Chapter Twenty-five #2
said. “I’m going for Lothair first. We’ll deal with Nithard and the
Basque with Isabeau later.”
“Should I tell Oswald?”
Phillipe asked.
“No. I want that bastard
Lothair dead.”
He waited what felt like an eternity
until the first Basque urged his horse into the river to cross it
and another eternity until all the horses were in or near the
water, then he gave three short, sharp whistles.
Lara snapped her head up again and
thrust her bound hands between her neck and the noose. Talon let
his arrow fly, growling with satisfaction as a second arrow pierced
Lothair’s chest a handsbreadth from his. Lothair fell from his
horse, yanking Lara backward and sending her tumbling off her
horse, into the river.
“Lara.”
***
Lara
Lara had just enough time to gulp air
into her lungs before she was pulled backward off her horse. She
heard her name a moment before she hit the water and went under,
jolting as her back landed on the stony bottom. But she managed to
keep her head from knocking against the rocks and twisted away from
her horse’s hooves and scrambled to get her arms and legs
underneath her, scraping them on rocks as she managed to push
herself up onto her hands and knees when a pair of hands whose
touch she’d know anywhere grabbed her at the waist and stood her
up, coughing and sputtering.
“Talon.”
“Aye, you troublesome
wench.”
He yanked her to him, and Lara buried
her nose into his neck, breathing in the masculine scent of man,
horse, and sweat, then reared her head back. “Isabeau?”
Talon nodded to the three men held
captive on their horses: Nithard, Ortzi, who had an arrow sticking
out of his thigh, and Inigo, who held Isabeau in his arms. Lara
blew out a breath of relief, and Talon pulled the noose from her
neck and cut her wrist ties. All around them, her Basque captors
lay dead or dying, as well as Lothair with two arrows in his chest.
She glanced upriver to where Ranulf’s body lay on the riverbank
with three arrows in it.
Talon pulled her into his shoulder and
walked over to where Nithard, Inigo, and Ortzi sat on their horses,
marked by Frank arrows. Anglbert and Phillipe helped the other
women dismount as Talon stood next to Inigo’s horse and held his
arms out.
“A wise choice,” he told
the Basque as he handed Isabeau over.
Lara broke into gasping sobs as Talon
kissed his daughter’s head and then offered her over. She held
Isabeau tight, her tears falling on her daughter’s head. Talon
pulled his longsword.
“For keeping my daughter
safe,” he told Inigo, “your deaths will be swift and far kinder
than you deserve for the rest of it.”
Inigo nodded and looked to Lara.
“Forgive us,” he said. “Pray for my family, pray they not suffer
for what I do.”
He and Ortzi dismounted and stood with
their heads high, waiting for their deaths.
As Talon drew back his sword, Lara
laid her hand on his forearm.
“No more.” She met his
gaze. “No more killing, no more death, please, Talon. Let these two
men live. Let them go home to their families.”
“They would have sold you
into slavery or worse,” he ground out, the scar across his cheek
gone white.
“But they didn’t.” Lara
laid her open palm over the scar on his cheek. “They protected me
and Issy from the others.”
“They did a piss-poor job
of it,” he growled, touching the raw weal on her neck from
Lothair’s rope.
“Please. Let them go. Let
them return to their home, to their families in Pamplona, and us to
Oloron with ours.”
“They are from
Pamplona?”
Lara nodded. “Let this be the end to
the bloodshed.”
The muscle on the side of his jaw
twitched, then Talon motioned for his men to lower their arrows.
“Go,” he told Inigo. “Take your dead and don’t ever cross this pass
again.” He looked to Nithard, who still sat astride his horse,
staring at his dead son’s body, mumbling about being cursed by
Sophie the Sixth.
“You. Nithard,” Talon said, louder,
sharper. Nithard looked at him with the hollow eyes of a man not
all there. “You will be given the same mercy you gave my daughter’s
namesake, left to wander the wilderness unarmed and alone.” He
looked to Inigo. “You are not to aid him.”
“I rather kill him
myself,” Inigo swore. He dipped his head to Lara. “Countess, for my
life, my family, I thank you.”
“You should have listened
to me,” she said. “I warned you.”
Inigo dipped his head to her. “You
did.” Ortzi said something to Inigo that made him smile. “He say I
should have listen to him, let witch go first night. He want you
know it was him who only wound you wolf.”
Lara grinned. “Tell him that’s why he
still lives.”
Inigo crossed himself before he told
Ortzi and Ortzi crossed himself after.
Lara set Isabeau down as Wilric came
running over toward them and turned into her husband’s shoulder.
“Let’s go home.”
“No.” Nithard kicked his horse forward, clutching the reins with
one hand and his dagger in the other. “Isabeau is mine.” He rode
straight for her and Wilric. “She is mine.”
Talon pushed Lara behind him and
leapt, grabbing Nithard by the tunic and yanking him off his horse.
Nithard landed on his knees with a shriek and then screamed, high
and thin, as Talon thrust his sword up Nithard’s throat and out his
mouth, the silver blade dripping red.
***
Talon mounted the Black and pressed
his lips into the tangle of Lara’s curls as she settled back into
his chest, holding their daughter in her lap. They’d met back up
with Willem and the farmers masquerading as soldiers after sorting
out the dead and sending the Basques on their way, and though they
had enough horses for Lara to ride her own, it would be a while, a
long while, before Talon let her out of his reach again.
Willem was astride Shadow with Wilric
in front of him after helping Patience and Enid mount their new
horses, courtesy of the Basques, and Anglbert was helping Berta
mount hers. Phillipe stood kissing Doralice next to their mounts
with the miller grinning nearby, and his comrades cheering
loudly.
“There will be another
wedding at the keep before the summer is out,” Talon told
Lara.
“Aye, and another quilt
making come spring.”
“You know,” he whispered
in ear. “We could veer off on our way back and stay a while at the
Hollow, just you, me, and Issy.”
“We could. Or we could go
home, tend to Wolf and Tree and Marta until her baby comes, maybe
spend my birthday at the Hollow this fall.”
“Maybe make a baby there.”
He nuzzled her neck. “We made such a wonderous child there the
first time, I think we should make all our babies
there.”
Lara craned her neck to face him.
“What happened to Captain Talon Guiscard, the fierce warrior who
swore he’d never marry, never sire children?”
“He became enthralled with
an auburn-haired, hazel-eyed witch when he tried to pluck a red
rose from her curls,” he confessed. “I am ever cursed to want you,
to bleed for you, my thorny beauty.”
Lara gave his arm a playful pinch.
“You didn’t bleed so much as a drop this time.”
“Nay,” he whispered
hoarsely. “My heart bled out a thousand times a day these past four
days, knowing I let Sophie down, failing my oath to protect you,
thinking I might never hold you or Issy again.”
“You never once let
Sophie, me, Issy, or anyone in Oloron down,” she told him. “You are
a good and honorable man and I love you.”
He kissed her, sweet and tender.
“God’s blood, I love you, Lara. I have since you first smiled at me
as a girl in side braids. I’ll never stop until the breath leaves
my body.”
Lara smiled. “That, my love, is how
you tame a wildcat.”