12 BLOOD IN THE FIRELIGHT
AILSA’S WARNING CAME just in time, although only Dale’s quick reflexes saved his life. He jerked sideways, just as the blade whistled over his shoulder.
Ailsa moved too, scrambling up and whipping out her knife from the back of her boot. Gripping it tightly, she backed up, while Dale’s attacker went for him again.
He was around Dale’s own age, no older than thirty winters. Lean and leather-clad, his dark hair shaved close against his scalp, he moved fast. But, luckily for him, Dale was nimble for such a tall, muscular man.
He rolled to his feet, grasping his whittling knife in one hand and drawing the long-bladed dagger at his hip with the other. Dropping into a fighting stance, he faced off against his adversary.
Ailsa tracked every movement as they began to fight. Her heart thumped like a fist against her breastbone. Where had this man come from?
“Run, Ailsa,” Dale grunted, not looking her way.
She backed up a few more spaces but then halted.
Common sense told her to turn and flee. She couldn’t out-fight such an individual. However, her feet had suddenly grown roots. Instinct told her to stay where she was.
She wouldn’t abandon the man she’d hired.
And as she watched the fight unfold, something shifted inside her.
The crackle of the fire faded, and all that remained was the two men slashing at each other.
Her pulse slowed then, her gaze narrowing as she studied them.
Each movement suddenly seemed clearer. Sharper.
The attacker favored his left leg slightly. Sweat gleamed on his brow.
A pulse beat in his throat.
Her fingers tightened around her knife.
Just one slash across the neck and it would be done.
Ailsa’s breath hitched. She wasn’t thinking about helping Dale. Instead, she was fantasizing about making his attacker bleed.
The man came to kill them. She should have been terrified; yet, she was waiting for him to make a mistake.
Meanwhile, Dale was holding his own. More than holding his own. He fought with brutal skill that was breathtaking to watch.
The leather-clad man slashed at him with a long-bladed dagger. Blades clashed, ringing through the night. The grunts of their fighting followed, as did the scuff of booted feet on grass.
Ailsa didn’t blink.
The assassin stumbled, and a thrill shot through her.
Anticipation. Her mouth flooded with saliva.
She knew who was going to win.
Dale got the advantage. He ducked under his attacker’s guard and drove his dagger under the man’s ribs, thrusting upward viciously. And with his other blade, he slashed the man across the throat. The assassin’s knees buckled.
Blood spilled across the grass.
Ailsa stared at the dark liquid gleaming in the firelight.
Warm and fresh.
Her stomach tightened. For one terrible instant, she wanted to kneel down and touch it, to know if it felt as hot as it looked.
A shudder tore through her then, and she cut her gaze away.
The man lay twitching on the ground. Blood frothed at his lips as he stared up at his adversary.
Dale hunkered down, and in the firelight, his golden-hued eyes held a savage light.
Ailsa stilled at the sight.
The warrior he’d brought down went rigid, his eyes rolling back as he died.
Silence followed.
For a few moments, Ailsa merely watched Dale’s expression. He hadn’t moved from his crouching position, hadn’t even acknowledged her. His gaze was still riveted upon his attacker’s face. And slowly, as each heartbeat passed, his features relaxed.
Only then did Ailsa approach. Even so, she still held onto her knife. The attacker might be dead, yet danger still crackled in the air. Her bodyguard wasn’t himself.
“I told you to run.” Dale’s voice was rough, strained, yet he still didn’t look her way.
“I couldn’t,” she admitted. Reaching his side, she gazed down at the dead man’s face. “Do you recognize him?”
Her legs felt oddly weak now. The strange clarity was gone, and in its place came a cold, creeping horror. The memory of that pulse beating in the man’s throat still lingered.
“No.”
Ailsa dropped to a crouch beside him. “Do you think he’s one of the men we’re hunting?”
“Could be.”
“I don’t remember his face from the ale-hall.”
Dale glanced her way. “Did you get a good look at them?”
“No, but—”
“So, how can you be so sure?”
Ailsa compressed her lips. The truth was, she wasn’t.
