One
Forever Knight
Jackie Ivie
“Heave, lads! A bairn wouldn’t feel that gentle touch!” Grunts followed Gavynn’s cry, but little else. “Put your backs and arms into it!”
“Perhaps you could put your mouth into it as well?”
One of the lumps of straining men muttered it. Gavynn ignored him. He had to. Iain’s freedom depended on it. And the man wasn’t accurate. Gavynn had been right in the struggle with them until he’d stepped away to assess their progress. And lack, thereof, from what could be seen.
Rainfall washed them, making it difficult to see. That was just and right and necessary. Rain helped hide perfidy such as pulling down a castle wall, cloaking the thirty-four men anchored to its base with a series of thickly woven ropes.
“Courage, lads! You’re acting as if ’tis constructed with more than sand and piss!”
“’Tis solid cursed stone!”
One of the lumps quit straining in order to yell the answer. Gavynn shouted louder. “Verra well. I’ll admit they may have tossed in a bit of dung. But only on occasion. You’ll need to pull harder! Find the weakness! Move in rhythm! We just need a bit of luck.”
“We’ve na’ much luck tonight. What with the rain and nae light.”
“The night does its work. As does my cousin, Arran, with his pipes. You ever hear such loud disjointed playing?”
Gavynn used the same volume with each yell.
He’d be hoarse if he didn’t cease, but that didn’t stop him.
He had to keep men straining against the wall.
Those that flagged needed constant needling and exhortation from a loud voice, regardless of how the words felt sucked away the moment they’d been uttered.
Very little made it through to men aware only of the thump of heartbeat in their ears.
Not even the loud sound of pipes playing discordantly somewhere in the castle.
“Arran and his men have vast amounts of … hot air tonight.” One of them put Gavynn’s thought into words.
“Aye. And na’much brawn.” Another man agreed, although it came with an insult directed at Gavynn. “Appears he’s na’ the lone one. Just listen to the laird!”
The slur galvanized Gavynn. “That’s it! Move your worthless hides. I’ll show you how ’tis done!”
Gavynn pushed his way to the front of a line of men, slipping more than once in brine-soaked earth.
Such was the result of constructing a castle encircled by a trickle of sea-fed moat.
They’d drained what they could just before dusk as they waited.
Planning. Worrying. There were other things he’d rather be doing, lots of other things.
But he didn’t have a choice. He had to rescue his little brother, Iain.
The rope was slickest near the wall, due to the water level.
Gavynn looped an arm about hemp, scraping flesh as he pulled, feeling the strain against solid stone.
He’d been denigrating the rock walls without proof.
Lord Dillbin had built his castle well, funded by Sassenach silver.
There was little give to it. Despite the rain, the mud they’d shovelled out of the way, the hours spent chiselling about the cornerstones, nothing moved.
Gavynn yanked until tendons in his jaw hurt with the effort.
And then the rope slackened, going limp.
There was the gravest rush of noise, accompanied by a thud of something large landing in the muck, sloshing brine-mixture all over him.
He launched backwards, landing flat on his back in the mess, putting his hands out instinctively to catch whatever heaven sent at him.
He didn’t know he’d been successful until they lifted a chunk of masonry from atop him.
“We’re … through?” He sounded like a girl-bairn. Every word felt ground against bone. He suspected bruised ribs. If he was in luck. What was he thinking? Luck had deserted them.
“Help me lads! Quick! Get this off him!”
His clansman Rory said it. Gavynn groaned as little lights danced through his vision.
It was joined by the chore of breathing.
And then he was freed, hauled to his feet, to stand gaping at the size of rock they’d lifted from him.
If he hadn’t been in soaked soft earth, he’d have been flattened. Fully.
He swayed, pulling in small chunks of air while the others stood about, indecisive. That got Gavynn angered, and that covered over any pain.
“Have we just … taken down a wall … to mill about?” The words were broken with each inhalation of air. His volume was missing, as well. He’d worry over that later.
“We have na’ reached Iain, my Laird.”
“’Tis truth. Look for yourself.” Rory spoke again, level-headed and efficient-sounding. As usual.
“We took down … his dungeon?” Gavynn asked.
“Aye. But we got the wrong one.”
“The man has but one dungeon!” Gavynn’s voice was coming back. As was his purpose. Strength couldn’t be far behind. He hoped. “And if fate played us so ill, then move your arses! Get out of … my way!”
It would’ve had more effect if he hadn’t gone down to a knee. Gavynn covered his weakness with a slap at the boulder that had pinned him, and forced his legs to support his weight.
