Lord of the Highlands(2)

Jamie was twelve and the meat on his bones had yet to catch up to the scrawny length of him. Will recognized bits of their Da on his brother’s face, but it was the look their father wore when he was riled. As if the Rollo features had settled sharp and angry onto his brother: the precise nose, but thinner and hooked almost to a point. The edge of cheek and chin turning Jamie’s face gaunt instead of fine.

Exhilaration and fear both spiked in Will’s veins. It was a heady feeling, looking down from the saddle, watching Jamie’s face pale, that mouth sputtering, for once speechless.

His response, when it came, was deathly quiet. “Horseman ? You’re a boy. A baby. Not a horseman.”

Jamie’s hand was swift, darting at the pony’s rump like the lash of a whip.

Will didn’t have a moment to contemplate the jostle of the saddle beneath him before his mount took off with a start, tearing through the stable like a rabid animal.

Jamie’s laughter and the startled whinnies of the other horses flashed like a thunderclap, then were gone as Will’s pony burst out, taking the pasture at a full gallop.

“Whoaa.” His voice was unsteady. Will tugged at the reins, his breath loud in his ears.

“Ho . . .” He pitched his voice low, trying to soothe the animal.

“Ho,” he tried again, and this time he gently snugged his legs tightly around the pony’s belly to settle him. The animal answered with an outraged shriek. It was a hideous sound, a demon sound, not a noise a creature should make at all. The pony squealed again, a possessed thing, baring his teeth, rearing up and down, and up and down, hooves skittering madly at the air.

Will held tight. Leaning forward, he twined his small fingers in the pony’s mane.

He began to slide.

He wound his hands more tightly into the coarse hair. Dirt and leather oil had darkened his nails into black half-moons, and his fingertips began to go blue.

He couldn’t hold on. He needed to let go.

Will released one foot and was ready to leap off, when he realized his left side was caught. His foot had slipped all the way through the stirrup. He wriggled madly, terrified now. The heel of his boot caught.

He’d have to ride it out.

Swinging his free leg back over, he found the right stirrup. Again the pony took off like a bullet.

He saw the rise in the ground before him and tried once more pulling on the reins. Will leaned back hard now, using the whole of his small body to coax the animal to slow, to stop.

The pony shrieked again, and Will’s skin crawled. He realized it was his shifting weight that caused the pony’s cries. What had Jamie done? He remembered his brother jostling the saddle just before the pony went mad.

Carefully, he reached back. His hand fumbled along the hard stretch of leather while his eyes remained pinned on the hill before him.

The small scree-covered slope grew closer by the second. Before, it was an innocent thing, and now it loomed, threatening.

Will’s fingers gingerly probed along the back of the saddle, down to the pony’s coat, now slicked warm and wet with sweat. He pulled his hand back. A thin smear of blood stained his fingertips brownish red.

Jamie. Curse him.

It would be the last rational thought Will had for some time.

His pony reached the rise. He reeled away in last-minute panic to careen along the base of the hill. But not before the hooves on his right side hit gravel, slid. Still galloping, the beast faltered.

Will wriggled, his terror at fever pitch, trying desperately to dislodge his trapped left foot.

The pony fell, rolling onto his right side. Will heard the sound of his leg being crushed. An all-consuming pain blanketed him. Smashed him.

He felt his left calf bone snap, his foot finally loose.

In an unnatural, awkward movement, the pony heaved back up and charged away.

Leaving Will lying there. Broken. On his seventh birthday.

Chapter 1