Chapter 4 #3
A moment later something slammed into the outside of the castle, creating a thunderous crash that sent tremors through the walls and floors.
The cook picked up a length of firewood like a baseball bat as her maids gathered in a frightened huddle behind her.
Esme drew a wicked-looking dagger from her belt, while Harper helped herself to a long iron poker from a bracket by the big hearth.
A guard came in, a flaming arrow protruding from the back of his neck, and bolted the door. Harper rushed forward and caught him as he fell, only to find her arms empty after she blinked. The wounded man had vanished completely—or had she hallucinated him?
“Don’t freak out,” Esme said as she pulled her back behind the worktable. “They disappear a moment after they die the way they did in the twelfth century. That happens a lot these days.”
Outside men were shouting, and someone blew a loud horn four times.
“’Tisnae the MacBren. Attackers, then. Go to your places, lassies,” Doon said, immediately herding the maids out of the kitchen.
She then returned and pushed one of the tables up against the door to the outside, and grabbed a jug of water which she began pouring on the table top.
“My ladies, we mustnae permit them set fire to the stronghold. Would you douse the hearth?”
Esme showed Harper where the buckets of sand were kept, and how to use them to extinguish the flames.
While they worked, more impacts came on the outside of the castle, causing dust to rain down on their heads.
Harper found a huge copper platter she could use as a shield, and held it in front of her as she went over to the window to have a look.
A man with no face appeared on the other side, and reached in to grab her.
“No’ on your life, monster,” the cook screeched, and clubbed the attacker’s arm with the jug in her hand, which smashed and splashed him with water. It acted like acid, burning off his arm at the shoulder. The detached limb fell to the floor, melting into a puddle of black liquid.
Sickened by the sight and the horrendous stink of the goo, Harper grabbed Doon and pulled her behind her makeshift shield as another flaming arrow flew in through the window and buried itself in a sack of grain.
“Es,” Harper called as she went to put out the blaze, jerking her chin toward the garden door when the journalist met her gaze. Something outside was bouncing against the door, which was slowly forcing the table against it back.
Esme ran just in time to shove the door closed on another faceless attacker trying to squeeze through the gap it had created.
She waited for a moment, pressing her ear against the wood planks, and then jerked open the door and tossed a cup of water into the attacker’s face before shutting it again and shoving the table back in place.
“Can you see how many are in the gardens?” Esme called to her as she lugged a water bucket over to the door.
Harper put the platter in the cook’s hands before she sidled up to the window and took a quick look through the slats. She saw clansmen fighting a horde of the creepy creatures, which seemed to be crawling out of dozens of pits in the ground.
“Too many to count.” She grabbed Doon and went over to where the journalist was standing by the door. “You can’t go out there.”
Esme glared at her and said something in Spanish that sounded mean.
“Okay. You can’t go out there alone with just water,” she clarified, and handed her a shorter poker from the hearth before grabbing two more buckets. “Doon, stay here in case one gets past us.”
“Aye, my lady.” The cook grabbed another jug and uncorked it.
The men fighting the attackers appeared to be winning, but as Harper slipped outside with Esme she saw more faceless creatures climbing up through the holes.
“Wait a sec,” she told the journalist as she surged forward. “We need to stop more from coming in.”
Esme nodded, and followed her to the nearest pit, from which three attackers were hoisting themselves up.
As they drew near, the hole abruptly shrank, pinning the creatures together before they could climb out.
Harper tossed some water on them, holding her breath as they melted back into the hole, which closed up and vanished.
“You take this side,” she murmured to the journalist. “I’ll get the ones by the lists.”
“No, we stick together,” Esme told her. “The other holes are closing up on their own, see?”
She looked over at the other pits, which had done the same thing and trapped all the attackers attempting to crawl out of them. “Is this the medieval version of shooting turkeys in a barrel?”
“I don’t care, as long as they die,” the journalist said.
The McKeran men who were fighting saw them using their buckets to destroy the faceless creatures caught in the shrunken pits, and quickly resorted to a similar tactic, drawing their opponents over to some barrels, which they kicked over to spill the water they held.
Overhead a dark cloud appeared, and water came pouring down from it like a waterfall, soaking the remaining faceless men.
Watching those attackers melt down into the wet ground made Harper nauseated, but she kept working with Esme to deal with the creatures trapped in the holes.
The last few melted away before they reached them with their buckets, thanks to the waterfall from the sky, and some of the men on the top of the wall who were dousing them from above.
Darro ran to Esme, catching her up in his arms and kissing her so passionately that Harper turned her back on them.
That was when she saw Rory emerge from the lists, his body surrounded by a faint, dark violet glow.
Looking at him as he surveyed the scene made her want to run to him and kiss him breathless, not that she had the right to do anything like that.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful, though? Neither of us ever get to do stuff like that.
As the big man saw her he stiffened for a split second, and then came directly to her, his long legs covering the ground between them in a few strides.
He brought with him an odd chill, as if the air around him were several degrees colder than what surrounded her.
He stopped just out of reach and inspected her for a long moment.
“I’m not hurt,” Harper told him, and hefted one of the buckets. “Water melts these things, by the way.”
“I ken. ’Tis why I used the waterfall to end them.” He bowed deeply to her. “My thanks for your aid today, my lady.”
She watched him stride off with a frown.
Was he dodging her now? What had she done to chase him away?
As she pondered that, and the last conversation she’d had with the armorer, she grew certain that his standoffishness wasn’t due to anything she’d said or done.
She’d been friendly, honest, and open with him.
He hadn’t done the same. Maybe she should toss some water on him and see if that got more of a reaction.
What if he melts into a pile of black goo?
The twisted thought made Harper shudder as she started walking back to the door to the kitchens
Esme caught up with her. “Nice work, Fear-Faire.”
“You don’t have to pal around with me when you’ve got better things to do,” she told the journalist. “Go and be with your guy.”
“He has to work.” Esme gave her a sideways look. “You look mad.”
“Yeah, well, getting the cold shoulder does that to me.” She glanced back at Rory, who was crouched down by one of the dark puddles left by a dead creature. “What is his problem, anyway?”
“He’s the only McKeran who’s not like the other clansmen,” the other woman said. “Kind of like how you’re different from the rest of us ladies, too. There’s something you should know about him, too.”
Harper eyed her. “No giant jokes.”
“He was in love with Grace’s grandmother for like seventy years before she died,” Esme told her. “He’s probably still not over her.”