Chapter Twenty-Eight
One iron hand gripped her arm, fingers digging so deep she wondered if they could feel her bones.
Another smothered the screams that flew from her.
Beside her, Gráinne’s sobbing intensified into shuddering gulps, as though she drowned in her tears.
Emer’s own tears blurred her vision, making it impossible to see where she was being taken, aside from deeper into the forest.
“I’m so sorry,” Gráinne whimpered again as the men shoved them forward.
Only now, as the tears receded from Emer’s eyes, did she notice that Gráinne’s hands had been tied the entire time. There may very well be ghosts in these woods, but Emer no longer believed they were the ones causing trouble. Who were these men? What did they want?
They walked for hours, the man’s grip on her never loosening.
Emer struggled to breathe with his hand covering so much of her face, and she wondered how he was moving so quickly while managing her.
That he could do so only increased her concern—he must be well-practiced at leading hostages through the woods.
As far as Emer could tell, they continued mostly in the same direction she’d been walking: east, and possibly a little north. They hadn’t gone far enough to see the shores of Lough Ree, though it could be hidden in the cloak of night that surrounded them.
Emer lost track of how long they traveled.
Her legs burned from the pace, and she lost all conception of time or distance or location.
She could have been floating upside down anywhere for all she knew of where they’d gone.
Just as she felt she might collapse against her captor in exhaustion, a low whistle sounded ahead.
The man leading Gráinne whistled twice in response.
They reached a stretch of brush that seemed to go on forever.
Thistle and bracken twined together into a thorny mess that Emer would never have tried to cross on her own.
But instead of crossing it, they wandered down it.
She didn’t know which way they went, north or south, but the further they went and the closer they got, Emer noticed that it wasn’t only brush.
Aye, there were branches and twigs piled up against it, but behind all of that was a very man-made palisade, nearly as tall as Broccan.
That thought set her heart hammering anew.
What would Broccan say if he could see her now?
She had promised him that she would be safe, that she would be careful.
And she thought she had been. For all she had known, there were ghosts and a missing girl and nothing more.
In her wildest dreams she hadn’t imagined that there would be men, warriors even, kidnapping folk as they slept beneath the solace of the trees. And with her companions so close!
Emer could hardly believe it had happened, and yet here she was, wandering past a palisade wall hiding some kind of nefarious camp, deep in the heart of the forest. So deep that she knew Alannah would never find her.
And even if Alannah made it this far, even if she reached this palisade, she’d never see it for what it was, for it blended so seamlessly into the surrounding forest.
They walked down it a ways until finally a gate swung open, revealing a crowded encampment twisted amongst the trees.
Many of the bushes had been cleared, no doubt to help hide the palisade.
And in their place, roundhouses had been constructed, much like the ones that Alannah had built inside the walls of the Hart’s Rest. They were the perfect option for a hidden settlement in the forest. They didn’t take up much space, and they could be constructed in a short time, especially with as many men as Emer saw milling about the area.
“Make a sound, and I’ll kill you,” the man behind her whispered into Emer’s ear. “Try to run, and I’ll kill you.”
Emer nodded her understanding, taking a deep breath when his hand finally left her mouth. He freed her arm slowly, the skin tingling as feeling returned to it. Emer gave it a good rub, wincing at the pain. She’d have an impressive bruise if she lived past tonight.
She still hadn’t caught sight of the man behind her, for she didn’t dare turn to look in the dark.
It was difficult enough to see, and with her nerves near fraying she feared she’d trip and fall flat on her face if she tried to spin around to see her captor.
That, and she worried that putting a face to the man holding her might only serve to increase her fears.
He shoved her forward, Gráinne beside her still sobbing, and walked them over to a copse of trees near the center of the small encampment.
It was dark, so dark that Emer could see little.
The men had no fires going, but she could see shadows moving between the trees.
She heard soft cries, much like Gráinne’s, echoing from a little further into the camp.
She could only just make out the roundhouses, and everything else was cloaked in shadows.
About fifty feet into the encampment, they passed between two of the roundhouses and Emer nearly stumbled over a woman, not much older than she, tied to a tree. Wild eyes met hers in a desperate look that Emer understood all too well.
The man behind her shoved Emer hard, so hard that her head connected with a tree she hadn’t even seen in front of her. She fell to her knees, clutching her head in pain, but managed to bite down a cry.
The man gave her a sound kick in the side, only to be met with a snarl from Gráinne’s captor. “Stop hitting her! She won’t be worth anything if she’s too damaged to sell.”
