10 THE ROAD NORTH
THEY RODE DOWN through the sleeping fort, hooves clattering on stone.
Ailsa barely noticed the sound.
All she could focus on was that she was failing Kayla.
Her thoughts were caught in a loop she couldn’t seem to break.
When they reached the gates, Dale called up to the guards. “Open up.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” one protested.
“I know what time it is. Just open the fucking gates.”
“Fuck you, arsehole,” another voice shouted out from above. However, moments later, the heavy oak and iron gates swung wide, and they passed through into the village beyond.
The north road stretched ahead, pale in the moonlight.
Ailsa’s pulse lurched. Somewhere along it, those warriors were traveling with Kayla.
To their left, the vast surface of Loch Lethe gleamed like hammered silver. Above, the full moon sailed through tattered clouds, casting everything in eerie, shifting light. The Whistle had risen again, moaning across the water.
Dale kicked Rùn into a canter, and Ailsa tightened her grip around his waist, thighs clenching.
It was a relief to give her poor, abused feet a rest. Even so, her proximity to the man she’d hired still disturbed her. Although she’d never learned to ride, she’d have preferred her own mount. A pity then that she’d spent nearly everything she had on buying this mercenary’s aid.
Run’s hooves beat out an urgent rhythm on the road.
Cold air whipped against Ailsa’s face while the sounds of the night pressed close—growls, splashes, distant howls.
She forced herself to ignore them. Kayla mattered more than whatever haunted these shores.
But then her gaze caught on a figure drifting across the loch’s surface. Long hair streamed behind her, white as a crone’s.
Ailsa tensed against Dale’s broad back, even as her lips parted in wonder. A Loch-bhàn.
The wraith’s eldritch song rose over the water.
Ailsa’s breathing grew shallow as she listened. She’d never encountered a Loch-bhàn before, yet now understood its lure. Its singing stirred something inside her; it made her want to court danger and linger here to listen.
As if sensing her strange urge, Dale pushed Rùn faster.
“They’re traveling as swift as Shee.” Darach straightened up from where he’d been examining the imprints of horse hooves in the dirt.
Still perched atop Rùn’s back, Ailsa pulled a face. “I never managed to catch up with them either … when I set out from Braewall,” she muttered. “No matter how fast I ran, they were always one step ahead.”
“Aye … but you were on foot.” He dusted off his hands and looked north. “Now, we’re on a fast horse.”
“As are they,” she reminded him.
Darach frowned.
He wasn’t used to company. Especially not a stubborn lass who questioned every decision he made. Ailsa wasn’t one to prattle, thank the Gods, but when she did talk, she got under his skin.
He wasn’t in the mood.
They’d traveled hard all night and continued with the dawn. It was now reaching noon. The day was grey and breezy. The road continued to hug the loch-shore, wending its way north through The Wolds.
If the mercenaries kept to it, Darach would catch them. If they left it … the hunt would become far harder.
His lips flattened. Where the fuck are they taking her?
They could be heading to Duncrag for all Darach knew. Maybe the High Queen had sent those men. One thing was clear: whoever wanted Kayla had gone to a lot of trouble to take her.
Darach frowned as he cast another gaze around. A hunter usually had the advantage over prey—but not in this case. He didn’t know anything about the warriors he was tracking.
And it vexed him that he didn’t have the answers.
He stiffened then. The beast was restless today. He could feel it hissing in his ear, pushing against his ribs. Smells and sounds were sharper too, almost uncomfortably so.
“Are you done there?” Ailsa huffed then. “We can’t wait around here. Kayla needs us.”
Darach’s frown slid into a scowl.
She seemed to think they were partners.
They weren’t.
One of them knew how to track dangerous men. The other didn’t.
Returning to his horse, he swung back onto the saddle in front of Ailsa. Having two of them on Rùn’s back slowed them down. The stallion was strong, but although slender, his companion was a tall woman.
Not for the first time, he wished he’d left her behind in Farnoch.
Silently cursing himself, he urged the stallion on, Rùn’s heavy hooves churning up dust and dirt behind them as he leveled into a brisk canter.
“Why did you leave Braewall?” Ailsa asked after a short while, her breath tickling his cheek. She had her arms loosely wrapped around his waist.
Darach fought a sigh. Not this again.
He didn’t answer, hoping she’d leave it be.
No such luck.
“Are you a criminal? Has the king put a price on your head?”
Darach tensed; she was eerily close to the mark. “Can’t a man just leave his home because he wants to see a bit of Albia before he dies?”
“A mercenary gets to see Albia, does he?”
“Aye … some.”
His response was deliberately cool, yet that didn’t put her off. “Where have you traveled?”
“Far enough.”
Silence followed. He could almost taste her curiosity, hear the questions churning over in her mind. However, she’d just hit a stone wall. Darach had a rule. He didn’t talk about himself.
“I’ve always wanted to visit Duncrag,” she said after a pause, a wistful edge creeping into her voice. “Have you been there?”
“Aye … many times.”
“What’s it like?”
“Big and noisy … and it stinks.”
She made an irritated sound in the back of her throat. “Maybe … but it’s also the capital. Is the broch as imposing as everyone says?”
“I suppose so.”
She stiffened against him, clearly vexed at his terse answers. However, this time, she got the message and didn’t ask anything else.
Darach slowed Rùn to a walk, his gaze sweeping the potholed street.
It was mid-afternoon, and they now passed through the hamlet of Cleghorn. A cluster of stacked-stone roundhouses with conical turf roofs huddled on the shore of Loch Lethe.
