Conor hauled her to her feet. “Can you run?”
“We made it,” Aine said, dazed.
“Not yet. Make for the trees. We’ll be out of the archers’ range.”
Conor propelled her forward, but waterlogged wool tangled between her legs. She hauled up handfuls of her skirt and struggled onward. Only a few more yards and they’d be free.
The drawbridge thudded on the outer bank, but she didn’t dare look back. When at last they reached the safety of the tree line, she doubled over. “I can’t run in this.”
Conor glanced back at the men now pouring from the fortress and pulled his knife from his belt. “Stand up.”
Aine straightened, still too stunned to question him. He cut the lacings of her bodice and pulled the wet dress from her shoulders. It fell in a sodden heap at her feet. She shivered in her thin linen shift, now plastered to the contours of her body. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably.
“Let’s go.” Conor took her hand and pulled her deeper into the forest.
The speed with which he moved through the trees astounded her. She struggled to match his pace, afraid she would put a foot wrong in the dark and crash to the ground, but Conor drove her on mercilessly. Her labored lungs began to burn and her muscles cramped from the unaccustomed exertion. She could barely force herself to stay upright.
Conor stopped at last at the bank of a small stream. Aine gasped for breath, palms braced on her knees. “Are they gone?”
“No,” he said finally. “A few minutes behind us. And they have dogs.”
Despair sapped the last of her strength. She fell to her knees. They couldn’t escape. The dogs would follow their tracks until their strength ran out, which judging from her trembling legs, would not be long. A sob escaped her lips.
Conor knelt beside her and gripped her shoulders. “Aine, look at me.” When she continued to cry, he shook her and said more forcefully, “Look in my eyes.”
She raised her tear-streaked face and saw no fear in his eyes, only determination.
“You can’t break down now. We have to keep going. Do you understand?”
She nodded, though her tears continued to fall. He stood and held out a hand again. “Come on.”
She followed him, thinking they would cross the stream, but instead he led her up it. The water ran around her calves. She lifted her shift to her knees and pressed forward against the current. Her limbs felt heavy and clumsy, and more than once she fell with a splash. Each time, Conor turned back, helped her to her feet, and started off again.
She lost track of how long they traversed the stream bed, but after a while, she heard the baying of hounds behind them. Conor paused to listen and bit off a frustrated oath.
“They’re coming? We didn’t lose them?”
“No. Keep moving.” He took her hand and pulled her up the opposite bank. He must have seen her fear and weariness, because he gave her a slight smile. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it. You just have to hold on a little bit longer.”
His words heartened her. After everything they had survived, she believed him. He squeezed her hand, and they started into the trees again.
A few minutes later, Conor stopped. “I don’t believe it. Look.”
Aine followed his gaze. Barely distinguishable in the dim forest was a tiny cottage made of mud and reeds. They tramped through the brush toward the structure. Conor drew his sword and gestured for Aine to wait while he went inside. She heard a rustle, and something thudded to the floor. A moment later, he poked his head out and waved her inside.
Somehow, he had managed to light a candle stub on the single small table. The flame illuminated a musty, cobweb-strewn interior. A blanket covered a small double bedstead, and clothing still hung on pegs.
“What if the owners come back?” she asked.
“They won’t.” Conor opened the door and pointed to a symbol painted in lime.
The mark Fergus’s enforcers left on Balian homes after the owners were executed. She shuddered.
“Rest here,” he said. “Collect anything that might be of use. Food, herbs, clothing, whatever you can find.”
“Where are you going?” Her heart knocked her ribs. He was leaving her?
“I need to make sure we’ve lost them.” He pulled her tightly to him. “Don’t give up now. I’m coming back. Have faith, Aine.”
His words and the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear cut through her fear. Conor took the knife from his ankle and pressed it into her hand. “Take this. If anyone comes through the door, wait until they get close enough to use it.”
She pulled his head down to kiss him. “Be careful.”
He smiled reassuringly and slipped out the door.
