Chapter Forty-Seven
I t had been a warm, kindly day, the sort men dreamed about when they thought of home. The sort that lived in the memory. Skies washed with blue, a soft, gentle breeze carrying fragrance from the hills. Sunlight sparkling on the waters.
Something for a man to carry with him when he went off to die.
Ardahl recalled countless such days from boyhood, running half wild with Conall and others of their friends, their mams not knowing where they were most the time. Getting a scolding—albeit a mild one—from his da when he got home, for Da was still alive then.
Now the day faded away from him as night set in. A memory of beauty.
Just like the woman he left behind.
Ah, but she was beautiful, his Liadan. More beautiful than a summer’s day. It wounded him to cause the grief he had seen in his eyes when he left her.
How, och, how would she endure if he did not return?
He’d wanted to hold her at their leave taking. To kiss her. To impart impossible reassurances. He could do none of those things.
They’d practiced with the rest of the women. But after, he had not gone to take up his post.
Now he stood at the edge of the settlement, in the dark, with Dornach, Cathair, Fearghal and three ponies. No one else around. No chariots this time. Chariots drew notice. They would cross Brihan’s land in the dark, unchallenged by his guard. Meet with Brihan’s man at his border with Dacha. They would leave their ponies at that place while the fellow guided them in.
If the man in question had not turned his cloak.
“Ye will return the boy to his father,” Fearghal told them, there in the new dark. “And the alliance between us will be bound.”
Aye, so. Ardahl understood it. He just did not know it could be done.
“Have faith,” he whispered to himself now, as he had to Liadan when he left her, denying the terror in her eyes.
Come back to me, she’d beseeched him silently.
I will return to ye. I will find ye. Always .
It might be better, Ardahl thought as the three of them set off, Fearghal remaining behind there in the dusk, if there had been some cloud cover. Even rain. The sky arched over them like a transparent dome, light blue fading to deep cobalt in the east. They could use better cover.
None of them spoke as they went. Dornach had thumped both of them on the shoulders before they set off, his form of reassurance.
They rode in a line, Dornach first, then Cathair, and then Ardahl, who would rather have Cathair ahead than behind him.
The ponies made more noise than they did. Like shadows, they moved across the land. Ardahl did his best to shut away the doubts that threatened his mind.
What if Brihan’s guide did not meet them? Worse, what if it was a trap? Do not think that way. He had not let Liadan say such things. He could not allow himself to.
Liadan .
His longing for her was a livid wound. Would he die with her name on his lips?
Nay, he would not die. He could not. For he must return to her.
He held that thought and only that thought till they reached the border with Brihan’s lands. There, at a place marked by three white boulders, Dornach held up his hand.
Ardahl already knew the plan. They would pass through here, where Fearghal said Brihan had placed no guards.
Or Dacha would have an army waiting, if Brihan had betrayed them.
Dornach nodded. They passed through with no more than a whisper of the air around them.
“We must hasten,” Dornach called softly. “All depends on darkness.”
They rode more quickly now through country they did not know. The dome of the sky above them turned deep blue and then black, with only the faintest of light hanging in the west like a beacon.
Ardahl’s heart rose and fell like his pony’s hooves. Brihan had not betrayed them. Not yet. But Dacha might want to lure them onto his own land before taking them prisoner.
Would they be killed outright? Would there be torture first? Could he endure?
Aye, if he clung to the thought of Liadan.
When, some inestimable length of time later, Dornach drew them up again, it was with considerably more caution. A small clearing lay ahead, full of dim light. As they entered it, a man stepped out.
He was cloaked, hooded, unrecognizable. Brihan’s man, here under cover? Who could tell? Ardahl tensed, ready to turn his mount and flee if so much as a second shadow stirred. His pony was winded—he would not get far.
“Granan?” Dornach spoke the name of their contact.
“Aye. Leave your ponies here in the shadows. We go the rest o’ the way on foot.”
Ardahl exchanged glances with Dornach as they dismounted. Dornach once again touched him on the shoulder. Reassurance. But this was the moment when the worst of the nightmare began.
