Chapter 20
Horland set his boots on the shifting deck and scanned everywhere. She was still alive.
A wail like none he had heard before echoed around him. He scanned the area but couldn’t find the source of the noise. The men on the riverbank clasped their hands over their ears as the shrieking continued.
Mayland’s laughter rose above the shrill cry. “That’s right, run away.”
Horland gazed in the direction of Mayland’s voice. His opponent was indeed running past the sinking ship to the bank of the river. A movement out of the corner of Horland’s eye had him readying his sword to block whatever attack was coming his way.
But none came. The man he had glimpsed seconds earlier ran past Horland.
The bow of the ship dipped further into the depths of the river, and Horland wasn’t sure if the man was thrown or if he jumped.
It didn’t matter because the man was already ploughing his arms through the water and swimming downriver.
“Sir Horland,” Mayland’s voice called. “Jump! Jump, Sir Horland.”
The ship squealed and shrieked as the wood hull and deck twisted.
Horland scanned the area. All the bandits retreated, jumping into the water, and swimming downriver as fast as they could. More of their pack were already rounding the bend and disappearing.
Keeping his sword in one hand and grasping the rail with the other, Horland searched every bobbing head, but he couldn’t see any sign of a red head in the water.
He turned back to the ship. The stern was reaching up into the sky. Using the railing to keep his balance, he pulled himself along the watery deck. “Briana,” he called.
His gaze fell on the hatch. Water surrounded it, whirling, and creeping through the cracks.
Had the scum left her below? Horland pulled the hatch open, but only more water met his gaze.
There was no way anyone could survive if they were below deck.
He let the hatch drop. As if that small jolt tipped the ship further into oblivion, the deck disappeared from under Horland and he was swept to the rail.
Flinging his arms out, scrabbling for anything to hold on to, his fingers finally found purchase on a railing upright.
Horland shook his head to get the water from his eyes and groaned.
His side filled with agony; he was certain his ribs were broken.
He glanced back at what might have caused such an injury.
The anchor hold was in the direct path from his location and the hatch.
He must have crashed against it on his way to the railing.
“Jump, Sir Horland,” Mayland shouted above the continued wailing. “Jump or you’ll drown.”
Horland tried to see where Mayland was calling from, but all he saw was a wall of water. It was as if it paused to study him before engulfing the rest of the ship.
“Horland!” Briana’s voice floated over the mayhem.
“Briana,” Horland whispered. He instinctively took in one great breath as the river engulfed him, pulling him down along with the deck.
His lungs screamed at the torment he was putting them through, and he thought he would die at that moment.
Briana is alive. His mind shifted; he couldn’t leave this earth without telling Briana he loved her.
He clamped his lips together as survival instincts overcame him.
Using his arms like oars, he fought hard to swim to the surface but no matter how hard he worked his limbs, he couldn’t break out of the ship’s grasp.
His lungs burned, washing away the pain in his side.
If he didn’t get to the surface, he would drown for certainty.
He stopped still. Briana. Had he truly heard her voice, or was he imagining it?
Peering through the water, now clouded by debris, he searched for the woman who had barged into his life and unhinged him.
She was nowhere to be seen, nor was Garlain. He closed his eyes. He wanted to talk to Garlain, to hear from his lips what had happened to him these past years, but his heavy heart worried he might never see his friend again.
Or Briana.
His lungs, about to give, cramped in his chest.
Briana had called to him, he was sure. She was alive. Desperation overcame him and he tried again to swim up, but still the ship’s suction held him down. Every muscle ached and he could hold his breath no more. He stopped fighting. He was going to die.
Briana’s image filled his mind. She had disappeared from the trap and he thought then he would never see her again.
But he had seen her—she had tried to rescue him but was captured, taken aboard the sinking ship.
I can’t lose her again. In that moment he realized everything she said did indeed make sense.
Her image in his mind seemed so real he could almost touch her cleft chin, her cheeks, her lips. He saw for the first time, she was truly Garlain and Patricia’s daughter. Not only in her looks but in her very personality, her mother’s humor and beauty, her father’s strength and courage.