Conor left the cottage and melted soundlessly into the trees. His brave words aside, they could no longer run. Aine was exhausted to the point of collapse, and his arm had continued to bleed more than it should have. He cut a strip from the hem of his tunic and bound the wound, then cinched the knot with his teeth. Aine could sew it up later. The dogs had almost certainly picked up their scent by now, and if he didn’t end this soon, they would find themselves in a fight they couldn’t win.
Fortunately, he was back in his element. The men followed the dogs blindly in the dark, focused on their quarry. They thought only of the pursuit, unaware they were now the pursued.
Conor summoned energy he thought he had already exhausted and moved swiftly into the trees. Hounds bayed in the distance. He would have to eliminate those first. He crossed their original path and headed away from the cottage, hoping the hounds would pick up the newer, stronger trail. Then he hunkered down to wait in a man-sized hollow beneath the roots of an ancient oak.
True to his prediction, the dogs’ baying became louder and more insistent as they approached. Their handler crashed along behind them. A single man. Luck was on Conor’s side. He gripped his sword as the dogs barked and scrambled toward his hiding place.
He waited until the hounds rounded the tree and silenced them with two quick thrusts of the sword, then faded back into the shadows.
The dog’s handler spun, searching the trees wildly, his sword in hand. Conor waited until the man relaxed his guard and sprang from cover. The warrior managed a single inefficient parry, but he only deflected Conor’s blade, which opened his abdomen in a gush of blood. He screamed, dropping his sword to clutch at the horrific wound.
Conor silenced him with a second swift blow, pushing down his horror. A messy, ugly death, the last thing he had intended. He would have to deal with the others more efficiently.
It didn’t take him long to locate the next two trackers, brought his direction by the commotion only a hundred yards apart. He moved silently through the trees toward them.
The first man remained unaware of his peril until Conor’s dagger took him from behind. The second man was more alert. He held his sword at the ready, and his eyes passed over Conor’s hiding spot in the scrub several times, as if he sensed his presence. If Conor engaged him now, it would turn into a fight he could ill afford.
Hand stones, then. Conor selected a large stone and crept from the bushes to throw. The projectile cracked into the man’s temple. The warrior fell into a patch of ferns and lay motionless.
Conor listened carefully, but he heard only silence. Could he have been mistaken? Were there only three pursuers and not four? His uneasiness mounted. Exhaustion was flowing into the place determination once occupied, and he still didn’t know if others still sought them.
He picked his path back to the cottage with care, numbness creeping into his legs. Several times, he staggered and barely caught himself before he fell. “Concentrate,” he muttered. “Not much further. You’re just tired.”
But he could no longer ignore the truth. He’d chosen tactics that didn’t require his left arm, which now hung uselessly by his side. His sleeve was bloody, the bandage soaked through, and he left a trail of drops from his dangling fingers. He knew better, but he couldn’t lift his arm to
cradle it against his body.
The scenery wavered and shifted around him. He was concentrating so hard on staying upright that he almost missed the sound. Not a loud one, merely a crack of a twig that could have been his own misstep. While his pain-fogged mind tried to process the information, instinct screamed at him to draw his sword. He tried, but his right arm obeyed him no better than the left.
The last warrior, a mountain of a man with arms like tree trunks, stepped out from behind a clutch of slender birch. Ordinarily, it would not have been enough to conceal him, even in the dark, but Conor now struggled to focus his vision on a single point. A slow smile spread across the warrior’s face. He raised his great sword two-handed and lunged at him with a cry.
Conor sidestepped clumsily, tripped, and hit the ground in a hard roll. He scrambled to his feet and disappeared into the scrub.
“Not so brave when you have to face me one-on-one, are you, boy?”
Conor darted across an open patch to the safety of another group of trees, bent into a crouch. The swordsman whirled at the sound of his now-audible movements, but his eyes passed over the place where Conor knelt.
He had to focus. If he didn’t finish this, he would die here. Then the man would take Aine back to Diarmuid.
