The Ghost Greyson, Maeve (reading an ebook .txt) 📖

easier than he saw it. He held his breath and kept the fire low to the ground. Off in the distance, a fox yipped, probably a vixen teaching her kits to hunt. A powerful gust of wind drowned out all other sounds, blowing hard for a short while, then dying down, until all he heard was the gurgling spring beside him.

Still watchful, Magnus straightened to his full height and stood there, soaking in his surroundings. He might not see a bloody thing in the foggy darkness, but he could listen. Turning slowly, he caught a faint glimmering of light farther up the mountainside. What the hell was that? Too steady a glow for a torch, it separated and became three, then four, then more. They bobbed along like oversized glowworms or will-o’-the-wisps. The eerie sight sent a tingling through the hairs on the back of his neck.

A loud rumble echoed through the night. He recognized the sound of shifting ground chased by falling rocks. It came from the direction of the cave’s entrance and sounded like a good chunk of the mountain had broken loose and given way. He stumbled and cursed across the godforsaken stretch of savage landscape made even more impassable by the darkness, charging back toward the entrance. Usually, he would run from a landslide, but not this time. He couldn’t afford to lose that doorway back into the caves. The earth’s loud heaving dwindled down into silence.

He sank ankle-deep into what moments ago had been solid ground. Floundering forward, he half-crawled up the pile of loose debris, digging aside stones and clumps of earth. Near as he could tell, this was where he had exited the tunnels. He had to find the boulder, the split in two, and reopen the space between the halves. If he didn’t, it would take him a solid day, maybe more, to reach Tor Ruadh on foot and then hours more that he couldn’t spare to get back to Brenna. The thought of her stranded so long threw him into a digging frenzy. Damn it all to hell and back. Apparently, his newfound contentment and happiness had angered the gods, spurring them to torture him.

“Damn ye!” Magnus pounded the ground. The shifting rocks laughed at him. He stabbed the torch into the dirt and clawed at the blockage with both hands. It hadn’t been that massive of a landslide. He would find that split boulder and dig a hole wide enough to make it through. Nay, it wasn’t a matter of if he would find the entrance, but when. He’d dig ’til his fingers were bare bones if that’s what it took.

“Arrest the man and relieve him of his toiling. I tire of this game and have no interest whatsoever in watching this Highland badger dig his way back into his den.” The order came from somewhere outside the reach of his light. The voice, a bloody Sassenach, he didn’t recognize.

Before he could draw his short sword, he found himself shoved face-first into the dirt. Rough hands ripped away his weapon and secured his wrists with shackles. Since when had the damned British learned to move with such stealth? He twisted around and head-butted one man, sending the fool cursing to his knees before another kicked him so hard in the gut it left him gasping for air.

“Play this game with care, my friend,” warned a familiar voice close to his head. “I’ll do what I can to see you treated properly, but you make it worse if you fight them.”

“Archie?” Magnus twisted his neck to see. Archibald ‘Archie’ Raithwaite, a rare Sassenach. Good and just. The man had been one of Lord Crestshire’s closest and most trusted men. He had often accompanied the former commander of Fort William on his visits to Tor Ruadh, and the MacCoinnichs trusted him. Magnus thought the soldier had accompanied Crestshire to his new assignment in Barbados.

“You a friend with this traitor, Archie?” accused another soldier as he grabbed Magnus by the back of his léine and yanked him to his feet.

“I dinna have any Sassenach friends,” Magnus said, saving Archie the trouble of lying. If he remembered rightly, the man couldn’t tell an untruth to save his soul. It was one reason all of them trusted him so fully.

“Conversation is unnecessary.” The bored voice that had given the original order gave a light cough and sniffed. “Drag him up to the horses where the lantern boys wait. We can have a good look at him then, just to be sure we have the right man. By the time we reach Fort William, Commander Barricourt will have finished his supper. This Scot can be his dessert.”

“You still want us to send out the runners and give the word to smoke as many caves as we can?” asked another English heathen, who Magnus didn’t recognize.

“Ye would risk yer lives in the caves just to kill a defenseless woman?” Magnus thrashed against the men as they tried to lash a rope around his shackled wrists. “Cowards! Fight me instead, ye soulless bastards!”

“Commander wouldn’t wish us to endanger ourselves over the likes of a worthless whore,” Archie called out as he threw what looked like a hard jab into Magnus’s ribs, but it had the force of a friendly nudge.

Magnus understood and focused his energies on fighting the others, giving Archie more leeway.

“Them caves are wicked treacherous, sir,” Archie continued. “We done lost two men to the pits when we spoiled their supplies. Remember?” He rumbled out a belabored grunt and grazed Magnus’s jaw with his fist. “And without her stag here to lead her out, she’ll save us the trouble and die all on her own. What say you, Lieutenant Cawldrake?”

Playing along with Archie’s plan, Magnus struggled against him just enough for show. If he calmed too fast, the good-hearted soldier’s ruse might fail. But the man’s words about Brenna’s fate made him even more determined to escape. He’d use the rough ground and foggy darkness to