Haunting Warrior (41 page)

At that, both Michael and Liam jumped in, offering their opinions on who to believe, who to trust, who to follow. Who to kill.

“Hate to break up your little tea party, ladies,” Ruairi interrupted, raising his voice to be heard over the clamor, “but they’re gaining on us. Why don’t we table the discussion about cutting my throat and get a move on?”

Ruairi’s tone was offensive, his words insultingly cavalier, but the steely look in those blue eyes subdued them. In fact she’d swear there was a gleam of respect in Michael’s gaze as he turned away.

“There’s a mound not far from here, a tunnel with a chamber inside,” Tiarnan said, pointing to the south.

Saraid sucked in a breath as she realized what he spoke of. A fairy hill some might call it. Or a tomb for the gods, others still. Whatever it once was, it was not a place for humans to tarry—not a place to use as refuge, no matter the danger. To cross its threshold was to invite disaster.

“We can hide there. They won’t find us,” Tiarnan went on.

For certain, and even if they did, they wouldn’t risk themselves to go inside.

She saw her own trepidation mirrored on her brothers’ faces, but none spoke up. Tiarnan was their leader and they would follow him wherever he would go. He moved back to where Leary stood with the others and quickly told them what was happening. Leary gave an order and nine men on foot branched off, three to the east, three to the west. The last three went north.

When Tiarnan came striding back, he said, “We have to leave the horses. They’re too easy to track.”

“They’ll track us no matter what,” Ruairi said. “We need the speed.”

Tiarnan didn’t even glance at Ruairi when he spoke, his tone flat and unflinching. “Leave the horses.”

“It’s a mistake,” Ruairi insisted.

Tiarnan looked from Michael to Liam to Saraid. “Make yer choice now. Follow him or follow me. There can be only one leader.”

The note of defeat in Tiarnan’s voice broke Saraid’s heart. He had been tested and he had done his best, but in his own judgment, he had failed. If they turned from him now, he would be broken. She glanced at Ruairi, waiting for his response, waiting for him to deliver the blow that would destroy her brother. For an instant he met her eyes and it seemed he understood everything she was thinking.

She saw then that he knew they were headed into more danger, but their lives had become one constant treacherous path. What was one more abyss in a journey filled with them? And so he became a leader she would never have expected. He led by giving back the only thing Tiarnan had left.

Silently, Ruairi began to remove the bags and weapons strapped to his horse. With a collective sigh of relief, Michael and Liam did the same. Tiarnan hid his surprise well, but Saraid could see it there, hidden in his eyes. How close he’d been to the edge.

They took anything they could carry that wouldn’t weigh them down—blankets, flasks, food. Without asking, Michael took the puppy from Ruairi’s hands and slid the little dog into a bag he slung over his shoulder. When the horses were stripped, Tiarnan gave them a slap and sent them running away. The big black one with the thunderbolt on its face cast Ruairi a soulful look before following the rest. Saraid felt the heavy press of fear in her chest as she watched them vanish over the hillside.

“Let’s go,” Tiarnan said.

He set a fast pace, a jog that the others matched, and soon they were like shadows in the forest. Weariness was etched on Ruairi’s face, but he picked up speed, running beside her as they darted through the woods and up and over the rocky hills. Leary’s men spread out so as not to leave a trampled trail. After an hour, they slowed but they did not rest. Afternoon was well on its way to evening and they were exhausted, but still they pushed on.

As the soft light of dusk settled around them, Saraid began to hope they might make it. There’d been no sign of Cathán’s men, and all but one of the parties Leary had sent out had reported back with no further sightings. The mound was near and she caught glimpses of it through the trees. They would have to break from the forest, but only for a short distance and then they would be safe.

Tiarnan slowed and raised his hand, signaling to everyone to stop. For a moment they waited, not even a branch swayed in the breeze. Tiarnan and Michael crept close to the forest’s edge and peered out. All was still and quiet.

Then Saraid saw something move in the distance. She turned to look and there stood a man, his face bloody and beaten beyond recognition. His body moved strangely, awkwardly disjointed. He stared at her, walking through the clearing with a purpose that could not be denied. She glanced at Ruairi beside her, but he only scanned the mound, his eyes slipping past the battered warrior without pause.