Emer did not like the sound of that one bit. “Sell?” she cried. “What do you mean sell?”
“I said quiet,” the man behind her growled, but not in the lovable, gruff manner that Broccan had. Nay, her captor’s voice held nothing but contempt, no hint of any softness whatsoever.
“And mind you don’t mar that face,” the other man spat. “We can get a lot more for her than for some of the others, but only if they can see her.”
“Alright, alright.” Her captor growled once more at his companion, picking Emer up bodily and slamming her back against the tree in a manner which she felt directly contradicted the orders he’d just been given.
Grabbing her arms again, he roughly tied a rope around both of her wrists before tossing it behind her and lashing her to the tree.
Its bark scraped her back as he tightened her bonds.
She knew from the sobbing that Gráinne had been tied to the other side of the same tree. “Please!” she cried. “Please let her go and keep me instead. Whatever it is you want, I’ll be better for it. I’m older, more capable, and I have more experience than her.”
Both men let out a vicious laugh that set her stomach spiraling.
It was a good thing she’d not had much for dinner, else it would have reappeared after hearing their sickening chuckles.
“We’re keeping you both,” was all she heard, and she couldn’t say who’d even spoken as the men turned and left them tied in the dark.
“Are you alright?” Emer asked Gráinne.
“I’m so sorry,” the girl repeated. “They made me do it. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You have nothing to apologize for. You were in no position to bargain or to do any differently than you were told, and I don’t hold that against you one bit.
In fact, I’m glad that I found you.” And that was the truth.
She’d accomplished that small feat, at least. But now the trick was getting them both home.
Emer swallowed the rising bile that churned inside her.
She would not, would not, give into panic.
For the moment she gave into that panic was the same moment that she stopped fighting.
She may not be a warrior like Alannah, and she might not have the wherewithal to escape on her own—at least not yet—but she would watch, and she would plan, and she would do the one thing that she knew she could: She would make sure that Gráinne was alright.
She could, at the very least, do everything in her power to keep the young girl as safe as could be, given the circumstances.
They must have walked through the entire night, though Emer couldn’t rightly say what time they’d left nor what time they’d arrived at the encampment. All she knew was that it felt like no time at all had passed, and yet somehow all of eternity, as the sun broke on the far eastern horizon.
They had gone east, she decided, based on the direction they’d walked and how she’d been tied up. But how far, she couldn’t say. And she thought they might also have traveled north.
Splashes of sunny yellow, deepest orange, and even faint touches of purple, like the violets that bloom in spring, painted the eastern sky.
Most mornings, such a beautiful sight would have set Emer’s spirits soaring.
But as she stared out at the sunrise, she struggled to find anything positive at all in her current situation.
What if something happened to her? What if she never returned to Ath Luain?
What if Broccan returned to the fair only to find her missing and unaccounted for?
How must Alannah feel this very moment, rousing from sleep to find Emer gone?
A deep ache swelled within her, far greater than any panic or fear ever could. She’d let them down.
She’d let them both down. She’d lied to Broccan and she’d made the worst decision of her entire life going alone into the forest for the girl.
Of course, she’d thought the girl had only been lost. That was what they’d been discussing this entire time.
She hadn’t dreamt it would be some sort of trap, let alone with humans instead of ghosts!
She cursed her own foolishness, even as she watched the sun continue to rise.
By the time the light broke over the palisade, Emer was able to see the camp much more clearly.
Behind her, Gráinne’s sobs had stopped which, she hoped, meant the girl had finally fallen asleep.
They both needed rest after that night, though Emer was loathe to take it and to cease her watch of the young girl.
Forcing herself to stay awake and to take account of her surroundings, she looked first at the guards.
They swarmed about like bees in a hive, checking in on the prisoners who were tied to trees nearby.
As far as Emer could tell, there was the outer palisade, and deep inside the center lay a ring of small roundhouses, likely where the soldiers slept.
Between the ring of roundhouses, a dozen or more prisoners were tied two or three to a tree.
Men, women, even some children of Gráinne’s age, though none younger thankfully.
Emer looked at the faces of all those tied to trees, one by one, until she reached a pair of men tied up at the far end of the copse.
Her breath caught. She’d recognize those dark curls anywhere, a deep reddish-brown just the same color as a fawn.
Her brothers weren’t captives of Aodh at all, and Broccan wouldn’t find them in the north.
For they sat here, not twenty feet from Emer.