by Jayne Castel
“No,” Draco replied. He pushed past Cassian and made for the stairs, making it clear he wasn’t going to discuss the issue. “It’s not simple at all.”
And it wasn’t.
Gavina watched him go, her belly twisting.
Feeling gazes upon her, she shifted her attention back to the four people who’d relied on receiving good news from them.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “But some things aren’t as easy as they seem. Ye can compel two people to wed, but ye can’t force them to fall in love.”
Aila’s eyes glittered with tears, while beside her, Cassian’s face turned stony. “Couldn’t ye love him?” Aila asked, the tremble in her voice betraying her disappointment. They’d waited all night for news, and this was it.
Gavina swallowed. Damn this constant lump in her throat. “Aye,” she whispered, the admission tearing from her. “But there are two of us in this union, Aila.”
“How do ye really feel about Draco?”
Heather’s voice made Gavina turn from the window of her solar.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Below them, the ‘Battle Hammer’ was pounding at the door, demanding entrance.
From her window, although she couldn’t see what was happening on the walls, Gavina had a direct view down into the lower ward bailey. She could see the formidable barricade the men defending this fortress had erected there: wagons filled with barrels, bales of straw and hay, and heavy wooden tables from the halls. They’d emptied the keep and surrounding outbuildings of anything that would keep the battering hammer from smashing through the gates.
However, it would only delay the inevitable.
The end was coming—they all knew it.
Gavina drew in a deep breath, but didn’t answer Heather immediately. After her final words to the others before the dungeons, she’d known either Heather or Aila would come looking for her to continue the conversation.
Running her gaze over her friend, Gavina noted that she was dressed for a fight, in a plain woolen kirtle, a dirk buckled around her waist. Her thick brown hair, usually worn loose, was tied back into a long braid.
She looked like a woman who was readying herself for the worst.
Gavina had dressed in her oldest, plainest kirtle, for she’d spent the morning helping Elizabeth in the infirmary. The number of injured men was steadily increasing; soon they’d run out of beds for them all. Meanwhile, the chapel was now full of corpses.
Seemingly unbothered by Gavina’s lack of response, Heather walked over to the window, and together, the pair of them looked down at the gates. It was dangerous to stand here while flaming projectiles sailed over the walls. Smoke wreathed inside, but the pair paid it no mind. Instead, they watched servants scurry around in the lower ward bailey below, putting out fires and gathering up chunks of lead and rock that could be used in the defense’s catapults.
Gavina wasn’t going to cower behind closed shutters. When the gates were breached, she wanted to see it.
“I love him,” Gavina whispered finally, her gaze still focused on the flurry of activity below. A thrill went through her at making the admission aloud, even if her pulse now raced.
“I thought as much,” Heather murmured back. “The moment I set eyes on ye again today, I knew something had changed.”
Gavina sighed, before she glanced at her friend, taking in her proud profile “Aye … but not for Draco. He doesn’t feel the same way.”
Heather’s gaze swung around to meet hers. “Do ye know that for sure?”
“Aye,” Gavina replied, her voice husky now.
Heather’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe ye should tell him how ye feel.”
Gavina shook her head. “What good would that do? Ye think I can ‘guilt’ Draco into loving me?”
“No … but maybe if ye spoke plainly, it might break down his shields.”
“He’d only think I was trying to manipulate him.”
Heather held her gaze squarely, her jaw tightening. “Only if he senses ye are holding back. Sometimes love requires courage … go find Draco and tell him exactly what lies in yer heart.”
Gavina’s breath gusted out of her, panic punching her in the belly. She really was a coward when it came to feelings. Truthfully, after what she’d weathered in her first marriage, she was terrified of being rejected. “What … now?”
“Who knows how long it’ll be till they breach the gates … now is as good a time as any.”
Gavina glanced away, looking for excuses. “He’s up on the walls. I’m not supposed to go up there during the day … not while the castle’s under attack.”
“Who rules Dunnottar?” Heather asked, a flinty note in her voice. “Ye can go wherever ye wish … My Lady.”
