by Barbara Bard
Before the fire began ravaging the outpost, Sir Richard and Lord Torstein were sharing a drink in his quarters, the only two men not participating in the festivities taking place in the barracks with the other men. They sat across from each other, both of them hearing the muffled laughter and drunken cries through the walls as they drank.
“Not a man who lays with ladies of the night?” Sir Richard asked Lord Torstein.
Lord Torstein shook his head. “Only with my wife,” he said. “God rest her.”
A nod. “I have heard of this, yes. You have my sympathies. Are you to take another wife?”
Lord Torstein shook his head. “It is not necessary. I already have a daughter and a son. My son will take the title when the time comes. I have done my duty to God and my country.”
“Where are your children now?”
“Home,” Lord Torstein reflected fondly, missing the sights and smells of where he grew up. “They are in the midst of their education. Their mother was insistent upon it.”
He looked at his wine, half-depleted and already making him feel more than relaxed. “I am glad that she did. She was a much wiser person than I could have ever wished to become.”
Sir Richard pouted his lip. “I never thought to marry. It was not my lot in life.”
“What is?”
“Fighting. War. To be honest, I have grown weary of it all. The campaign in these lands has taken its toll, and the savagery that has been brought forth by men like Lord Henry has tainted our reputations. I do not agree with the brutality that has been bestowed to the Highlanders, even when I was the one executing the orders to do so.”
A nod. “Agreed…and it is why I do not wish to wait for several weeks to pass before we receive word from the king to be rid of him.”
Sir Richard perched forward, a curious glint in his eye. “What do you mean, my lord?”
Lord Torstein matched his gaze. “Perhaps we should take it upon ourselves to be done with Lord Henry.”
A smirk. “You mean execute him without the authority to do so?”
“Yes. That is precisely what I am saying. Lord Henry is a disease. I have no doubt in my mind that he sits and stews and plots as we sit here and converse. I believe we run a risk waiting on doing what we both know will be the only outcome of his actions.”
Sir Richard made a steeple his fingers, thinking. “I only worry about word getting back to the king that we acted without his approval.”
“Do you believe that any of your own men hold the potential to tell him?”
Sir Richard shook his head. “Not one of them would. They are loyal to me, and me alone. Training them the way that I have has made it that way.”
“My men are the same,” Lord Torstein said. “They trust me with their lives…and I believe I run a risk of endangering them by allowing Lord Henry to live a second longer.”
Sir Richard pondered for a long moment before standing up and nodding his head.
“I agree,” he said. “But we should not make this a public display. We should handle this immediately. I have no quarrel with carrying out the task myself.”
A nod. “I will go with you. I wish to impart a few more words to Lord Henry and his man Stephen.”
The two moved for the door. All the while as they conversed, Lord Henry had set about crafting his own plan of escape—just as Sir Richard and Lord Torstein had surmised.
“Stephen,” Lord Henry said, his brick and steel cell resting adjacent to his right-hand man.
Stephen sat up from the cold floor on which he was laying. “Yes, my lord?”
Lord Henry smirked as he sat against the wall, a neutral look on his face though the emotions inside of him comprised of nothing but lethality and ill intention. “I suspect,” he said, “that Lord Torstein will attempt to get rid of us before the king approves.”
Stephen shook his head. “There is no guarantee that the king will kill us.”
“Oh, please. Don’t act the fool. We both know that our time on this earth is slowly drawing to a close.”
Stephen gritted his teeth. “I’d like to see Lord Torstein try.”
“Oh, he will try, my good man. And I have a feeling that this will occur soon. No one trusts me. The anger toward me is so thick and acrid that one can smell it the air that surrounds me. But that does not bother me. What bothers me is the notion of me losing my life before I am ready to have it be lost.”
Stephen stood up and moved to the edge of his cell. “What do you mean, my lord?”
Lord Henry also stood up and moved to the edge of his cell, his voice now in a soft whisper.
“There is a guard not far from here,” he said. “I believe the fool can be lured in here and taken out, if we do it in a proper way.”
Stephen looked to the closed wooden door that lead out to the hallway where a single knight was standing guard, a torch to the left of the door glowing bright and casting a sickly glow on Lord Henry’s face.
“Do not worry,” Lord Henry said. “They cannot hear us.”
“I am inclined to follow this plan,” Stephen said. “I do not much care to lose my life just yet either.”
“Then we shall lure the guard in. You will create a spectacle to draw his attention. Pretend that you have fallen ill. Once he comes to you, you will kill him. Do you have a problem with that?”
Stephen shook his head. “No problem in the slightest, my lord. But once we have gotten rid of him, what then?”
