Chapter 22
Donall grunted as the largest wave yet slammed into his ribs. “Odin’s balls!” he roared, blinking against the stinging sea-salt in his eyes. “Thor’s thundery arse!” he cursed again as an even greater roller crashed over him.
Sputtering, he tossed his head in a vain effort to clear his vision. Not that he cared to see how much higher the tide had risen since the storm’s full fury broke about an hour before.
Lashing rain slanted sideways through the ruined broch’s sea entrance. Cold and hard as steel pellets, the blinding sheets of rain sliced into him with a force to rival the waves sweeping into the dungeon with ever greater ferocity.
If he was going to die here at Dunmuir, this would be the night.
Squinting, he glanced out at the open sea and saw nothing. Only blackness. Roiling, surging water, and jagged bolts of lightning across the angry night sky.
Summoning all his strength, he clung to the cold, wet chain stretched taut above his head.
He strained his shoulder and arm muscles to heave his feet above the tossing waves.
But how long before the wild night claimed him?
He didn’t know so he did what he could, holding on and closing his eyes as he prayed to all the gods he knew.
Would they hear him?
He grimaced, something telling him the lightning and surf were mightier than any gods, Celtic or otherwise. Elemental forces bowed to no one. Either way, if Lady Isolde’s two buffoons didn’t soon haul him out of this hellhole, he’d not have to say prayers.
He’d be making his felicitations in person.
Fetch him down.
The three words echoed in the darkness. Strong, commanding, and sweet in his ears.
Too sweet.
For they were promptly swallowed by the roar of the sea and the howl of the wind. A figment of his imagination or perhaps the taunt of a sea sprite eager to claim yet another mortal man’s soul.
“Hurry!” the voice came again, familiar, though not belonging to the two guardsmen.
Of a certainty, a mortal voice.
Not a sea siren hoping to pull him into her watery clutches.
“See to him. Now!” the voice ordered, and Donall muttered a prayer of thanks.
Hoping his relief didn’t show, he craned his neck toward the voice and slitted his burning eyes. He could just make out three male figures moving about on the sea ledge. If he wasn’t mistaken, the two guards, and another man. He couldn’t see the third clearly enough to recognize him.
He did see that they’d thrust torches into the wall brackets. Sputtering flames leaped and danced in the wind, while the torchlight cast an orange-red glow on the dungeon’s rough, wet walls, and over the men as well.
Three firedrakes risen from the depths of hell, but so welcome as two of them hurried down the steep stone steps, then plunged into the surf, making straight for him.
Niels and Rory, of course.
He’d be damned if he’d thank them.
“Dinnae look so grateful, you whoreson,” Rory groused as he splashed up to him. Glowering, he thrust his arms below the foam-capped waves, grumbling to himself as he fumbled to free Donall’s chain from the weights that had held him aloft since daybreak.
Niels the giant arrived a moment later. He, too, glared at Donall.
“It would seem you have more than one friend abovestairs.” He wrapped his great arms around Donall’s waist, catching him just as the chain gave way, saving him from plunging beneath the waves.
“I’d rather push your ugly face under the water than haul you out of here.” Niels grabbed Donall’s arm in a fierce hold just as Rory seized his other arm. “Come now…”
Together, they dragged him through the surf and up the seaweed-slicked steps to the ledge.
Still holding his arms, they drew him before the third man.
Donall still couldn’t see clear enough to distinguish the man’s face, but whoever he was, he handed Donall a coarse drying cloth, and then swirled a warm, woolen plaid across his cold-numbed shoulders.
For a moment, Donall considered hurling both the drying cloth and the blanket into the sea, but his will to persevere - to escape – kept him from such foolhardy behavior.
Standing as straight as his frozen and aching body allowed, he ground the drying linen into his eyes until the worst of the stinging eased. Then he looked up and recognized his unlikely savior.
He was Lorne.
The stone-faced blackguard who’d stood before the air slit in Donall’s first cell. The youngest of the graybeards, the man Isolde appeared to favor above the others.
Just now the man stood straight and proud, every bit as arrogant as Donall remembered. But something else lurked in the backs of his eyes.
Something indefinable.
“You.” Donall could say no more, the one word costing him almost all his remaining strength.
The graybeard gave him a curt nod. “I am Lorne,” he said, then glanced at Rory and Niels. “Fetch him water.
“Fresh water,” he added as Rory stalked away.
While Rory dipped a cup into a wooden bucket on the rocks near the entrance to the passageway, Lorne glanced at Donall’s hands.
They shook.
Donall pressed his lips together and tried to still them, but couldn’t. His fingers were too numb and cold, frozen into claws from gripping his chain for hours as he’d dangled from the sea cave’s ceiling.
“Help him.” Lorne gave Rory a sharp look when he returned with the water cup.
Rory grunted, but he did as the elder bade him, and brought the cup to Donall’s lips.
The water, cool and sweet, flowed down his throat, the most welcome drink he’d ever had. But the moment Rory took away the cup, he turned to the graybeard.
“Why?” he asked, annoyed by his raspy voice.
“Why did we fetch you?” Lorne’s hard-set features didn’t soften.
Donall nodded, his eyes still on fire, his throat too thick to form another word.
“Dinnae make me think too long on it, MacLean.” Lorne glanced aside to spit into the swirling waves. “Hauling you back up again will be no harder than getting you down.”
Donall waited, but the man said no more.
Lorne just stood with his hands clasped behind him. He kept his gaze steady on Donall’s. Only the inscrutable glimmer in his eyes indicated that something unusual had sparked his consideration.
“Make no mistake,” he finally spoke, lifting his voice above the storm and the sea. “I yet hold you responsible for Lady Lileas’ death. You shall indeed give your life for the loss of hers. But I am a man of honor.”
Donal lifted a brow, but said nothing.
He wouldn’t embarrass himself by speaking with a voice that sounded more like a croaking frog than a man.
“An honorable man…” The words slipped out anyway.
“Aye, and as such,” Lorne said, “I respect your valor. As a warrior, the warrior I once was.” He drew a breath. “As a man, I revile you for your part in an innocent’s murder. But my honor as an old knight will not allow me to see your strength of will and endurance go unrewarded.”
Donall stared at him, too surprised to have commented even if his throat wasn’t parched and hoarse.
Lorne nodded once and then turned to Rory and Niels. “Take him to his friend’s cell.”
Rory’s jaw dropped. “What?”
Niels pressed his lips into a tight seam and stared up at the dripping ceiling.
“But, sir,” Rory protested. “The council ordered-”
“See to my orders.” Lorne’s tone left no room for argument. “I will speak with the council,” he added, glancing again at Donall. “See he receives a warm bath, his own garb, and a good, warm meal. Enough for himself and the MacFie.”
“Lost your wits, ye have,” Niels snarled, and raked a big hand through the tangle of his wet, red hair.
Rory’s face turned purple. “I would rather scratch the devil’s arse.”
“You might have the chance if you disobey me,” Lorne warned him.
Then, apparently dismissing them all, he turned and strode toward the entrance to the intra-mural passage. Halfway there, he stopped and looked back at Rory and Niels.
The torchlight shining on his stern face revealed a trace of the commanding presence he must’ve been on the field of battle.
“Do as you’ve been told,” he said again, and Donall knew that neither Rory nor Niels the giant would defy him.
As if he knew it, Lorne glanced once more at Donall.
“Dinnae give me cause to regret my lenience,” he said.
Then he was gone.
Swallowed up by the torch-lit mouth of the ruined broch’s passage, his departure leaving Donall alone with Lady Isolde’s angry guardsmen.
He supposed that was a better fate than his chain and the rising sea.