The Fiery Cross

by Diana Gabaldon

  The thunder came again, and he lost his footing on the slippery leaves, slewing sideways and smashing into a stand of saplings. The springy wood saved us major damage, though, and we stumbled and staggered back upright, still moving upward. Opening one eye cautiously, I could tell that Judas had somehow found a trail-I could see the faint line of it, zigging through the dense growth in front of us.

  Then the trees closed in again, and I could see nothing but a claustrophobic array of interwoven trunks and branches, twined with the yellowing remnants of,Aild honeysuckle and the flash of scarlet creepers. The thick growth slowed the horse still further, and I was at last able to draw a deep breath and wonder where Jamie was,

  The thunder cracked again, and in its wake, I heard a high-pitched neigh, not far behind me. Of course-Judas hated thunder, but Gideon hated to follow another horse. He would be close behind, pushing to catch up.

  A heavy drop of rain struck me between the shoulder blades, and I heard the rustle of the beginning rain, striking drop by drop by drop on leaves and wood and ground around me. The scent of ozone was sharp in my nostrils, and the whole wood seemed to give a green sigh, opening itself to the rain.

  l gave a deep sigh, too, of relief.

  Judas took a few steps further, and lurched to a halt, panting and blo,0ng. Not waiting for another clap of thunder to set him off again, I hastily slid to the ground, and seizing his halter-rope, tied him to a small tree-no easy task, with my hands stiff and shaking.

  just in time. The thunder crashed again, a clap so loud that I could feel it on my skin. Judas screamed and reared, jerking at his rope, but I had wrapped it round the tree trunk. I stumbled back to get away from his panic, and Jamie caught me from behind. He started to say something, but the thunder boomed again, drowning him out,

  I turned and clung to him, shaking with the adrenaline of delayed shock. The rain began to fall in good earnest now, drops cool on my face. He kissed my forehead, then let go and led me under the overhang of a big hemlock, whose fans of needles broke the rain, providing a fragrant, almost-dry cave beneath.

  As the adrenaline surging through my body began to die down, I had a moment to look around, and realized that we were not the first inhabitants of this refuge.

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  "Look", I said, pointing into the shadows. The traces were slight, but obvious; someone had eaten here, discarding a tidy pile of small bones. Animals were not so tidy. Animals didn't scrape up dead needles into a comfy pillow, either.

  4 Jamie winced at another bang of thunder, but nodded.

  "Aye, it's a mankiller's spot, though I dinna think it's been used lately." "A what?"

  "Mankiller," he repeated. The lightning flashed behind him, a vivid sheet 'that left his silhouette imprinted on my retina. "It's w

  hat they call the sentries; the warriors who stay outside the village, to keep watch and stop anyone com ing in unaware. D'ye see?"

  "I can't see a thing, just yet." I put out a hand, groping, and touched his coatsleeve, moving blindly into the shelter of his arm. I closed my eyes, in hopes of restoring my vision, but even against my sealed lids, I could see the flash and burst of lightning.

  The thunder seemed to be moving off a little, or at least growing less frequent. I blinked, and found that I could see again. Jamie moved aside, gestur ing, and I saw that we were standing on a sort of ledge, with the face of the mountain rising steeply behind us - Screened from view from below by a row of conifers, there was a narrow clearing-obviously man-made, as that was the only sort of clearing that occurred in these mountains. Looking out through the conifer branches, though, I had a breathtaking view over the small valley where Ravenstown lay.

  The rain had slackened. Looking out from this high vantage point, though, I could see that the clouds were not one storm, but several; patches of dark rain hung randomly from the clouds like veils of gray velvet, and silent, jagged forks of lightning lanced suddenly across the black sky above the distant peaks, thunder grumbling in their wake.

  Smoke still bloomed from the canebrake, a low flat crown of pate gray, almost white against the darkened sky. Even as high as we were, the smell of burning stung the nose, mingling oddly with the scent of rain. Here and there I could see flame-licks, still burning in the cane, but it was apparent that the fire was mostly out; the next shower of rain would quench it entirely. I could see, too, the people returning to the village, small groups making their way from the wood, bundles and children in tow.

  I looked for riders, but saw none, let alone anyMth red hair. Surely Brianna and Jemmy were safe, though? I shivered suddenly; with the changeableness of mountain weather, the air had gone from smothering blanket to chill within less than an hour.

  "All right, Sassenach?" Jamie's hand settled warmly on my neck, fingers rubbing gently along the tense ridge of my shoulders. I took a deep breath and let them relax, as much as I could.

  "Yes. Do you think it's safe to ride down?" My only impression of the trail was that it was both narrow and steep; it would be muddy now, and slippery with wet, dead leaves.

