LITMIR.BIZ

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      Her heart pounding hard in her chest, she tried to right herself. Muttering a curse, she dragged herself upright just as, with an ear-splitting crack, a massive tree fell toward her.

      “Go!” Alys shouted to Arian, slapping the reins against the mare’s neck and digging in her heels. Hooves scrambling for purchase, Arian gave a valiant leap forward, only to come crashing to the ground beneath the tree’s weighty branches.

      Bright pain shot through Alys’s head, and she knew no more.

      Chapter Four

      Her limbs leaden, her vision a blur, Alys came to her senses, sprawled flat on her back beneath a veritable thicket of fallen trees and the icy lash of rain. She opened her mouth to call out, but gasped and choked as a torrent of water poured over her, carrying with it bits of bark and leaves that clung to her face and filled her mouth. Coughing, she tried to rise, but her strength was no match for the mass of branches and debris pinning her down.

      Last she remembered she’d been in the saddle, riding hard as the storm raged around them…urging on Arian to avoid a falling tree….

      She blinked her eyes to clear her vision, yet still she could see naught but a deep, shadowed darkness all around her.

      Where was Arian?

      And the others? They’d been riding close together, racing to outrun the storm’s fury. How many trees had come down? It felt as though she were buried beneath a veritable forest!

      By the sainted Virgin, what had happened?

      Marie had been nearby, her own mount frightened, out of control. There might have been still others as close to them—she hadn’t been able to see much of anything through the rain-filled gloom.

      Pain washed over her, emanating from her back and shoulder and radiating outward, pulling her firmly into the present with a vengeance. It hurt to so much as breathe. She could tell she’d any number of scrapes from head to toe, for each one stung like fire beneath the force of the pelting rain. A dull throb from her ankle told her she’d at least one other injury.

      Taking shallow breaths, she sought for calm and focused her senses. She tried to free her right arm; she could not make it move, though the attempt sent a surge of stomach-roiling pain washing over her. Swallowing back a gasp, she wriggled her other arm from beneath the branches and shifted it enough to push aside her sopping hair and wipe her eyes.

      The deep, harsh rumble of thunder mixed with the sound of horses squealing in terror and voices sharp with alarm surrounded her. She could see little through the rain-filled darkness until a flash of lightning split the sky, giving her a moment’s glimpse of chaos.

      It seemed as if she was buried amidst a thicket of fir branches, the scent of pitch and needles sharp and nauseating. Had the entire forest come down around them, to create this dense jumble? She caught flashes of movement along the edge of the pile—men and horses both, it appeared—so clearly not everyone was ensnared within the tangled mass.

      She heard whimpering and moans close by, and held her breath for a moment to listen. The whimpering ceased at once—had she been crying and hadn’t known it?—but the moans continued, coming from somewhere near her, off to her right.

      She wasn’t the only one injured…or trapped, as well?

      The realization brought her no comfort; instead it sent a wave of dread coursing through her, fear that Marie might be injured, that others might be hurt. Her heart beat faster, lending her the strength to try again to move—using her left arm this time, since her right would not obey her. Teeth gritted against the pain wrapping her from head to toe, Alys shifted, barely turned to her side within her prickly cocoon.

      “Marie!” she called, her voice little more than a faint, uneven squeak. “Where are you?”

      She drew in a deep breath, ignoring the pain as she sought to control the way her entire body shook, and reached out, trying to shove her arm through the tangle overhead. “Marie! Sir Padrig—” A flood of debris and water filled her mouth again. Sputtering, she turned her head and spat, then tried again. “Padrig…anyone…I’m here.”

      His sense of dread growing by the moment, Padrig concentrated on digging carefully through the huge tangle of trees that spilled across the road and into the forest. What he really wanted was to tear at the mound with his bare hands, to rip it all away until he found everyone and knew they were safe.

      Lady Alys was missing, as were her maid and three of his men. They had to be trapped somewhere within this morass, though he hadn’t any notion precisely where to start looking.

      The situation appeared grim. The horses of those missing were gone as well, save for Lady Alys’s mount. Her mare had evidently bolted free; unfortunately in the confusion no one had noticed where she’d been before the trees collapsed. She now stood, shivering and lame, away from the mess with the rest of their horses and the pack animals.

      No help there.

      Though twelve of them had set out from l’Eau Clair, their company was badly depleted. Besides those unaccounted for, only four of their remaining number had escaped serious harm, including himself. One of his men was dead, man and mount both crushed beneath the trunk of a massive tree. Two others were badly hurt, though it was difficult in these circumstances to determine just how severe their injuries were.

      It had taken but a few moments after the falling trees had settled before those of his men who could move had regrouped in the road ahead of the collapse. They’d escaped misfortune only because they’d been at the front of the column and had already passed over that stretch of road.

      When they’d made their way around the tangle blocking the road, they’d found the injured men and the pack animals on the other side. After hastily treating their hurts and settling them as best they could out of the rain and away from danger, they went to look for the others.

      It was nigh impossible to see much of anything in the fitful light and pouring rain. He’d called out for the missing at once; they all had as they’d frantically begun to search, till he realized they’d never hear a response over their own shouts and he’d called for silence. But only the unremitting rumble and crack of thunder, accompanied by the sporadic, ear-splitting sounds of more trees crashing down close by, disturbed the relative silence.

      Lightning continued to flash—over them, around them, everywhere, it seemed—the erratic light a fitting accompaniment to the hellish chaos surrounding them. Though daunting, nonetheless it was their sole source of illumination. A mixed blessing, for as long as the storm continued, they—and those yet to be found—were also at greater risk of further injury.

      Between the accident, the constant barrage of thunder and lightning and the driving rain, the horses were cold, soaked, their nerves on edge.

      He and his men were in little better state.

      “Sir Padrig—over here,” Rafe, his second in command, shouted from the opposite side of the jumbled trees. “Hurry!”

      Padrig dragged aside the cumbersome branch he’d disentangled from the pile and hastened to his side. Rafe lay draped over a massive tree trunk, his body half-buried within its thick boughs.

      “Have you found them?” Padrig asked as he reached him. “Who? How many?”

      “Quick, sir—grab my feet,” Rafe gasped. Padrig caught hold of him just as he began to slip away and, bracing himself, held the other man steady. “I’ve got a cloak in hand,” he added. “I think I’ve found one of the women—’tis too fine a cloth to be one o’ ours.”

      Jock and Peter, the other two men, had arrived hard on Padrig’s heels; they immediately set to work shifting away the maze of branches surrounding the tree Rafe lay draped over while Padrig kept hold of him. Once the worst of the debris was cleared away, Padrig maintained his grip on Rafe even as he climbed up onto the fallen tree, as well.

      “Lady Alys?” he called, leaning over to peer down into the stygian darkness.

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