The Enchantress by May McGoldrick

nausea swept over him. Fighting it off, he moved in the direction Guff had said to go. There was a definite smell of snow in the wind.
    The grove of trees loomed before him in the darkness, and he stopped. Still tied to a branch, his horse Dread stood pawing the earth beside a shivering Laura Percy. Upon seeing him, the giant horse tossed his head in greeting and then sniffed the ear of the young woman.
    “I was beginning to think you were lost,” she whispered, patting the head of the horse. “They must know by now that I did not come back with the Sinclairs. We must hurry.”
    She was taking it for granted that he’d take her with him. William could feel the devil urging him to mount Dread and ride off, leaving her. He would thoroughly enjoy paying her back for all she’d done to him. But on the other hand, the thought of listening to Gilbert whining if he was to return empty-handed was too much. He frowned and stepped toward the animal.
    Her voice was quavering. “If we go around Loch Fleet and then move south the way we came...”
    She jumped as he yanked his sword sharply from the back of the giant steed. He loosened the weapon in its sheath before strapping it onto his own back.
    Her breath spilled into the cold air. “As I was saying, I can lead us back as far as...”
    He mounted his horse and, wheeling the animal in a circle, nudged him toward the path. It occurred to William that he wanted her to call after him. To ask him again to take her. He wanted her to be terrified at the thought of being left alone, but, glancing in her direction, he found her standing expectantly, a wee shivering bundle of eyes and cloak and blanket.
    “Damn!” He moved Dread to her side and stretched a hand out for her to take. She put an icy palm in his hand and placed her foot on top of one boot. He pulled her up behind him, and she immediately wrapped her hands around his waist. Even with the cloak and the blanket wrapped around her, he could feel her shivering violently with the cold.
    Shouts came from the direction of the convent, and the laird kicked the warhorse into a gallop, following the path westward along the loch for a short time before changing direction and veering to the north across a stony meadow. Their pursuers would overtake them for sure if he tried to make a run straight for Ross lands.
    The night was black, and the wind was picking up. William slowed his horse as they reached the far side of the meadow. As the two rode on, he could feel the tightness of her grip around him, and he tried to ignore the pleasant chill that ran up his spine as the woman’s face rubbed against the wool tartan on his back.
    Reaching a wide creek, William followed the path along the bank through thickly wooded glens and open ground that he knew led to rolling moors and eventually to Rumster Castle. But all was now simply a black, empty void. At one point the creek branched off, and the Ross chief splashed across the icy water, still keeping to the right branch of the stream. He knew where he was going. At the convent Guff had told him how many men the monk had with him, and that had given him the answer he was after. There was no way he could have fought the blackguards successfully. Especially not with Sinclair men arriving. They would assuredly have sided with the Lowlanders against him.
    In a few more miles, the stream bent sharply to the east, and they continued to follow it as an icy rain began to fall.
    Throughout his years growing up in this region, he and Gilbert and the other young lads their age had many times traveled onto Walter Sinclair’s land. Always being told by Thomas that they were too young to accompany the Ross warriors in their raids, they had often taken it on themselves to raise Cain in their neighbor’s lands, "conveying" back to Blackfearn Castle livestock and anything else of Sir Walter’s they could lay their hands on. That was many years ago, he thought with a pang of nostalgia. But as the woman