Page 10 of Keepers of the Highland Crown
“Where?” Only the whistle from wind batting his ears along with thunder from the charger’s hooves reigned for him.
She nodded her head toward the open meadow on their right. “Head southward. Make haste, Callum. I hear their cries for help.”
“Sir Brayden!” Callum roared. “Follow at once!”
Callum pulled Luss’s right rein, shifted his weight onto his right buttock, and the stallion surged toward where Nella’s eyes remained lock on the vista.
“Hold steady, Nella,” he warned as a wide boulder-infested river a far distance ahead appeared. “Luss will fly this rather than race through.”
Shite, he should have had her astride; her two thighs laying over his left were not the best for her balance. She released Luss’s mane then wrapped both her arms about his waist while he leaned forward, tightening his hold about herwith his right arm. If a lone action could call to mind, she had begun trusting him. This. Was. It.
Her eyes widened after a raging river appeared which was wide with rapids that swirled like storm clouds on water.
“Callum?”
“I have you, Nella, I shall not let you fall.”
He set his jaw, and she gave a gasp, burying her face in his neck when they took flight. They sailed the wind for a moment before Luss found his footing on the far embankment. She snapped her head around.
“He cleared it!” she cried, stunned, then paused. Tilting her head again, she advised, “Aye Callum, stay the course, straight ahead!”
The wind shifted; his nostrils flared. Burning thatch. The flames spiked like spears above the tree line before the vision in horror greeted them.
“Stampede!” Nella cried out when cattle charged toward them away from the flames swallowing the barn belonging to a croft tenant. The herd shot past them in a blink.
A dazed goat wandered through the tall grasses, edging the croft tenant’s structures or what was left of them which had once included a wee house, outbuildings, and a barn with baa’s from terrified sheep trapped in a pen alongside the flaming structure.
“Sir Brayden!” Callum pointed at the creatures about to become instant roast.
“Aye!” Brayden galloped up toward the gate.
“Help!” a man covered in soot and thin as a tree limb hollered at them. “Help us! My wife and lad are missing!”
“Callum,” Nella advised, “circle Luss slowly around the structures for a sound signature.”
He nodded, remaining silent. The stallion, well trained for warfare, followed his demand to venture toward the flameseven if instinct the beast bore said different. Sparks flew the air. Callum’s eyes stayed on the house where they began searching.
Riding around the wooden walls, sizzling with a hiss like a snake, Callum shook his head.Don’t cough and distract her. He swallowed hard when a dark plume billowed over them.
“Callum, nae, I do not hear them here.” Her tone was weighed by anguish before she shrieked, “Step Luss back! The roof is cracking and is about to collapse.”
He pulled the stallion left – hard.Crack!The flames ate the thatch greedily when the house folded in on itself. “Nae, where are they?” the tenant farmer yelled, terrified, over the flames’ roar.
“Barn,” Nella ordered.
Callum trotted Luss across the wide expanse toward the larger structure while she harkened at the small buildings which were all but turning into ash.
“Callum, trot around the barn. We must make haste; the beams are groaning in protest from the flames devouring them.”
In a quick two-beat gait they followed a path trodden into the earth by the farmer who screamed louder when another small outbuilding collapsed on the periphery.
Nella’s fingers tightened on his wrist which held her waist. “Callum, hold.” She tilted her head a smidge more. “Aye, there, I hear the mother’s weeping. Seek the outside barn’s far wall. Hurry.”
“Sir Brayden!” Callum hailed the knight.
In a blink the fellow knight was there when they reached the place Nella sought. Covering his mouth, he looked at the wall straight from hell. What was that shadow weaving on the inside through the boards there? Nella read his thoughts.
“Aye, Callum, ’tis the mother. She and her lad are trapped with the beams blocking the door.”
