Warrior’s Redemption (29 page)

“What the hell? What is this?” She reached out to the stone, rubbing her hand over its face to collect the strands of hair.

“Runic writing of some sort,” Elesyria answered, mistaking Dani’s question. “I’m not very good with runes. I haven’t had a need to deal with them since I was a child.”

“Not the carving,” Dani huffed. “That thing pulled hair out of my head. Look.”

She held the proof between her fingers, but Elesyria’s attention was fully captured by the carving she traced with her forefinger.

“Three carvings, one on either side of the fire pit and one above.” She rose to her feet and moved backward, eyes fixed on the stones. “The one on the right is
wunjo
. Joy. My mother had such a carving in our home.”

“And the one that ripped my hair out?”

“Don’t be silly. Likely you caught the hair upon it when you moved.” Elesyria approached, leaning down to run her finger over the lines. “I remember the symbol. Let me think.”

“Looks like a stick-figure man with his arms raised.” Dani rubbed her fingers together, letting the hairs fall to the stones beside her. “Like he’s getting ready to pull hair.”

“Protection!” Elesyria beamed. “
Algiz.
I knew I’d remember it.”

“And the one at the very top?” Dani rose onto her knees,
her hands bracing her weight against the rune that had pulled her hair. “Looks like a letter
F
to—whoa!”

The stone she leaned against moved and she shot backward, stumbling to her feet.

“Okay. No way that was my imagination. Did you see it move?”

The stone shifted again, sending a fine powder poofing into the air just before the entire left column of stones swung away in one piece, like a door, to reveal Christiana standing inside the opening.

“I think I have a way to get you out. We must hurry, though,” she encouraged as she stepped out into the room. “You’ll need to come with me.”

“How did you . . .” Dani’s words died off as she peered into the dark passageway.

“My father loved the idea of passageways. He had them built all over the castle. No one knows where they all are. No!” Christiana shook her head in Elesryia’s direction to stop the Faerie from gathering her belongings. “You can take nothing. I’m sorry, but the guards must believe yer only to accompany me on my errand to trade with Orabilis. If they see yer belongings, they’ll grow suspicious.”

“I’ve no need for any this,” Elesyria responded, dropping her bundle on the floor and heading for the opening.

Had both women lost what little good sense they had?

“How’s this supposed to help us escape? I heard your brother say this morning that he was sending guards
along with you. And even if we could manage to get away from the guards, I’m not leaving here without Malcolm.”

Dani had come here to take him from this place and that was what she meant to do. Even if she couldn’t say how, exactly, at the moment.

“We’ll deal with the guards,” Christiana assured. “And as for Malcolm—”

“Once we’re clear of this place, I can deal with whatever guards accompany us,” Elesyria interrupted, her head poked inside the tunnel.

“I told you, I’m not leaving here without—” Dani began again.

“I’ve every intention of seeing my brother set free. Trust me.” Christiana took her hand and pulled her into the tunnel behind her. “Be as quiet as possible and follow close. There are twists and turns that would make it easy to lose yer way and we’ve no the time to go on a hunt for you.”

The space behind the stones was just large enough for the three of them to huddle in together, funneling in to a narrow ribbon of black.

Christiana pulled on a long chain and the stone door slowly slid shut, leaving them in complete and utter darkness. With a touch to Dani’s shoulder she indicated they were ready to move.

“How do you know where we’re going in here?”

“Those were my mother’s rooms. I’ve played in these tunnels from the time I was old enough to walk. Again, I must ask you trust me.”

Silently, they hurried along. Dani’s sense of direction
was completely mangled after the first few minutes of incline leading to narrow stairs that spiraled down, followed by more incline and more stairs.

In the absence of light, blood pounded in her ears as if they did double duty trying to make up for her inability to see. By the time she bumped into the back of a paused Christiana, her legs had begun to tremble from the exertion of all the steps.

Or maybe it was simply nerves.

Ahead of her, metal scraped against stone and the wall in front of her shifted open. Not the wide, gaping doorway she’d seen in her bedchamber but a narrow space, not much bigger than her body’s width. The opening led into a corridor, about twice the width of the tunnel they’d just traversed, and though the wavering light appeared to come only from torches, it seemed bright after so long in absolute black.

