Chapter Thirteen The Long Run Home #2
She woke to Caelan’s hand hovering near her shoulder, not touching, but close enough that she felt warmth.
“Morna,” he whispered. “Up. Now.”
Her eyes snapped open. The hollow felt colder. Dawn had not yet broken, but the sky had lightened slightly.
Ewan crouched nearby, face tight. Ivor was already awake, eyes narrowed.
Elara stirred, blinking.
Caelan held up a finger, signaling quiet. Then Morna heard it. Not a horn this time, but the distant yip of a hound and the answering call of men.
They were closer.
“How,” Morna mouthed.
Caelan shook his head once. “They guessed the cart. They guessed our direction. Valerius is not a fool.”
Ivor’s lips curled. “He is a merchant of pain. They always count profit. He will not let his prize go.”
Caelan glanced at him. “Move.”
They rose, stiff and aching, and slipped out of the hollow, keeping to shadow. The forest was beginning to gray. With light came visibility, and with visibility came danger.
They moved hard for an hour, pushing uphill through brush and stone. Elara began to lag, her steps shorter, her breathing uneven. Morna saw the way she favored her left foot.
“Stop,” Morna whispered when Caelan paused to listen.
Caelan’s head snapped toward her. “We cannot.”
“We can for a moment,” Morna said. She crouched and tugged Elara’s boot off. Elara winced. A blister had formed along her heel, raw and already tearing.
Morna swallowed a curse. “Show me your other foot.”
Elara hesitated, then obeyed. Another blister, smaller, but swelling.
Caelan crouched beside them, eyes scanning the woods while Morna worked.
She tore a strip of cloth from the inside of her sleeve, wrapped it around Elara’s heel, then smeared a little sap to keep it in place.
She had no clean linen, no salve, but she had the knowledge of what would keep skin from splitting further.
Elara whispered, “I am slowing you.”
Morna looked up, meeting her gaze. “You are breathing. That is not nothing.”
Ewan hovered close, alert. “They are close,” he murmured.
“I know,” Morna said. She shoved Elara’s boot back on, tied it tighter. “Now walk on the grass when you can. Avoid stones.”
Elara nodded, swallowing hard.
Caelan’s eyes flicked to Morna’s torn sleeve. “You will freeze.”
Morna’s mouth tightened. “I will live.”
Something in Caelan’s face shifted. He did not argue. He simply rose and led them forward again, but his pace adjusted, fractionally slower, more realistic, the pace of a man who had finally accepted that survival was not only speed. It was endurance.
Caelan led them downhill toward the sound of water. A larger stream, not the narrow ribbon they had used before, something wide enough to slow pursuit and muddy scent.
When they reached it, Morna’s stomach sank. The water ran fast over rocks, cold and loud.
Caelan scanned upstream and downstream. “We cross here,” he whispered. “Then we go along the bank for a time. Make them choose which side we are on.”
Ewan nodded, understanding. Elara swallowed hard and stepped closer to Morna.
Morna took her hand. “Follow my steps,” she whispered.
They crossed carefully, feet slipping on slick stones. Morna nearly fell once, but Caelan caught her elbow, quick and firm, then released at once. The brief contact was like a spark. Not romantic, not gentle, but real, a reminder that he was here and she was not alone.
On the far bank, they moved through reeds and mud, leaving messy, confusing prints. Caelan deliberately stepped into a patch of soft earth and then veered into stones, breaking the pattern.
Ivor watched him with something like reluctant respect. “You were born to cheat trackers.”
“I was born to count,” Caelan replied. “Counting makes patterns. Patterns break.”
They followed the stream for a half mile, then climbed back into higher brush where pine thickened again. Morna’s lungs burned as she helped Elara up a slope. Ewan helped, pushing from behind.
Behind them, the hound’s yips grew louder, then faded, then rose again as if the animal were circling.
Morna’s mind raced. “They will split,” she whispered. “One group stays on the stream. Another takes the ridge.”
Caelan nodded. “Aye. Which is why we must give them something to find.”
He halted near a patch of bracken and crouched. With swift fingers he tore a strip from his already ripped shirt, then dragged it through mud and sap. He tied it around a low branch.
Morna stared. “A marker.”
“A lure,” Caelan said. “They will smell me and follow this line for a time.”
Ivor snorted. “You are offering your skin again.”
Caelan’s eyes flashed. “I am offering cloth.”
Morna stepped closer, voice low. “Do not make yourself the bait.”
Caelan did not look at her, but his jaw tightened. “If they follow the wrong trail, you live.”
Morna’s stomach clenched. “We live,” she corrected.
Caelan’s gaze finally met hers. In it was exhaustion and a stubborn new anchor. “Aye,” he said. “We live.”
He turned and led them away, taking a sharper angle through denser trees, stepping on stones when he could, on fallen logs when he had to.
Hours crawled. The sun rose, weak and pale through smoke haze. Morna’s body became a collection of aches. Her shoulders burned from helping Elara over rough ground. Her throat felt raw. Hunger clawed at her belly.
Caelan found a patch of winterberries and pressed them into Elara’s hand. “Chew,” he said.
Elara grimaced. “They are sour.”
“They will keep you moving,” Caelan replied.
Morna found a small cluster of chickweed and bitter cress near a damp stump. Not much, but edible. She gathered handfuls and shared them. Ewan ate quickly, eyes never stopping their scan of the trees. Ivor ate slower, as if tasting every leaf for betrayal.
“You are a healer,” Ivor murmured to Morna as they moved. “Tell me, will you mend the damage he’s done to himself.”
Morna’s fingers tightened around her gathered greens. “I can mend bodies.”
Ivor’s smile was thin. “And souls.”
Morna’s gaze flicked to Caelan’s back. “Souls must choose to heal.”
Ivor made a soft sound, amused. “Then you have your work cut out for you.”
They moved again, pushing through a patch of low hills. The terrain grew rockier, and Morna recognized it at last, not by border marker but by the shape of the land. A ridge line that sloped toward Kincaid territory, dotted with granite outcrops.
Hope, sharp and dangerous, flared in her chest.
Caelan halted at the top of a rocky rise and scanned the distance. His eyes narrowed. “Smoke,” he murmured.
Morna followed his gaze and saw it. Not from Blackwood, but thin lines of smoke in the far distance, perhaps from a farmstead, perhaps from a patrol fire.
Kincaid land.
Ewan’s face lit briefly with relief, then tightened again. “They could be Roderic’s men.”
Caelan shook his head. “Roderic does not light cooking fires in daylight. He moves quiet. That smoke is home.”
Elara’s shoulders slumped with exhaustion and relief mingled. “Home,” she whispered, as if the word might vanish if spoken too loudly.
Morna’s throat tightened. She had longed for competence, for tools, for the ability to fix what was broken, and now she wanted something simpler. A door. A hearth. A place where she could sleep without listening for horns.
Caelan did not let them linger. “We move toward it,” he said. “But we do not run straight. We keep cover.”
They descended the ridge and moved through a shallow valley where tall grass offered concealment. Morna’s damp clothes brushed against stalks, leaving water behind. She hoped it would confuse scent further.