by Baker, Katy
The bargain is made.
“No!” she yelled to Adaira, to the shadowy figure, to the Fae watching from the benches. “You do not bargain away my life or the lives of those I love! Do you hear! You. Do. Not!” Her shout echoed into the cavernous space of the hall and then faded into silence.
“Admirable sentiments,” said Adaira. “But a little too late. The bargain is already sealed.”
The force holding Adaira evaporated, and she climbed to her feet, walking to stand near the shadowy figure. She was careful not to get too close and to stand on the step below it to show deference. She inclined her head to the figure and then turned to look down on Georgie, Blair and her father.
“My brother died because of Clan MacAuley,” she said. “And my advancement thwarted by people like ye—people who mistakenly serve Irene MacAskill and the Seelie court. It’s time to put that right.”
She began to speak in a language that made Georgie’s hair stand on end. Dark words fell from her lips. Georgie knew instinctively that it was a spell and that should Adaira be allowed to utter it, it would take Blair and her father’s lives. They had to get out of here now.
But the Unseelie force still held them immobile and Georgie could not think of a damned thing to do. She’d brought them here, it was her responsibility to get them out.
Yet she didn’t know how.
“Georgie,” Blair said. “Look at me.”
She fought against the Unseelie’s power and managed to turn her head enough to look in his direction. His ice-blue eyes found hers. They were not filled with fear, only with determination.
“Trust yerself,” he said again, just as he’d said in the void. “Trust who ye are, just as I trust ye. Ye are a Builder.”
Ye are a Builder.
Sudden understanding flashed through her like quicksilver. A Builder. Just like the ones who had constructed the hall they stood in right now. She lifted her chin and looked up. Stonework rose above her, the vaulted ceiling high and intricately carved. It was constructed of the milky white stone she and Blair had discovered in the quarry.
A vaulted ceiling. And the space where the vaults met formed an arch, and the whole place was riddled with Fae magic.
The Unseelie had forced her to kneel which meant her hands were in contact with the stone of the floor. A mistake. Georgie sent her senses questing downward, into the stone. In her mind’s eye she saw the shape of each individual stone that had been made to build this place. She saw the chisel marks, the decoration, the hours of painstaking work that the Builders had put in. But most of all she saw the magic that had been threaded through the stonework, she saw the language it formed, the secret language that only she could see.
Adaira’s spell was reaching a crescendo. She raised her arms over her head, her eyes alight with exultation. A wind sprang up in the hall, whipping back Adaira’s hair as the power built.
Georgie had only seconds.
She sent her senses further into the stone, unraveling the language, deciphering those secret words and suddenly it blazed in her mind as brightly as words written across the sky.
She lifted her head, shouted those words at the top of her voice, not knowing what they meant, knowing only that they were right.
A curtain of shimmering heat-haze sprang up between them and Adaira. It snuffed out the Unseelie’s power that was holding them down.
Blair jumped to his feet. Grabbing Georgie’s hand, he sprang at the portal, dragging both Georgie and her father with him. As they crossed the threshold, she heard Adaira scream in rage and the cold voice of the Unseelie echoing through the hall.
“Ye have failed, mortal. Yet the price must still be paid. Ye offered us the lives of mortals in payment and a mortal life must be taken. Yers.”
A long, hollow scream followed them into the flow of time.
This time there was no sense of tearing. There was no succession of images, one after the other. There was just that familiar sense of falling, a surge of nausea, and then Georgie came down hard on flagstones, her knees slamming painfully into the ground.
She scrambled up to find Blair already on his feet and her father groaning as he struggled into a sitting position. He rubbed his head then his eyes widened as he looked around.
“Now where are we?” he said. “Would anyone like to tell me what the hell is going on?”
Georgie quickly took stock. They were in the courtyard of Dun Halas with the arch rearing above them and a bunch of startled Beaumont guardsmen stood around them in a circle. It was a bright, clear day with a blue sky high above.
She turned to her father and smiled wryly. “Welcome to sixteenth century Scotland, Dad.”
Chapter 17
Blair wiped the back of his hand across his forehead and did his best not to stagger as he whirled to face Beaumont’s guardsmen. He still felt dizzy and disorientated from their trip through time but he could not afford any weakness. They might have escaped from the Unseelie—Lord, the Unseelie!—but they were far from safe—as the angry looks directed at him right now testified.
“Who are ye?” one of the guardsmen—a commander by the look of him—growled at Blair. “Lord Beaumont didnae tell us to expect anyone through this thing.”
Blair didn’t answer the man. “Get behind me,” he said to Georgie and her father.
The sergeant’s eyes narrowed as he took in Blair’s plaid. “Ye are a MacAuley! Archie! Go and fetch Lord Beaumont! Tell him we have a most important prisoner.”
As the guardsman went running off, Blair hefted his sword and went into a fighting crouch.
“Prisoner?” he growled at the sergeant. “Dinna ye think ye are getting a bit ahead of yerself?”
Without waiting for an answer, he attacked.
His sword moved in a blur, slicing first left and then right to disorient his opponent and then came round in an arc to slap the man’s blade from his grasp. As the sergeant stumbled back in surprise, Blair punched him square on the chin, laying him out cold.