So he wasn’t real. Or rather, he wasn’t really here. Not yet. It was his death she saw.

She braced herself as he drew near, stopping close enough to touch. His face had been pulverized by whatever had killed him. One eye was gone, the other swollen nearly shut. He was monstrous, horrifying, and she had no idea who he was. Slowly he shifted, looking at Ruairi with that lone eye before returning to her.

Saraid shook her head, wanting him to vanish. Fearing him in a way she should not. He wasn’t real. He couldn’t hurt her. She knew it was all true, but still she couldn’t slow her racing heart or ease the hot dread that closed her throat. He wanted something, something she could never give. His lips moved and she knew he was going to speak, going to tell her about the horror that had reduced him to this state. But like the rest of his face, his jaw had been crushed and he was unable to form words. Only an inane gibberish spewed forth.

Then Tiarnan was giving the signal, and they all moved forward again. Saraid stepped past the beaten man and he vanished as completely as he’d appeared. Relief made her light-headed, but dread made her heart beat painfully. Gingerly they picked their way out of the forest and into the late-afternoon sun. For a moment it burned their eyes after the sheltered canopy of trees.

The mound was straight ahead and Tiarnan turned, urging the others to run for it while he and Michael kept watch. There was a small creek that curved along the base and the men splashed through it and hurried up the hillside. Saraid and Ruairi came more slowly. His breathing was ragged and his pallor alarming. Blood soaked the bandages of his shoulder and down his tunic. As they started up the rocky slope, Ruairi stumbled, and his forward momentum sent him sprawling in a heap that rolled back down. She skidded to a stop beside him, found him battered and cut, a new gash on his forehead spilling blood over his face. His eyes were closed.

“Ruairi,” she whispered, touching him.

He didn’t move. Saraid had only a moment to realize he was unconscious before a rumbling shook the earth. She spun to see riders burst from the trees and bear down on them like a pestilent swarm. Cathán’s men had found them.

She grabbed the front of Ruairi’s tunic and shook him. “Ruairi, wake up. Get up,
now
!”

His eyes fluttered open but they were glazed and unfocused.

“On yer feet,” she cried.

Ruairi rolled to his knees and then lurched to a stand, wiping an arm over his face to clear his eyes of blood just as Michael and Tiarnan raced back to their side. Michael shoved a sword into her hands. She had no chance to ask him where he got it. Saraid had been raised the lone sister among men—she knew how to handle a sword. Gripping it hard, she turned to meet the onslaught.

Even as he swayed with dizziness, Ruairi had his weapon drawn. He seemed a bit stunned by the quickness of his reflexes, as if he hadn’t expected the command from brain to limb to move with such lightning speed. Still, he barely got his sword raised before it was met with a downward blow from one of Cathán’s mounted warriors. Ruairi’s knees buckled, but he didn’t fall. Beside her Michael, Tiarnan, and Liam fought and danced with graceful moves. Saraid lifted her sword and stood with Ruairi.

The sound of metal on metal went through her and turned her insides watery. Ruairi dodged and thrust again, managing to get his fist into the fabric of one of the riders. He yanked the man from his horse like he was made of straw and impaled him with his blade. Again she saw shock register on Ruairi’s face, but it was fleeting and there was no time to dwell on it because another rider was on them and another. Even though Leary’s warriors battled fiercely and her brothers were at her side, fighting like a unit, there were more than twice as many of Cathán’s men and they had the advantage of the horses.

Saraid ducked away from a charging rider and brought her sword up to catch the man in the thigh, steeling herself for the feel of her blade slicing flesh, unprepared for the triumphant rage that filled her. She may not be a healer, but she knew that wound would cause bleeding and likely death. Another man swept down and tried to grab her. Saraid stabbed at his arm as she evaded his groping hands, but he kept coming, impervious to her glancing blade.

She fought with every ounce of strength and will she could muster, vowing that she would not go easily into Cathán’s captivity. That road would lead to a fate worse than death. As she swung and parried, jabbed and dodged, she saw Ruairi and her brothers beat back their attackers, bringing them down like felled trees. Leary’s men fought fearlessly as well, and it seemed that the odds had evened. There was hope. Hope that they might escape once again.

