Outlander Book Club: The Fiery Cross Chapter 84 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

The chapter starts with Claire and Jamie in the woods. Clarence turns up, and Jamie realizes that he broke free of his hobbles. That means Roger wasn’t on the horse at the time, so he wasn’t thrown off. The two initially just think that Roger has just ended up with a long walk back, but there’s clearly another concern for Jamie that he’s not sharing.

I get the feeling that Jamie is concerned about Roger’s mental state. At this point, nobody knows about the forest fire that Roger would have experienced, the reason for Clarence to break free. Roger’s mental state has to be the reason Jamie goes dark and Claire notes he’s concerned about something.

There isn’t that much time to think about it all, though. The thunderstorm around them is getting worse and the forest fire does eventually reach them. They’re covered in smoke, and they need to get away from where they are.

Suddenly, there’s an explosion. Claire and Jamie are thrown 20 feet below, and they are fortunate not to die. The horses aren’t so fortunate. Jamie climbs back up to see them while Claire takes stock of everything. She’s lost a shoe and stocking, and she wonders if the blast made her deaf for a while because it’s so quiet. She knows that the horses are dead just from the silence.

She also wonders how she and Jamie didn’t die. Of course, she and Jamie believe that they’re destined to die in the house in four years’ time, and that’s what she thinks about. That is still set to happen.

Jamie returns to share that Judas had died. Claire cries, suggesting that he knew what would happen and that was why he hated thunderstorms. Gideon, Jamie’s horse, is alive but burned and has lost his mane. Claire focuses on helping him, saying she has balm for burns.