She would not give up and she would not expect him to.
That thought snapped him back to reality and his head cleared.
He changed direction and instead of fighting the ship, he went with it to the bottom.
With no more air in his lungs, he swam along the deck and let the current take him downriver a ways, then with a huge effort, he turned his body upward, fighting the blackness that threatened to retake him under.
The pain filling his chest had him wanting to scream, but he kicked and pulled the water out of his way.
I cannot die without seeing Briana again. Without telling her I love her.
His head plunged through the surface and he raked in a mouthful of air. His lungs screamed in pain at the onslaught, but he took another breath and another until his chest eased and with exhausted muscles, he made his way to the reed-encased bank.
brEE WATCHED THE SHIP disappear under the water’s surface. She looked out over the fleeing brigands. Some followed their cohorts and swam around the bend of the river and others scrambled into the bush, fleeing the mayhem.
With her heart heavy in her chest, she wondered how they had all survived when her father and Horland never had the chance.
“You’re killing Horland just like you killed my father. Why?” she screamed. “Why?”
After several minutes, Morla quietened and stepping forward, she brought her arms to rest at her sides. She pointed. “There.”
Bree followed her gaze, and she couldn’t mistake the head that appeared out of the water, and then the upper half of his body that fell onto the riverbank.
“Horland,” she cried out, as she pushed Morla out of the way and ran to the edge of the river.
Clasping her hands under his shoulders, she tried to drag Horland free of the water, but he was too heavy.
“Help. Someone help me!”
Tears erupted from her eyes and trailed down her nose. She sniffed. “Please be alive, please be alive.”
Mayland was by her side in a heartbeat. “‘Sir Horland,” he breathed as he grabbed the knight’s arms and dragged him clear of the reeds.
Horland coughed. “Briana?”
Briana let out a sobbing laugh. “Yes, it’s me. You’re alive.” She patted his shoulders and sides. “Are you injured?”
He shook his head and with Mayland’s help, got to his feet. But as soon as he took a breath, he coughed and had to take a moment to regain his breath.
He wiped his hands down his face and faced Bree, gazing into her eyes, and she was caught by the deep emotion there.
“Not fatally.” He stared downriver where the last of the bandits had disappeared around the bend. He pierced her with his gaze. “Wy would you give over your life to the brigand to save me?”
She searched his eyes, trying to make out what he truly felt. Was he angry or thankful? “What else could I do?”
Before she had a chance to react, his lips were on hers, gently brushing against her mouth as if asking for admittance. She opened her mouth in answer and he crushed her to him. His kiss sucked the very life from her, and she didn’t care, freely giving him what he wanted, what she wanted.
“Briana,” Kieri called, pulling at Bree’s cloak.
She ignored the child. Not wanting Horland to remove his lips from hers, she resisted the real-world intrusion.
She didn’t want to think about what had happened she wanted to stay in the blissful fog that Horland’s kiss induced. Bree waved Kieri away. “Briana.”
The child’s voice broke through her abstraction and the real world crashed in on her senses.
She refused to think about her father, how she had travelled so far back into the past only to lose him for all time.
She needed to stay in Horland’s arms, safe, and consumed by his touch, but now that the thought of her father intruded on her mind, she couldn’t reclaim the euphoric feelings she had experienced moments before.
Horland pulled away from Bree. “You can speak?” Horland asked Kieri. “What magic is this?”
“Not magic,” Bree whispered, drawing further back from Horland. The sounds around Bree began to coalesce into being. She looked up at the veranda. Morla was gone, and so too was that awful screeching. She gazed at him and smiled. “It’s a long story.”
As she spoke, light rain fell on her head. The men, women and children prisoners fled for refuge in the ruins, and Bree gazed at the drops falling on the surface of the now empty and peaceful river.
Horland put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her into his side. “Is Sir Garlain well?”
Bree shook her head. “No. He was in the hold of the ship.”
