Chapter Twenty-Seven
T he attack came without warning in the middle of the afternoon. The weather had been brooding all day, with clouds streaming in from the west, and sometime before supper it grew dark as night.
Mam began to fret, mumbling and pulling at Liadan’s hands when she tried to soothe her. She spoke so seldom now that Liadan found the agitated state alarming.
She’d been unable to think clearly all day, unable to focus on anything but Ardahl and the other men, now well to the west. She’d prayed to Brigid for his welfare. Prayed to Lugh at dawn. The worry would not leave go of her.
Was it raining where he was? Did he battle? Had he fallen beneath some blade?
If he had, och, however would she bear it?
When she could not comfort her mother, she made the dire mistake of leaving her alone to go fetch the healer. Flanna was away, and Liadan tucked Mam up beside the fire with many soft entreaties for her to be still and wait until she returned.
Mam reached out and seized her by the wrist, staring into Liadan’s eyes. “They come.”
“Who comes, Mam? Our men?” Could they possibly return so swiftly? “How do ye know?”
Mam moaned as the hysteria deepened. Liadan freed herself from her mother’s grip and ran out.
Nay, she was not thinking clearly, had not for some time, or she could never have left such a fraught woman alone.
The healers’ hut was not far. She imagined one of the men might have gone with their warriors, since they anticipated such a mighty battle.
She had the healers’ hut in sight when the screams sounded. At first she thought it was Mam, having followed her. Then she realized the truth. Voices raised, cries of alarm, the crashing of arms.
“Attack! Attack!”
For several precious moments, her mind stuttered. She froze, not knowing which way to run. Her own home lay behind her. Flanna—Flanna had spent the night at her friend’s hut.
She ducked back and saw strangers rushing toward her through the settlement. Enemy warriors. The truth hit her, hit her like a boulder off the hillside. The enemy had but waited, waited till their own men were gone.
Fearghal had left a guard, aye, but from the numbers of enemy warriors she saw flooding the settlement, they would not be enough.
“Mam? Mam!”
She hollered the name as she ran. In truth, her hut was not far, but sudden danger lay everywhere. Men with swords, with torches.
They would burn the settlement to the ground.
Weaving between huts, nearly colliding with fleeing neighbors, she strove for home. She must reach there before the enemy did.
Someone careened into her, knocking her to her knees. It was a woman.
Ardahl’s mother.
“Here.” Like something out of a dream, Maeve loomed over her, holding a sword. She helped Liadan to her feet and thrust the weapon into her hands. “Take it!”
Instinctively, Liadan did. For years she had handled Conall’s weapons, though she’d certainly never trained with them.
Any weapon was better than none.
A man rushed at them, screaming. One of the strangers.
“Get behind me!”
She did not wait to see if Maeve obeyed. She swung clumsily at the stranger, who, taken aback by the sight of a woman with a great sword, failed to react in time. The blade took him in the side of the neck. A vulnerable place, as Liadan had heard Conall say many a time.
The man stumbled to his knees. There was blood. So much blood.
“Run!” she told Ardahl’s mother. She did not see the woman stoop and take up the fallen man’s sword.
Lightning flashed as they went, and thunder shook the ground. People ran everywhere, pursued by the attackers. Liadan saw two women cut down, one with a babe in her arms.
Maeve ran and snatched up the child in the face of the attacker. Waved a sword at his chin.
He veered away.
Liadan’s hut sat only steps off. She had to fight her way to it. When an attacker bore down on her—an ugly brute of a man with a sneer on his face—Maeve attacked him from behind.
Screaming now filled the settlement. Invaders were everywhere. Those who encountered Liadan and Maeve ran on. Two women with swords did not interest them when there was much weaker prey.
Flames soared up, defiant of the rain.
“They are burning the settlement!” Maeve cried.
Finishing the job they’d started last time. Liadan had to reach Mam.
Her hut had not been set alight, but the door stood open—not the way she’d left it. The opening seemed to gape at her like a dark, ugly mouth.
She hesitated one terrible moment before stepping inside. Maeve, with the second sword in her hand and the baby on her shoulder, followed.
The small main room of the round house had been wrecked, belongings overturned. Mam lay beside the fire—just where she’d been when Liadan left her.
For an instant, Liadan could not comprehend what she saw. The body—her mother’s body—sprawled. So still. Too still.
“Mam?”
Behind her, Maeve gasped. The babe in her arms set up a wail. The rain crashed so hard on the roof, it nearly drowned out the other, more terrible sounds outside.
“Come away,” Maeve said in a harsh breath. “Away out o’ this!”
“But my mam—”
“There is naught ye can do for her, lass.”
Later, Liadan wondered if it was the rain that saved them. Back outside, it fell like spears thrown from the sky. They dodged and ran the gauntlet of it, Maeve now leading the way with the child clutched to her chest.
Faces appeared out of the confusion. Those they knew turned and followed them. Enemies they fought. Liadan’s mind, too burned and blasted to function aright, saw only obstacles and dealt with them.
They made their way into the trees. Hushed voices sounded around them. Gasps. Soft sobs. The babe had fallen silent.
Liadan’s mind stuttered. It sought to shut down.
Mam .
They made their way through the trees and up the brae. Behind them—
Nay, but she could not look behind.
No one pursued them here. The clamor from the settlement died away, but the rain accompanied them, thunder rolling overhead like the voice of an angry god.
At last they stopped. Someone touched Liadan’s arm. Maeve, it was. Liadan blinked at her. She would not have recognized the woman had she not still the sword in her hand and the babe in her arms. Soaked to the skin, she had turned paler than milk, a haunted look in her eyes.
“Are ye hurt?”
“Eh?”
“Ha’ ye any wounds, lass?”
Liadan could not comprehend the words. She saw only her mam sprawled beside the fire.
An old man—Liadan knew him, though she could not find his name—came up and took the sword from Maeve’s hold, gave Liadan a doubtful look. She realized they were surrounded by others, elders of the clan mostly, men and women. A child or two. The young ones were weeping.
Liadan drew away from the man. She did not want him to take her sword.
“Brihan’s men,” the old man said bitterly. His voice seemed to come from far away. “Those were not Dacha’s, but Brihan’s men. He is in it with Dacha. Must have made an alliance with him.”
Did it matter? Did it matter who wielded the swords? They had brought death.
“A scheme!” cried someone else. “They waited for our warriors to go away.”
“At least they cannot burn us out,” came another voice, filled with hard irony. “The rain has defeated those efforts.”
Sluggishly, Liadan’s brain tried to comprehend it. She stepped away from Ardahl’s mother and peered down the hillside.
Great gouts of black smoke rolled up from the settlement like curses, trapped by the rain. Here and there, flames still licked up. Impossible to see what else happened there. How much death.
She said something even she could not hear.
“What?” Maeve came up beside her. Someone had taken the child.
Liadan repeated, “Are we the only survivors?”
“No,” answered the old man. Aye, Ferghan was his name. It came floating up from the deep pit of Liadan’s mind. “There will be others, fled away to the hills.”
And many who could not flee. The small. The weak. Those with no one to defend them.
Like Mam. She had left her mam.
Ferghan said, “We will wait for nightfall and climb higher, search out the others. Aye, there will be others.”
Liadan wondered if he lied to himself.