Run Wild (16 page)

N
icholas uttered a short, vicious oath. He instantly released the girl and turned to scoop up his pistol from beneath the bed. He grabbed the fishing creel he had packed with supplies.

The girl remained frozen, wide-eyed as the barking of the hounds echoed through the forest. “Maybe they’re hunting deer,” she suggested tremulously. “Or fox.”

“Hunters only come into Cannock Chase after one kind of prey.” He slung the fishing creel over his good shoulder. “Outlaws.”

“But we don’t know that they’re after
us
.”

“Do you want to wait here and ask?” He shoved the knife that he had reclaimed from her into his boot. Then he took her arm and tugged her to her feet. “
Move
, your ladyship.”

The chain rattled against the floorboards as he hurried her toward the exit. Keeping the pistol in his right hand, he opened the door, just a crack.

Outside, pale shafts of morning sunlight spiraled through the trees, glistening on bright leaves and evergreens and grass wet with dew. It all looked deceptively peaceful. He didn’t see anyone. No riders. No dogs. Not so much as a single pup.

But he could hear the howling, yelping pack. No more than a half-mile away.

“How could they have found us so quickly?” the girl whispered.

“Must’ve been searching all night,” he replied curtly. “With torches. And I left a nice blood trail for the dogs.”

He railed at himself silently. They shouldn’t have rested so long. Shouldn’t have rested at all. What chance did they have now? Staying in the cabin would be suicide. But they couldn’t hope to outrun the dogs. Not for long. Not at this distance. And what use would one pistol be against a score of armed lawmen?

Defeat assaulted him for one hopeless second.
Finished
. They were finished.

Then an image flashed through his head: of himself being dragged into the Old Bailey in London. And handed over to the admiralty.

“Not yet,” he vowed under his breath. Stepping out into the daylight, he glanced around at the trees, mind racing, then looked at Miss Delafield.

She shook her head, the hopelessness in her eyes matching his own. “What are we going to do?”

He clenched his jaw and answered with one word. “Run.”

Turning left, he led her away from the cabin as fast as their weary legs and the clanking chain would allow. Which was faster than he would’ve thought.

They fled into the woods, ducking under branches, dodging tree trunks. The pack of supplies thumped against his back with every step, but he put the pain and the burning in his muscles out of his mind. He kept only one image in his head—of the gibbet cage on Execution Dock.

It spurred him to speed he hadn’t known he possessed.

And the girl stayed right beside him, keeping up stride for stride. The drag of the heavy shackles slowed them down but didn’t stop them. Yesterday’s experience had taught them well, and they managed to match their steps with only a few stumbles.

The howling of the dogs sounded louder than before—like the wail of demons from hell coming for him. The girl looked back over her shoulder.

“Don’t,” he ordered. “Just keep going!”

She obeyed without question for once, turned her face forward and kept running, arms and legs pumping. He could hear her gasping with fear, with exhaustion. But they didn’t waste any more breath on words.

The sun streaked through the trees, rising on their right. He kept heading north, at a sharp angle to the easterly direction he had followed yesterday. He didn’t bother zigging and zagging or doubling back on their trail, knew there was no hope of losing their pursuers that way. Distance. They needed distance.

Side by side they ran, faster, twigs and leaves crunching under their feet, branches whipping at their clothes, hair, faces. They somehow found their way between, around, through stands of trees and clumps of bushes. They sprinted across clearings. Splashed through puddles. The forest became a blur of sunlight and shadows.

They ran until he thought his lungs would burst, until all he could feel were his boots pounding the ground and air burning his throat. The chain caught on roots and stones, tripping them, like the long arm of the law reaching out to grab them and hold them fast. But each time they stumbled up and kept running. Faster.

His mind worked as swiftly as his blood raced. The dogs would stop at the cabin, certain they had run their prey to ground. The lawmen would approach cautiously. That might gain them some time. A few minutes, maybe more. Maybe enough.

