The Battle Lord's Lady

by Linda Mooney

  They listened as the crashing sound got louder and closer. By the time it neared the tree, they could hear the grunts and squeals before the herd of wild boar emerged into the small clearing directly below them.

  “Okay, we have the weapon,” Atty told them. “Now we have to aim it.”

  Yulen raised an eyebrow at her.

  “That’s what’s wrong with men,” she told him with a playful smirk. “They think that the only weapon worth using is the one they can forge or hold in their hand. Trust me, Yulen, I promise to teach you all my tricks.”

  In the distance, they could hear another sound. This time it was more distinct.

  “Collaunt’s men,” MaGrath said what they were all thinking.

  “You’re going to set the wild pigs on them,” Yulen stated. “The boars will rip the men and horses apart with their tusks.”

  Atty nodded. “I wish there was another way, but it’s the only thing I can think of right now to clear us a path to the road.”

  “You said they were the weapon, and all you had to do was aim it. How are you going to do that?” Yulen asked.

  She gave him a look he couldn’t fathom as she reached inside the waistband of her pants and pulled out a bloodstained rag. Yulen started, recognizing it as the piece of material he’d used in the cell to clean the blood off of them after he’d taken her virginity. Silently he watched as she dug out the smooth rock from where she’d stuffed it down the inside of her boot, then tied the rag around it. MaGrath saw the rag but made no comment, not realizing its significance.

  As the soldiers drew closer, the wild pigs became more restless. They could smell the blood. It kept them excited and circling the trees. It was quickly evident the soldiers had no idea a herd of almost a dozen feral hogs were milling nearby.

  When men had approached close enough, Atty whispered, “The second the pigs go for them, drop and run in that direction.” She pointed over their shoulders. Both men nodded their understanding and prepared to jump.

  Hefting the bloody rag and rock, she sat up, placed two fingers in her mouth, and let out a piercing whistle. As she’d hoped, the soldiers spotted her, but the dense foliage prevented them from getting a good shot at her. That, however, was not a problem for Atty. Rearing back, she hurled the rock with precision, striking the nearest horse in the neck. The animal screamed and rose on its hind legs. The soldier riding it was thrown backwards, which, in turn, spooked the horses behind him, and they shied in fear.

  The pigs reacted to the noise and the scent of blood now coming from a different direction. It was only a matter of moments before they raced off to attack the intruders.

  As soon as the clearing was emptied, Yulen, MaGrath, and Atty dropped from the trees and dashed for the road as screams, squeals, and the yells of Collaunt’s men echoed in their ears.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Fault

  “Halt and identify!”

  Yulen stepped out of the forest to be immediately surrounded by a half-dozen armed men. Their diligence pleased him. “Stand down! Where’s my horse? Verris?”

  His men backed away, exclaiming in surprise to see him return. They were even more shocked when Atty followed him from out of the brush, with MaGrath behind her.

  “Yulen!” a cry came from the back of the line. The Battle Lord reacted to the voice, but there was no time for reunions.

  “Verris! Mastin! Karv!” Yulen called again as the reins to his horse were handed over to him. Deftly he swung into the saddle.

  “Yes, sir!” Mastin appeared, already mounted and ready to lead his platoon of archers.

  Glancing around, Yulen spotted Karv and Verris. Both men had their troops at ready, and they signaled their status.

  “What is Madigan doing here?” Yulen asked Mastin sharply. “Why didn’t she remain at the encampment?” His throat still hurt like the devil, but at least he had some volume back.

  “She insisted, sir,” his Second replied. “You know how she can be.”

  Yulen nodded. Nothing short of being tied to her chair could prevent his mother from following his troops if she chose. And there had been times in the past when he could remember his father doing just that prior to leaving on one of his crusades.

  Turning around, he finally caught sight of MaGrath with Atty. They were mounting their own horses. The physician was first to pull up next to him.

  “Stay with her,” Yulen ordered, knowing the man would have no doubt as to whom he meant.

  MaGrath gave a quick nod. “Want me to bandage that up first?” he indicated the rope burn.

  “No. I want my men to see it. Have them something to focus on.” He narrowed his eyes. “Give me something to remember him with,” he added softly.

