Chapter 10 #2
At the end of the line of defenders Esme looked down at the front line, where Alec and his men were each fighting two and three of the faceless attackers.
Dozens had already broken through and had just reached the base of the inner wall.
Anger boiled up inside her as she glared down at one directly below her, and dropped the torch she still held on his head.
“Vaya con Dios, pendejo,” she called down to the flaming body as it plummeted to the ground and melted into black goo.
Darro watched Esme move from one end of the wall to the other, his fist tightening on his sword until the hilt made a cracking sound.
He hated to see her within reach of the attackers, and every thought in his head was to climb up there, snatch her down and carry her off to the dungeons.
He’d lock her in one of the cells if that would keep her safe, too.
Only the lady had already proved she could aid them in battle, and had earned the right to stay. He also had a duty to do the same.
Someday you shall meet a female who shall challenge you for stubbornness, my lad, his lady màthair Tuirne had once predicted. She shall anger you, terrify you and make you wish for anything you might use to prevail over her, just as you’ve done to me. ’Twill be my retribution, I reckon.
For the first time in his life Darro understood the burden he’d been as a lad, when all he’d cared for was to stay at his older brother’s side.
He’d followed Tasgall everywhere, first crawling and then toddling after him.
Despite Tuirne’s best efforts Darro would never willingly allow his older brother out of his sight.
As he got older he became as Tasgall’s shadow, always with him no matter where he went or what he did.
That was why he knew Esme would not have left the battlefield unless he dragged her off, for she had the same unwavering determination.
“Dinnae fret, Chieftain,” Sawney said as he joined him and nodded at Esme. “The lady, she’s as clever as she’s steadfast, and shares blood with warriors even older than the McKeran. Her people, they’re fierce.”
He stared at the guard, who had been killed by the MacBren’s archers just before Esme had fallen into her three-day dream.
Now Sawney stood before him as if nothing had happened.
The spell trap’s enchantment had restored the guard to life as if the cycle of events had restarted.
With days and nights lasting only a few minutes now, perhaps it had.
“How do you ken such?” he asked Sawney, keeping his dread off his face. “Do you share a bloodline with her?”
Sawney shook his head, and then looked confused. “I cannae recall how I discovered that.” He met Darro’s gaze. “I’ve druid blood through my lady màthair, Chieftain. Mayhap that ’tis how I ken.”
A shout from the wall made them both flinch.
Darro turned his head and saw the first two attackers avoid the defenders and jump down into the inner bailey.
He could no longer see Esme, and could only hope she had been moved to one of the weapons storage rooms. He also remembered that the guard beside him was due to be killed during the next attack by the MacBren.
“You shouldnae stay, Brother,” he said as a dozen more of the enemy got past the outer wall, and the sounds of battle grew louder. “Go and join the laird inside–” He stopped as he saw the guard had disappeared again. “Fack me.” He hefted his sword and rushed toward the attackers.
As he reached the fray, Darro shouted the order for the first rank to engage and the second to hold fast. In that moment he appreciated his bulk, for he could use his body to knock down two and three of the attackers at a time.
For a moment all his thoughts blanked as he methodically hobbled the creatures, cutting at their legs and necks and then shifting away as the archers shot flaming arrows down into the bodies.
The gardens became littered with the unnatural beings, and soon a strange stink filled the air.
Slaying the enchanted beings sickened him even more than their smell.
At first he thought the stench the same as the rot he’d smelled from the old one on the other side of the barrier.
After a time he realized the creatures burning gave off an odor of something boggy and burnt, as if someone had set peatland alight.
When he saw Alec drop down with dozens of men from the top of the inner wall he fought his way to the war master.
“Do you smell that?” he shouted over the din.
Alec nodded. “They’re no flesh. ’Tis different than the last ones that stank of burnt meat.
” He reached down into the chest of the attacker he’d just cut down and wrenched out a handful of blurry, sparkling leaves.
They turned black in his fist and then liquid, spilling onto the ground to disappear.
“Wretched creatures.” Darro turned to fend off a second attacker and thrust it face-first into the ground, cleaving its head from its neck. Straddling it, he yanked up its tunic, and saw its back was covered with blurry ferns. “They look like someone built them from the forest illusion.”
“From the outer wall we saw large blank spots out in the trees,” the war master told him. “’Tis as if the enchantment comes apart whenever they attack us. Watch your back, brother.” He rushed off to deal with a pair of the creatures that were rushing toward an arch.
Darro fought on, but soon realized another threat had emerged from the flaming arrows being shot into the creatures.
While the attackers melted, the plants around them continued to burn.
Soon so many fires blazed, they threatened to set the entire inner bailey alight.
That was when a dozen patrollers emerged from the keepe with sand buckets to extinguish the flames.
“Why do they waste time putting out the fires?” he heard one defender complain. “Whatever they destroy shall be restored at dawn.”
“’Tis to protect the laird’s brother,” his companion said. “See how all of the fire burns toward Chieftain Darro? If no’ quenched the flames shall soon engulf him.”
He wanted to cringe at the reminder of his mortal weakness, but decided instead to use it to aid the men.
Trotting through the fires, he drew the flames after him to the packed dirt grounds of the lists, where they blazed for a few moments before wafting out.
He turned to go back to assure all the attackers had been dispatched when a bucket of cold water doused him.
“You’re on fire,” Esme said, tossing aside the bucket before she slapped at his tunic, which was still smoldering.
He caught her hands. “I’m well, lass.”
“You’re burned, you idiot man. Take this off now.” As he did, she circled around him and slapped at the back of his trews. “I leave you for a few minutes and you do something so ridiculous. You know fire wants to kill you, all fire, you stupid, stupid man. I should lock you up for a month.”
She went on at length in her own language as she inspected him from all sides and then grabbed the burnt remains of his tunic from his hand.
She made a strange sound before she hurled it aside, and then she moved closer and touched a burn on his chest. It should have been painful, but the way her fingertips glided over the wound seemed to him as the gentlest, sweetest salve.
The air around them became filled with a strange glittering red light, which seemed to burst into dust before it faded away.
“I must go and assure we slew all the creatures,” he told her.
“I know. So go.” When he started to do just that Esme grabbed his arm. “Rory said I could break the spell making you afraid of me.” She touched the dent in his bottom lip with her fingertip. “So kiss me before you go. Kiss me before you do anything else. Kiss me before I cry all over my–”
Darro snatched her off her feet and silenced her with his mouth, taking possession of hers.
She was all fire and tears and sweetness, and so generous he wondered why he had ever once feared her.
She tasted as he’d imagined but a hundred times more potent.
It was the same as being buried under a mountain of sweet gale.
He would never have to touch whiskey again if he could kiss her like this, deep and slow, and she yielded to him so utterly, as if she had been waiting all her life to do such.
“Yes, please, yes,” Esme whispered against his mouth.
Everything about her enchanted and dismayed him.
She was hot and relentless, like the flames that forever chased him, but somehow she had crawled inside his flesh and danced through his veins, as wicked as every notion in his head now.
The long, passionate kiss was not enough—it never would be.
Yet when he took his mouth from hers and looked into her eyes, he saw the same delight she’d shown when she’d found her pleasure in his arms.
The fear he had carried inside him no longer twisted or chilled him. Esme had broken the spell.
“Go and be sure,” she told him, her voice a husky purr, her eyes glittering like dark stars. “Then come back to me. I’ll be waiting.”
Darro brushed his lips across her brow before he released her and went.