The speed of his attack had taken the guards by surprise but now they recovered from their initial shock. They charged him, coming at him from three sides. Blair waited, sword held at the ready. They expected him to break and run. He would not. Georgie and her father were behind him and he would protect them with his life.
The first guard reached him and he felt that familiar euphoria begin to bubble through his blood. His lips pulled back in a manic grin. He ducked under a wild swing, came up within the man’s guard, and head-butted him hard enough that he heard the crunch of a breaking nose. The man went down with a grunt.
A line of fire opened up across his shoulder and he realized the second guard had managed to catch him a glancing slice with the tip of his sword. Ignoring the hot blood that suddenly gushed over his shirt, he lunged, taking the guardsman through the stomach. The third guard—a giant of a man with legs like tree stumps and wielding a huge ax—came bearing down on him. He raised the ax high over his head, ready to cave in Blair’s skull, but Blair dived forward, through the man’s legs, kicking him between the legs as he went. The man yowled, dropped the ax, and crumpled to his knees.
Blair looked around. Already more Beaumont guards were running towards them. He counted ten, twenty, thirty. Too many to fight. His shoulder stung. It was the same shoulder where he’d already taken an arrow wound and his arm on that side was beginning to weaken. He ground his teeth as the guardsmen pelted closer.
Damn it all! After all they’d been through, he would not die like this, like a rat caught in a trap! He would not let Beaumont lay a hand on Georgie.
But he could not see a way out.
Then, a horn-call rang through the air, three sharp, short blasts.
“Attack!” someone shouted from atop the battlements. “We’re under attack! To the walls!”
The guards pelting towards him suddenly veered away, obeying the command, and leaving only a couple running at Blair.
Blair felt a rush of elation. There was only one
force that was capable of attempting to storm Dun Halas. As if to confirm his thoughts, a sudden shout went up.
“It’s the MacAuleys! Laird MacAuley is with them!”
“What does it mean?” Georgie gasped.
Blair turned to her and grinned. “It means we have a chance.”
She looked around, taking in the sudden chaos that had broken out inside the castle. Her hair was disheveled, grime covering her face and clothes, but to Blair she was still the most beautiful thing in the world.
She shook her head. “But how can they expect to succeed? You said yourself that Dun Halas can withstand any assault.”
He felt his grin widen. “Aye. It can. From the outside. But this time there is a crucial difference: we are inside and we have access to the gates.”
He quickly dispatched the two Beaumont guardsmen who were still running towards them, then nodded to Georgie and her father. “We must open the gates. This way.”
They took off. The confusion inside the bailey gave them an advantage. There were people running everywhere and in the chaos nobody noticed three more doing the same.
They burst into the outer bailey to see the gates firmly closed. The battlements swarmed with armed Beaumont guardsmen. Blair quickly assessed their options. The gates were wide and heavy, too large to move by hand. Instead they were moved by a winch, the mechanism of which was housed in a small room built into the wall. Access to this was by a narrow flight of steps to the side of the gates.
That room would be heavily guarded.
He turned to Georgie and her father. “Wait here. Find somewhere to hide. I’ll open the gates.”
Georgie grabbed his arm. “You’re not going alone.” She’d gotten a dagger from somewhere, probably from one of the fallen guards, and she was gripping it tightly in one fist. “Don’t even try to argue. I’m coming with you.”
“We’re coming with you,” her father added. The man had a dagger of his own and despite all the strange things he’d recently experienced, he was holding up well.
Blair bit back a growl of frustration. Were all Smyths so stubborn? Didn’t they realize the danger they’d be putting themselves in? Of course they did. But they wanted to risk their lives anyway.
“All right,” he breathed. “Stay behind me. And move when I do.”
The attention of Beaumont’s men was fixed on whatever was happening outside the walls, not on three stragglers inside. Blair took advantage of this confusion to stride across the bailey, Georgie and her father on either side, and walk purposefully, as if they had every right to be there.
Nobody except Beaumont himself would recognize Blair’s face and to most, he would simply be another warrior escorting two civilians to safety.
The ruse worked. They managed to cross the bailey without incident. Blair moved wide of the gates—if they approached those directly the guards would no doubt challenge them—and instead skirted along the base of the wall until they came to the steps that led up to the battlements and winch room that housed the gates’ lifting mechanism.
“What are ye doing?” a man growled, dashing past Blair carrying three crossbows clasped against his chest. “Get those two out of here. This is no place for servants!”
Blair inclined his head respectfully. “Aye, sir. I will.”
The guard dashed up the steps. Blair waited until he’d disappeared and then nodded to Georgie and her father. “Come on.”
It was a climb of twelve steps up to the door that led to the winch house, less than half the height of the wall and Blair took them quickly. The door to the room stood closed. Blair kicked it in, the sound of splintering wood lost in the clangor of the attack.
Inside, he found a small chamber. A huge winch filled the space, attached to chains that disappeared through gaps in the floor. Three startled guardsmen were staggering to their feet as he burst in, struggling to draw weapons in the confined space.