Granan shoved back his hood. He had a thin, tense face and worried eyes. “Ye must be absolutely silent and follow my every move. There are guards everywhere ahead, but I know where they stand. We will need to get into the hut where the lad is held.”
“How?” Cathair sounded as edgy as Ardahl felt.
“A section o’ the wall has been cut awa’. Put back again.”
“Dacha does not know this?” Dornach now.
“Nay. ’Twas done in secret. I bribed the man who watches the lad.”
Ah, well, if this man—Granan—did not turn on them, the guard might well. With what might a man be bribed to turn against his chief?
“We canna stand here talking. Come.”
With a conviction that he went to his death, Ardahl did.
Though it must by now be past the middle of the night, the settlement did not lie quiet. As soon as their party of four emerged from a small woodland, there was light—a good fire burning somewhere ahead—and bustle, and voices carrying on the clear night air. A man laughed. Another spoke in a rumble.
Granan crept between Ardahl and Dornach. “See that building there? The small hut between the two taller ones. Donen is there.”
Donen. Aye, the lad had a name and an identity. Someone’s son.
“We will go forward one at a time. I will go first. Pick up your heads and walk like ye belong here.”
“’Tis too bright,” Cathair protested. “I thought ’twould be darker.”
“’Tis darker round the far side where the opening has been fixed.”
Possibly. Or a stout band of guards could be waiting there to fall upon them.
Ardahl thought he heard Cathair whisper, “Madness.”
Aye, so it was, and Ardahl supposed Cathair wanted to live, just as he did.
Granan walked off, taking his time with it. As Ardahl watched him, his skin crawled. If it was a trap, they would let Granan through. The next man to go—
Dornach swept both him and Cathair with a glance. Touched Ardahl on the shoulder. “Ye next.”
His stomach tightened and nearly heaved. He’d long since ceased being this frightened when he entered battle. This was no ordinary battle.
He drew his sword, had it in his hand, hidden beneath his cloak, when he stepped out from cover.
The light washed over him. A torch flared somewhere close by. There must be a warriors’ meeting place not far off—he could hear the men laughing and joking. Was that why the lad’s prison had been set here?
Around the side of the hut, it was indeed darker. Granan waited for him there and already had a section of the wattle wall set aside.
“In,” he told Ardahl. “In.”
Ardahl had to get down on all fours and crawl, a poor position to be in if enemy warriors, rather than a young prisoner, waited beyond.
Dim light greeted him—surely no more than a rush light. He sprang to his feet to find a slim youth staring at him with wide eyes.
Dressed only in a kilt and tunic with bare feet, he had fair hair and looked twice as frightened as Ardahl felt.
Just the lad. No sign of any guard, though Ardahl knew very well they must be stationed outside the door that he could see behind the boy.
“Donen?” Granan came through the wall behind Ardahl. “’Tis a rescue. Come. Hush!”
The lad’s lips parted. No sound came. Granan leaped forward and dragged him to the wall.
Ardahl turned back, his sword at the ready. No sound from outside the door.
But he could hear Donen whispering a question, and Dornach’s voice. Making too much noise. Any guards out front would hear.
A scraping at the outside of the door told Ardahl the bar had been lifted. He dove for the hole in the wattle, scrambled to his feet even as Cathair pulled the lad away and Granan replaced the section of wall.
“Go. Go! ”
Men poured around both sides of the hut. Armed men.
The group of five ran, Cathair and his charge in the lead followed by Dornach, who, at his age, did not run so well, then Granan, and Ardahl bringing up the rear. Even as the thought occurred to Ardahl that he should stop and fight, Granan turned and ran at the guards, howling.
It gave the rest of them time to reach the trees. And convinced Ardahl that, aye, Granan’s heart had been true.
He heard Dacha’s guards cut Granan down, though he could not spare a glance for it. His group reached the trees and paused.
“Ye go on,” Ardahl said to his companions. “Get the lad away. I will hold back as many as I can.” Before I die .
Aye, so, he was to die here after all. Here with Conall’s sword in his hand.
Liadan, I will find ye. If no’ in this life, then in the next .