muscular ease. His actions belied the red stain on his tunic.

“Which way to the Stone Ring?” he asked. “Yonder?”

Amber didn’t even look which way Duncan was pointing. Her only thought was to get his wound cared for.

“The keep is that way,” she said, pointing.

Lightning cracked and thunder shook the earth.

“The storm is that way, too,” Duncan said. “Is there any shelter nearby?”

“Stone Ring has a mound at the center and a room inside.”

“Lead us there.”

For a moment longer Amber hesitated, watching the sky with uneasy eyes. The sense of imminence that she had often known in Ghost Glen or other sacred places was growing within her now.

Yet she wasn’t standing within an ancient place where stones had been placed by hands long since dead.

“Amber? What is it? Don’t you know the way?”

A dazzling bolt of lightning sliced through the day, brighter than a hundred suns. Thunder split the sky and rolled like an avalanche through the glen.

The hairs on Amber’s nape stirred. The lightning had struck near the path back to the keep, as though in warning against going back.

But we must go back! Duncan is hurt.

Another bolt lanced down, closer this time.

Amber felt herded, harried, prodded like an animal into the mouth of a funnel whose narrowing walls she could sense but not see. The feeling of imminence grew and grew in her until she felt she would burst.

“We must run for the keep!” Amber said, setting her heels to Whitefoot.

Lightning lanced down directly ahead. Whitefoot took the bit in her teeth and bolted in the opposite direction while thunder rolled behind.

At first Amber fought the horse for control. Then she gave in to the animal, accepting what she couldn’t change. A glance over her shoulder told Amber that Duncan’s mount was following at an equally frantic pace.

Stone Ring was upon them before there was any chance to turn aside or choose another path. Whitefoot raced between the outer ring of stones, not slowing until the inner ring was reached. There the horse calmed immediately, as though flight was suddenly the last thing on its mind.

Amber dismounted in a rush, picked up her skirts, and ran back to the outer ring. As she had feared, Duncan’s mount had balked at the ragged outer circle of stones. He spurred the horse once, then again with greater force, but the animal only backed away more urgently.