“Go,” Christiana whispered with a gentle nudge to Dani’s back. “Wait outside the door at the end of the passageway.”

Dani slipped into the corridor, her eyes fixed on the prize, a small wooden door just ahead.

A large, callused hand clamped over her mouth was her only warning that she wasn’t alone in the hallway.

Panic flooded her system with a burst of adrenaline and she fought the man’s hold, unable to break free but doing some good damage with her nails and her feet, even as she twisted in his grasp to see her captor.

Rauf!

Dermid’s groomsman held her braced against his chest, his face contorted in pain even as he tightened his hold. Nothing in sight but two large wooden buckets on the floor in front of her. She struggled to bend, stretching out her leg to catch one of the pails with her toe. If only she could get her hands on one of them, she might be able to use it as a weapon.

As if he read her mind, Rauf pinned her against the wall with a twist of his body, all the while making some half-witted shushing noise.

Always trust your gut about a man,
her aunt Jean had liked to say.

Her gut certainly hadn’t steered her wrong on this one.

A
SPLASH OF
water, cold and stinging, awoke Malcolm to the nightmare of his reality, bringing with it the ceaseless pain.

He struggled to shift his weight from his arms to his feet even as another bucket of water cascaded into his face.

“You stink like the shithole you were in, MacDowylt,” the man in front of him called out, lifting another bucket into his arms. “Or should I call you MacGahan now, since that’s how you fancy yerself?
Laird
MacGahan. The mighty Malcolm, defender of Clan MacDowylt, turned traitor to yer people and gone soft in the turning. How mighty are you now,
Laird
Malcolm?”

Spitting out a mouthful of water, Malcolm glared at his tormentor through the dripping clumps of hair that clung to his face. “Loose these bindings and we’ll see how soft I’ve gone, you putrid wee arse.”

The man laughed, displaying a patchwork of missing teeth as he unleashed the third bucket of water.

Malcolm turned his head, but it did little good to protect him from the unavoidable onslaught slapping against his face. If only he had a weapon. If only he were free of the bindings that threatened to pull his bones from their joints.

Squinting against the water running down into his eyes, he watched as the door opened to admit another man, his arms stretched down with the weight of two large, obviously filled buckets.

Rauf!

He should have killed the man when he first stepped foot in MacGahan Castle.

“I’ve brought the water you asked for, Henry. The other lads are following along behind.”

“Set them down here. Yer welcome to stay and watch, if you like. Mayhap I could be talked into letting you have a go at him, too.”

Henry bent to lift one of the filled buckets, his laughter ceasing abruptly with a loud thunk as the empty bucket in Rauf’s hand connected with the back of his head.

“Now,” Rauf called from his spot crouching over Henry’s body.

The door behind him swung open and Malcolm reconsidered whether he was awake or dreaming. Surely the women rushing in the door had to inhabit his dreams.

Dani’s body slammed against his, forcing a whoosh of
air from his chest as her arms tightened around him.

She felt too real for him to have been anything but awake.

“Oh, Malcolm! What have they done to you?” Her hands fluttered over his chest and across his face. “We’re getting you out of here.”

“My lady,” Rauf called, tossing something through the air when Dani turned his direction.

Her hand shot out to catch the little item and she began to pull at Malcolm’s arm, stretching up on her tiptoes to grab the chains that held him.

“I can’t reach it!”

Rauf was at their side in an instant, working the bolt from the iron around Malcolm’s wrist.

When the chains came off, it was as if his arms had forgotten how to lie properly at his sides where they belonged, the joints and muscles aching with what had been demanded of them. Malcolm was forced to bite back a groan of agony when Rauf once again lifted his arm to take the burden of Malcolm’s weight on his shoulders.

“I can walk on my own,” he managed. “Where do we go?”

“The tunnels,” Christiana responded, rising to her feet after having tied the guard’s hands and feet.

“Torquil kens the way to the water’s edge. It’s no safe to use that passage.” As he’d learned the hard way.