It had been shadowy in that ale-hall. “It just seems … strange,” she replied after a pause.
“If they’re ahead, why send someone back to deal with us?
” She glanced around, eyes straining to catch shadows in the darkness.
“Of course, if you hadn’t killed him, we could have questioned him. ”
Dale snorted. “He didn’t look like the talkative sort.”
She scowled. “Well, we’ll never know now, will we?”
He swiveled to face her fully then, his jaw flexing. “It was reckless not to run … what would you have done if he’d bested me?”
She pulled a face, not wanting to tell him the truth—that there had been a part of her that had hungered for his attacker to turn on her. “I could see he wouldn’t.”
Her bodyguard cocked an eyebrow. “Is that a veiled compliment I hear?”
“No.” She sheathed her blade in her boot once more. Gods, the man was cocky. “It’s merely an observation.”
He favored her with a long look that made her hackles rise before relieving the man of his impressive fighting dagger and rising to his feet. “I’ll get rid of the body.”
Ailsa nodded, casting a glance around them. Something about the attack still bothered her. “He didn’t pay me any attention,” she pointed out. “It was you he wanted to kill.”
“Only because he saw me as a bigger threat,” Dale replied, grabbing the man under the armpits and dragging him back toward the curtain of willow branches. “Fear not … you were next on his list.”
Ailsa scowled at that.
Alone for the moment, she sank back down at the fireside. She then scanned the surrounding darkness again. Her ears strained, searching for the crunch of approaching footsteps. Her pulse quickened once more.
How was she going to sleep tonight? Her concerns about Kayla and the attack aside, she now had her own, more personal, worries to contend with. Her breathing grew shallow then, sweat dampening her palms.
You’ve never been right.
Ailsa swallowed. Was that the truth? Did Kayla think there was something wrong with her, yet had never said? Maybe there was something her mentor had kept from her.
Pushing aside her worries, Ailsa reached for more firewood. She fed a branch to the hungry flames, waiting for Dale to return from dealing with the corpse.
When he did, his features were strained, his shoulders rounded.
Ailsa frowned. “Are you hurt?”
He shook his head. “Stay by the fire,” he said, his voice oddly harsh. “I’m going to scout around for a bit.”
Before she could answer, he walked off into the darkness.
Ailsa watched him disappear. Her bodyguard was acting strangely; maybe the attack had rattled him.
It shouldn’t have done. The man was a mercenary, after all. Death should be commonplace for him.
Her lips thinned as she stared at where the night had swallowed him. She’d hired him to protect her—and although he’d demonstrated impressive blade skills tonight, something about him was off.
She’d keep an eye on him.
Alone by the fire, she waited.
A chilling shriek cut through the silence, making her startle, and somewhere out in the dark loch, something splashed.
Drawing her blade once more, she kept it in her hand as she edged as close to the flames as she dared. Then, with her free hand, she fumbled with the pouch on her belt and grabbed some salt, sprinkling it liberally in a semi-circle around her.
One night out from Gateway, and the faerie creatures and spirits that inhabited Albia were growing restless. Eager to prowl into Marav settlements and cause trouble. This camp might attract some nocturnal visitors.
She grew uneasy. It wasn’t a night she wanted to spend on her own, but her bodyguard had disappeared.
Ailsa kept glancing in the direction Dale had gone, yet as time slid by, he didn’t return to the fireside.
She didn’t sleep that night.
The howls and shrieks beyond the firelight made sure of it.
Every time the wind shifted, a new sound carried through the darkness—snarls, chattering, something screaming far out on the hills. Ailsa stared into the black beyond the flames, certain that sooner or later a threat would emerge.
It was a distraction, at least, from the mire of her own thoughts, yet as the night inched on, exhaustion pulled at her.
Rùn stood tethered nearby. Now and then, the stallion snorted or stamped. The sound should have been comforting—another living thing close by—but it wasn’t.
The darkness pressed close, almost suffocating now.
She fed another branch onto the fire. Sparks leapt upward, briefly lighting the golden willow leaves overhead.