“Is there a leader … out here?”
A voice filtered through the fog of rainfall and failure filling Gavynn’s ears.
Someone answered, pointing at him. He couldn’t tell who.
Muck covered the men, making anonymous lumps in the torchlight from inside the dungeon walls.
Gavynn looked at the gaping hole in Dillbin’s English-built castle, blinked on rain that wouldn’t cease, and then his mouth dropped open.
A woman picked her way towards him, lifting her skirts with one hand, while the other slid along rubble.
That manoeuvre kept her upright, although clumsy-looking.
She was bare-headed, lengthy locks of an indeterminate shade clinging to her, mostly due to the night and amount of rainfall.
It didn’t seem to bother her that a contingency of muck-covered men silently watched with their mouths open.
Gavynn straightened, breathing in small snippets of air that kept the ache tolerable. He swept a hand across his forehead to clear the water. Only he knew his hand trembled.
“Are you leading … this––?”
She’d reached him and looked up, motioning with her hand to the broken wall behind her.
“Rescue,” Gavynn supplied.
“Rescue?”
“Over here!”
Gavynn ignored her sarcasm and looked over her towards Iain’s voice. The squealed words betrayed weakness. Frailty. Youth. Gavynn could see an arm waving at them through a myriad of bars. “They … moved him?”
“He wouldn’t cease his whining and—”
He had her throat in his hand, his eyes narrowed to look her over in the dim light and he tightened his grip on her. “Whining?”
“The outer cell is most … damp.”
She whispered it but nothing on her looked cowed.
She met his look unblinkingly. That was odd.
Having a band of thirty-five men pull down a segment of prison wall should’ve put fear into those dark eyes.
Gavynn loosened his grip on her throat slowly, keeping his hand where it was.
There was a huge groan happening in the air about them, filtering through the rain sounds.
“That wall is coming down!”
“Greggor’s right! Better to banter words from a distance!”
“What of him?” Gavynn motioned with a head toss at his brother. And then other sounds added to the night. Defence sounds: a thrum of drums, blare of pipes, shouts of men. He got splashed beneath his kilt as something landed beside him.
“We need to move, my Laird! Now!”
“What of … my brother?” Gavynn asked again.
“We canna’ fetch him from the grave!”
Gavynn hid the failure. “Go then. I’ll bring the lass. She has … use.” He moved his attention back to the woman.
“Use?”
She asked it with sarcasm touching the words. He tightened his fingers. Another deep groan came from the wall.
“Gavynn … please! Doona’ leave me!”
His brother was at full-out screaming, although it was mostly muted.
Gavynn didn’t look. There wasn’t any way to change it.
The night was sending blocks of stone to pepper the sodden ground about them.
It was due to luck that only more mud-tainted water hit Gavynn.
He pulled at the woman, transferring his hand to a slender wrist, squeezing with intent.
It wasn’t necessary. She wasn’t fighting. She was helping.
Once they reached the hill at the back of Castle Dillbin, she was the one pulling at him, forcing him up the steep sides and on to the moor; leading him to the largest horse … and then heralding his weakness by standing docilely at his side.
Everyone felt like they were watching for him to somehow get astride his stallion, Crusader, force the wench up there with him, and do it without succumbing to the chasm of faintness opening in front of him.
“He needs assist?”
One of the hired men asked it. There was a thump as someone silenced him.
The remark was ill-advised. Gavynn slit his eyes.
Concentrated. Willed away the effects of a night of work, getting hit by a chunk of masonry, and then forced to run uphill with little ability to gain breath.
He refused to submit to anything as defenceless as a swoon.
He was laird of Clan MacEuann. He hadn’t gained that through weakness.
Gavynn pulled in short huffs of air and watched the wash of blur turn into horsehair again.
“Well, that horse is a handful to mount. And hell to ride.”
“I’ve got it in hand, lads.” Gavynn still held to the saddle.
“What of the woman?”
“Her, too,” Gavynn answered.
“How do you ken she’s hell to ride?”
One of the mercenaries joshed it. The woman at Gavynn’s side stiffened. “I’ll answer that slur on … the morrow. With fists. Now mount!”
Hurt thumped through his chest, but nothing felt broken.
Bruised. Pained. But not broken. As was just and right.
He’d be hell-bound before he let a Sassenach castle kill him.
He turned to the wench. She was watching him with an unblinking gaze.
As if she knew he was staying upright by willpower. That was disconcerting.