“I’d no intent to use that way.” Christiana’s grin lit her face. “You traveled the tunnels with Father, but I
had the advantage of learning from a servant. We’ll exit near the kitchens, where we’ll stuff you into a barrel and cover you with flour.”

Dani’s fingers fluttered over his face once more before she grabbed his hand and lifted it to her lips. “For luck.”

He was about to embark on an escape where he’d likely be suffocated in flour or captured and skewered on the spot.

Luck was exactly what he needed.

T
HE BACK OF
Malcolm’s hand was hardly what she’d wanted to wrap her lips around, but it would have to do for the time being, in front of all these people.

Dani held tightly onto that hand as they followed behind Christiana through the endless maze of steps and slanting twists and turns until once again a sliver of light appeared ahead of her.

A sliver that grew into a chunk.

She hung back, allowing Rauf and Christiana to exit first this time. No more surprises for her. Popping out of that last tunnel to find Rauf waiting had given her more than enough fright to last a lifetime.

“Hurry!” Christiana hissed, urging her brother up into the back of a wagon where three barrels already stood.

Dani squeezed his hand once more and he bent to kiss her lips.

“Wife, is it? We’ll be talking about that one,” he whispered in her ear before climbing into the wagon and pretzeling himself into the barrel Rauf indicated.

One soft, sweet touch to her flesh that would have to hold her until they were free of this awful place.
One cryptic question to set her mind worrying.

“Hold the mug over yer mouth and nose with the broken end to the hole as we cover you.” Rauf emptied the first of the flour down over Malcolm as he spoke. “We’ll have to put the plug in the hole until after the guards have inspected, but we’ll take it out as soon as we can. You should have enough air to keep you going until then.”

Should have
being the operative words as far as Dani was concerned. The idea that they’d managed to rescue him from that horrible dungeon only to suffocate him under pounds of flour haunted the back of her mind.

Not that she needed to make up things to worry about. There were plenty of those already. Still, the plan seemed weak enough that she felt the need to voice an opinion.

“I don’t like this. It’s too dangerous for Malcolm to be confined in that barrel. He has no way to protect himself. Or even to breathe, for that matter, if we don’t get that plug out in time.”

For the first time, she saw something approaching anger in Christiana’s expression.

“And what would you have us do? Dangerous?
Pah!
” The dark-haired woman smacked one fist against her other hand, her eyes flashing. “Where we just liberated him from, that was dangerous. Did you no see for yerself what they did to him in there? Or did you no recognize the stain on his shirt as his own blood? This is our only course, unless you have a better idea for getting him away from here?”

Dani felt as if she’d taken a slap to the face. She’d been so busy making sure Malcolm was unharmed that she’d barely noticed the stain on his shirt. Not that it would have made a difference. Stain or no, she understood all too well that staying where they were was tantamount to a death sentence. And, realistically, she also understood that there was no such thing as a safe way to escape.

“No, sorry. I know you’re right. It’s just . . . I’ve never dealt with anything like this at all before.” And it was taking everything she had to deal with it now.

Christiana leaned in to put her arms around Dani, patting her back as she gave a little squeeze. “I doubt that any of us have. For now, let’s concentrate on what we do once we’re on the road.”

Exactly. The plan might be scary as all get-out, but knowing what to expect was her best hope.

“How is Rauf going to be able to deal with the guards on his own?”

Though the groomsman had overpowered her when she’d come out of the tunnel, it hadn’t been by much. Certainly not by enough to inspire her to think he could deal with the group of men who would be escorting them on this little jaunt.

“It’s no Rauf what’s going to save us from the guards. He must leave us here, as he canna be seen as helping us in any way. We travel on our own, the three of us, you, me and Elesyria. We’ll have to watch for an opportunity along the way to break free of them.”

The three of them? Against a company of trained guards? They were so screwed.

“You must calm yerself, Sister.” Christiana patted
her back once more before backing away. “Yer disquiet will put the guards on the defensive. Now get in the back of the wagon with the barrels. It’s yer task to remove the plug as soon as we enter the tunnel. Elesyria and I will ride in the front.”