30 NO CHOICE
IT WAS GETTING late when Liza left the solar and made her way to her bedchamber. Nettie would be waiting for her, to help her undress and prepare for bed. However, she wasn’t tired.
The attack had left her on edge, restless.
She’d taken a cup of wine with Kylie, hoping it would ease the tension that coiled under her ribcage, but it hadn’t. Her sister had retired a while earlier, while Liza had fought the urge to throw on a cloak, leave the tower house, and seek out Rankin.
She wanted to do something—anything—to help. Instead, she felt useless.
The folk of Lochbuie and Moy looked to her to protect them, but she hadn’t. All the same, tonight’s attack had come from nowhere.
Not entirely, a voice whispered in the back of her mind. Macbeth was here today … there could be a connection.
Brooding, she let herself into her bedchamber.
A single lantern burned dimly by the canopied bed, casting most of the chamber into shadow. Nettie had a cot near the hearth, but she wasn’t in it, and the brick of peat that sat there had gone out.
“Nettie?” Liza stepped forward, her gaze sweeping the darkened recesses of the chamber. “Are ye—”
A heavy hand slapped over her mouth, dragging her backward.
Liza jolted, grasping at her assailant. The hand over her mouth was gloved, and mail bit into her skin. She paid it no mind. Instead, she flailed and kicked. She tried to employ all the tricks Makenna had taught her: stomping on his foot, elbowing him the guts, and even arching back in an attempt to break his nose with the back of her head. However, all her attempts failed.
“A feisty one, aren’t ye?” A rough male voice growled in her ear. “But I’d cease yer struggling, if I were ye … or yer wee Nettie will have her throat cut.”
His voice was slightly muffled, yet she felt a tickle of recognition all the same. Did she know him?
Before she had time to dwell on her discovery, Liza’s attacker hauled her left then, to face the shadowy corner of the room. There, held fast in the arms of a cloaked and hooded figure, was her handmaid. Nettie’s eyes were huge, glistening with tears. Her assailant had gagged her with a strip of linen and held a gleaming blade at her throat.
The sheep’s skull that covered the man’s face, with its curling horns, was an eerie sight indeed, and Liza imagined the raider who held her was wearing the same disguise.
She remembered Rae’s words then. Aye, they were only men. But men could be just as dangerous as demons. She and Nettie were in grave trouble.
Liza stopped struggling; instead, her mind scrabbled.
How did they get in here?
Indeed, the gates had been closed and barred ever since the attack.
A chill washed over her. What if these two had entered the castle beforehand? What if the attack on the village had been a ruse to draw their eye?
Her heart started to kick like a mule against her breastbone.
Lord help us.
“Good lass,” the raider rasped in her ear. “Keep heeding me, mind … or Nettie dies.”
Liza swallowed, her body taut as a drawn longbow now. The man who held her had an iron grip.
“Here’s what ye shall do,” the raider continued, frighteningly calm, as if he’d thought all of this through. “Ye shall take us down to yer husband’s strongroom and unlock it for us.”
Liza’s breathing stilled.
So, this was their game. The Ghost Raiders wanted Leod’s coin.
Keeping his hand firmly on her mouth, her arm twisted painfully behind her, the raider pushed her toward the door. “Let’s go for a walk.”
Liza was tempted to risk trying to escape once she got into the stairwell. But after a moment, she dismissed the idea. That other raider still had a blade at Nettie’s throat, and Liza had no doubt he’d use it if she misbehaved. She had no choice but to obey, even if every step galled her. And as she led the two men and Nettie out of her bedchamber and across the landing to the stairs, anger smoldered in her gut.
She took them down to the ground level of the tower house, stepping into the darkened hall. The sound of snoring reverberated through the space, for some of the servants slept in here. But no one stirred while she crossed to the steps that led underground to the cellar.
Liza trembled now, not from fear though but from outrage. How dare these brutes rob her?
She remembered then that one of the Guard would be posted in the cellar, watching over the trap door.
Her pulse started to race. Mother Mary, she had to warn him.
In the damp cellar below, she made her way to the trap door, her eyes straining in the half-light for the man guarding the strongroom.
An instant later, she made out a tall, lanky figure. Tamhas, one of the original five men who’d stayed on.
Her heart gave a violent kick when her captor removed his mailed hand from her mouth and greeted him. “Good lad.”
Tamhas grinned back, his teeth flashing white in the shadows. “Ye took yer time.”
Liza’s step faltered. “What—”
“Yer husband was a friend of ours, lass,” the raider breathed in her ear. “We had a deal, Leod and I … we plundered, and he squirreled away our loot … after taking his cut of course.” He paused then, his grip on her arm tightening. “Until ye ruined everything by giving half of our coin away to pirates … and wasting the rest on yer repairs.”
Liza started to shiver. Leod had been in league with the Ghost Raiders? She was still taking the news in when the raider pushed her roughly to her knees in front of the trap door. “Unlock it,” he ordered. “But do anything foolish and yer maid’s blood will flow.”
Liza could feel him right behind her.
