Darthool turned and looked at Nathos with eyes filled with a new fear, because of her love of him.
He took her hand in his.
“There is yet time, Darthool. Wilt thou go back to the rath, and stay there till Concobar wills thee to be his wife?”
“I cannot go back.”
“Then come, O Darthool.”
And with that the twain turned and moved swiftly northward through the forest, by the way Nathos had already passed.
“By dawn we may reach the dun where my two brothers now are, and for that day and that night we may rest in safety,” whispered Nathos, as Darthool turned and looked for the last time upon the place where she had lived all these years.
“But thereafter, O love that I have won, the wind must be in our hair and the dead leaves be upon the soles of our feet, for there can be no resting for us till we are away from this land: no, and not for us only, but also for Ailne and Ardan. Concobar will not rest content with bitter wrath, and, if he cannot track the stag, will slay the fawns.”
Soon thereafter they drew near the place where Nathos had left his hounds and his huntsmen. Bidding Darthool hide among the bracken and undergrowth, he went forward alone and told the men to go back to the dun of the sons of Usna, but not till the third day, and by circuitous ways. Thus he hoped that he might the longer elude Concobar, whose emissaries would follow the track of his hounds.
Thereafter Nathos and Darthool fared swiftly hand in hand through the sombre ways of the forest. While it was still light they emerged upon a great moor, which they crossed, and then ascended the gorges of the hills. There the night fell, as though a wind-drifted darkness suddenly suspended and then swiftly enshrouded everything. They dreaded to rest, and yet so deep was the darkness that they could fare no farther.