Gavina turned back to Heather. The glint in her friend’s eye made determination quicken within her. Heather was right. Time was working against them. If she wanted to speak to him—it had to be now.
“Look at that thing.” Draco peered over the ramparts at the smoking roof of the ‘Battle Hammer’. “It’s indestructible.”
“It appears so,” Maximus replied from next to him. “But we both know few things in this world are.”
Draco’s gaze narrowed. The structure that covered the battering ram had taken a beating. However, it still protected the siege weapon, despite that they’d lobbed numerous buckets of Greek fire upon its roof. A number of men operating the weapon had died over the past two days—Irvine’s men. They’d brought some of them down with arrows and quarrels, while fire had sent others tumbling from the wagon, screaming as they beat at the flames that consumed their flesh.
But more men scrambled up the defile to replace them. And the siege continued.
“They’re putting up more ladders!” Cassian shouted from behind Draco and Maximus.
Draco swiveled, focusing upon the southern edge of the landward curtain wall.
Tall ladders appeared, crashing against the stone, and men clad in chainmail and iron clambered up.
Maximus spat out a curse. “Not again.”
The English seemed to have an endless supply of these ladders, which were easier to repel than siege engines, but also much easier to build and raise against the walls.
Both Draco and Maximus lunged for their crossbows, grabbed quivers of bolts, and rushed down the wall, taking up position to the right of the ladders.
The Wallace was there, at the top of a ladder. His huge hands were fastened around the top rung as he tried to push it away from the wall by sheer force. But even William Wallace wasn’t strong enough to get rid of the attackers so easily. There were many of them on the ladder now, their weight pushing it firmly against the wall.
To his surprise, Draco spied Donnan De Keith up on the wall this afternoon. He jostled behind the Wallace, shield in one hand, sword in the other, his face set in grim lines. The steward had been wanting to join the fight for a while, and now he finally had his chance.
Draco loaded his crossbow, cocked it, sighted his target, and fired.
The bolt hit the head of the first soldier on the ladder. He wore an iron helmet, yet the force of the blow sent him reeling backward. The man’s yells filled the warm morning air as he fell.
“Excellent shot,” Maximus grunted, before he too loosed a bolt from his crossbow, hitting the next man in the shoulder. The soldier shouted out in agony, but clung on, despite the bolt now protruding from his hauberk.
“They’re tough these English,” Cassian observed. He drew his gladius, readying himself to fight those who managed to get up on the wall.
“Aye, but they still bleed, like all mortal men,” Wallace snarled. He’d given up trying to repel the ladder, and now stepped back panting as he drew his own blade—a heavy claidheamh-mòr.
Draco shared a look with Cassian then. All men bleed, even immortal ones.
An instant later, something whooshed by Draco’s shoulder. He whirled, even as he reached for his next quarrel. On the cliff-top opposite, Edward’s Welsh archers were
back. The bastards formed a dark line against the green hills beyond, their tall longbows bristling like winter thickets.
Draco scowled. Of course, they would pick off those on the walls who were trying to bring the ladders down.
A cry sounded behind him, as one of the Guard took an arrow to the chest. The arrows were peppering the wall now like enraged hornets.
Maximus dove for a shield, raising it just in time as three dark-fletched arrows embedded into the wood.
Draco ignored them all. Instead of reaching for his own shield, he reloaded his crossbow, cocked it, and sighted the next man on the ladder.
Hades take the lot of them. Not one English soldier was getting up on this wall. He’d make sure of it.
Thud. Thud.
The Welsh archers found their next target upon the wall—and this time it was Draco. Two arrows hit his chest, throwing him off his feet.
XXXI
ALL MEN BLEED
THE CROSSBOW FLEW from Draco’s hands, crashing against the ramparts, and he hit the debris-strewn ground.
Dazed for an instant as he lay sprawled on his back, Draco lowered his chin to see two yew arrows sticking out of the lower left of his ribcage.
Pain barreled into him in a sickening wave, the sensation so intense that he nearly blacked out.