That thought snapped him out of his stupor. He had to think logically. His aim wasn’t worth risking the hand stones. The sword, then.
Conor gathered his strength, forced the fog away by sheer will, and eased his sword from the scabbard. The weapon, usually so light and responsive, now felt like lead in his hand.
He leaned the sword against his leg, point in the dirt, and took one of the stones from his pouch. He drew a deep breath and lobbed it as far as he could into the trees. The man whirled. With one last burst of energy, Conor took up the sword, threw himself into a staggering run, and drove the blade through his foe’s back.
The momentum carried him forward even as his strength gave out, and he crashed to the ground onto his wounded arm. Pain burst in his shoulder and spread like fire through his body, blanking his vision and stilling his breath. He recognized, somewhere beyond the pain, he might not have killed the brute, but he could only writhe in agony.
Then the pain faded into numbness. Conor turned his head and looked directly into the sightless eyes of the dead giant. The sword still impaled him, a lucky strike through the heart. An inch to either side, and the man would have lived long enough to kill him.
I have to get back to Aine. Conor tried to push himself up, but his muscles refused to respond. In the corner of his vision, a man emerged from the trees. His mind screamed at him to defend himself. With every bit of strength left in his body, he wrenched the weapon free from the dead man beside him.
Before he could think about what he planned to do with the sword, the world went dark.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Aine huddled in the corner of the cottage, shivering with cold and fatigue. She could scarcely process what had happened. Whether it was her manipulation or his own conscience, Keondric had sacrificed himself for them. He had kept his vow after all.
He was not the only one. Ruarc. Lorcan. Even now, Calhoun held off the dark forces that threatened Lisdara. Tears slid down her cheeks as she considered all the people she loved now in danger, perhaps already dead.
Then there was Conor. Even the Fíréin’s renown had not hinted at the extent of his abilities. She had always sensed he was capable of far more than even he suspected, but the brotherhood had honed his raw talent and determination into something remarkable.
He would come back to her. He had to. He could not live through all that just to die now.
Please, Lord, just bring him back safely.
The answering certainty that washed over her gave her strength and purpose. She forced herself to rise, pushing away the bone-deep weariness that gripped her limbs. When he came back, they would probably not linger long. She rifled through the contents of the cottage, silently thanking Comdiu that He had turned these poor people’s misfortune into a blessing.
A single dress hung on a peg with a linen shift. She discarded her wet underdress and slipped into the borrowed clothing. She had to overlap the eyelets of the dress’s lacing and cut off excess fabric at the hem, but at least it was warm and dry. Her shivering slowly subsided. She set aside a few pieces of men’s clothing for Conor, then continued to search the cottage. Anything edible had already been carried off by rats, but she did find a sharp bone needle, some gut thread, and a few tallow candle stubs.
Time crawled, minutes turning into an hour, then two. The sick feeling seeped back in. Conor should be back by now. Had something happened to him?
Still, she made herself wait. Blundering around in the dark would only worsen the situation. If he returned and she wasn’t there, they could end up wandering around the forest all night or worse.
Just when she could bear the wait no longer, the door burst open. A large man filled the doorway, Conor’s body slung over his shoulder like a life-sized rag doll. She backed away, clutching the dagger in the folds of her skirt.
“You have nothing to fear from me, Lady Aine. He’s hurt.”
Aine surveyed the dark-haired man uneasily. He looked to be carved from rock, all muscle and sinew, and he moved with a particular grace she had unconsciously come to associate with Conor. Fíréin. She nodded jerkily and gestured to the bed, though she still gripped the knife.
“Who are you?”
“Brother Eoghan, my lady. I’m a friend of Conor’s. I’m told you have. . . certain gifts?”
She just nodded again. Eoghan laid Conor gently on the bed and stepped back. Her insides twisted. He looked so pale that had it not been for the barely perceptible rise and fall of his chest, she would have thought he was dead. And the blood . . . the left side of his tunic was soaked, his hands smeared with it. Which was worse? That it was all his? Or that it wasn’t?