Lord Henry took a long and lecherous look at the glowing torch near the door. “I think I have an idea…”
Moments later, the knight standing guard outside the wooden door leading into the cell started to make out mumbling and groaning from inside. At first, he disregarded it, but when the sounds began to become more violent, he sighed and inserted a large key before abruptly entering and hollering out: “What is this? Why am I hearing such ghastly sounds from outside of this door?”
Stephen, riling on the floor of his cell, began convulsing and gurgling and creating, as Lord Henry had requested, a total spectacle.
“He has fallen ill,” Lord Henry said with a flat an unconcerned tone in his voice. “You might as well put him out of his misery.”
The knight watched for a moment as Stephen twisted and screamed and hollered out in pain.
“Bloody hell,” the knight said, moving toward the cell and unlocking the door to take a closer look.
“Get up,” he said to Stephen. “I will not tolerate—” Stephen shot up quickly, grabbed the knight by his throat, and squeezed. The knight was taken off guard by Stephen’s swiftness, his eyes wide as Stephen locked his arm around the man’s throat, turned his head, and snapped his neck like he was breaking a twig.
The knight’s body fell limply to the floor, Stephen quickly scooping up the man’s sword, dagger, and keys before opening the door to Lord Henry’s cell and cutting him loose.
“Grab the torch,” Lord Henry said.
Stephen grabbed the torch and handed it to Lord Henry. “Perhaps something to kindle the fire might suffice?”
Lord Henry ordered Stephen to search the knight and discovered a flask filled with a clear liquor, harsh in smell and taste that the knight no doubt had concocted on his own.
“Splendid,” Lord Henry said as he sloshed the liquor on the floors and walls until it was depleted and then touched the flame of the torch against the wall.
After a moment, the walls came alive with the dancing of flames, the entirety of the cell and the knight’s body on the floor consumed by a ravaging fire. Stephen and Lord Henry quickly exited the cell and proceeded toward the exit leading out the back.
“My Lord,” Stephen said. “What of the men?” He gestured down the hallways that lead to the block of cells housing the rest of their men.
Without a second’s hesitation, Lord Henry said: “To hell with them. I will simply find more.”
The fire then began engulfing every part of the building as Lord Henry and Stephen made their exit, th
e entire outpost soon became drowned out by the chaos and madness that followed.
Chapter 33
Isla and Finlay stared in horror at the edge of their camp as they watched the fire raging throughout the outpost. “Me God,” Isla said with a hand over her mouth. “What has happened?”
Finlay jutted his jaw. “This is Lord Henry’s doing,” he replied. “I hae naw doubt.”
Isla searched around. “Where is Riley?”
“We hae nae time,” Finlay said, preparing to mount his horse. “We maist gae.”
“Ye mean flee?”
“Naw. We must ride tae the outpost. Our people are still there. We cannae leave them behind.”
Isla ordered her riders to mount their horses and retrieved a blade small enough for her frame and height to handle, a light weapon that was not as big as a broadsword but could still inflict enough damage to end a man’s life.
As Isla and Finlay mounted and prepared to ride, Riley had returned with his five men in a hustle as he pointed to the blazing outpost not far ahead. “What happened?”
“I dinnae ken,” Finlay said. “But I suspect this is the work of Lord Henry.”
“Aye. We maist gae. We must get the rest of our people out of there. What is our plan of attack?”
“We attack,” Finlay said. “Round up all of the women. Hopefully, they are already aware of what is happening and are acting accordingly.”
“We storm the front,” Isla said. “Ride hard and fast. Strike down anyone that moves. Once we hae found everyone, we retreat back to Riley’s village as quickly as possible.”
“Half you men will ride with me,” Riley said. “I will ride in the front. Isla, Finlay, the rest will follow with ye. Once I clear a path at the front gate, ye will follow in after.”
“How are we sure the gate will be opened?”
“Trust me—I believe the women inside are handling it for us.”
The collective riders then began moving in a group toward the incline that lead to the hill which spilled out by the front gate of the outpost. Isla and Finlay rode side-by-side, their hearts beating through their chest as fear began saturating every inch of their bodies.
“Finlay,” Isla said. “I hae a bad feeling about this.”
Finlay looked at her reassuringly. “All will be well, me love. We will make it through this. I promise.”
They got closer and closer to the outpost, the roaring fire increasing in size the closer they drew to it, the heat from the flames becoming hotter and more unbearable as they arrived outside the gate and saw that one of the doors was ajar.
Riley, unsheathing his sword, raised it high above his head, hollered out a primal war cry, and then pointed to the opening of gate before yelling: “Highlanders! Tonight, we fight like we hae never fought before!”
The other riders shouted back their approvals as they stormed through the gate and became immediately engaged with a slew of Sir Richard’s forces.