Mithras. All these years and pain still took him by surprise.
All men bleed indeed. All men feel the bite of iron too.
“Draco!” Cassian was at his side, dragging him away from the edge of the wall.
“It’s alright,” Draco tried to shrug him off. “Return to the fight!”
Cassian ignored him. Instead, jaw clenched, he hauled Draco toward the stairs.
“Draco!” A woman’s cry shattered the roar of battle.
A chill swept through Draco, momentarily dousing the fire that ripped up his left side.
Gavina.
“Lady Gavina, get down off the walls!” The Wallace bellowed down the wall. “It’s a shit-storm up here!”
Gavina didn’t answer the outlaw, and a moment later, Draco felt a small, cold hand clasp his. “Lord, no,” came her anguished whisper.
“No need to panic,” Draco rasped. “You know I can’t die.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t suffer, clod-head,” Cassian growled. He’d knelt next to Draco and was inspecting the arrows. “Damn it … these are buried deep.”
“Good Welsh arrows,” Draco wheezed, shutting his eyes as another wave of sickening pain washed over him.
“Shut your mouth, and save your energy.” Maximus was there too, bending over him, his soot-smeared, sweat-streaked face taut. He then glanced over at Cassian. “We need to get him off the wall.”
“Aaron … Fergus!” Cassian bellowed, motioning to two of his men. “Over here!”
Gavina hurried down the steps from the wall, following the two guards who’d hauled Draco up under the armpits and were carrying him out of harm’s way. Heather brought up the rear of the small group, hurrying close behind her.
Heart pounding, Gavina’s gaze rested upon Draco’s back. The tips of the arrows were both protruding—a good sign at least, for they would be easier to remove. The barbed end wasn’t embedded in his flesh and could be snipped off.
He’s immortal, stop yer fretting.
She knew Draco couldn’t die—and she kept telling herself that—but the sight of his injuries made her queasy nonetheless.
She’d emerged from the top of the stairs to encounter a storm of arrows showering the air. Shrinking back into the relative safety of the stairwell, she’d told Heather to stay back. But when she’d turned to the wall once more, she’d seen Cassian raise a shield—and witnessed Draco step forward and sight his crossbow.
In full view of the archers.
Idiot.
Just because he couldn’t die didn’t mean he had to throw himself to the wolves. Once he healed from his wounds, she’d give him a piece of her mind.
Outside in the lower ward bailey, the boom of the ‘Battle Hammer’ hitting the gates was ear-splitting. The sheer force of the siege weapon was starting to buckle the gates—iron groaned with every impact, and the massive barricade behind it shuddered.
Fear stained the air inside the stronghold now; what few servants remained outdoors to help defend the keep had strained faces and wild gazes. The women, children, and elderly had taken refuge in Dunnottar’s hall.
Gavina’s breathing caught, desperation clawing at her throat. How long would it be until the battering ram finally broke through? Not today, surely?
The guards took Draco to the infirmary—the long, crowded chamber next to the guard’s mess, where Aila and Elizabeth, and a handful of other women, tended injured men.
Many of those with relatively minor injuries sat propped up demanding to be let back on the walls, while other men lay groaning upon narrow pallets, their faces ashen with pain. However, one or two lay worryingly still.
Aila, who’d been bandaging a warrior’s burned arm, glanced up. Spying Draco, her face went taut. She then motioned to the bed behind her, where a man lay. “Put him there.”
Gavina frowned. “But there’s—”
“He’s dead, My Lady.” Aila turned to the guards holding Draco upright. “Can ye take the body to the chapel?”
Aila’s practicality both impressed and cowed Gavina. Her maid was a sweet lass, gentle and kind to a fault at times. Yet when times were tough, she showed a will of steel, as she had on their flight from Stirling.
The guards handed Draco over to Heather and Gavina, and went to do Aila’s bidding.
Draco slumped against Gavina, groaning as his gaze fluttered shut.
