26 THE FIRE-WIELDER
“LET ME LOOK at your injuries.”
Lara’s voice was surprisingly strong as she rose to her feet.
Alar wasn’t fooled though. Wielding fire had left her shaky and feverish.
After the Slew attack, he’d bid one of the trembling servants to fetch a blanket for the High Queen.
The lad had done so swiftly. Meanwhile, Alar had led his wife over to one of the hearths, which now burned sedately. She needed to keep warm.
“They can wait,” he replied, even as the burning in his leg, upper arm, and thigh started to throb. Fuck. That Slew’s claws had been like meat hooks.
Ignoring him, Lara shrugged off the blanket and crossed to where the broch’s healer was bathing the blisters that marred one side of the chief-counsellor’s face. Annis was fortunate not to have been roasted by the flames.
With a nod to the healer—a tall woman clad in mauve robes with short blonde hair and pale, knowing eyes—Lara dug around in the basket, extracting a stoppered clay bottle. She then helped herself to a clean piece of linen and gestured for Alar to take a seat upon the stool she’d just vacated.
Reluctantly, he obeyed. As a rule, he didn’t enjoy being fussed over.
Despite that the Slew still wailed outdoors—a sound that reminded him of keening now—the interior of the hall was eerily silent.
Acrid smoke caught in the back of his throat from the smoking beams overhead, and he coughed.
Three of the warriors who’d been injured by the Slew, and blistered by their High Queen’s wrath, lay upon the rush-strewn floor.
Bree’s brother, Gil, tended to them. It appeared the archivist had other talents besides sorting through dusty scrolls.
The doors to the broch had finally been secured once more, and the chief-enforcer had returned to the hall. Grim-faced, Cailean sat with his wife. Bree, who usually looked so indomitable, leaned against him. Her face was pale, although an angry red lump had come up on her forehead.
“I thought the Slew were drawn only to the weak and the fearful,” Ruari muttered. The chief-seer sat on a stool near the hearth, his green cloak wrapped tightly around him. His thin face was pale and pinched.
“Maybe … once,” Cailean replied tersely. “But things have clearly changed.”
Alar’s lips thinned. They had. That massive Slew that had lunged at Lara hadn’t been like any he’d ever seen. And it wasn’t entirely wraithlike either. There had been solidity to its form. His blades had collided with flesh, and the claws and teeth that had raked at him were Clag-doo-sharp.
Meanwhile, Lara unstoppered a bottle of what smelled like vinegar and herbs and poured a little onto a cloth. Her hands trembled slightly. “The Warrior’s balls,” she muttered. “When everyone finds out I wield fire, I’m done for.”
Without thinking, Alar reached out, his fingers closing around her wrist. Her pulse fluttered against his skin. “Then, they won’t find out.”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t see how—”
“No one in here will say a word.” He raised his voice then, ensuring everyone inside the hall heard him. “None of us will betray you.”
The faces of those around them were strained, their gazes shadowed, yet nods followed.
Warmth kindled in Alar’s gut. Aye, they’d all stay silent about what Lara had done.
Cailean heaved himself to his feet then. “I’ll make sure Ren, Roth, and the others at the doors keep their mouths shut,” he said gruffly.
His gaze met Alar’s, and for the first time, there wasn’t any animosity in the chief-enforcer’s dark-blue eyes. A glimmer of respect replaced it.
“Thank you, Alar.” Lara’s husky voice drew his attention once more. “Although I’m not sure how long we can keep this secret.”
“Long enough for you to learn more about your gift.” He released her wrist, sitting back to give her access to his wounds.
She pulled a face. “Gift? It feels more like a curse.”
“One that saved our hides,” Bree spoke up then, her voice rough with pain. “I don’t have a problem with it.”
An uncomfortable pause followed these words.
Tellingly, no one else around them chimed in.
Alar’s gaze swept over their faces, marking their tensed jaws and veiled gazes.
Ruari, Gregor, and Annis, especially, stared at their High Queen, as if the Ben Neeya sat amongst them and was about to reveal whose clothes she was washing—a portent of which of them was to die.
But Lara wasn’t The Washerwoman.
She was a fire-wielder. Of course, there was a reason she’d kept her ability hidden.
She feared persecution. Tales of power-hungry fire-wielders, who’d incinerated whole villages when angered, had been passed down through the generations.
Alar’s own mother had told him such tales before reassuring her young son that such terrifying individuals no longer existed.
But they did, and he was bound to a woman who’d just revealed a weapon that could be powerful in the right hands, and devastating in the wrong ones.
Lara leaned forward and started gently cleaning the cut on his arm. Hot, stinging pain followed, and Alar clenched his jaw tight to stop a hiss from escaping.
However, he’d been lucky not to have fared worse.
“It’s not too deep.” Lara bent close to inspect the wound on his upper arm. “You won’t need stitches. Nonetheless, we need to make sure it doesn’t fester.”
Alar grunted, setting his teeth once more as she poured her vinegar and herb tincture directly on the wound. She then did the same with the one to his thigh—the Slew’s claws had ripped straight through the leather of his breeches and raked across the flesh.
