Chapter Thirteen The Gate of Pride #2
Murdo nodded and vanished with two runners, the satchel hugged close like treasure.
Kenan nodded toward the outpost. “We should burn it,” he said again, eyes bright.
“No,” Liam snapped. “We smash what we can carry and ruin what we cannot. We leave them standing with nothing useful.”
Kenan’s jaw tightened, but he signaled his men.
They ripped open the small supply shed near the gatehouse, dragging out barrels of pitch, bundles of bolts, spare ropes, and tools.
They cracked barrels and poured pitch into dirt, scattering it with sand.
They bent metal heads and snapped shafts.
Practical destruction. No glory, only effectiveness.
Eamon watched from the road, bound and seething, screaming orders that could not reach his men in time.
“Back!” Liam shouted at last. “Now!”
They withdrew as a tight unit, shields up, Eamon dragged in their center. Arrows thudded into shields and dirt. Once they reached the bend, the outpost’s shots fell short.
Only then did Liam let himself breathe again.
After Eamon was bound and the first rush of motion settled, Liam forced himself to look at Anya properly. A smear of dirt marked her cheek where she had hit the road. Her eyes were bright, not with tears, but with the fierce edge of a woman refusing to be broken into someone else’s story.
“You dropped fast,” he said.
“I have practiced falling in my mind for days,” she replied, and then, quieter, “It is different when the ground actually meets you.”
Liam’s mouth tightened. He wanted to apologize for every moment she had been treated like leverage. He did not, because apologies could become softness, and softness could become doubt in the men watching. Instead he said, “You did what you needed.”
“And you did not hesitate,” Anya said, watching him with a new kind of certainty. “I saw it.”
Liam felt something in his chest unclench. Hesitation had haunted him since that old mission, since the moment he had watched others choose trust and pay for it in blood. Today he had chosen trust himself, and it had not killed anyone.
Kenan dragged Eamon forward as they withdrew. The lieutenant’s face was flushed and furious, but fear glimmered beneath the rage now that he could see how quickly the Kincaids moved when they chose to.
“You think you’ve made a point,” Eamon hissed, stumbling as Kenan yanked him along. “My lord will send men. Real men. Your little raid will be swallowed.”
Kenan gave a sharp laugh. “He can try.”
Liam cut in, voice hard. “He will try,” he said. “That is why you will keep Eamon alive. He is not only proof. He is a mouth we can use.”
Kenan’s grin faltered. “A mouth,” he repeated. “You mean bargaining.”
“I mean information,” Liam replied. “And I mean a witness. When the border lairds ask what happened, we will show them his lord’s seal and Eamon’s face in chains.”
Eamon jerked his head up. “You will not parade me,” he spat.
Liam met his gaze. “You paraded hunger,” he said quietly. “Now you will serve what you created.”
Eamon’s nostrils flared. He wanted to shout again, to regain control with noise. Instead he closed his mouth, and Liam took grim satisfaction from that small silence.
When they reached the camp, Liam did not let the men’s excitement sweep him into carelessness. He set watches, placed archers on the ridge, and ordered a runner sent toward Gavin before the ink in Roderic’s letter could dry in the men’s memory.
“Gavin needs to know before rumors twist it,” Liam told Murdo. “If he hears only that I dragged a captain of the South into camp, he will imagine the rest.”
Murdo nodded once. “And Baird?” he asked.
Liam grimaced. “Tell him the pass is open,” he said. “Then tell him to wait until Gavin sees the proof.”
Murdo let out a short breath that might have been laughter if there had been less tension in the air. “Aye,” he said, and went.
They returned to camp with Eamon, the scribe, and the seized papers. Warriors gathered in knots, eyes wide, hungry for news the way they were hungry for bread.
Liam ordered Eamon secured under guard. “No beating,” he warned. “No games. He is proof, not a trophy.”
Kenan muttered something under his breath but did not challenge Liam in front of the men.
In the command tent, Murdo and Murdo’s runners spread the parchments across the table. Wax seals gleamed in firelight. Liam bent over the most important letter, reading by the flicker.
Roderic’s hand, or at least his authority, was stamped into every line. Press the toll harder. Provoke Kincaid. Split the clans. The offer to MacFarlane was not mercy. It was a wedge.
Liam exhaled slowly, anger settling into something colder. “There it is,” he said.
Anya’s fingers lifted to her throat as she read over his shoulder. “He meant to make us strike,” she whispered. “He meant to make Father renounce you.”
Ronan stood at the tent entrance, face pale, eyes darting over the seal. There were no other MacFarlanes here to share the blow with him. Just him and his sister, and the truth that his fear had almost handed their clan to a predator.
“He never meant to protect us,” Ronan said, voice hollow.
“No,” Anya replied, and her voice was steady enough to cut stone. “He meant to own you.”
Ronan swallowed hard. “What now?” he asked.
Liam straightened. “Now we send copies to Gavin,” he said. “And to your father. Immediately.”
Ronan’s head snapped up. “Father must hear from us,” he insisted.
“He will,” Anya said, and her gaze held Ronan’s until he looked away. “And he will hear the truth, not the comfort you wanted to believe.”
Anya sat, took quill and ink, and began to write. Her hand did not shake. Liam watched the discipline of it, the way she turned fear into careful sentences. She wrote as a daughter, yes, but also as a diplomat who had finally decided diplomacy required steel behind it.