  His attention was drawn back to the warrior woman who had joined them. “You’re staying here.” It was as direct an order as he could give her. When Atty opened her mouth to protest, he pinned her with his eyes. “I won’t risk you going back in there. Now it’s time for me to go in and clean up after. We won’t be long. Be waiting for me when I return. Liam, make sure my mother doesn’t embarrass herself while I’m gone.”

  MaGrath nodded again. Furtively, he grabbed Atty’s reins for good measure as they watched Yulen signal to his men to accompany him over the rise and down into the valley toward Bearinger.

  They followed the departing soldiers on their horses, stopping at the top of the rise so they could watch the men descend on the compound. MaGrath was barely aware of Madigan pulling up on the other side of Atty’s mount until the woman commented, “It shouldn’t take him too long to restore order down there.”

  Atty made no comment. She remained looking down in the valley, trying to catch a glimpse of red-gold hair. She had no weapon. She couldn’t protect him or fight for him even if she wanted. For the first time in her life she felt more naked and more helpless than she ever could imagine.

  “Before he went in to surrender, he told me he’d found you,” Madigan continued, as if she was unaware of Atty’s attempt to ignore her. The older woman bit her lower lip. “He told me what he’d done...to save you. He was...he told me he was...ashamed.”

  Atty finally turned her head to give her a questioning look. Madigan saw the confusion on the woman’s face.

  “I told him it wasn’t his fault. That he shouldn’t blame himself because the blame was also partially mine. At least most of it. Because of all the nasty things I’d said. My jealousy towards you. My hatred toward people like you that had been bred in me since childhood. I didn’t want him to marry you. I was determined never to see it happen. So when he came to me and told me...” She bit her lips again, and now Atty could see the tears filling the woman’s eyes.

  “He’ll have to face this for the rest of his life, how different his life will be because of you. You know that, don’t you? How difficult and different it’ll be, always having to defend you. Always having to bear the burden of explaining why he took you to be his wife. I’m just terrified, thinking that at some point...someday, someone else will come along and challenge him. Challenge you. Perhaps take you away again. And he’ll be forced to risk everything again for your sake.”

  “It’s as much my fault as his,” Atty told her softly, turning back to the scene below. “He nearly died because he wanted to save me. If I had not been Collaunt’s prisoner, none of this would have happened. You were trying to protect him as much as he was trying to protect me, Madigan. And you’re right earlier. I don’t belong here. I’m not of your people.”

  Taking a deep breath, Atty turned her horse around and began to lead it back toward the encampment. MaGrath reached out to snag her arm. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked the warrior woman. At the same time, he tossed a harsh look toward Madigan. “For God’s sake, Maddy.”

  “She’s of her own mind,” the older woman murmured.

  “Damn you, Maddy. I’ve had enough of this!” He looked at Atty. “Wait ‘til Yulen returns before you do anything.”

 
; Atty refused to meet his eyes. “I shouldn’t have come, Liam. I’m tired and I’m weak, and I...I just can’t...take any more of this. This is never going to end. All the hatred in the world for people like me. I kept trying to tell myself differently, that they’ll come to accept me, but Madigan’s right. Yulen deserves someone his people can look up to without fear or loathing. He deserves healthy sons, not little boys who might have an extra appendage or scales for skin. Don’t you see? If I stay, I will always be Mutah. The freak who can fire a bow. Yulen’s mutie conquest.”

  Before he could stop her, she slapped the reins over the horse’s neck and dug her heels into its ribs. The animal spurted forward, and MaGrath lost his grip on her sleeve. Without thinking, he rode over and grabbed the bridle on Madigan’s horse.

  “Liam, let go.”

  “Not until you go after her.”

  “Why? She’s made her choice.”

  “Only because you’ve pounded your righteous cause into her skull ever since she arrived. You’ve thrown every ounce of guilt on her shoulders, and why? Because you want a Normal for a daughter-in-law?” MaGrath gave a humorless laugh. “You are still so full of self-pity and loathing, I wonder now why I ever wanted to wait for you.”

  At his confession, Madigan blanched. “Wait for me?”

  “Yeah, wait for you. Wait for you to realize Rory was dead, and ghosts make for pretty poor lovers at night. Unless you’ve come to enjoy not having any more laughter and warmth in your life. I’ve loved you ever since we three were children playing tag in the courtyard. I’ve loved you even after I found out you’d married Rory. I’ve loved you through all these years, and I’ve loved Yulen as if he’d been our son. After Rory was killed, I was there to comfort you, but I held back and prayed that maybe, maybe, you’d wake up one day and take off that damn black veil you wear inside around your heart, and see that I’m still here...waiting for you.”