Trees, branches, leaves flashed by. Sweat plastered the ragged remains of his shirt to his chest and back. His shoulder burned and hurt but he didn’t care. It was a reminder that he was still alive. At least for the moment.

He kept thinking that the girl would give out. Knew she couldn’t take much more. Waited for her to fall and not get up. But she didn’t. Whether it was fear or guts that kept her going, she never faltered.

Their tortured breathing and the jangling of the chain that bound them became the only sounds he could hear.

That and the howling of the dogs. So close it sounded as if the animals were biting at their heels.

Then a pistol shot cracked through the woods. Distant but too close.

“Sweet Jesus!” the girl cried in terror.

Nicholas darted a glance over his shoulder. Saw the lead dogs of the pack—brown and white flashes of color bounding through the green undergrowth.

They hadn’t stopped at the cabin.

Why the hell hadn’t they stopped?

Damn it
. “Don’t slow down,” he shouted. “We can make it.”

But he knew he was lying. Knew it was futile. His legs were practically numb, his battered body threatening to give out. The girl had to be spent. And there was no cover. Nowhere to hide. No chance of losing the dogs. And his only weapons were a pistol, a knife.

The image of the admiralty’s gibbet cage loomed. Inescapable.

And then he saw a glimmer of something ahead, through the trees. A thread of blue and white that widened, sparkling in the sunlight. Water. A river.

Hope surged in his chest. If there was a footbridge—and if they could cross it and destroy it before their pursuers could follow...

But even that thin hope was quickly crushed when the river came fully into view.

This wasn’t any peaceful woodland stream. It was a raging torrent, at least fifty yards wide. They broke through the trees and raced toward the muddy bank. But there was no footbridge. No conveniently fallen trees, no stones, no narrow ford. No way across. They stopped at the water’s edge, gasping, breathless.

Miss Delafield glanced behind them, at the trees. At the dogs—which were rapidly closing the brief lead the two of them had gained.

Nicholas looked desperately up and down the bank. They had nowhere left to run. And they couldn’t turn back.

Instead of being saved, they were cornered.

He stared down at the water churning and leaping over rocks. It looked deep. Treacherous. Alone, he might jump in and try to swim across. But with the chain, the girl...

It would be certain death.

“We’ll have to swim across,” she said calmly.

He turned, stunned by her cool declaration. “We’ll never make it.”

“I’d rather drown than be torn to pieces!”

They both looked over their shoulders again. The dogs were so close Nicholas could see fangs flashing in the sunlight. And now he could see riders in the distance. A dozen at least, fanned out through the trees.

He glanced down at the slender girl, at the rushing water. She’d never survive it.

And if she drowned, he would drown with her.

“I can
do
it,” she insisted urgently.

A canine snarl behind him—just a few yards away—made up his mind for him.

To hell with the odds.

He jammed the pistol into his waistband, took hold of the rope that secured the creel across his chest. He slung it around his neck and grabbed the girl with his other hand. “On three,” he said tightly. “One... two...” Her arm seemed impossibly fragile in his grasp. “
Three
.”

They leaped forward in an ungraceful dive. Hit the water with a jarring, painful impact that he felt through every inch of his aching body. And instantly went under.

The chain would kill them. He knew that the minute the surface closed over his head. He could feel the shackles dragging them downward, heavy, murderous links of iron. He kicked and fought, struggling to get to the air—but he didn’t have the strength to battle the forceful current and the chain too.

He felt the girl torn from his grasp, saw her struggling beside him, a blur of yellow skirts and golden hair. Thrashing and swimming for all she was worth. After what felt like an eternity, he made it to the surface, broke above the rushing water, sucked in a breath—only to be pulled under again.

The rain-swollen torrent was stronger than both of them, sweeping them downstream.

He managed to break the surface a second time. Found himself in a hail of bullets that rained down around him, striking the water like darts. The metal pings sounded strange amid the liquid rush of the river and the yowling of the dogs.

He opened his mouth, inhaled more water than air. Wondered whether it would be his last breath. Choking, fighting to stay above the drowning torrent, he saw the riverbank flying past. The surging waters carried them downstream faster than they could’ve run. As if they weighed no more than the sticks and leaves rioting around them.

