"Shut up!" Toby barked. "Be quiet."
More silence, just Hamish's chattering teeth — no, a faint dum… Dum…
"This way. Come on!" He scooped Meg up and set off again, letting the others wade behind or float as they could. The cold seemed to burn, it hurt so much. The water was below his waist now, yet he could move no faster, for the bottom was a tangle of branches and roots, hard and sharp. Deeper water would have helped to support his weight. Every muscle shuddered convulsively. Moonlight glowed brighter; pale wraiths floated between the dead white trees. The guardians seemed intent on barring the way to shore until the intruders froze to death, and surely that ending could not be many minutes off.
Almost without realizing, he had left the swamp and was scrabbling over a litter of driftwood, stumbling up a shingle bank, dragging the others behind him. Fire! He must have fire! If the water had penetrated his tinderbox, they were all going to die anyway.
Then his head came level with the land, and he saw light in the darkness — real flames, and none of the wisp's fox fire. A few hundred paces or so along the shore, someone was waving a lantern.
Rory shouted, "Cruachan!" again, and a faint cry responded, "Cruachan!"
CHAPTER FIVE
The cottage was very small, just four dry-stone walls roofed with branches and sod. Meg was the only one who could stand erect in it. There was no chimney, no covering for the doorway, and one corner of the roof had collapsed, but a heap of peat glowed in the center, giving at least the illusion of warmth. At some time in the past it had been used for livestock, yet it was shelter from the night, and the travelers huddled gratefully around the fire to thaw.
The man named Jeral had disappeared. Rory had sent him off somewhere, and Toby found that troublesome. Someone had cleaned out this little hovel and covered the floor with rushes to make it habitable, but not recently. That was even more worrying.
Four faces gleamed faintly in the firelight. The shivering had mostly stopped. Wet wool steamed.
"Are we safe from the bogy here, sir?" Meg inquired.
"Probably." Rory eyed Toby thoughtfully. "I expect it's busy burying my lute. It's probably forgotten all about us, and it never worries overmuch about dry land things anyway. I would like to know why it took such a scunner to us."
Meg missed the implications of that dangerous question. "Where are we, then?"
"We're in Glen Orchy, still. A few miles down we'll get to Strath of Orchy and Dalmally, but we can worry about that in the morning."
Poor Master Rory had lost his fine shoes; his feet stuck out of the remains of his socks. Pity poor Master Rory!
Toby was thinking about trees. There were trees here. Trees implied an absence of people to turn them into lumber or firewood. No people meant no roads, no traffic. No one came through the haunted glen. But Rory did, and Rory now wore a black feather in his bonnet. The rebels had a shelter here that the English did not know about. The Jeral man had been sent off somewhere — possibly to fetch help.
Secrets were dangerous in time of war.
"I've been to Strath of Orchy!" Hamish announced. "That's where Kilchurn Castle is, and the laird's name is Hamish!"
Rory grunted. "Lord Hamish — Hamish Campbell, foster brother to the earl of Argyll."
The boy pulled a face. "How will you get by Kilchurn Castle, then, sir? It guards Pass of Brander, where the road's squeezed between the cliffs and the water—"
"We begin by hoping there are no Sassenachs there. Then we worry about Campbell traitors."
"But… you can see Ben Cruachan from Dalmally."
That innocent-seeming remark caused MacDonald of Glencoe to turn and stare at the boy. "What of it?"
Hamish flinched. "Nothing, sir! Ma says I talk too much."
"Sensible woman."
Hamish subsided, shooting one of his owlish looks at Toby — meaning he thought he knew something that Toby was too stupid to work out for himself.
Rory turned his attention back to Toby. "You haven't explained how you managed to lead us out of the bog."
"I have a good sense of direction."
"A superhuman sense of direction? You escape from dungeons, from hexers, from bogies? You have more lives than a cat!"
"I hope so."
The rebel wanted to know what had vexed the wisp, how a mortal man had found his way out in the dark. Was the young fugitive merely a spy, or was he one of Lady Valda's demonic creatures? Let him wonder! Toby did not know the answers himself.
Hamish yawned. Meg caught the infection.
"May as well sleep," Rory announced, but he did not move. "Miss Campbell is bound for Oban. You, lad?"
"Pa told me to go and stay with Cousin Murray in Glen Shira. The keeper of the shrine of Glen Shira."
Rory snorted. "Old Murray Campbell? You know him?"
"No, sir."
"You have an interesting experience in store, then. And you, Man Mountain? Wither goest thou, Big Man?" He raised sandy eyebrows, waiting for Toby's reaction. He was not actually sneering; he just seemed to, because of his eagle-beak nose.
"I promised to see Meg safely to Oban, and then—"
"That was very rash of you, Longdirk. You're not really up to being a reliable protector with your history of blundering into trouble." Rory was still dropping hints about demons, but he wasn't sure. "Suppose I come along to hold your hand and we get her there between us, what then?"
Yesterday morning, Vik Tanner had tried to make Toby lose his temper. Baiting had not worked then. It would not work now.
"Then I'm going to travel and see the world."
Be a prizefighter and win large amounts of money.
"Mm? Travel where? To the Lowlands? To England? There must be a price on your head by now, you know. An insultingly small one, I expect, but every penny counts, as they say. You're not the sort to disappear into a crowd — not unless you walk on your knees, that is. How do you plan to feed that oversized carcass of yours?"
"Honest work."
"Digging ditches?" The sneer was undeniable now. "You're an ignorant country lout who won't last a week in the real world."
Meg looked shocked, Hamish owlishly worried.
"That isn't your problem," Toby said steadily. Demons would be, though.
"Lady Valda is. Besides, you intrigue me, Shoulders. The Sassenachs are hunting you; you killed one of them. You seem to have courage, unless it's all stupidity. Why aren't you planning to join Fergan, your rightful king?"
Toby eyed the fingers of red fire caressing the peat. "The brave Black Feathers? Tell me what you're fighting for."
Rory MacDonald considered Toby for a long moment before he answered. "For freedom. To clear our land of the oppressors. For our own ways, for our families, for justice."
Toby adopted what he hoped was an expression of amused cynicism. "Freedom, you say? One lord is much like another. I have no land, I have no family, and I'll believe in justice when I see it. Your fight is not mine, Rory MacDonald of Glencoe." He could add much more — that King Fergan was a rebel only because he had broken the oath of allegiance to King Nevil; that the wars were always started by the Scots and won by the English; that the English paid their troops, which the rebels did not… but he had said more than enough already.
The rebel was scowling. "You support the English?"
"No. Just a neutral."
"There are no neutrals in this war."
"My father was an Englishman."
"From what I was told, you can never know who your father was."
Evidently Meg had been yattering.
Toby turned himself so he had space to lie down — there would not be much room for four. He unfastened his pin and rearranged his damp plaid into a bedroll. Hamish copied him. Meg began fussing with her cloak with the same end in view. Only Rory continued to sit upright, apparently waiting for an answer.