Warrior's Last Gift(14)

            “Jeanne!”

            He ran as hard as he could, scrambling up the side of the incline. His stomach knotted so tightly, each breath was a battle.

            “Jeanne!”

            He paused at the summit only long enough to scan the area and the vast space of nothing on the other side. His heart pounded in his chest as he approached the edge and peered over, fearing he’d find the worst.

            Approximately eight feet below him, Jeanne lay on her back on a small jagged outcropping of rock, one leg dangling off the edge to a sheer drop below.

            “Jeanne? Can you hear me?”

            She groaned and lifted a hand to her head, shifting her position as if she thought to sit up.

            “Dinna move!” he yelled down to her.

            “Is the beast—Holy Mother!” she screamed as she realized where she was.

            “Dinna you panic!” he ordered. “I’ll no let anything happen to you. You hear me? Just be calm and we’ll get you up from there.”

            “Ha!” she responded, sounding a bit more like herself. “Well, I’m no climbing up there, I can tell you that.”

            She was right. Climbing up the sheer drop didn’t look to be an option.

            “I’ll be right back,” he called down. “Dinna you move.”

            He turned to race back down to where his horse waited with a coil of rope securing their belongings together.

            When he returned, she was sitting with her back pressed up against the face of the cliff, her arms wrapped around the bundle of her possessions she’d carried on her back.

            After tying one end of the rope to his horse, he dropped to his knees at the edge of the cliff.

            “I’m going to pass a rope down to you, Jeanne. Are you listening to me? I need you to secure it around yerself and knot it tightly under yer arms so I can pull you back up.”

            He slid the end over the edge, working it down to her. When it reached her, rather than tying it around herself as he’d told her to, she began to tie it to the bundle in her arms.

            “What are you doing?”

            “The ties have broken and I canna very well hold the rope to climb if I’m holding this bundle instead, now can I?”

            “Leave the damn bundle,” he shouted down. “It’s you we need to get up, no that worthless pile of clothing.”

            “It’s no worthless,” she argued, continuing in her task. “I’ve the dagger you gave me and Eymer’s tooth and the vessel he carved! I canna leave them behind.”

            Eric rubbed a hand over his face, irritation warring with the swell of fear that had engulfed him. Clearly, arguing with her would do him no good. Her stubbornness knew no bounds, not even when her safety was at risk.

            “Send it up.”

            He peered back over the edge to find her working furiously to open the bundle she had just secured.

            “What are you doing now?”

            She didn’t answer, her head bowed to her work.

            “Jeanne. You canna spend the whole of the afternoon down there. We need to get moving before we lose the light.”

            She hesitated for a moment, but nodded her agreement, once again tying the bundle to the rope before holding it up over her head.

            Finally.