LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter Three

      He could not be dead, Hunter thought, for he hurt everywhere. Still, he couldn’t move. When he forced his eyes open, it was to suffocating darkness.

      “Dieu,” he groaned.

      “Shh.”

      Something covered his mouth. The woman’s voice came out of the black, “Be still. They are above us.”

      “Am...am I blind?” he mumbled.

      “Nay. Only covered so they won’t see us.”

      Coarse voices grumbled above them, arguing, he thought.

      The woman whimpered softly, her breathing shallow and raspy. Her slender body, pressed more closely against his left side, shuddering convulsively.

      Instinctively he put an arm around her, grateful that it moved to his command. Mayhap he was not paralyzed after all. As he lay there in the dark, his mind leaped back over the night’s events: the cattle raid, the woman he’d rescued, the precipitous flight from a band of brigands and the fall that had ended here.

      A voice intruded, loud and coarse. “That armor he was wearing would be worth a fortune.” Gravel crunched. “Looks like they went over the edge here.”

      “Curse the luck,” said another harsh voice.

      The Bells, Hunter thought. He should do something...get up, draw his sword and prepare to defend. But he could not marshal the strength to move. To a man of action, lying here totally defenseless, waiting for the enemy to strike, was pure torture. His body jerked as he tried to force it to move.

      “Stay still.” The woman stroked his cheek. “I know it is hard to stay hidden here,” she whispered. “But we could not hope to prevail. against so many armed, ruthless animals.”

      Hunter wanted to scream. At the moment, he could not have fought a week-old kitten.

      “They could be hurt,” said one.

      “Do ye think so?” the other Bell asked eagerly.

      “Aye. They was fools to try this in the dark. If they aren’t dead, they’ll be sore hurt.”

      “Easy pickings. What say, should we go down and see?”

      “Idiot, I’m not chancing this trail at night. Besides, if they’re hurt, they won’t be going anyplace. We can go and get our share of the cattle, then sneak back later when it’s daylight and take what we want.”

      Their footsteps faded away.

      “They have gone.” She sat up, flinging off the cloak with which she’d covered them.

      “Well, at least I am not blind,” Hunter grumbled, blinking against the moonlight filtering through the leaves.

      “I am sorry, but I feared they’d spot that shiny armor of yours.” She slung the cloak around her shoulders and shifted to her knees beside him. “They will be back. We must leave as—”

      “I cannot move.”

      “What?” She leaned over him, frowning as she poked and prodded. “Small wonder, I’d say. You’re wedged in between a rock and the tree that broke your fall.”

      “My back?”

      “I do not think it’s broken.” She smiled faintly. “Your armor’s caught fast in the rocks. Here, let’s get this out of the way for a start.” She tugged off his helmet.

      He swore as his head thumped on the stony ground. “Have a care what you are—”

      “Sorry. I’ve never done this before.” She attacked the leather buckles holding the breastplate and back of his armor together. When they were loose, she cocked her head, grinning down at him. “You look a bit like a turtle I once trapped.”

      “This is not amusing.”

      “The turtle didna think so, either. He ended up in a soup.”

      “Just get on with it, will you?”

      “Aye, since you asked so nicely.” She approached the task with far more zeal than skill. It was no easy task for a small, inexperienced woman to extricate a prone man from a set of full battle plate. After much sweating and swearing on both their parts, she wrested the armor from his torso.

      Freed of the encumbering weight, which had indeed been jammed between two rocks by the force of his fall, Hunter managed to sit up. “Damn.” He gingerly flexed first his shoulders, then his back. “Argh.” His hand went straight to the spot just above his waist where he’d met the tree.

      “Hurt?” She circled around and lifted the hem of the padded gambeson he wore to protect against the chafing metal. “The skin’s not cut, but you’ll have a dandy bruise.”

      “You say that so cheerily because it’s mine, not yours.”

      She chuckled and came around to sit beside him. “It could have been much worse. Worthless as I find your armor, it did save you from greater injury.”

      “Worthless?” Hunter bristled. “It will stop an arrow and even a slashing blow from a sword or lance.”

      “Aye, but it weighs down a man and his mount and makes him far less agile in battle.”

      Hunter grunted. He’d heard that argument from more than one Scot who preferred the traditional armaments to the armor popular in England and Europe. “This time, I’d say my plate was both blessing and potential curse. My thanks, for hiding me earlier and for getting me free.” Bracing his hand on a huge boulder, he stood. Pain stabbed through his left ankle, sending him back down.

      “What is it?”

      “My ankle.”

      “Can you move it?”

      Hunter warily rotated the foot, then nodded.

      “Mayhap it is not broken, then.” She tugged off his boot.

      Gritting his teeth against the pain, Hunter endured her poking and prodding.

      “A bad twist, I’d say.”

      “Bloody hell!” Hunter gazed angrily around at the stark, wild land. Then a new worry intruded. “The stallion?”

      “I—I do not know. I think he slid on past us, but I have not heard a sound, from below.”

      They

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