Chapter 3 - The Test of the Ridge
By midday, the terrain grew steeper, shifting from rolling scrubland into jagged limestone ridges where the wind whipped down from the high passes with a sharp, autumn bite.
They had been moving for three hours without rest when Elira stumbled. Her boot heel had worn through completely, leaving her raw skin exposed to the sharp stones. She caught herself against a boulder before she fell, biting her lower lip to keep from crying out.
Rowan stopped instantly. He walked back, knelt beside her without a word, and inspected her boot.
“You should have said something miles back,” he said.
“I can walk,” she muttered, pulling her foot back defensively.
“You can’t walk five miles on granite with a bare heel unless you want to leave a trail of blood the whole way to the valley,” Rowan replied. Without asking permission, he unbuckled his own spare pair of heavy wool socks from his belt pack, pulled them off, and wrapped them securely around her feet before lacing her worn boots back up as best he could.
Elira stared down at him, her expression a mix of stubborn pride and sudden, disarmed confusion. “These are yours. You’ll freeze your own feet by nightfall.”
“I’ve walked barefoot through worse when I was younger,” Rowan lied smoothly, standing up and offering her a steady hand. “Besides, I’m heavier than you. I need the traction less.”
She took his hand, letting him pull her to her feet. The touch lingered a second longer than necessary, neither of them pulling away until a sudden sound from the ridge above broke the quiet.
A scattering of loose shale rolled down the slope.
Both froze. Rowan drew her behind a slab of gray rock, his hand resting on the hilt of his knife while his eyes scanned the jagged skyline above them.
Two horsemen had appeared on the crest silhouetted against the bright afternoon sky. They weren't soldiers, and they weren't ordinary travelers; they wore the distinct wide-brimmed hats and heavy coats of hired guns. They were looking down into the ravine, scanning the ground for tracks.
“They found Vance,” Elira whispered against his shoulder, her breath warm against his neck.
“Or they cut our sign from the creek,” Rowan whispered back.
The riders pulled their mounts to a halt just fifty yards above them. One of them pointed down toward the very trail Rowan and Elira had used twenty minutes prior. If they continued up the open ridge, they would be spotted instantly. The only alternative was to climb straight up the sheer, rocky face of the cliff to their right—a steep, dangerous scramble where a single slip could mean broken bones.
“We go up,” Rowan decided quickly.
“It’s too steep,” Elira warned. “If they look up—”
“If we stay here, they won’t need to look up.”
Rowan went first, finding handholds in the limestone cracks and pulling his bruised body upward with quiet determination. When he reached a narrow ledge a dozen feet above, he turned, braced his boots against the stone, and reached down to pull Elira up after him.
Her fingers locked around his wrist. Her grip was iron-strong, driven by the same survival instinct that had kept her running for a week. As he hauled her up onto the narrow shelf beside him, a gunshot cracked below.
A bullet chipped the rock face a foot to their left, showering them with gray dust.
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“Move!” Rowan hissed, pressing her against the cliff wall as they scrambled sideways along the narrow ledge toward a dense thicket of stunted mountain mahogany that offered the only real concealment in sight.
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