Chapter 25 #3
A trap, that drowsy, deep-buried voice whispered feebly once more.
I see a feather in the wind, a knife in the dark, rose-red blood gleaming against rain-weathered rocks.
“I understand,” she said, suppressing a shiver at the slithering echo of what was once something so powerful and all-consuming within her.
“And while I agree with you, that our priority should be undoing whatever the witch has done to me, Locke is also correct, in that even if we do find a way to restore my powers but the Bright One manages to unleash Meiche upon is, then it is all for naught.”
“Precisely.” Locke jabbed a triumphant finger in her direction. “That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“I still don’t like it,” Finn said. “A bhréone, you –”
Far above them from his perch in the trees, Murph shrieked, piercing and panic-filled, followed by a reed-thin whistle.
Finn turned sharply, moving instinctively towards Rory as an arrow, gray-feathered and slim, buried itself in a tree trunk a mere hair’s breadth from her throat.
Another whistled hum, and he staggered backwards, eyes widening with shock, with pain, and Rory shrieked once at the sight of the arrow buried in his shoulder.
“Finn –”
Her scream was cut off abruptly as she fell, thrown to the ground by a pair of strong shoulders and lean arms wrapped around her waist. She sucked in a painful breath as Locke hovered over her, both of them hidden from view behind the half-crumbled stone wall, his hazel eyes sharp with worry as he scanned the sky above them.
“Stay down,” he said, low and fierce, then he rolled away, pulling his sword free with a swift movement. “All right, Finn?”
Rory remained flat on her back, fingers digging into the grass and the dirt, half-paralyzed with dread, then relaxed when at last she heard him, the river-smooth timbre of his voice cracked with pain. “It’s not my sword arm. I can fight.”
“Good.” Locke winced as another arrow whistled overhead, sinking deep into the tree against which Finn had leaned, vibrating from the force of the shot. “I’ll get her clear,” he said. “You hold them off.”
“No,” Rory gasped, half-sitting up. Locke growled a wordless warning and she froze, just as from somewhere behind the wall, the twang of a bow sang out and another arrow whistled past above them. “No – I can’t leave him.”
“I told you to stay down,” Locke said, “and it wasn’t a request. Finn, where are those two would-be assassins of yours?”
“If they have any sense,” Finn answered, sounding faraway and hazy, a voice out of a barely-remembered dream, “then hunkered down out of the line of sight as we are.” Rory craned her neck around, striving to catch a glimpse of him where he must be crouched hidden among the underbrush and the trees, but there was no sign of him.
Her heat shuddered in her chest. If she lost him, lost Finn, her oldest, truest friend –
Before she could finish the thought, she caught a glimpse of Dil’s familiar shape flitting like a ghost through the trees, the early morning sun reflecting dully off the blade of her daggers. “Finn,” she heard her call, soft and low. “Where do you want us?”
“How many?”
“Gareth spied four here on the ground, another three on the hill.” A pause. “Not Albions. They’re wearing Leinster colors.”
Beside her, Locke swore underneath his breath. “Let me talk with them,” he said. “Let me reason with them. They’ll listen to me.”
“They’ll shoot you the moment they see you,” Finn answered back, and Rory could hear the dull scrape of his sword being drawn. “If they’re not here on your orders, that is.”
Rory’s gaze flew to Locke, but his stony expression didn’t waver. “And how would I have managed that, I ask you?” He waved his hand impatiently. “Think what you like. Right now my primary concern is her safety, a concern I am sure we both share.”
“I won’t leave them,” Rory said again, but even to her own ears it felt hollow and weak, a feeble protest against this new, unnatural vulnerability of hers. “I can’t.”
“If you die, we’re all doomed.” Locke rolled his shoulders back, then reached out to wrap his hand around her wrist, his grip ruthlessly tight, brokering no further argument. “We need you alive, my lady, if we’re to have any chance in this fool’s rebellion.”
“A liberation,” Finn said, still too quiet, too rough with pain. “Not a rebellion. Go, a bhréone.”
“Finn.”
“We have Murph,” he said. “I’ll send word through the kestrel.
Go with MacMurchada, but if he so much as looks at you in a way you mistrust, bury your knife in his throat, do you understand?
” Locke shot her an exasperated glance, but Finn’s voice, weak and needle-thin, continued from within the trees.
“Dil and Gareth’s horses are saddled and ready at the base of the hill on the eastern side.
On my say, the two of you run. We’ll hold them off. ”
“Finn,” Rory began again, but then Dil whistled once, piercing and keen, sinking down into a crouch closet by with her daggers at the ready.
“If any harm comes to her,” Dil said with a burning glance in Locke’s direction. “Not even death will keep me from coming for you, MacMurchada.” Her gaze softened as her eyes met Rory’s. “My friend,” she said. “Be well.”
Then she was darting forward, low and swift as a hare as she darted in and out of the trees, and Rory caught the briefest glimpse of a tall frame dressed in black slipping out of the shadows to join her, the barest hint of his silver sword flashing in the morning light, and then Locke was running as well, yanking her to her feet and keeping her pressed close to him as they ran along the crumbling stone wall to the far side of the hill of Cnoc Alúine.
“Stay to my left,” he said. “Keep your head down. If I go down, get to the horses and go. Don’t stop, and don’t look back. ”
There was no time to respond as the sounds of clashing steel and garbled shouts arose from behind them, and the meager protection of the stone fence ended in a pile of gray-weathered rocks, and they were exposed in the cool morning air.
An arrow whistled somewhere behind them, and Rory watched as it flew past, so close that she could almost feel the brush of its feathers against her cheek. “Locke –”
A flash of bright green from the corner of her eye, and she turned to see a soldier descending on them, the wickedly sharp blade of his sword glinting.
She threw up her hands in an instinctual movement, in part to call for the shadows she knew would not appear, in part to protect her throat from the slice of that blade, when a strong hand slammed between her shoulders and she was once more shoved unceremoniously to the ground, jaw thudding against the earth at the same time that steel clashed against steel above her.
Rory scrambled forward, the bitter taste of warm blood filling her mouth, glancing back to see Locke twisting and spinning, blade singing as he backed the soldier away from her, his strokes relentless, his steps unyielding.
The sword in my hand, she thought inexplicably, wildly. The shield at my back.
Her attention snapped back as Locke ducked, so swift his features were a mere blur, as the soldier’s sword whooshed over him.
Locke lunged, the blunt edge of his sword-hilt smashing into the soldier’s nose, again and again, and Rory sucked in a breath as blood sprayed and the soldier screamed, stumbling backwards as Locke hit him, over and over, relentless and without mercy.
A dull thud as he collapsed, sword clattering to the ground from his limp hand, bloodied head lolling, and Locke stepped back, wiping the hilt of his sword against his doublet, brisk and business-like, before moving towards Rory, his unbloodied hand extended to help her up.
“Are you hurt?” She shook her head, and his fingers wrapped around her wrist once more, firm and unnervingly calm for having half-beaten a man to death a moment ago. “Come with me.”
The faint sound of shouting and clashing steel, ending in squeals of pain and fear, echoed from behind them, and she flexed her fingers, aching for the sensation of ice and fog and diamond-bright knowings, to unleash the nightmare and set it loose on those who even now threatened to harm the few loved ones she had left to grieve.
Only the thrum of her pulse, steady and warm and useless, answered her.
So she slipped her hand into her husband’s, letting her fingers entwine with his, and ran without looking back.