But then a terrible cry split the air, and Saraid turned to see one of Cathán’s men launch himself at Ruairi, his face twisted in a mask of rage that went beyond this skirmish, beyond the feud, beyond hatred. Ruairi spun, raising his sword as he braced and lunged. But he was just a moment—just an instant—too slow and his attacker caught him low and between the ribs.

It was a deadly wound, she knew it even though she had no time to assess it, no chance to help him, because at the same moment another man grabbed her by the arms and hauled her kicking and screaming onto his horse. In one fluid motion, he disarmed her, trapped her against his saddle, and spun to charge away. Her scream was filled with terror, though she’d tried to clamp down on it. More mounted riders charged through the trees as the fight echoed around them. Ruairi had said there were two groups, she realized, and this was the other half arriving fresh and ready to fight.

There was no hope that her brothers could win now, no chance that Ruairi would live to find the Book—to destroy it. She screamed his name as she watched the man she’d wed, the man who’d seemed invincible, fall to his knees then keel over and lie still.

Was he dead? Was he? A wave of terror greater than her fear of dying stole the breath from her lungs. It seemed impossible that only days ago she’d railed at the fates that matched her to this man, because now the idea of losing him was more devastating than anything she’d ever faced before. She couldn’t go on living if Ruairi were dead. She would not let it happen.

“Ruairi,” she cried again, squirming with fury to be free of her captor.

“Doona worry, lass. There are more of Cathán’s men than that bastard. They’ll all be waiting to service y’.”

His words only spurred her to kick and claw as she struggled to get free. Unable to ride and keep his hold on Saraid at the same time, the man who held her reined in his horse. Then he struck her hard across the face and clamped her in a grip so tight it crushed her ribs and stole her breath. The pain from the blow was immediate and blinding. She didn’t scream—couldn’t push the noise past the constricted muscles of her throat, but in her mind she cried out, opening that passageway to Ruairi.

Her head lolled back, the side of her face afire, and what little she had in her stomach threatened to come up. But from the corner of her eye, she saw Ruairi stir. She turned, disbelief warring with hope. Yes, his hand lifted, pushed at the hard ground. He rolled to his back, tried to sit in an awkward painful-looking motion. He was alive—a miracle in itself. He lay there for an agonizing second, chest heaving from the effort, staring at the sky, and then he shifted, meeting her eyes.

She slammed her head back, feeling her captor’s nose crack against her skull, and then she did it again. The man howled with pain, and his grip loosened. Saraid struggled harder, determined to get to Ruairi before someone noticed he lived. Before someone finished the job. Even as she squirmed and writhed like a snake, she kept her eyes on his, willing him to get up. To take up his sword. To fight.

He tried to lift his hand. She saw the agony of the effort in his expression and then the rage when he couldn’t grip the hilt of his weapon. She willed him to be strong, to defend himself, but it was clear that his wounds were too deep and his time was short.

The man holding her caught her face in a vise grip and jerked it around to his. He held a short, sharp dagger in his hand and he pressed it to her cheek. “Keep at it and I’ll cut yer nose from yer face.”

She gulped, swallowing the scream that the grim promise in his eyes evoked.

“Do y’ hear me, girl?”

She nodded, staring at the blade as he inched it closer. “Yer nose, yer eyes, yer ears, I’ll take them one by one until yer left the hideous witch I know y’ to be. Cathán cares only that yer alive.”

She bit her lip hard to keep from shouting, but in her mind her screams went on and on. And then she felt something shift, something deep inside her terror. It felt cool against the inferno of fear. It moved, coating and calming, and suddenly she realized—it was Ruairi. He was inside her, telling her to hold on.

The knife hovered over her face, but beyond it she could see Ruairi sprawled on the hard rocks, covered in his own blood. He clenched his eyes tight against the pain and then he turned his head and stared back at her.

She was caught in that swirling blue gaze, feeling the vibration that rose up from below as if it had come from inside her mind—inside his mind, which had coupled with hers. There was no sound to it or none that could be heard over the clanking of swords, the shouts of men at battle, but the earth itself began to shiver and tremble. Shadows leapt across the ground as tree branches swayed to and fro. A slithering hiss of pebbles started the slide to the creek bed at the bottom.