Chapter Eighteen
S creams woke Liadan from the first good sleep she’d known in days. She’d curled up beside the fire, since Flanna—who’d stayed home—had gone to lie beside Mam.
Ardahl had tried to take the place at the door, surrendering her own bed back to her, but she’d insisted he keep it one more night.
All was quiet before the screaming started. Harsh yells, bellows, shrieks. A distant, discordant clashing.
She opened her eyes, thinking the sounds followed her from whatever dream she’d been having. They did not.
A shadow shifted inside the hut. Ardahl came forward from her sleeping place, only half dressed.
She sat up and, across the fire, their eyes met.
“What—?”
“There is fighting. We are under attack.”
“Nay! We cannot be—”
“Get your mother and sister up. Swiftly now.”
He moved through the spill of moonlight coming through the smoke hole, and Liadan got a good look at him. Clad only in his leggings. Strong and quiet, but covered with wounds, the wild hair streaming loose down his back.
Conall’s sword already in his hand.
“Move!” he bade her.
The sounds outside grew louder. Terror ignited in Liadan’s heart. Aye, if this be an attack, she must get Mam and Flanna away.
She moved clumsily. When she reached Conall’s sleeping place, Flanna was already on her feet. “Liadan, what is it?”
“Attack, so Ardahl says.”
“Who—”
“Dacha.” Ardahl stood right behind them. “Get your mam up. The three o’ ye, creep out round the back. Do your best to reach the hills. Wait there till others come.”
“But—”
“They are burning the settlement. Can ye no’ hear?”
“By all the gods! What about you?”
“I will stay and fight.”
But when they tried to wake her mam, she would not rouse. And without being on her feet, she could not flee.
Liadan could hear the fighting now, sword on sword and sword on shield. Cries from hoarse throats, women’s shrieks, the wails of children.
Ardahl scooped Mam up in his arms and said to her and Flanna, “Come.”
As soon as they stepped outside, Liadan could see the flames. They came from the west side of the settlement, as did most the screams, and leaped garishly into the quiet night. Thatch aflame. Was that the chief’s hall?
Other people moved through the half-lit dark around them. A woman, their neighbor Mistress MacCade, asked, “What is happening?”
“Attack.”
Ardahl led them, a small band of would-be refugees, in absolute silence through the edge of the settlement. So terrified was Liadan, she could barely breathe.
Flanna clutched her hand and Ardahl carried Mam, and not till they were well away from the hut did she realize she’d brought nothing else away with her. Just those she loved.
They headed for the midden, backed by a stand of trees that led away up the hill. Ardahl cradled Mam like a child, his sword—Conall’s sword—in one hand. Every time another shadowy form joined them, he turned until he determined it was one of their own. Ready to fight for them.
“What is happening?” asked everyone who joined them. Several old men. A knot of women.
“Hush,” Ardahl told them all. “On your life!”
They slipped like so many shadows through the dark. Behind them, a nightmare raged. Fire. Blood. Terror.
The terror accompanied Liadan. Had she ever been more frightened?
When the ground began to slant upward beneath their feet, Ardahl paused. He passed Mam to two of the older men and told them, “Go on up the hill. Hide yourselves there, understand?”
“Aye.”
One of them asked, “Wha’ happened to the guard?”
“Dead, no doubt.”
“Our defenses?”
“Broken.”
Och, by all the gods, what had this night wrought?
Liadan stepped forward and seized both Ardahl’s forearms, one heavily bandaged. “Ye mean to go back?”
“Aye.”
“To fetch your own mam?”
He hesitated. She could not see his eyes in the dark, but by all that was holy, she could feel him.
“To fight.”
“But your mam—”
She was back there. Amid the death and the burning.
“My duty is to your family, no’ my own,” he said shortly.
So, would he let his mam die? Without him.
Leaning closer, she said, “Go find her if ye can.”
He lifted Conall’s sword and left them. Like a whisper, he melted into the night, there one moment, gone the next.
Liadan wanted to sob. She wanted to wail and weep. She could not. Dacha’s warriors could even now be hunting the perimeters of the settlement. Silence might save them.
Yet she might never see Ardahl MacCormac again.
The serpent. Her enemy. Yet she ached for him. Missed his presence. The night felt colder without him.
Such strength, such courage to go back into that horror. She could not. She absolutely could not.
Turning, she looked down the slope, trying to peer through the trees. Fully half the settlement burned. Against the flames, dark figures, unidentifiable, ran.
Drawing a breath that smelled of smoke, she turned. “Ye heard Master Ardahl. Let us go.”
*
Ardahl ran. He forgot his wounds as he went, forgot his battered body. He very nearly forgot those he’d left behind. By the gods, let them keep safe. The terrible scene in front of him claimed all his attention.
The great hall was ablaze, making a towering bonfire that spat sparks and dense smoke. The main body of the fighting seemed to be located not far from there, a dark knot of men all clustered together.
He ran in.
As he went, he wondered if the chief and his family had escaped the flames. No one left inside could survive. Other buildings near the hall were well aflame, and his mind tried to put it together.
A raid. The hall set on fire. Other buildings caught from that. There was no wind, but it did not take much to put spark to thatch.
A man appeared before him, taking form like a demon from out of the smoke. Someone he did not know. He raised Conall’s sword.
At once, he felt the pull on his body, the product of torn muscle and flesh.
If I am to die here, he said to Conall in his mind, await me. I got your family away safe .
Not his own. Och, Mam. Och, Mam!
I will keep her safe for ye also, said a voice in his ear. Conall’s voice.
He threw himself into the fray.
The man in front of him went down to Conall’s blade. He stepped over the body, over several others—friend or foe, he did not pause to see. Ahead of him, a grim band of men faced off against the invaders. He saw Dornach there, face set and teeth bared.
Dornach and Cathair and—aye, that was Chief Fearghal, with a sword in his hands.
Instinct took Ardahl around to attack their opponents from the side. The heat here, so close to the fiercest of the burning, was intense enough that he expected his hair to take flame. Sweat poured from him.
He would not let himself heed the pull of exhaustion, the protest of wounded flesh. He held and slashed until the enemy stood no more and he found himself looking into the faces of his fellow tribesmen.
“Come!” Fearghal bellowed. “Away out o’ this!”
They fled the flames, stumbling over corpses. Ardahl’s legs faltered beneath him and his whole body screamed for relief. He followed Dornach’s broad back and they searched for other enemies, but all had flown.
At the edge of the burning, they paused. Other clansfolk hovered here, mostly men and some women. A few children shaking with terror.
Ardahl stared into the faces that surrounded him, black with soot, streaked by sweat and tears. He did not see his mam.
“A raid!” Chief Fearghal cried. Only when he spoke did Ardahl realize he was livid with rage. “They came to take back the chief’s brother that we held prisoner.”
“And got him,” Dornach announced. “All who guarded the man, dead.”
“Then they fired the hall and battled to provide a distraction, and get him away.”
“How many dead?” a breathless Cathair asked, and corrected himself. “How many o’ ours dead?”
Fearghal shook his head. “Too soon to tell. We will take count when the sun comes up.”
“They will be back,” Dornach said in a growl. “Ye know that, d’ye, my chief? They ha’ hurt us, and will return wi’ a larger force.”
The chief grunted. “Let them but try. We will be more than ready for them.”