Sweating now, she fumbled for the ring of keys at her belt.
Alec paced the castle walls. It was the witching hour, so silent that it felt as if the night were holding its breath. But he didn’t trust the quiet.
Everything about tonight’s raid seemed ‘off’ to him. The Ghost Raiders had left with a few bags of grain and produce—for the villagers had little else—but it seemed a lot of effort to go to for such meager takings. Alec couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that he was missing something crucial.
Rae, Makenna, and the others were still patrolling the village. No doubt, they’d return soon, once it was clear the raiders wouldn’t come back.
“Seen anything?” he asked Beathan, as he walked past the guard posted at the watchtower that looked southeast.
“Nothing,” the warrior grunted in reply. “The world’s gone to sleep, Captain … ye should too.”
“I’ll sleep when dawn breaks,” he muttered, moving on. “And not before.”
He walked down the newly repaired eastern wall then, his gaze traveling over the shadowed bulk of the tower house to his left. All the windows were dark; everyone was slumbering. He could retire too, as Beathan had suggested, yet the restlessness within him, the worry that clawed at his chest, wouldn’t let him.
He passed another sentry, greeting him with a nod. Usually, at this point, Alec would swivel on his heel and pace back the way he’d come. But not this time. Instead, he took the wall right to the end, to where the crenellations met the edge of the tower house. Here, the shadows were deep. This part of the wall looked north, onto the wooded hillside that reared up behind the castle.
Alec halted, his instincts pricking.
Something wasn’t right here. Moving forward, slowly now, he peered into the darkness. His eyesight at night had always been better than most. Cory had often joked that their captain was part owl, for he often spied things that the rest of the crew didn’t. All the same, beyond the glow of the braziers and torches, there were many hidden corners up here that were too easy to ignore.
Alec stepped up to the wall and ran his hand along its surface. This north-facing wall was rough with lichen in places and slippery with moss in others. His fingertips skimmed across each battlement. He was halfway across the last of them when his hand hit something.
Bending close, his breathing caught.
A rope.
Someone had knotted it securely around the battlement, and a coil sat beneath, hidden by the deepest of the shadows.
Alec breathed a salty curse and stepped back, even as the fine hair on the back of his neck prickled.
The rope told him two things. The first was that someone inside the keep had betrayed them—for how else had the rope gotten here? And the second was that at least one intruder was likely inside Moy Castle.
Alec swiveled around, his gaze traveling to the rickety wooden ladder that led down to the barmkin just a few feet from where he stood. His men didn’t use it often, preferring to take the stone steps on the southern wall.
Yet someone had likely used it this evening. It was the best way to get down from the walls to the barmkin without being seen. Turning swiftly on his heel, Alec sprinted back along the wall.
He had to find them.
“Hurry up, woman. My patience is thinning.”
The raider’s growl made Liza’s heart stutter. God’s blood, she couldn’t delay any longer. She’d made a show of pretending not to know which of the keys opened the strongroom, of laboriously trying each one. But her time had run out.
All the same, slowing things down had allowed her to think.
In his eagerness to catch the laird of Moy Castle and drag her off to get his coin, her captor had omitted to check her for weapons.
Liza still had her dirk hanging from her belt, although the murky light upstairs, and down here too—only a single guttering cresset lit the cellar—meant that none of the three men had noticed.
Even so, it was risky to draw her blade; the man’s threat to kill Nettie wasn’t an idle one. But in her gut, Liza knew she and her maid were doomed anyway. These three had a coldness to them that warned her they would kill them as soon as she unlocked the strongroom.
The Ghost Raiders had left her with no choice.
Nonetheless, her heart quailed as she made her decision. Her palms were slick with sweat now. There was a chance she’d fumble, that she wouldn’t be fast enough.
She had to be brave. Craeg might end up orphaned, the people of Moy leaderless, but at least if she fought back, she’d have a chance.
Do it now.
“Aye,” she muttered, her voice faltering slightly. “I’m sure it’s this one.” She selected another key—this one for the armory—and leaned in, as if to try it in the lock. However, instead of doing so, she grabbed the hilt of her dirk with her right hand and whipped around, drawing it as she went.
The raider was still crouched behind her, his skull-face grotesque in the dim light.
Liza drove the blade into his leg.
The man bit out a curse and backhanded her across the face. She reeled back, bringing the dirk with her.
“Ye shall regret that,” he snarled, lurching upright.
Cheek burning, she flew at him once more and stabbed him again. She was aiming for his guts, but got him in the thigh this time.
The raider’s meaty fist slammed into her belly, while Tamhas’s bruising grip fastened around her wrist, squeezing hard until she was forced to let go of the dirk. “No, ye don’t.”
She cried out as the fighting dagger clattered to the ground.
“Stupid bitch!” the raider she’d stabbed grunted, grabbing hold of her hair then and pulling her head back so that she stared into his face. The skull was terrifying, as were the glittering dark eyes that glared out at her from the eye sockets. The raider glanced sideways then, to where his companion still held Nettie fast. “Slit her throat.”