Chapter Text
Kieran Duffy was by no means a brave man. He had been born an O’Driscoll when his mother wasn’t even twenty, and she had nowhere else to go.
He had always been too intimidated by Colm to try to leave, or to stand up for himself.
So, when the big man ordered him to follow a group of men into the mountains to make a camp there, he didn’t object.
Despite having a deep-seated hatred for the cold, despite knowing Branwen couldn’t stand snow. He didn’t fight.
Naturally, the mountains were cold. Freezing cold. Both he and his horse were miserable, but at least he was working a job he liked.
The rest of the gang built up from small cabins left by people who used to live up here, exactly how they survived Kieran wasn’t sure. The men worked their asses off, he could see their hands and noses get nipped by frostbite from his somewhat warmer position with the horses in the makeshift stable.
Not that it was warm, not at all, but it was warmer. He didn’t think he could stand doing the work that the others were doing. He may have hated his gang-mates, but he respected their work ethic, at least.
He had only been there just over two weeks when another gang marched in, guns blazing, and shot up the entire place. Kieran was lucky enough to be one of the few to escape.
That was, until one of the men chased after him on horseback.
Being slowed by the snow, Branwen didn’t make it very far before the man on her back was lassoed down and hogtied, brought back to his captor’s camp to be tortured, killed, enslaved, or something no man could even imagine, no doubt.
Just as he had thought, when Kieran got back, he got a mouthful from the gang’s leader (he wasn’t sure what he’d been told, he wasn’t really paying attention), and was unceremoniously tied up to a wood pole holding up the barn where they kept the horses.
The horses.
At least they seemed to care about him, even if just a bit.