  "No," he said, "but I dinna think-" He stopped abruptly, frowning in thought as he gauged the sky. He glanced behind us; I could barely make out

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  the outline of the horses, standing close together under the shelter of the tree where I had tied Judas,

  "I was going to say I didna think it particularly safe to stay here C

  last " h said at

  - His fingers tapped gently on my shoulder as he thought, pattering like raindrops.

  "But yon storm is moving fast; ye can see the lightning come across the mountain, and the thunder. With melodramatic timing, a sharp

  boom of thunder rolled across the valley. I heard a shrill whinny of protest from one of the horses, and the rattle of foliage as he tugged at his halter. Jamie glanced over his shoulder, expression bleak.

  "Your mount's got a strong mislike of thunder, Sassenach.

  "Yes, I noticed that," I said, huddling closer to him for warmth. The wind was picking up again, as the next storm rolled in.

  "Aye, he'll likely break his neck, and yours, too, if ye're so misfortunate as to be on that trail when it-" Another boom of thunder drowned his words, but I took his meaning.

  "We'll wait," he said, positively.

  He pulled me in front of him, and put his arms round me, sighing as he rested his chin on the top of my head. We stood together in the shelter of the hemlock, waiting for the storm to come.

  Far below, the canebrake seethed and hissed, the smoke of the burning beginning to rise and fly with the wind. Away from the village, this time, toward the river. I wondered suddenly where Roger was-somewhere under that murky sky. Had he found safe refuge from the storm?

  "I wonder where that bear is, too," I said, voicing half my thoughts. Jamie's chest moved in a rueful laugh, but the thunder drowned his voice.

  WILDFIRE

  0 ER HAL

  F-WOKE with the smell of smoke burning in his throat. Rl'-

  He coughed and sank back into sleep, fragmented images of a sooty earth and burnt sausages fading into mist. Tired from a morning of shoving his way through impenetrable thickets of brush and cane, he had eaten a sparse lunch and lain down for an hour's rest in the shade of a black

  willow on the river bank.

  Lulled by the rushing water, he might have sunk back into solid slumber, but a distant shriek pulled him upright, blinking, The shriek was repeated, far off but loud. The mule!

  He was on his feet, stumbling toward the sound, before he remembered the leather bag that held his ink and quills, the half-chain, and the precious survey-

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  records. He lunged back to snatch it, then splashed across the shallows d Clarence's hysterical braying, the weight of the astrolabe swinging on inst his chest. He crammed it inside his shirt to stop it catching on thong aga

  erately for the. way by which he had come.

  ches,
looking desp, coughed, half choking as lie tried to stifle Smoke-he did smell smoke, He

  Coughing hurt his throat, with a searing pain as the scar tissue inside seemed tear.

  "Coming," he breathed, in Clarence's direction. it wouldn't have mattered he could have shouted; even when he'd had a voice, it hadn't the carrying Uali of Clarence's. He'd left the mule hobbled in a grassy patch on the edge ty

  the canebrake, but he hadn't come in very far, stand of young cane to "Again," he muttered, throwing his weight against a

  "Yell ... again dammit." The sky was dark. Springfbrre his way through. d no sense of where he was, ing from sleep and blundering off as he had, he ha.

  tave for Clarence.

  ing? The smell of smoke was noticeably stronger; as Shit, what was happen cep and panic, he realized that someItis mind cleared from the muddle of st

  thing was drastically wrong. The birds, normally somnolent in mid-day, were ed, fluttering and calling with loud, disjointed screeches past his head.

  49itat their ragged leaves, and he restless through the canes, fluttering

  Mr moved e-not the moist, clinging, all-embracing caught a touch of warmth on his fac shed his cheek warmth of the muggy carebrake, but a dry, hot touch that bru

  and sent a paradoxical chill right down his back. Holy Christ, the place was -t)n fire. himself deliberately. The canebrake was alive He took a deep breath, calming y canes, driving flocks of songaround him; a hot wind was moving, rattling dr

  birds and parakeets before it, flung like handsful of bright confetti through the leaves. The smoke crept into his chest and gripped his lungs, burning, keeping him from drawing a full breath. good; he could scarcely s loudly as he could. No

  ,Clarence," he rasped, a . He couldn't hear the hear himself above the rising agitation of the canebrake

  -headed animal hadn't been burned to a crisp already? mule at all - SurelY the fat bbles and galloped off to safety.

  No, more likely, he'd broken his rag ho e the naked, Something brushed his leg and he looked down in time to se a direction scaly tail of a possum, scampering into the brush. That was as good

  as any, he thought, an .d plunged into the growth of buttonbush after it.

