Chapter 6 #3
Cath dropped the bolt bar for good measure before placing the satchel on a table and removing his tartan and tunic.
The bespelled vest he wore next to his skin, which Rune had made from the skin of his first kill in Elphyne, only came off when his hand touched the front fasteners.
He set it aside as the ink in his skin reacted to being exposed by lazily stretching and blinking.
Had he been angry, or in any danger, something far worse would have happened.
“Aye, right, lads.” He gestured at the bag. “Tell me truth, ’tis bespelled and shielded, or mortal made and harmless?”
One of the small, snake-like demons on his forearm slithered up over his elbow before striking his chest with its barbed tail.
That made the toothy horror inked over his breastbone snap at the serpentine creature before emerging from Cath’s flesh just enough to sniff the bag.
The disgusted sound it made told him everything he needed to know.
“My thanks, Fomor.” Once the ink flattened itself once more against his skin he pulled on his vest and tunic, and opened the door to allow Sgathan back inside. “The bag, ’tis harmless. I shall return it to Healer McIan.”
The seneschal nodded and hesitated before he added, “Dorchad’s mood, ’tis worse than ever I’ve seen since we joined the clan. Go carefully with him until it passes, War Master.”
Cath mulled over Sgathan’s warning as he left to continue on his way to the garrison hall.
It seemed that the seneschal had only just noticed the chieftain’s temperament, which had been darkening for some years now.
He knew Dorchad struggled with some of the same difficulties Cath had wrestled with, including the self-imposed isolation that set them both apart from the rest of the clan.
He consoled himself by enjoying as many females as he wished to take to bed, although lately even that had palled; the chieftain’s dark grimness and naturally intimidating demeanor prevented him from doing the same.
So why should he pay so much attention to Rebecca McIan?
Glancing down at the flowery bag with its sodden scarf, Cath detoured to the laundry. There he left instructions to clean the garment and hang the bag to dry, before heading to the garrison hall.
He understood why most of the women at Gealladh turned and ran when they saw the chieftain coming.
Yet the wee healer had not. She’d taken to defending the most menacing man among the MacRune, and for a moment he couldn’t fathom why.
Then something Tair had told him echoed in his thoughts: We’re no’ wholly dark Fae.
’Tis why darkness ever inspires us to seek the light, for the sake of our mortal blood.
Had Dorchad somehow fallen in love with the redhead?
In the command room Cath found Dorchad with a group of armed patrollers preparing to leave. “You found the thieves?” he asked.
The chieftain barely glanced at him. “Aye. One briefly took the red-haired wench captive before running into the woods. They’ll likely retreat to the troll’s ha’ and there hide until nightfall.”
The red-haired wench. An interesting manner in which to refer to a healer.
He shifted a little closer until he could pick up on the chieftain’s emotions, which roiled invisibly in his aura like thousands of trapped, vicious snakes.
He had descended into a killing mood, and yet his control was such that no one recognized it.
Cath eyed the sack one patroller carried, which appeared filled with kindling. “You mean to smoke them out, then?”
Dorchad’s expression darkened. “’Tis better they choke to death in the cave, for if they emerge, they shall greet our steel.”
“I cannae agree. Permit me lead the patrol.” Cath gestured for the other men to leave, and when the chieftain started to follow caught his shoulder. “Dinnae take revenge on fools, Brother.”
“One of the facking fools put a blade to her,” he said, his voice chilling to its iciest. “Using a wench as leverage, ’tis what scum do. They’re spineless cowards that dinnae deserve to breathe. I shall correct the Gods’ oversight.”
“I’ve no doubt you can, and what shall the laird say when you deliver their dead bodies to him? Well done? Hang their carcasses from the towers for all to see?” He waited for a moment before he added, “We vowed to protect the mortals, cowards or no’.”
Dorchad’s eyes became endless black pits. “No’ the one who touched Rebecca. To save himself he would happily cut the wee lass’s throat. Of all those bastarts he needs to die.”
“’Tis too quick for the likes of him. The rest of his life spent in misery, that should suffice.” He’d never make such a suggestion to anyone but the chieftain, who in time would calm and see it for what it was. “Leave the thieves to me, Brother. I pledge to you, they shallnae escape justice.”
Cath sensed Dorchad’s darkness brimming on the edge of violence, but had no fear.
He’d faced far worse than the chieftain in their sire’s otherworld kingdom, where roamed monsters so horrific that a single glimpse of them could drive mortals to insanity.
He also knew why Rune had chosen to abandon his twin sons rather than rescue them from their crazed màthair.
Stay far from them, his sire had warned, for their blood runs darker than my own.
“Keep your word,” Dorchad finally said. “Or I shall keep mine.”