Inside the barracks, just as the fire was being set to the outpost by Lord Henry and Stephen, one of the women in disguise sat on a knight’s lap as the rest of the women, who were merely pretending to be drunk, set about lowering the inhibitions of the other knights as much as possible.
“Where have you been all my life?” the knight said as the woman stroked his hair and forced a laugh.
“Ye should hae just been looking in the right places!” the red-haired woman replied, exchanging looks with the other women in the room to confirm that they were ready to shortly begin their leave.
Somewhat aggressively, the knight pulled the red-haired woman in close, an arm around her waist as he whispered in her ear: “What’s say that we retreat to somewhere a little less crowded?”
The red-haired woman poked him on the nose. “Ye are quite the troublemaker, sir,” she said, hoping to stall for time. “But I believe—”
“Bloody hell!” another knight said, moving toward a window and pointing to the blaze coming from the jail quarters. “Fire! A bloody fire!”
The knight moved the redheaded woman off of his lap. “What is this about?”
He moved to the window with the other knights, the women in disguise then putting aside their forced attitudes as they slowly reached for the daggers they had stashed away in their garbs.
“What is going on?” a knight said. “Who is responsible for this?”
The redheaded woman turned to a raven-haired woman and whispered: “Something is wrong. We maist act. Now.”
The raven-haired woman nodded and removed her dagger. She then snuck up behind the closest knight with his back turned, buried the blade in his back, and killed him where he stood.
The other women did the same, all of them moving with the swift and aquiline ease of a hummingbird as they set about striking down all of the knights in the room, before they even had a chance to draw their swords.
The redheaded woman grabbed the raven-haired woman by the arm. “We maist gae. Riley and the others will be here soon. I hae nae doubt…Come!” she then shouted to the rest of the woman. “It is time for us tae leave this dreadful place!”
The fire began spilling out of the windows of the barracks as soon as Lord Torstein and Sir Richard arrived outside of them. Sir Richard shook his head as he took out his sword.
“I should have known,” he said. “I will handle this myself. Go and get my men from the barracks.”
“The fire spreads, Sir Richard. We must put out the flames.”
Sir Richard turned his head and spotted several of his men rushing toward them. “All of you!” Sir Richard ordered. “Fetch water! Now! We must put out these flames.”
The group of knights fled toward the well positioned in the center of the outpost, each of them grabbing buckets and anything else that could carry water.
Lord Torstein, arriving outside the barracks, attempted to rush in but was caught by the swift opening of a door that made contact with his head and knocked him clear to the ground. The impact knocked him senseless, Lord Torstein unconscious on the ground as a sea of women filtered out of the barracks.
Sir Richard, rushing inside the burning jail quarters, was immediately greeted by the sight of Lord Henry and his right-hand man Stephen attempting the flee.
“My, my, Lord Henry,” Sir Richard said. “Lord Torstein was right.”
With the building now coming down around them, Lord Henry stood behind Stephen and said: “My good man—dispose of this mongrel.”
Stephen showcased a smile. “With pleasure, my lord,” he replied as he took up a stance and Lord Henry fled out through the back.
“So be it,” Sir Richard replied as he struck the first blow, a high overhand swipe that he hoped would land a blow on Stephen’s skull—but it didn’t. Stephen sidestepped and parried the blow, spinning around and taking his own strike against Sir Richard.
Sir Richard ducked out of the way and hit the tip of Stephen’s sword away just before it made contact with his tunic. “You fight like a child,” Sir Richard taunted.
Gritting his teeth, Stephen stepped in and jabbed at Sir Richard, the two exchanging several blows in succession. The muscles in their arms twitched, twisted, and burned from the exertion, Sir Richard wearing down Stephen despite being older than he was, his years as a seasoned warrior serving him well right up until the very end.
Stephen, striking at Sir Richard, became entangled with the man as their close-quarters blow slowly pulled them in close. Stephen then craned his neck, slammed the meaty and thick part of his skull into Sir Richard’s nose, and broke it.
Sir Richard fell onto his back, Stephen then finishing him off with a final blow to the torso before fleeing out of the front and becoming lost in the chaos of the outpost currently under attack.
Isla, riding up the left, struck down two knights on her left and right before spotting the women in disguise who had infiltrated the outpost spilling out toward her as she came to a halt.
“Was this ye?” one of the women asked. “Did ye start the
fire?”
Isla shook her head. “Naw. It is Lord Henry. But we must flee. We cannae longer stay here. Find a horse. Ride as far and as fast as ye can. We will meet on the river’s edge. Gae! Noo!”
The women fled and located horses to assist in their departure. As Isla turned her horse to rejoin Finlay at the front, a hatchet buried itself in her horse’s neck, the horse bucking and whining and tossing Isla from the saddle.
Isla hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of her as she turned her head and saw Stephen, Lord Henry’s right hand man, approaching her with a sword in hand.