  -ig somewhere near; a small pig burst out of a patch of There was a gruntit s path, heading to the left. pig, possum-was either iyaupon and crossed hi

  known to have a good sense of directionP He hesitated for a moment) then fol lowed the pig; it was big enough to help break a path.

  A path there seemed to be; small patches of bare earth showed here and of grass. Wild orchids winked among there, trampled between the tussocks e delicacy of them-how small jewels, and he, wondered at th

  them, vivid as h a time?

  could he notice such things, at suc to stop and cough, bending nearly doubl.e The smoke was thicker; he had . tact, keep 't and clutching at his throat, as though he could keep the tissue in

  from tearing with his hands. Eyes streaming, he straightened up to find that the trail had disappeared. A thrill of panic squeezed his insides as he saw 'a wisp of

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  driffing smoke, nosing its way slowly through the undergrowth, delicately questing.

  He clenched his fists hard enough to feel the short nails bite into his palms, using the pain to focus his mind. He turned slowly round, eyes closed to concentrate, listening, turning his face from side to side, searching for a draft of fresh air, a sense of heat-anything that would tell him which way to go, away from the fire.

  Nothing. Or rather, everything. Smoke was everywhere now, in thickening clouds that crept low across the ground, rolled black out of thickets, choking. He could bear the fire now, a chuckling noise, like someone laughing, low down in a scar-choked throat.

  Willows. His mind clung to the notion of willows; he could see a growth of them in the distance, barely visible above the waving canes. Willows grow near water; that was where the river was.

  A small red and black snake slid across his foot as he reached the water, but he scarcely noticed. There was no time for any fear but the fear of fire. He splashed into the center of the stream and dropped to his knees, bending to get his face as close to the water as he could.

  There was moving air, there, cool from the water, and he gulped it, deep enough to make him cough again, shaking his bodyMth a series of racking, tearing spasms. Which way, which way? The stream wound to and fro through acres of cane and river thicket. To follow it one way would lead him toward the bottomiand-perhaps, out of the fire, or at least to open countrya place where he could see again to run. To go the other way might take him straight to the heart of the fire. But there was nothing overhead but cloudy darkness, and no way of knowing.

  He pressed his arms tight against his body, trying to stifle the coughing, and felt the bulge of his leather bag. The records. Goddamn it, he could countenance the possibility of his own death, but not the loss of those records, made over so many laborious days. Floundering and stumbling, he made his way to the river's edge. He dug frantically with his hands, scrabbling in the soft mud, ripping out handsfid of the long, tough grass, yanking horsetails up by the roots. They came apart in his hands and he flung the segments heedless over his shoulder, breath sobbing in his chest as he gasped and dug.

  The air was hot all round him, searing in his lungs. He crammed the leather bag into the damp hole he had made, reached out his arms and grasped the dirt, pulling it to him, the mud a comfort on his skin as he scooped it in.

  He stopped, panting. He should be sweating, but the sweat dried before it reached the surface of his skin. The fire was close. Rocks, he needed rocks to mark the placc-they wouldn't bum. He splashed back into the creek, groped beneath the surface, oh God it was cold, it was wet, thank God, grasped a boulder slick with green slime and threw it toward the bank. Another, a handful of smaller rocks, grasped in desperation, another big one, a flat one, anotherenough, it would have to be enough, the fire was coming.

  He piled his rocks into a hasty cairn, and commending his soul to the mercy of God, plunged back into the river and fled, stumbling and choking, rocks rolling and sliding under his feet, fled for as long as his trembling legs would carry him, before the smoke seized him by the throat, filled head and nose and

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  chest, and choked him, the band of scarring a hand that squeezed out air and fik, and left only blackness behind his eyes, lit by the flickering redness of fire,

  jj-E WAS FIGHTING. Fighting the noose, fighting the bonds on his wrists,

  ed his chest and sealed his throat, I, fighting most of all the black void that crush ing with every ounce fighting for one final sip of precious air. He bucked, strain

  of force, and then was rolling on the ground, arms flying free. d yelped in surHe struck something with one flailing hand, It was soft, an

  prise. , Then there were hands on his shoulders, his legs, and he was sitting up, vision fractured and chest heaving in the effort to breathe - Something struck him

  e back. He chokect, coughed, gulped enough air to hard in the middle of th nd a huge gobbet of black n deep in the charred center of himself, a

  cough dow

  phlegm rolled up out of his chest, warm and slimy as a rotten oyster on his tongue.