Again, Kieri pulled on Bree’s cloak. “Briana.”
Bree swiped the child’s hand away as the tears that even Horland’s touch could no longer contain fell from her eyes and mixed with the rain from above.
Horland placed his hands on Bree’s shoulders. “I am sorry for your loss. He was a good man.”
Wiping away the wet from her face, Bree frowned. “I thought you didn’t like him.”
“I loved him as a brother, but when I thought he had done Patricia an injury, my anger eclipsed all feelings.”
“You believe he didn’t hurt Mom now?”
He smiled. “In what I thought was my final moments among the living, I thought on what you’d said, and for some reason, it all made sense. You, Garlain, Patricia, Mark, and Dianne.
“Sometimes, I wondered about the king and the princesses but never had cause to question anything too much. Not until you showed up. Many things make sense now.” He drew in a quick breath. “I believe you, and I am sorry I cannot ask for Garlain’s forgiveness.”
Bree gave the river one last look and whispered, “Goodbye, Father, I hope you find Mom and can be happy together for all time.”
He wrapped his arms around her, and she buried her face in the crook of his neck. “You believe me,” she said.
In answer, he tightened his arms around her. “I do.”
Kieri whined. “Briana.”
Horland was the first to break the hug. “What is it, child?”
Kieri pointed toward the ruins.
Bree started and blinked, staring at what she thought must have been an apparition. Dad?
“Garlain,” Horland croaked.
His voice seeped into Bree’s brain. She glanced at him. “You can see him too?”
“Yes.”
Bree ran up the stairs, coming to a stop before Garlain. “Dad?”
“It is I, daughter.” He hugged her to him. “It is I.”
Bree opened her eyes and gazed over her father’s shoulder. Morla was standing there smiling.
Garlain let Bree go. “Morla saved me.”
Horland joined them. “How?”
“You knew he was alive?” Angry heat filled Bree’s face. “All this time? And you let me think he was dead?”
“I could not take the time to explain.”
“Well now you can. Why didn’t you use your magic to help me or Horland then?”
“I didn’t use magic.”
Garlain laughed. “Morla is as magic as you and I.” He tipped his head to the side and smiled at Bree. “At least we have no magic.” He shook his head. “No. She risked her life to dive into the river and tear away a section of the hold with her bare hands.”
“Don’t be silly, Garlain. I used an axe and the fire poker to leverage away the boards.” She looked at Bree. “Although I did use my powers to find where they were keeping your father. I am a seer, after all.”
Garlain chuckled at that. “Aye.”
“What about all the screeching and wailing then?” Bree said. “What was all that about?”
“I have a reputation to uphold. I needed the men who escaped to believe I was the witch and that I sank their boat. If they believe that, they will not return to Pradwick.”
Bree could see how that would work. They believed she had all right.
The rain increased and wind whipped down through the expanse between the ruins and the mountains on the other side of the river. Bree shivered. Whether it was from the cold or shock that her father was alive, Bree wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t contain her trembling body.
Horland wrapped his arm around her waist. “Come along, my love.”
He guided her out of the weather and into the great hall where a roaring fire was already ablaze.
He found a chair and brought it before the fire and sat her down on it.
She flopped into the chair, as everything that had happened hit her all at once.
Her body felt like she had been run over by a train, her mind filled with images of death and mayhem until she could take no more and without any effort on her part, her mind went blank and her eyes focused on the fire.
Bree stared into the flames, barely taking in the conversation surrounding her.
“My love?” Garlain said. “What have you to say, Sir Horland?”
“I am in love with your daughter.”
At that, Bree stirred. Horland loved her?
“And I believe she loves me.”
Yes, yes, I do.
He knelt before Bree and Bree’s gaze was immediately drawn from the fire and fastened on Horland’s eyes.
He smiled. “I love you, Briana. Will you be my wife?”
Warmth flooded through Bree and she grinned. “Yes.”
Horland enclosed her in his arms and lifted her up, swinging her around. “I love you.”
Bree laughed. “I love you.”