Chapter 30
Where had Keithen’s sound signature emanated from?
Nella closed her eyes. Scratch. The guard had taken his leave but Keithen continued to cast quill unto parchment.
Three… No, perhaps four doors down from her own.
Eastward. That was her old chamber, the one she had been forced to share with the cruel keeper’s sire.
Not a single lass nor chamberlain nor torch tender from her times here were present.
Keithen must have gotten rid of all of them before enacting this ill scheme.
“Nella?” Her head snapped up. Callum! The voice was a wisp as he summoned her carefully. “Nella, if you are harkening to my voice let your presence be known so I may seek you.”
Her eyes frantically darted about the barren chamber. There wasn’t anything she could shove under the chamber door. Bolting onto her feet, she ran for the secured oak door.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Her fingers began a rhythm in the tiniest way.
“Aye, my lady, I hear you,” Callum assured. She bit her lip to keep from crying out in relief as he advised, “Keep tapping.” Her hand shook by anticipation till feet shuffled directly outside her door. “I have you, my lady, please step away from the door.”
She leapt rearward with her hands clutching her cloak as her heart skipped faster than a stone across the water. “Unlock it.” Callum wasn’t talking to her. Clank. Clank. It had to be keys by the one who was near Callum. How did her knight get someone to help them?
The hinges groaned as the oak released. That was how. There stood a guard glaring toward her with a dagger at his throat.
“My lady, shall we?” Callum whispered.
She nodded then paused. “Callum,” she murmured, “Keithen is but four chambers away. He has more planned for all ahead; however, it is written.”
“Written?”
“Aye, he must have known I was harkening, so he conversed with the guard upon parchment. Including” – she swallowed hard – “plans for Alec.”
Callum’s sweated brow furrowed. “Show me where, Nella.” She nodded, charging for the doorway. Her knight began dragging the captive guard down the passage.
Step. Step. No! Those feet didn’t belong to them. Someone was coming up those stairs straight ahead!
“Callum, someone will lay eyes upon us from those stairs in mere moments,” she said frantically.
“Behind me, Nella,” he ordered. “Go back toward the chamber.”
“Callum, ’tis too far, we won’t make—”
The remainder of her sentence was lost in a bellow of “HALT!” by a thick-bodied archer who appeared at the passageway’s end when he spotted them.
There was only one way off this level; they were now trapped! Nella charged behind Callum, who used the guard as a shield before them.
“NAE!” the shield-like guard cried when the archer without hesitation nocked an arrow before it sailed, impaling the fellow guardsman’s neck.
She cried out by fear when the archer began striding toward them with arrows flying.
Instead of retreating backward or to her chamber, Callum took the battle charge.
The now dead shield resembled more a pin cushion as the archer began shooting his whole quiver their direction.
She gasped as Callum lifted the heft of dead guardsman clear off his feet.
Callum then carried the bulk while running at the archer, who hollered slightly by surprise before the limp-necked guard landed on him after Callum tossed the dead shield in the narrow passageway at the archer.
She could see nothing but Callum’s back as he fought forward with the dagger in hand. Quick as it began, all turned still.
Her knight, huffing, rose up. The bloodied dagger was in Callum’s hand while the archer fell backward with his throat slit. Callum wiped the blade quickly and secured it in his sword’s scabbard strap before he ripped the bow and partially filled quiver off the archer.
Callum turned to her with one word. “Where?” She pointed at the door on his left.
He nocked an arrow. Why had Keithen not charged out? All she heard was… No – parchment crumpling!
“Callum, he is going to destroy all the correspondence!” she warned.
In a growl he stepped back from the doorway. With one stern kick at the door it stayed - closed. No! Her fingers ripped the keys from Callum’s waist. Fumbling frantically, she worked through them as Callum continued to kick at the thick door’s center.
Not it. Not it. There! A fit! She threw the door wide, darting to the side but not before she caught a look at Keithen.
He had the parchments in hand, preparing to throw them into the fire and join those already burning in the flames.
Callum raised the bow at the exact same moment. The arrow sailed the chamber.
Aaaeee! Keithen hollered when the arrow stuck through his wrist, nailing his limb onto the hearth’s wooden mantle.
Callum bolted into the chamber, pulling the foe back while tearing off the arrow. The parchments! She flew before the hearth. Ow. Ow. Spark. Spark. It doesn’t matter, get as many as possible! Alec’s very life may depend on this!
Ripping them free, she raised her skirts, stomping the parchment’s edges with her leather-soled foot. The words, aye, the words were untouched, but many pieces had been torn before he went to ruin them in the flames.