  He spat it out, choked and heaved as the bite rose up burning through the gulped, and sat up, gaspraw squeezed channel of his throat. Then spat again,

  mg. d He had no attention to spare for anything, lost in the miracle of air an breath. There were voices around him, and vague faces in the dark; everything smelled of burning- Nothing mattered but the oxygen flooding through his chest, plumping up his shriveled cells like raisins soaked in water.

  Water touched his mouthl and he looked up, eyes blinking and watering in balls felt seared; light and shadow smeared together, the effort to see. His eye ness of his eyes, cooling his and he blinked hard, warm tears a balm to the, raw

  skin as they ran down his cheeks - Someone- held a cup
to his lips; a woman, face blackened with soot. No, not soot. He blinked squinted, blinked. She was black of herself Stave?

  nwilling to interrupt his breathing even for He took a brief gulp of water, u was good, though-very his ravaged throat- It

  the pleasure of the coolness On urprising him. He had exgood. His hands rose and wrapped around the cupi s hands were pected the pain of broken fingers, long-numbed flesh ... but his

  He reached automatically for the hollow of his neck, exwhole and serviceable- gly at the solid pecting pain and the whistle of amber-and prodded unbelievin

  ed, and the air whistled through his nose and down the flesh there. He breath round him, and realigned itself.

  back of his throat. The world shifted a of some sort. There were several people He was sitting in a ramshackle hut them were black, all were in the hut, and more peering in at the door. Most of

  in rags, and none of the faces looked even faintly friendly, ile at her, The woman who had given him water looked scared. He tried a sm nd and coughed again. She looked up at him under the ragged cloth tied rou

  that the whites of her eyes were scarlet5 the lids redher brows, arid he saw rom the feel of them. The air rimmed and swollen. His must took the same, f and pops of was still thick with smoke) and he could hear the distant cracks

  of the fire. Somewhere nearby, a bird called heat-split cane, the dying rumble

  once in alarm, then fell abruptly silent.

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  There was a conversation going on near the door, conducted in sibilant whispers. The men who were talking-no, arguing-glanced at him now and then, their faces masks of fear and distrust. It had begun to rain outside; he couldn't smell it, but cool air struck his face, and he heard the patter of drops on the roof, on the trees outside.

  He drained the rest of the water, then offered the woman back the cup. She shrank back, as though he might be contaminated. He set the cup on the ground, nodding to her, and swiped at his eyes with the back of his wrist. The hair on his arm was singed; it crumbled to dust at a touch.

  He strained to pick out words, but heard nothing but gabble. The men weren't speaking English, nor yet French or Gaelic. He had heard some of the fresh blackbirds brought up from Charleston for sale in the Wilmington mar ket, talking among themselves in just that sort of husky, secretive murmur. Some African tongue-or more than one.

  His skin was blistered, hot and painful in several places, and the air in the hut was so thickly warm that sweat ran down his face with the water from his eyes, but a chill touched the base of his spine at the realization. He was not on a plantation-there were none, so far into the mountains. Such isolated homesteads as there were up here would be too poor to have slaves, let alone such a number. Some of the Indians kept slaves-but not black ones.

  Only one answer possible, one confirmed by their behavior. They were maroons, then, his captors-his saviors? Escaped slaves, living here in secrecy. Their freedom-and perhaps their lives-depended on that secrecy. And

  here he sat, a living threat to it. His insides gelled as he realized just how tenuous his position was. Had they saved him from the fire? If so, they must now be regretting it, judging from the looks of the men by the door.

  One of the arguants broke away f

  torn the group, came and squatted down before him, pushing the woman out of the way. Narrow black eyes darted over him, from face to chest, then back. "Who you?"

  He didn't think the pugnacious questioner wanted his name. Rather, he wanted to know Roger's purpose. Possibilities flickered through Roger's mind-what would be most likely to keep him alive?

  Not "hunter"-if they thought him English and alone, they'd kill him for sure. Could he pretend to be French? A Frenchman wouldn't seem so dangerous to them. Perhaps.

  He blinked hard to clear his vision, and was opening his mouth to say,

  Je suis Francais-un voyageur, "when he felt a sharp pain in the center of his chest that made him suck breath.

  The metal of the astrolabe had seared him in the fire, and quick blisters had risen and burst beneath it, gluing the thing to him with their sticky fluid. As he moved now, the weight of it had torn free, ripping the ragged shreds of skin away, and leaving a throbbing raw patch in the center of his chest.

  He dipped two, fingers into the neck of his shirt, and carefully pulled up the leather thong.

  "Sur . . . vey ... or," he croaked, forcing the syllables past the knot of soot and scar in his throat.

  "Ha u! "

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