He took out the first one with a punch to the stomach and then, as he doubled over, a knee to the face. The second was dispatched by Georgie’s father who smacked him over the head with the hilt of his dagger. The third tried to bolt, pushing past Georgie who was standing in the doorway. She stuck out her foot and tripped him. He whacked into the wall and staggered, stunned. Blair finished the job with a well-placed upper-cut. It was over in moments.
“Quickly,” he said. “Begin winding the winch. I’ll hold the door.”
There was no reason to think that anyone would try to come in here—they hadn’t been seen entering the winch room—but that would change the moment the gates started to open.
He leaned his shoulder against the door, holding it firmly closed as Georgie and her father grabbed the metal handle that worked the winch and began to turn it.
The mechanism screeched alarmingly and if the place hadn’t already been in an uproar, that sound alone would have brought the guards running.
Through the gaps in the floor, Blair saw the gates begin to inch open. Cries of alarm came from the guards stationed across it.
This is it, he thought. Any moment now.
Footsteps drummed on the stairs outside and then someone battered hard on the door. “What’s going on in there? Why are the gates opening? Open this door! Now!”
When Blair didn’t respond there was a sudden impact against the door as though somebody had tried to kick it open. Blair braced himself and shoved all his strength against it, keeping it closed.
“Hurry!” he cried.
Georgie shot him a worried glance, sweat springing up on her forehead from the effort of turning the winch. The gates were inching ever wider, but it was a slow process.
There was another impact against the door, stronger this time, and it was all Blair could do to hold his ground. He growled, gritted his teeth and braced himself against it. But the next moment an ax blade splintered the wood right next to his face, sending wood splinters flying and ripping a hole in the door.
Curse it! He stepped back, grabbing his sword in both hands. “Dinna stop!” he said to Georgie and her father. “Almost there.”
A second ax blow shattered the door and a dark-haired guard burst through. The room was so small, the doorway so tight, that they could only come at Blair one at a time, giving him the advantage. He met the attack full-on, blocking the wild swing of the ax with this sword blade, shoving the man hard to knock him off balance and then burying his blade in his opponent’s stomach.
A second guardsman replaced the first, this man so large he had to duck to fit under the lintel. Blair stepped forward, into the man’s guard, and stabbed at his gut. But the guard had anticipated the move and brought up a shield to block Blair’s aim and then swung at him with a dagger. With a curse, Blair jumped back, taking a step into the room. It was quickly becoming crowded.
“Traitors!” the guard growled. “Stop what ye are doing right now!”
There was a sudden clang.
“Oops. A little too late for that,” Georgie cried. “I reckon there’s going to be lots of MacAuley warriors pouring into the bailey right about...now.”
The guardsman hesitated. Then, as the sudden roar of people thundering through the gate below sounded, the blood drained from his face. He hesitated only a moment before whirling around and shouting at his men to get to the gates.
Blair exited the door cautiously, aware that the guards might be waiting outside to ambush him. They weren’t. Their attention was firmly fixed on the wave of warriors that were gushing into the courtyard. They wore MacAuley plaid and another—the MacGregor.
Blair made out people he knew: Sean, Brody and the rest of his men from the fortress but there were many more. He spotted his father’s blond hair leading a charge across the courtyard and then, more astonishingly, the tall, broad-shouldered form of his uncle, Laird Logan MacAuley.
Blair blinked. Why was he here? And how had these forces known to arrive at just this moment, the exact moment Blair opened the gates, the only moment in which they had a chance of taking Du
n Halas?
Georgie and her father stepped out of the winch house and stared at the battle raging in the bailey below.
“Get inside and stay there,” Blair growled at them. “I want yer word ye will keep out of this.”
“But—” she began.
“Yer word, Georgie!” he roared. “Ye must stay safe!” He laid his hands on her shoulders. “Please, love. I canna go out there if I think ye might be at risk.”
She stared up at him and then nodded.
“Don’t worry,” her father said. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Blair shot him a look. “My thanks.”
Her father took Georgie’s arm and led her back inside the winch house. She went with him reluctantly, looking back over her shoulder at Blair. Once they were inside, he let out a long breath. Right. He turned towards the bailey but stopped dead as he saw a familiar figure coming up the steps towards him.
“You bastard,” Charles Beaumont growled. “I don’t know how you’ve done this but I’m going to carve your heart out for what you’ve done here today.”
The air of calm superiority that Beaumont always wore was gone. Instead, his face was twisted in a mask of fury.
“Tell yer men to surrender,” Blair said. “Do that and none of them will be harmed. They will be free to return to their families in England. Ye have my word.”
“Surrender?” Beaumont snarled. “Never.”
He sprang at Blair, swinging a sword. Even though Beaumont was below him on the steps, giving Blair the advantage of higher ground, the blow was still quick enough to send Blair staggering backwards, barely getting his own blade up in time to block the blow. Beaumont followed in an instant, his sword dancing in the air so fast it was almost a blur.
Beaumont was a master swordsman, Blair realized. Perhaps even as good as his father, Camdan. They traded blows on the steps and Blair found himself taking a step back and then another. His eyes strayed to the winch house door which now lay directly to his left.
Stay hidden, he sent the silent plea to Georgie. Dinna come out here.