Something was amiss here though.
They’d passed a group of villagers building what looked to be a funeral pyre on the way in.
The locals hauling branches onto it had halted in their task, watching Darach and Ailsa approach with furrowed brows and pinched features.
Darach had nodded to them, yet no one acknowledged him.
If anything, their expressions darkened.
He’d ridden on, and as they neared the center of the village, he continued his scrutiny.
Despite the bright afternoon, Cleghorn had a forlorn air.
He’d been here before, but the village had fallen on hard times since then.
War had passed through recently. Burned houses and maimed men made that plain.
Even so, there were signs of life. Industry.
Women gutted eels and sold glistening trout on the roadside, their voices echoing through the damp air.
Children played in the dirt, and dogs nosed around for fish guts and scraps.
A wolf’s-head banner fluttered in the breeze. The High Queen’s crest.
Darach’s gaze lingered on it. In truth, he was torn. As a proud Southlander, he didn’t like to see his people lose. And yet, part of him rejoiced. Queen Lara would reunite her kingdoms one day, and Albia would be stronger for it.
“Do you have an iron penny to spare?” A woman—hollow-cheeked and wild-eyed, a bairn swaddled at her chest, and a scrawny waif of a lass clinging to her skirts—approached. “Just enough for a loaf of bread. Please.”
Before Darach could reply, he felt movement behind him. A slender hand reached down then, a copper penny gleaming on her palm. “Here,” Ailsa said huskily. “Get your bairns a proper meal.”
The woman’s eyes widened. She hadn’t expected such a generous offering.
Darach’s lips compressed. Neither had he.
“Hold on to your coin, Ailsa,” he said gruffly as they rode on. “You might need it.”
She snorted. “What for? Are you planning to pay those men off?”
He didn’t reply. Gods, the woman got on his nerves.
They stopped halfway down the street, and Darach dismounted.
He glanced around, marking the crowd of villagers milling about. Men and women muttered together. He didn’t much like the looks some of them were giving him, or the way a few of the men fingered the axes and hoes they held.
Aye, something was wrong here.
He’d find out what.
Crossing the dirt street, Darach went to a stall selling fresh bread.
There hadn’t been any time the evening before to stock up on food, so he’d do so now.
The baker was surly and tried to overcharge him for his two loaves of oaten bread.
Haggling done, Darach moved on to a cheesemonger’s and bought a large slab of hard goat cheese from a gaunt-faced woman.
“Looks like you’ve had some trouble here?” he said casually.
Her blue eyes narrowed, and she raked a gaze over him. “We did … last night.”
“What happened?”
Her lips pursed, and she hesitated, glancing around her.
Then, with a sigh, she replied, “A group of men arrived late last night.” She wrapped up his cheese, her movements short and sharp now.
“They took lodgings at the ale-hall. There was a woman with them, and Hume … one of the stable lads … noticed her wrists were bound. He tried to free her.” Her eyes glittered. “Her companions killed him for it.”
“Where are they now?”
“Gone.” She bit out the word. “A group of locals fetched weapons and went after them … but they’d already fled into the darkness.”
Darach kept his face neutral, even as his breathing quickened. Shit.
Digging into his coin purse, he pulled out an iron penny and pressed it into the woman’s hand. However, she was watching him closely now. “Why are you so interested in those men?”
“The woman they have is a friend of mine.”
“You’re hunting them then?”
He nodded.
“They made a mess of Hume,” she said, her voice roughening. “Make sure you make the bastards bleed for it.”
Darach favored her with a thin smile. “I intend to.”
And if they’d harmed Kayla, bleeding would be the least of it.
Turning on his heel, he strode back to where Ailsa waited with Rùn.
She looked tense standing there, eying the milling crowd. Like him, she’d noticed their unfriendly stares. Cleghorn didn’t welcome strangers at present. However, as he approached, her gaze snapped to him. “Find out anything useful?” she asked as he stepped up to the stallion’s side.
“Aye … the men we’re after caused trouble here last night. A local lad tried to be a hero.” He packed the food away in the saddlebag. “But your mentor’s still with them … still alive.”
“Thank the—”
A strangled cry made him whip around.
Ailsa had moved from where she’d been standing next to Rùn’s head and now stood right behind him. Her fingers clenched hard around a youth’s thin wrist.
And in the lad’s grubby hand, Darach spied his coin purse.
He jolted. Curse it. He wasn’t usually easy to pickpocket.
The lad was light-fingered indeed. Glaring at the thief, he snatched the coin purse from his fingers and tied it back on his belt.
Meanwhile, the youth started to struggle in Ailsa’s grip.
Wrenching himself free, desperation blazing in his eyes, he tried to grab her purse instead.
Gasping, Ailsa staggered back. Her hand shot out then, fingers raking his face.
The thief screamed and raised his hand to his bleeding cheek. Reeling back, he inspected his fingers to find them slick with blood, before his gaze cut up to Ailsa. “Bitch!”
He then turned and bolted into the crowd like a hare.
Ailsa watched him go, her already pale face draining of color. The hand she’d attacked him with flexed at her side.
“Nicely done,” Darach murmured, impressed despite himself. The lass moved like a greased eel. “He won’t bother us again.”
His companion didn’t answer. Swallowing hard, she glanced around at the watching crowd.
The locals now murmured amongst themselves. Gazes narrowed. Fingers tightened around tools and weapons. Mothers ushered their bairns away. A storm was gathering.
Darach’s skin prickled. “Come on.” He sprang up onto Rùn’s back and reached down a hand to Ailsa. “Time to go.”