Still, time dragged.
Dale should have been back by now.
A tight knot formed in her chest. What if something has happened to him?
She jabbed another branch into the fire hard enough to scatter sparks.
Curse him. Why was she worrying about the mercenary? She’d paid him well to protect her, yet he’d disappeared on their first night out on the road. When—if—she saw him again, she was going to give him a piece of her mind.
An instant later, the skin on the back of her neck prickled.
Ailsa turned slowly, staring into the curtain of willows. The darkness beneath them felt thicker somehow, as if something stood there just beyond the firelight.
Watching.
She snatched up the knife she’d laid down next to her. Come on then.
Nothing moved. No shape stepped forward. Only the hiss of the fire and the restless murmur of the loch behind her.
Still, she didn’t lower the blade. Instead, she waited.
By the time the eastern sky began to pale, her shoulders sagged. Dawn. At last.
The night creatures would crawl back to whatever holes they hid in.
Gods, she was tired. She glanced around once more.
Where had Dale gotten to? His horse was still here, nonetheless, so he couldn’t have fled.
She rose stiffly, joints protesting. Too many sleepless nights had left her head woolly and her eyes burning. If she closed them now, she feared she might simply fall over.
Cold water would wake her.
Stepping carefully over the line of salt, she made her way down to the loch. The surface lay smooth and grey beneath the first weak light of dawn.
She crouched, set her knife aside, and splashed icy water onto her face. The cold hit like a slap. She gasped and splashed again, rubbing hard at her eyes. That helped.
Leaning forward to douse her face once more, she froze.
The water had changed.
Still as glass—but something moved beneath it. A long shadow sliding toward the shallows.
Gasping, she reached for her knife. Her fingers clutched around its handle, just as the shape rose.
Water peeled away from a low, sinuous body as it heaved itself onto the stones.
Ailsa gasped.
Where was that bloody bodyguard? She really needed him now.
The beast was huge—long as a horse—and slick with loch water. Its head swung toward her, black eyes fixing on her with terrible intent.
Ailsa darted sideways along the bank. She’d forgotten she even held a knife. How could she wield it against something like this anyway?
The creature lunged. Jaws snapped where she’d been standing a heartbeat before.
Her pulse roared in her ears as she backed toward the fire. Think. Think!
If this thing killed her, Kayla was also done for.
The beast paused, head tilting.
For an instant, they stared at one another.
Ailsa watched the muscles bunch beneath its slick hide—and marked the pulse fluttering beneath the pale skin of its throat.
Her own pulse should have been racing, yet it had slowed.
Her vision sharpened.
Her breathing seized then, fingers tightening around her knife grip.
Gods. Not this again. No! I can’t—
The creature struck again, and instinct took over.
This time, she moved toward it.
Dropping low, she drove the knife upward as it surged past her. Her movement was awkward, and the blade skidded across slick muscle before catching. The creature twisted fast, wrenching the knife from her hand. Its tail slammed into her legs.
She went down hard, breath exploding from her lungs.
Get up!
She rolled across wet pebbles and staggered to her feet just as it wheeled back toward her.
She’d lost her knife, but the fire was behind her, and a thick branch lay near the flames.
She snatched it up.
The beast lunged, and she swung. Wood cracked against its skull. Her attacker staggered.
She struck again.
Bone cracked. The creature writhed.
She struck a third time—and a fourth.
In the back of her mind, a voice screamed at her to stop, yet she didn’t.
The branch rose and fell. Wet thuds echoed across the loch-shore.
Only when the wood splintered in her hands did she realize the beast had stopped moving several blows earlier.
Silence rushed in.
Ailsa stood over the carcass, chest heaving.
Blood dripped from the shattered branch.
Ailsa’s gorge rose. The Reaper take her. How she’d wanted to keep going.
Her knife lay half-buried in the beast’s side. She bent and grabbed it, marking the tremble in her hands. Thank the Gods, that’s over.
And then the water moved again.
A second shadow glided through the shallows.
For a moment, Ailsa merely stared at it before she breathed, “Oh, shit.”