Most were on horseback, but two of them were walking and leading their horses. Every fourth barbarian or so held a torch. They seemed to be taking turns herding Bannon and Louie, because these two now on foot were different from the ones earlier. This duo was a bit older and without swords, though still a scary couple, with lanky, dirty hair and smudges on their skin despite being drenched in rain. Did any of them own razors? Or hair brushes, for that matter? Yes, barbarian was an apt description. He tried asking what they meant to do with him and Louie already and only got a grunt in reply. “Where are we going?” got the same response. They weren’t a talkative lot.
Taking one look at the trail ahead, Bannon decided to try again. The trail led through mountains with high cliffs on each side of them. The rock faces were blocking some of the wind, thank goodness, but it also made the wind whistle in a spooky cadence—like banshees howling. If he wasn’t already terrified, the sound alone might have given him the willies. Up ahead the path sloped down at a sharp angle and was fraught with rocks and pebbles. It might actually be worse than climbing. Definitely harder to keep their balance.
Turning back over his shoulder, Bannon sought out the man closest to him. He looked… not gentle exactly, but not as angry as the rest. The others looked mad at the universe. “Excuse me?”
The man raised a brow, so Bannon took that to mean “What?”
“Can we stop and rest for a moment? We’ve been walking for hours.”
The man quirked his mouth to the side in a sort of frown, but didn’t say anything.
Sighing, Bannon turned around fully and pointed to Louie. “She’s dead on her feet. We were in a crash. We’re cold and sore. Please….”
Looking at Louie, who had stopped in front of him, with her head hanging down and her hair in her face, made him want to cry in frustration and beat these savages senseless. The sight of her so bedraggled was even worse than the pain in his poor abused body.
With a sigh of his own, the man glanced over his shoulder, and he too stopped walking. He was going to relent; then the brute walking with them growled at him.
“Keep going!”
The slightly less brutish man began to protest, “But….”
“No buts. We’re almost there.” The loudmouth caught up with them in two huge strides, planted his hand in Louie’s slumped back, and shoved.
She never saw it coming and didn’t even try to brace—it was doubtful she even could if she’d wanted to. She slid on the rocks, knocking right into Bannon. Her shoulder slammed into his chest, stealing his breath and her head cuffed his chin.
Bannon’s lungs squeezed tight, his vision wavered, and his body tipped backward. With just enough presence of mind to keep from going headfirst down the narrow incline, he wrapped his arms around Louie and leaned forward. His arse hit the ground first, jarring his teeth and making him bite his tongue, then momentum carried him onto his back. Agony washed over him in a tidal wave as he skidded backward down the incline with Louie on top of him. He watched rocks and the cliff face zoom past with the knowledge that he was going to die! They were on a mountain pass with a cliff on one side of them and a valley on the other. The drop-off was steep in some places, but even in the spots it wasn’t steep, it was a long way down. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t stop their downward fall and all the pain coalesced in his stomach, threatening to cast up his accounts. His head stopped their progress by smashing into an outcropping.
Pain slashed through him, and his vision wavered. The weight on his chest lifted as something squashed his stomach and butted up against his testicles. It would have hurt, should have, but not being able to breathe consumed his attention until everything went black.
§ § § §
Och, but this was not good. Ciaran stared down at the campfire below him and frowned at the two captives slumped against a boulder right in the middle of the pass where it opened up into a large plateau. He couldn’t tell much about the duo other than the male had bright red hair and the female had brown. Their odd clothes were torn and dirty, like they’d been through an