Chapter 4 #2
He still looked skeptical. "Alright. If we meet with no resistance tonight, I'll pay you twenty-five percent from the sale of the ones we capture this night. That is all."
She nodded. "I'll meet you back here in a sennight for my share."
"The negotiations and auctions are slow. Make it... three weeks."
"That long? Are you trying to get out of paying me?"
He gave a bitter laugh. "Well, you have done naught yet to earn that pay."
"But I will."
"Splendid." He motioned toward the exit door and the sea. "We're heading out right after dark. Will you be ready?"
She chuckled. "Will you?" She curtsied. "Until we meet again, m'laird." She walked out the door, whispered the spell, and vanished. Standing to the side, she waited until Talnaroch exited and joined his guards in the cobblestone bailey.
"Which way did the wench go?" he asked them.
Remaining silent, they glanced around, then observed him as if he were a lunatic.
"I saw nay wench, m'laird," one guard said.
"None of you saw her?" Talnaroch asked.
They shook their heads.
"Lady Wilona MacRae, you imbeciles!" Talnaroch yelled. "Did you see her?"
"Nay, m'laird."
"I should release the lot of you from your duties if you're nay more observant than that!"
Wide-eyed, they stared at him and each other.
Biting her lip to keep from laughing, Wilona opened the door and slipped back inside, still invisible. After stealing some food from the kitchen where the male cook prepared supper, she made her way up the stairs to the tower room.
While eating the bannocks and cheese, she sat on an old chair to restore her strength.
After a quarter hour, she shifted into the storm petrel again and flew across the sea toward Rònmòrach Isle.
She would hide and rest again, preparing for the upcoming battle.
She had to make sure Talnaroch's raid would be highly successful.
***
"HOW MUCH FARTHER CAN we go, Freya?" Elsea whispered, leading the mare. They had followed the horses' tracks all day, at first at a brisk pace but dragging now. She had gotten behind.
Gloaming stole the light, and the frigid wind grew stronger, stinging her cheeks and making her eyes water. Elsea's legs and feet ached, and her mare was sluggish.
She'd had to eat while traveling to keep up her strength. They had never taken a journey this long before. But Elsea knew she had to toughen up if she intended to stop Talnaroch. She could not be a soft, spoiled lass and expect to accomplish anything.
A small, rundown castle came into view in the distance, the sea behind it, knocking Elsea out of her haze. She halted, breath suspended. Men and horses milled around just outside the tumbledown stone walls.
"'Tis them." She led Freya behind a mass of thorny gorse bushes, and the mare lowered her head, picking grass.
Elsea watched them from behind the bushes but could see little detail. She needed to move closer.
The craggy coastal landscape here resembled Farspag Castle's lands. She glanced around at the rough cliffs, the moor, and the sea. Farspag could be twenty miles away, for all she knew. The ocean-scented air briefly transported her back to long-ago memories, tightening her throat.
"Nay," she whispered, pushing the nostalgia away, refusing to get distracted.
Up ahead, close to a dozen men remained with the horses, brushing them beside what appeared to be a stable ruin near two gnarled, wind-twisted trees.
The shattered curtain wall lay in pieces as if it had been shot with cannons years ago.
The rest of the men disappeared inside the castle.
She left her mare in the small corpse of bushes, untethered so she could pick moor grass and find water.
"Stay here, Freya. I'll return as soon as I can," she whispered, as if her horse could understand her.
Elsea checked that her sgian dubh knives were still secured to her forearms and calves, the sgian achlais underneath her armpit, and the long dirk attached to her belt.
She left her sword hanging from her saddle, for 'twas too bulky to take now.
She mainly used it to defend herself in the saddle anyway.
The wind gusting off the ocean intensified as night approached.
'Twould help cover her movements as she crept forward.
She must bypass the men left to guard the horses, slip toward the shore, and board a galley.
Crouching, she crept through the tall, shifting moor grasses, trying to avoid contact with the spiky gorse bushes.
Gradually, she moved forward a few hundred feet, then crouched behind another bush.
"M'lady?"
She jumped and turned to see her brother's guard, his brown hair and beard blowing in the wind. "Randall?"
Blast! Now what was she going to do? She couldn't outrun him or hide. She couldn't reveal why she had come. Since Randall was Will's former guard, he knew she had trained with knives. Would he tell his new laird?
Randall glared, his narrowed brown eyes turning malicious. "How did you get here?" Near panicked, he glanced around. "Did someone bring you?"
Instead of answering, she asked, "Why are you here? I thought you worked for my brother."
"I quit," he said with a harsh undertone. "Laird Talnaroch pays more."
"Ah. Well, I hope you resigned your position at Kincreag."
"I did," he snapped, then motioned her forward. "I'll take you inside to his lairdship."
Unmoving, she tried to come up with a plan. What in blazes was she going to do now?
"How did you come to be here?" he demanded more forcefully. "Where's your horse?"
"Grazing." She motioned with her thumb.
"Come. I'll take you to the earl. If he must come out here and get you, he'll be vexed."
"I'll go in. I wish to surprise him anyway." She forced a half grin.
"I'm certain he'll be overjoyed to see you," Randall said in a dry tone.
He grabbed for her arm, but she dodged out of the way. "I can see myself in," she snapped.
He scowled.
She straightened, held her head high, and strode forward, pretending the confidence of a warrior princess. The men in the vicinity stopped and gaped, slack jawed, then mumbled amongst themselves.
Elsea hastened up the steps and opened the front door. The scents of wood smoke and whisky thickened the air.
Talnaroch was raising a dram when he glanced at her. "What the devil?" He slammed the glass onto the table, spilling the whisky. "What are you doing here... m'lady?"
She stopped, forcing her eyes to widen as if she were a na?ve girl. "Oh, are you nay happy to see me, m'laird? I but wanted to surprise you." She pouted.
Eyes wide and brows lowered, he strode forward. "And what a delightful surprise you are, lovely lady." His grin could only be called demonic.