“This needs woundwort,” Lara announced then, her brow furrowing as she knelt next to him. “You have to be careful with puncture wounds.”
“Let’s hope its claws weren’t poisoned,” Alar replied.
Her frown deepened at this, and his breathing grew shallow.
He wasn’t worried for himself. He’d long ago stopped worrying about his own mortality. Pain and death weren’t things that scared him. However, he wasn’t used to anyone showing such concern over his welfare. It was touching—and unsettling.
“I’ve got some freshly made-up woundwort here,” Eldra called over, catching their conversation.
Lara nodded to the healer and moved away to retrieve some of the paste. She then spread it over the wound to his thigh, using the knife at her side to cut away the leather of his breeches surrounding it. Then, brow still furrowed, she carefully bound each wound with strips of linen.
Alar watched her work. “You have a healer’s hands,” he admitted finally.
Her chin kicked up, and the tension on her pale face eased just a little. Her eyes took on a wistful look then. “It would have been my choice … to become a healer,” she admitted with a rueful half-smile. “If I hadn’t been the High King’s daughter.”
“The Shee prisoners have escaped.”
After everything she’d witnessed and experienced the night before, Lara shouldn’t have been surprised by this news. Even so, she breathed a curse. This was just another blow.
Seated upon Bracken, at the start of The Thoroughfare, she’d just encountered a member of the Fort Guard who’d rushed up the hill to find her.
The devastation surrounding her made it clear that the Shee had used the chaos to make their move.
It looked as if a hurricane had torn through Duncrag overnight.
Turf roofs had been pulled off many of the roundhouses, store huts had been flattened, and oaken doors hung off their hinges.
The wailing of those who’d had loved ones carried away by the Slew drifted through the frosty air.
“They all got out of the fort alive then?” Alar asked.
“We don’t know,” the warrior answered, his chest still rising and falling sharply from his sprint up The Thoroughfare. “Since most of us spent last night just staying alive.” He pulled a face then. “But surely, the Slew would have picked some of them off?”
“Maybe,” Alar replied, his tone veiled now.
Twisting in the saddle, Lara glanced over at where Bree sat astride a feather-footed cob behind her. Despite the angry red lump on her forehead, her eyes were sharp this morning. “I thought the Shee weren’t bothered by The Unforgiven?” she asked.
Bree frowned. “They never used to be.”
Lara shifted her attention back to Alar, studying him. Was he upset that Fern Sablebane had escaped? It was impossible to tell.
Silence fell then, and as it drew out, it became clear everyone was waiting for her to issue an order. And despite that she was weary and shaken after the night’s events, she knew what had to be done.
Turning back to the waiting guard, she met his eye. “Gather a company of warriors and go after them,” she ordered. “They may be injured … it’ll slow them down.”
The man gave a brusque nod, turned on his heel, and strode off to do her bidding.
Glancing back at her husband, Lara caught him watching her. “What?”
His lips lifted at the corners. “That was decisive.”
She snorted, urging Bracken on. “The Shee move like light and shadow … but we have to at least try and retrieve them.” She paused then. “However, they’re the least of our problems right now. We need to see the rest of the fort.”
They rode down The Thoroughfare, reaching the second level, where Alar’s army of wulvers resided in squat, tightly-packed huts. A number of these dwellings no longer had roofs, and many of the doors had been bashed in. Alar spoke in a low guttural tongue with the wulvers who came out to see them.
Concluding his exchange, he turned to Lara, his eyes hard now. “We lost over thirty last night.”
Lara drew in a slow breath. Another blow. Nonetheless, the wulvers had fared better than the Marav. Whole families had been taken in the level above. She didn’t want to think about how many lives had been lost during the attack.
They left the wulvers to repair the roofs and doors of their huts and descended to the lower levels of the fort. An entourage of warriors followed, silent and watchful. There was little danger now, for the dawn had chased the Unforgiven away, but everyone was on edge.
This year’s Gateway would never be forgotten.
She appreciated Alar’s gesture earlier—assuring her they’d all keep her secret. All the same, dread now sat like an anvil in her belly.
Everyone had agreed, yet she’d seen the look on their faces.
Gods, did they think she was a danger to them now?
She recalled the way the fire had rushed through her veins, filling her with a fleeting sensation of invincibility.
For a few moments, she’d felt as if she could take on the world.
She’d heard her father talk once of the ‘fire madness’ that consumed the fire-wielders of old.
Unlike earth magic, which was far more stable, fire was corrupting and volatile.
Those who used it too frequently risked losing their wits.
Cold washed over Lara then. Could that happen to her?
Reaching the bottom level, she drew up her horse and looked around the large dirt-packed meeting ground.
A statue of The Maiden, untouched by the night’s chaos, gleamed in the morning light.
However, the houses that fringed the area, and the ale-hall’s roof, had large holes gouged in their thick thatch.
It looked as if the Slew had tried to claw their way in there.
Three bairns hunched under the eaves of the ale-hall, whimpering.
The sight of their strained, tear-streaked faces made Lara’s throat tighten.
“Bring the bairns up to the broch,” she instructed one of her warriors. “We can’t leave them out here.”