***
How badly did he want to snap the one’s neck who was clutching his bloodied wrist?
Badly! Callum’s eyes discovered Nella retrieving the parchments off the floor.
She came first – always. He needed to get her out of here before the entire force in Gallowglass came up that lone passageway.
The key? In his grasp, thus no neck snapping - yet.
Yanking Keithen’s back against his torso, he ground out the threat in the foe’s ear.
“Move, and if you dare speak or holler, ’twill be your final sound.
” Fitting the dagger neatly onto the enemy’s windpipe, Callum met Nella’s wide stare.
“My lady, you know the way toward the stables. Quietest path possible after you bind his wrists first.”
She stuffed the parchments into a leather satchel, hanging over the tall back chair behind the desk, before pulling a piece of woven cord from the bed’s canopy.
Tying it over their captive’s wrist, who winced at the pain, she hastily wrapped a piece of linen over the arrow wound to slow the blood more, then she stepped quickly toward the door.
As she lay the satchel strap across her shoulder, her head leaned toward the side slightly out the opened doorway.
The enemy. She is listening for the unseen enemy.
As if they were dancing in the rhythm by movement, Callum stepped when Nella did, then paused at her silent direction after they left the chamber.
Once reaching the stairs’ base, she spun, grabbed his sleeve, then tore him and the captive enemy into the solar.
His breath was hard after battle. He bit his lip to slow it.
A shuffle from a large cluster in guards sounded outside, meandering by the half-shuttered door they hid behind. Brillant, Nella!
Once they passed, he stepped forward. Her grip on him tightened, and he stilled. A stray set of footsteps at a run flew by. “Wait! I am right behind you,” the wayward guard called out at the group he had grown separated from.
Keithen stiffened in his grasp. The Benefactor knew it. Aye, failure, for his devious plan at placing the throne up to bid was fading this very moment.
Nella fetched a torch from a nearby sconce in the solar then took them down the passageway which had led to the dungeon.
At the stairs’ base she went right instead of left toward the dungeon.
They traveled on an eerie deserted underground passageway in the undercroft’s belly. Never. He would never have found this.
Had Kameron made it to the stables as the guide?
All had been quiet throughout the keep. If they had been discovered, then surely all those guards outside the solar’s door would have been running.
Perhaps this path they were journeying on was how the young smith had taken Brayden and Holger as well.
Scents by grains and salted hams met his fresh inhale when they arrived at a shuttered doorway leading most likely into a buttery or spence.
Nella removed the keys. Click. She saw them inside then paused while listening at the stone stairwell’s base which led above.
Her foot went to press the first step then paused before her brow furrowed by the light from the torch in her grasp.
She waved her arm frantically, and he backed up, returning them into the passageway. Pulling Keithen rearward, who grunted as the dagger clipped his throat at the awkward tight space, Nella shut the door briskly. Her breath now a pant.
“Fetch another ham,” a stern male tone hollered. Shite. That was Sèidrich!
“When shall we have the kitchen lassies back?” a mewl-like reply sounded. Right outside their door!
Keithen turned into stone at the reply. “When Lord Keithen Shite MacMardan deems it. Move! There are many matters to discuss. I am hungry and long for more ale in the great lord’s hall. I would drink his wealthy arse dry if I could, the arrogant cock.” Well, so much for the prized bull.
“Have it! Most of the other warriors have already drunk themselves blind and sleep from a stupor, the lot of them—”
“Shut up and move it along.”
They remained in the flickering torchlight for a long while.
A drip sound in the far distance behind them was the only sound accompaniment, at least for him.
Nella leaned closer toward the door before she turned with a nod to him.
Proceed. She hastily fetched some salted items for their impending journey.
They bound up a newfound stairwell till an empty kitchen came into view.
Most odd; the kitchens at Clan MacCade were always bustling.
No wonder the guards were terse at their employer.
Once free out into the arcade’s archway, he paused.
Shite. It was only late afternoon. Still so much light!
He ducked into a shadow with Nella doing the same when movement by men-at-arms on the far guard tower caught their attention.
They must travel in the shadows. He took a slight lead at her nod in silent agreement.
He navigated them from one cover to the next.
Starting with a hay wagon then ducking behind the pillars holding up the covered arcade till the fumes by sweat and horse dung grew stronger than onions and rosemary from the kitchens.
The sight by Luss saddled while standing alongside Sir Brayden, Lord Kolson, Kameron, and two wide-eyed younger smiths holding their own mounts greeted them in the darkened aisleway. His shoulders lowered a notch.
They were all here. Now, how the hell did they get past the guard tower?