Chapter Thirty-One
“What the hell are you doing?” Illadan shouted, fury etched into his features.
“What I should have done sooner.” Conan looked at Alannah, her sky blue eyes wide in shock.
Teague grinned at Conan, moving beside him. “If the Fianna are divided, then I must choose a side. And I stand by my brother.”
Illadan swore, the only time Conan had heard him do so. Finn and Dallan stared at Conan in disbelief.
“Conan, be reasonable,” Illadan ordered. “Are you truly prepared to break your oath over this?”
That question should terrify him. It should make him reconsider his decision. But it didn’t. A blanket of calm descended around him and with it, clarity. He answered without hesitation.
“I am.”
Illadan’s face fell as he drew his sword, nodding for Dallan and Finn to carry on with the plan.
Conan charged them, intending to block them from lighting the causeway, but Illadan moved in his way. His sword came down in a blow that would have severed Conan’s neck had he not blocked it.
Finn and Dallan dove in, shouting. Finn grabbed Illadan. Dallan took hold of Conan.
Illadan glared at him. “Conan, no matter your skill you can’t fight all of us at once.”
“He’s not fighting you alone,” Alannah ran toward them, Teague and his men right behind her.
“Stop it, all of you!” Ardál yelled, sprinting back down the bank toward them. “We have bigger problems than Conan’s divided loyalties.”
Before Conan could question him, the crowd around them started shouting. From the bridge, the sound of swords clashing echoed over the moonlit water. A scream followed, then another. Conan’s breath caught as the causeway ignited somewhere near its center.
Alannah swore, charging across the bridge.
“Who’s out there?” Conan called. He and the other Fianna followed only steps behind her.
“Glasny,” she called over her shoulder as she ran.
They’d not gotten far when Glasny met them, bleeding and panting.
The moment he reached Alannah, he placed a hand on her shoulder and bent to catch his breath.
Sweat plastered his auburn hair to his red face, dripping in beads over his cheeks.
A quick assessment told Conan his wounds weren’t mortal, though the gash on his thigh would need treating to keep it from festering.
He’d hate to see the man lose a leg, or worse.
“What happened?” Alannah looked from Glasny to the burning bridge half a mile in front of them. “Are you alright?”
“I came around from the other side, just as you said. When I reached the center, I found Oran’s friends dumping oil. I tried to stop them, but my swordskill isn’t what it used to be.”
Oran had been talking with two men just earlier. Could that have been what they discussed? Something about it had felt odd, but Conan had assumed Oran was up to his usual sorts of villainy.
“Oran wasn’t with them?” he asked.
Glasny shook his head. “I asked that, when I was trying to slow them down from lighting it. They said he had other plans tonight.”
Conan didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Other plans?”
A fresh round of screaming erupted behind them.
In front of them, flames the color of a sunset licked ever higher.
Billowing columns of black smoke twined about the fingers of flame.
Conan shared a look with Alannah—the first since she’d learned the depth of his deception.
The flames danced in her eyes, darting like fireflies.
As the commotion escalated all around them, Conan and Alannah pushed past the rest of the Fianna to get back to the nearer shore they’d just left. He could do without all the back-and-forth, but something told him this was only the beginning of the trouble.
They returned to the western end of the causeway to find a group of six men blocking their path.
They carried arming swords, their tunics and trews a plain brown.
All their faces lay hidden beneath deep hoods, but Conan didn’t need to see their mouths to know they wore scowls.
It was written in their stance, in their obvious irritation at the interruption.
Beyond them, the villagers who’d followed Alannah to protect the bridge fought against a second group of men, clothed the same as the first. Two men hefted a jug of oil, tipping it to coat the end of the causeway.
Three more shoved away villagers who tried to stop them.
Curses and profanities filled the air between them, threats of violence backed by the drawing of swords.
They had seconds before real bloodshed would begin.
“Stand down!” Teague shouted the command at the hooded men as he stopped behind Conan.
Not one of them budged.
“Do you not know who I am? Your prince commands you to let us pass and cease this hostility. This causeway is under the protection of King Cahill.”
At the mention of princes and kings, the men shuffled. The men on either end looked to one of the ones in the center of the line. But the men facing the villagers hadn’t heard any of the exchange.
Conan knew Illadan would have debated whether to help protect the villagers or burn the bridge.
Both fell under their oaths as Fianna—to follow Brian’s orders and destroy the causeway and to help those in need.
When it had been a simple matter of sneaking about to undermine the bridge, when the plan had been to set fire to it in a matter of minutes and then leave town, the answer had been simple.
But now innocent lives were at stake. People’s livelihoods were being challenged, and they were fighting back. And the people defending the bridge were not in the wrong here.
The Fianna were.
Aye, it seemed an easy solution to a political standoff, but just as many lives would be affected as in a battle, even if they yet lived. That so many villagers came out to defend the causeway was proof enough of that.
Conan knew the right thing to do as soon as he stood facing off with Alannah at the outset of the conflict. Which meant there was only one way forward now, as the villagers prepared to face the blades of Oran’s men.
With a shout, he charged the line of men barring their path.
He didn’t aim to kill, only to incapacitate.
Teague could judge them later for their actions against their king, but he couldn’t hold off any longer in helping the townsfolk.
Conan easily moved through the hooded men, jumping in to defend the first villager under threat.
Alannah stepped in front of the next. Teague followed, a skilled warrior in his own right.
After his pommel dispatched one of Oran’s men, Conan dared a glance at the causeway. The Fianna were nowhere in sight, no doubt working to fan the flames that burned in its center. At least he, Alannah, and Teague were getting this side of things under control.
He waited for Alannah to knock out the man she battled, grabbing her hand to lead her back onto the causeway. They still had the fire to deal with—and the Fianna.
She tugged hard against him. “Conan, wait.”
“We must hurry if we hope to keep the bridge passable.”
“What if Oran is at the inn?” Fear skittered over her face, and Conan knew it had nothing to do with the fight they’d just finished.
He grabbed one of the hooded men roughly, lifting him with both hands by his tunic and shaking him until the hood fell down. “Where is Oran?” he demanded.
The man didn’t answer fast enough.
“Where is he?” Conan shouted, giving the man another good shake.
The man’s gaze slid to Alannah. “He’s taking care of the competition.”
Alannah broke into a dead sprint.
Conan followed her, dropping the man and praying they weren’t too late.