She sat down beside Conor and placed her hand against his cheek. Sensations instantly flooded her mind, and she exhaled in relief. “He’s exhausted, and he’s lost blood, but he’ll recover. He just needs rest.”
“Something neither of you will get much of,” Eoghan said. “Can you fix his arm?”
Aine nodded. The man’s posture said he was far more concerned for Conor than his calm tone suggested. She retrieved the needle and thread and said hopefully, “I don’t suppose there’s fresh water nearby?”
Eoghan passed her the water skin slung over his shoulder. She unbuckled Conor’s belt and sword baldric and set them aside, then slit his tunic from cuff to hem. “Help me get this off him.”
Eoghan lifted him while she gingerly removed the garment. Purple bruises mottled Conor’s torso, but he otherwise seemed whole. Aine washed the sword wound and surveyed the damage. The gash was deep, and it bled as she manipulated it, but at least it was a clean cut from a sharp blade. She threaded the needle clumsily in the candlelight and began her delicate work, aware of Eoghan’s scrutiny as she made a row of even, tiny stitches. Conor stirred in his sleep, but he did not wake.
When she finished, she bound his arm with linen scraps left over from her hasty alterations and turned to cleaning the rest of the blood and grime from his body.
“You’ve done this more than once, I can see,” Eoghan said.
Aine brushed a piece of damp hair from Conor’s eyes. “I spent two years on the Siomaigh front. There were plenty of opportunities for practice.” She glanced back at Eoghan. “I don’t mean to seem ungrateful, but what are you doing here? I thought the Fíréin stayed out of this sort of thing. He’s no longer one of you.”
“Conor has won the respect of a number of brothers. When I heard what he was planning, I thought he could use some help.”
“We’re indebted to you,” Aine said softly.
Eoghan looked embarrassed. “Not at all, my lady. For now, sleep. I’ll keep watch outside.”
“Thank you.”
Eoghan bowed and stepped out the door.
&
nbsp; Aine stretched out on the mattress beside Conor and pulled the blanket over them. After a moment’s hesitation, she laid her head on his uninjured shoulder and wrapped her arms around him, as if she could force strength back into his body through sheer will. She managed a few incoherent words of prayer, and then she succumbed to her exhaustion.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Conor awoke with a start in the dimly lit room, disoriented. After several moments, he recognized the cottage in which he had left Aine, but the events afterward remained fuzzy. How had he gotten here?
He quickly realized he was not alone on the mattress. Aine slept beside him, her body pressed alongside his, her head resting on his bare chest. He caught his breath, allowing himself a moment of pure pleasure at the feel of her beside him and the peaceful expression on her lovely face as she slept.
Where was the pain? By all rights, he should be in agony from the injuries to his arm and head and the overexertion of the last few weeks. The newly stitched wounds itched and stung, but he recognized those sensations as signs of healing. The rest of his body felt as if he had just completed a day’s labor at Ard Dhaimhin, a bearable feeling, pleasant even. How was that possible?
Carefully, he eased himself from beneath Aine’s head. Her eyes fluttered open, and she jerked upright, her face flaming. “Oh! I didn’t realize—”
Conor silenced her apology with his mouth. Her hand slid behind his neck and twined through his tangled hair, and he shivered with an entirely different sort of pleasure.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
Conor jerked away from Aine, and his hand closed on the sword beside him before he recognized the man standing in the doorway. “Eoghan?”
Eoghan shut the door behind himself, doing a poor job of hiding his smile. “It didn’t take you long to recover.”
“Can you blame me?” Conor retorted. Aine blushed an even deeper shade of pink. “What are you doing here?”
Eoghan folded himself into a chair as Conor untangled himself from the blankets. “The trackers passed word back to me. I thought you might need help. Looks like I was too late, though. It took me some time to procure the horses. In a few hours, there won’t be any safe place for you in Seare.”
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