Jaw clenched, Gavina put her arms around him, struggling to keep him upright. With Aila’s help, the three of them lifted him onto the pallet, rolling him on his side so that the arrows didn’t pain him any more than they were already. Meanwhile, the two guards carried the dead warrior from the infirmary.
“Don’t waste a bed on me,” Draco ground out. “Just sit me in the corner … I’ll be right tomorrow.”
The women ignored him. Immortal or not, they couldn’t let him suffer like this.
“We need to remove those arrows,” Heather said, glancing around. “But first, we must snip the tips off.”
“Here.” Elizabeth retrieved a pair of blacksmith pincers, presumably taken from the ruins of the forge. “These have already come in useful.”
Gavina swallowed as nausea rose within her.
However, the other women here had stronger stomachs than her. Stepping forward, face set in a determined expression, Heather snipped off the arrow tips.
The jolt of it hurt Draco, waking him from the strange daze he’d fallen into.
He gave a pained grunt, his long body going rigid.
Heather’s gaze met Gavina’s then. “Ye are going to have to pull out the arrows, My Lady. Aila and I will hold him while ye do it.”
Gavina started to sweat. She’d been helping on and off in the infirmary over the past days, dressing and tending wounds. But she’d left the harsher treatments to the other women.
“Don’t mess around, Gavina,” Draco instructed through gritted teeth. “Grab the arrow and yank it.”
“He’s right,” Elizabeth added. “The slower ye go, the more it hurts.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Gavina replied, the tremble in her voice betraying her nervousness. Placing a knee upon the pallet to brace herself, she grabbed hold of the shaft. She then heaved in a deep breath and yanked.
Draco’s hoarse shout of pain echoed through the infirmary.
Heart hammering in her ears, bile stinging in her throat, Gavina grabbed the second shaft and yanked it free.
Blood poured out of the wounds.
Elizabeth murmured an oath and rushed forward, placing a roll of cloth hard up against his back. “I need more bandages for the front of his chest,” she called out.
Aila rushed to fetch additional strips of linen
, handing them to Gavina, who shoved them against the twin arrow holes, staunching the heavy flow of blood.
Draco’s eyelids fluttered as he struggled to remain conscious. His coppery skin had gained a worrying pallor.
Gavina tensed. For an immortal, he appeared in a bad state.
She glanced up, meeting Elizabeth’s eye. From the look on her sister-by-marriage’s face, Elizabeth was thinking the same thing.
“It looks bad,” Heather spoke up then. “But if it’s any consolation, I’ve seen Maximus in a worse condition.”
Gavina wet her lips. Heather was right. She remembered Cassian leaning against that ancient oak, the knife blade embedded in his heart. Aye, she’d seen how these men could suffer and then be reborn. Even so, Draco was doing a convincing job of looking like a dying man.
“Come on,” Elizabeth said, straightening up and reaching for the fresh bandages that Aila now passed her. “Help me wrap his wounds.”
“We have to bring that ‘Battle Hammer’ down,” Cassian announced, his expression grimmer than Maximus had ever seen it. “If we don’t, it’ll breach the gates before nightfall.”
A chill settled in the pit of Maximus’s gut at his friend’s words. “You’re right. We need to focus our attention on the battering ram,” he replied, reloading his crossbow. “And if the bastards would just stop putting up ladders, we could.”
“Let me deal with them!” William Wallace bellowed from farther down the wall. He and Donnan De Keith now wielded iron-tipped spears, which they were using to stab at the English soldiers who tried to scale the top of the wall. Just one ladder remained now, but it had so many men climbing it that it was proving difficult to budge.
Jaw clenched, Maximus favored his leader with a nod, fired his crossbow into the surging mass of helmeted heads below, and ducked as another volley of arrows whistled overhead.
He then turned to the two lads behind him. “How much pitch do we have left?”
“Just one pot,” one of the youths panted. His face was red and sweaty, his eyes glassy with fear. He was one of the stable hands. By rights, the lad was too young to be up here—but they needed all the help they could get to bring missiles and weapons up to the wall.