Moon Burning (16 page)

We can hide ourselves in the alcove between my room and Circin’s. We can watch the laird’s door from there
.

Sabrine went to stand in front of the terrified human woman. “Listen to me, Verica and I must leave you here. You will be safe. Guards will arrive momentarily to watch over you. Do not inform them of our absence, please.”

“What do you think to do?” This from Brigit, not her still-stunned mother.

“Save the laird and his second-in-command.”

Sorcha jerked, proving she’d been listening, even in her shocked state. “But you are women.”

Sabrine didn’t give that foolish sentiment an answer. “You will hide our departure from them?”

Sorcha nodded.

Brigit grinned. “You
are
a warrior, aren’t you?”

“I am a descendant of the royal line of my people. I have bested men in battle and I will again.” She didn’t mind bragging a little if it would put the child’s mind at rest.

Sorcha stared at her as if Sabrine spoke gibberish, but Brigit’s grin grew until it split her face. “And you will teach us to fight?”

“I will, but right now I must go.”

Brigit nodded while her mother looked on in clear horror, but the human woman did nothing to stop them. Sabrine only hoped she would not alert the soon-to-arrive guards to the other women’s departure.

They rushed toward the alcove, the unfamiliar long skirts getting in Sabrine’s way. “Do you have a plaid from Circin’s youth?”

“He’s still a youth,” Verica grumbled.

Perhaps in this clan, but among her people, a sixteen-year-old male would be well on his way to being trained as a warrior, especially one expected to lead. Sabrine had been fifteen summers when she picked up her first real sword, but she’d been in training and living among the other warriors for years by then. “His plaid would probably fit me without too many extra pleats,” she mused.

Verica stopped dead. “You want to wear my brother’s plaid?”

“You do not expect me to wear this long skirt in battle.”

“We’re going into battle?” Verica’s fear was right there, though she’d made a respectable effort to mask it. However, her determination did not waver.

“
I
am going into battle. You will take to the sky and act as my eyes.” Sabrine’s damaged wing prevented her from doing her own search of the area. “You must be very careful, but you should be able to spot an assassin hiding amidst the trees.”

“You think Rowland will have a cohort attack Earc for him?” Verica asked, not sounding like it would take any stretch of imagination for her to envision the same.

“I think he’s a puling coward and that sort of man will have an ally in the trees armed with a bow. The cohort will attempt to shoot Earc from a distance and hope to escape in the ensuing confusion.”

“I do not think he will escape Barr’s wrath.”

With that, Sabrine agreed. But Rowland was too stupid and conceited to realize it. “No doubt Rowland believes he and those loyal to him can keep Barr occupied.”

Or, more likely if his cohort was human, he would not care and had no plans to try to protect the other man.

“What will we do?”

“You will find the assassin. You will tell me where he is and I will kill him.”

Verica stared. “You truly are a warrior, aren’t you?” Somehow she must have missed the import of the words exchanged between Sabrine and Brigit, or simply refused to acknowledge them.

Sabrine stood tall and proud, her battle mask dropping over her face. “I am.”

Verica flinched and then rallied.
You said you were of the royal line of the Éan.
Showing she had some self-protective instincts, Verica had switched to their silent form of communication.

I am
.

Very nicely, too. However, none but our line have hair the color of a raven’s feathers.
The blue sheen over black as midnight did not occur among the humans or the wolves they had accepted into their clans.

They had both had their instances of ignorance.
I did not know any of the Éan lived amongst the clans.
She would never have believed they could survive among the wolves so intent on destroying them.
Our leaders are unaware of this fact.

Verica tilted her head, giving Sabrine an odd perusal.
Not all wolves hate the Éan. Surely you realize this, having mated Barr. My father loved my mother very much. Though, in the end, he was not there to protect her from those who did not.

They waited for the soldiers to arrive and take up their post outside Barr’s door before Sabrine used her Éan power over what was perceived to make it possible for her and Verica to duck into the healer’s room.

She rushed to a storage chest against the far wall and shoved it open.

Verica dug through the contents until she raised a plaid triumphantly. “This will fit you better than one of Circin’s plaids, for though you’re tall for a woman, your frame is slighter than his.”

Sabrine stripped out of her current clothes quickly and donned the shorter, more familiar styled plaid.

The healer moved more things around in the trunk until she pulled out a leather-wrapped bundle.

Sabrine knew what it was before Verica pulled the leather away. A female Éan warrior’s weapons: the knife and sword would be balanced for her slighter build.

“These were my grandmother’s. I always thought my mother meant they had come down from my great-grandfather, or something, but now I realized my dam’s mother must have been a warrior like you.”

Sabrine handled the weapons with proper reverence. “Yes. These are very well made. You have taken care of them, too.”

“My mother made me promise. She said I might need them one day. I didn’t understand. I am a healer.”