The current pulled him under again. He didn’t know if the girl had managed to get to the surface at all. Couldn’t see her anymore. His vision seemed to be turning gray. His muscles started to go weak, his limbs numb. He couldn’t feel the shackle around his ankle anymore. Couldn’t feel anything but the water, everywhere. Around him, above him, below him. Filling his nose, his mouth, all of him.

Darkness hovered at the edges of his awareness, threatening to close in. Urging him to stop fighting its seductive pull.

But somehow he attacked his way to the top one more time, spat out a mouthful of water. Fought for the air he needed to survive.

They had been carried toward the middle of the stream, more by the force of the current than by any effort of their own. The far bank was closer than before. They might even reach it. Sweet Jesus, by some trick of fate they might actually reach it!

But he heard another strange sound—so loud it blotted out even the dogs.

A roar. A deafening roar made entirely of water. He heard the girl scream. Turned his head to find her right beside him. But he also saw what she did.

A spew of froth and spray and waves breaking over the edge of a precipice. Just a few yards downriver.

A
waterfall
.

All the breath, all the power, all the life in his body seemed to rise up through his chest in a yell of denial. But he never got the chance to voice it. Just as quickly as the river had given him hope, it snatched it away—and spat him right over the edge of a cliff.

The force of tons of water behind them rushed them into the waterfall like a pair of rag dolls, sent them tumbling out into nothingness beyond. For an instant he found himself weightless. Flying. Falling helplessly, in a pounding curtain of water that carried him down... down... down...

They hit the surface far below, slammed into the depths of a whirlpool that yanked him straight to the bottom, hard, as if the current above had been only a game.

Pain wracked his body. Several feet of swirling, roiling water closed over his head.

And sudden fury rose in him. A rush of sheer rage at being toyed with by fate. Teased by God.

His stamina, his will, his body may have failed him. But his rage did not.

Kicking, reaching, he rose against the driving power of the whirlpool. Against the column of river water that hammered down from above. The more it tried to beat him senseless and drown him, the more strength he seemed to find.

But he felt a drag on his ankle. The girl—below him, sinking. He turned, felt for her, grabbed for her, caught a fistful of her hair. She was limp, unconscious. Perhaps even dead.

No, damn it. If you die, I die
. He grabbed for her again, with his left arm. Caught her.

And felt a horrendous agony rip through his shoulder. Like a slicing blade of pure hellfire. Like he was being torn in half.

Awash in pain and the burning rush of rage, fighting for consciousness, he struggled upward once more, his arm looped around the girl’s middle. He made it to the surface only to get a pounding faceful of spray for his reward. He lurched out of its way.

And found air. Blessed air. Life-giving, life-restoring air. For a moment that was all that mattered. It cleared his head, kept him from sinking into unconsciousness, from sinking to the sandy bottom of the river and staying there. And at least for one critical minute, he could think. He realized that the whirlpool wasn’t pulling at him as strongly anymore. He seemed to be behind the falls.

And just to his left he could make out a relatively calm place—a pool separated from the waterfall by a half-circle of rocks.

With the weight of the girl and the chain pulling him down, it was a struggle just to stay afloat. But he lunged for the rocks with one last life-or-death burst of strength. He saw a root sticking out from between two of the boulders and grabbed for it, clinging.

Cool shadow blotted out the sun. He realized they were beneath a stone overhang. A canopy of sorts, soaring several feet overhead, that protected them from the tumbling, roaring rush of water beyond.

The girl came awake, coughing, sputtering. Struggling. She was alive. Somehow he hung onto her. But he felt a strange, sticky heat flowing down his back. Blood. In a haze of fiery agony, he closed his eyes and clung to the root and knew that was all he could do. Saving the girl had sapped the last of his strength.

Hang on.
Hang on
.

After a time, he opened his eyes. Blinked as his vision adjusted to the darkness. He glanced back toward the whirlpool. No way in hell he was going back through that again.