Hugh eased his arm away. 'You freed me first,' he said.
'You saved me second, and third, and fourth, and fifth.' I stood back. The standing stone was hard at my back. I thought I could feel some power surging through it, some elemental force that I could not understand. Or perhaps the power came from me and I transmitted it to the stone. I do not know. I only know that I was very aware of some sensation that I had never known before.
'You are the gentlest man I have ever met,' I told him.
'A gentle man who kills people.' Hugh took another step away from me.
'Don't you like compliments?' I asked him. 'Don't you like people being nice to you?' I lowered my voice, lest half the outlaws of Liddesdale heard us and climbed up to listen to a conversation that I suspected was about to become q