But even a healer might be required to raise a sword in self-defense if her secret nature was discovered.

“I would have been a healer if my mother had lived,” Sabrine told the other woman as she finished dressing and attached the sword to the belt at her waist. She tied the knife with the leather straps found with it to her thigh.

“Do you regret not following your mother’s path?”

“I regret her death that made my sacrifice necessary.”

Verica nodded, her expression filled with empathy.

The two women snuck from the keep, Verica seeming oblivious to the special Éan power that made it possible for them to do so wholly unseen.

Verica took to the sky as soon as they were a fair distance from the keep and the two women stayed in constant contact via the mind link Sabrine provided. One of the strongest of her line with this gift, she would be able to hear Verica now the link had been established even a league distant.

He is going to be hiding in a good spot with a vantage point to the clearing in which the challenge is to take place
. Sabrine gave the other woman her best advice based on her years protecting her people against enemies just like Rowland.

It all depends on how good he is with the bow and arrow,
Verica sent back.

One of the men who hunts for the clan,
Verica guessed.
The hunters live in great fear of Rowland, who has a way of making any who disagree with him disappear while they are out securing meat for the clan.

Sabrine did not relish killing a human whose only guilt was fearing his former laird.

Sabrine made her way through the forest, keeping a direction toward the clearing Verica had told her would be the meeting place for the Chrechte challenge. Verica flew above, her raven’s body a tiny black dot in the sky.

I see him.
Verica’s voice was a triumphant shout in Sabrine’s head.
He did not think to remove his plaid.

It is young Connor.
Sadness sounded in Verica’s mental voice, a true grief that tugged at Sabrine, even as she increased her pace to rival that of any wolf. Shifted or not.
He is related to Rowland, but his father cannot shift. He was born to a Chrechte mother and human father.

Verica described where to find the young man and Sabrine ran on silent feet through the forest until she was only a few feet distant. She crept up to him and had her knife to his throat before he even realized she was there.

“Drop your bow and I may let you live.” She spoke right into his ear, her raven so close to the surface, her voice was as harsh as a caw.

T
he man���s bow went slack in nerveless fingers. “I wasn’t going to kill him.”

“The evidence does not support your claim.”

“I was only going to wound him, but if I don’t shoot him, Rowland will hurt my father.”

Just as Verica had surmised, the man had been coerced, but still—he was not entirely blameless. “Rowland will die this day. It is your choice if you join him or not.”

The bow dropped to the stone perch the man had been standing on. Sabrine kept her knife to his throat and silently called Verica to them.

Verica landed on a nearby branch behind them and changed before coming forward.

Tie his hands,
Sabrine instructed in mindspeak.

Verica did it without a word and Sabrine made sure the human hunter kept his head facing forward so he could not see the healer. She would not be the reason the woman’s secrets became common knowledge.

“So, Rowland threatened your family if you did not kill for him?” Sabrine demanded, once the man was secure.

“I would not kill our laird’s second. I meant only to wound him,” the young Connor claimed again, his sincerity an even more pungent scent than his fear.

“You think that makes your treason any more palatable?”

Defeat settled over the hunter with the pall of impending death. “You don’t understand. Rowland always gets what he wants.”

“I repeat, Rowland, that demon pig, will die this day.”

“If that happens, I will rejoice louder than anyone, but if it doesn’t, who will protect my father? He has no Chrechte strength. He is gaining in years.” Connor’s voice shook with his grief on his father’s behalf.

“I will not let anything happen to your father,” Sabrine found herself promising.

“How can you protect him? You are a woman.”

These clansmen. So ignorant. “I stopped you shooting Earc, didn’t I?”

“I’m not good at fighting. I would be good for nothing to this clan if I could not shoot an accurate line with my bow for hunting.”

“Is that what Rowland told you?” Sabrine asked, appalled by the cruel and demeaning words.

“Aye.”

“Well, he lies. Barr is training human men to protect the clan, too.” As any good laird should do.

“I heard it, but Rowland said it would make no difference. No human could ever best a Chrechte.”

“You did. By not shooting Earc, you’ve bested him.”

“But I would have shot him if you had not intervened.”

Sabrine nodded. She believed him. No matter how much Connor disliked the idea of wounding the other Chrechte at Rowland’s behest. Or his fear of the consequences. She knew what it was to sacrifice everything for family. The steady nearing of her younger brother’s coming of age ceremony had prompted her to infiltrate a clan redolent with Faol.

“Barr must be told of your collusion with Rowland.”

Connor’s head dropped, his chin settling against his chest in defeat. “I know.”

“I will speak on your behalf.”

“What can you say? You found me with my bow pointed toward his second. Will you allow me to watch the challenge? If I am to die for my treason, I would do it knowing Rowland was on his way to hell first.”