The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [200]
—Dragonfly in Amber, chapter 36,
“Prestonpans”
He turned back to the prisoner, busying himself in checking the priming and loading of the pistol. The twelve inches of heart-butted metal gleamed dark, the firelight picking out sparks of silver at trigger and priming pin. “Head or heart?” Jamie asked casually, raising his head at last.
“Eh?” The boy’s mouth hung open in blank incomprehension.
“I am going to shoot you,” Jamie explained patiently. “Spies are usually hanged, but in consideration of your gallantry, I am willing to give you a quick, clean death. Do ye prefer to take the ball in the head, or the heart?”
—Dragonfly in Amber, chapter 36,
“Prestonpans”
The priest would have to take care of himself, he thought. Jamie drew the broadsword as he rose, and with one long step, was within reach. The man was no more than a shape in the darkness, but distinct enough. The merciless blade smashed down with all his strength, and split the man’s skull where he stood.
“Highlanders!” The shriek broke from the man’s companion, and the second sentry sprang out like a rabbit flushed from a copse, bounding away into the fading dark before Jamie could free his weapon from its gory cleft. He put a foot on the fallen man’s back and jerked, gritting his teeth against the unpleasant sensation of slack flesh and grating bone.
—Dragonfly in Amber, chapter 36,
“Prestonpans”
There was a faint, wheezing chuckle from Rupert, and another coughing spell. “Weel, grieve for me and ye will, Dougal,” he said, when he’d finished. “And I’m glad for it. But ye canna grieve ’till be deid, can ye? I would die by your hand, mo caraidh, not in the hands of the strangers.”
“You are my chief, man, and it’s your duty,” he whispered. “Come now. Do it now. This dying hurts me, Dougal, and I would have it over.” Dougal’s dirk took him under the breastbone, hard and straight. The burly body convulsed, turning to the side with a coughing explosion of air and blood, but the brief sound of agony came from Dougal.
—Dragonfly in Amber, chapter 43,
“Falkirk”
Fire is a poor illuminator, but it would have taken total darkness to conceal that look on Geilie’s face; the sudden realization of what was coming toward her. She jerked the other pistol from her belt and swung it to bear on me. I saw the round hole of the muzzle clearly—and didn’t care. The roar of the discharge caromed through the cave, the echoes sending down showers of rocks and dirt, but by then I had seized the ax from the floor. I heard a noise behind me, but didn’t turn. Reflections of the fire burned red in the pupils of her eyes. The red thing, Jamie had called it. I gave myself to it, he had said.
I didn’t need to give myself; it had taken me.
There was no fear, no rage, no doubt. Only the stroke of the swinging ax. The shock of it echoed up my arm, and I let go, my fingers numbed. I stood quite still, not even moving when she staggered toward me.
Blood in firelight is black, not red.
—Voyager, chapter 62,
“Abandawe”
“Sometimes I know there’s something there, like,” Maisri said suddenly, “but I can block it out of my mind, not look. ’Twas like that with his lordship; I knew there was something, but I’d managed not to see it. But then he bade me look, and say the divining spell to make the vision come clear. And I did.” The hood of her cloak slipped back as she tilted her head, looking up at the wall of the Priory as it soared above us, ochre and white and red, with the mortar crumbling between its stones. White-streaked black hair spilled down her back, free in the wind.
“He was standing there before the fire, but it was daylight, and clear to see. A man stood behind him, still as a tree, and his face covered in black. And across his lordship’s face there fell the shadow of an ax.”
—Dragonfly in Amber, chapter 41,
“The Seer’s Curse”
It was the gralloch prayer he had been taught as