  He looked down the road where he could no longer make out Atty’s figure. A tightness hitched in his throat, threatening to cut off his breath.

  “My hatred for mutants was as great as anyone’s, or so I believed until I met Atty. That’s what hurts the most, I think. That you never took a single minute to sit and listen to her. That you never watched her and Yulen together, and never saw that incredible power that binds them. I can’t even call it love because it’s like the two of them together is greater than the two of them apart. Well, I saw it. I saw the change that came over Yulen. I saw that black, bitter hole that he had dug after his father’s death nearly swallow him, and I watched Atty fill it with her smile and her sass and her naiveté and her sincerity. And her love for your son. And I watched Yulen heal and change because of her. Think back, Madigan. Think of the way Yulen was before we left on that last crusade. Now think of these past few days and tell me...I dare you to tell me Atty’s not responsible for any of it.”

  Madigan tried to take a deep breath, but it turned ragged and threatened to choke her. “What will Yulen do when he finds her gone of her own choosing? That she’s given up?”

  MaGrath pulled away from her, unable to stop his own rising grief. “I think you already know the answer to that question. So now I’m going to ask you...what are you more willing to live with, Madigan? Can you spend the rest of your life without your son? Or can you accept a woman with morning glory hair, who gives him countless joy, who fills his days with sunlight and his nights with passion, and who is willing to sacrifice her own life for his?”

  He watched as the woman stared down the road for several long moments. “Where do you think she is, Liam?” she finally whispered.

  “I don’t know. But don’t you think you need to go look for her before Yulen gets back?”

  She looked at him, wiping her face with the sleeve of her gown. “Liam, if I find her and bring her back, will you do something for me?” she begged, her voice soft from her tears.

  “What is it?”

  “Will you...still be waiting for me?”

  MaGrath heard the pounding of his heart echo in his ears. “Bring her back, Maddy, and I’ll never deny you anything.”

  Madigan kicked her horse, urging it into a gallop, and headed down the road. MaGrath watched until she’d gone over the rise, then turned around to look back down the valley. If Madigan was successful, it would be a miracle. But after a day like today, he could no longer refute the possibility of miracles.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Forgiveness

  Madigan prayed under her breath as she galloped into the encampment. Her eyes raked the empty places where the men would begin their fires tonight and settle their bedrolls. When she caught the flash of a bay-colored rump backing up from a behind a tree, she nearly cried with relief.

  She pulled up her horse and slid out of the saddle, running toward the horse and looking to see where the woman had gone. All the while she continued to pray she hadn’t been too late.

  Behind one setup she thought she spied a deep blue color. She went after it, afraid to call out for fear the woman would bolt if she knew she was being pursued.

  It was the sound of soft sobbing that finally led her to a small tumble of large rocks that edged the small stream flowing through the camp. Quietly, Madigan followed the sound, stepping around the rocks until she saw the warrior woman bent over the stream. She knew immediately what Atty was doing, having spent many days and nights herself placing cold compresses over tear-swollen eyes.

  She remained silent, watching until Atty managed to get to her feet and tried to calm herself. The warrior woman reached into the waistband of her pants and pulled out what Madigan saw was a small arrow. The point was covered with blood. A shiver went through the older woman as she watched Atty drop it by the stream.

  “I know you’re behind me,” Atty whispered raggedly. “What is it now? What do you have to tell me you haven’t already made perfectly clear?” Her shoulders shook as her black sorrow overcame her again, and Atty covered her face with her hands. Suddenly she turned and started to run back to her horse. Madigan cried out and tried to follow her.

  “Atrilan, no!”

  Atty’s reaction was immediate. She whirled on the woman with her misery etched in every line on her face. “Don’t...you...ever... call me that again!” she almost screamed.

  “It’s what I’ve heard Yulen call you,” Madigan tried to explain, but Atty would no longer listen to any of the venom and bile the older woman had to spew.

  “Yulen calls me that when we’re alone. When he’s loving me. When he’s...” Her emotions betrayed her again, and Atty stumbled against the bole of large cottonwood. Slowly she slid to her knees, unable to run any further as sobs racked her body. Unable to escape into the sheltering forest where they’d never find her unless she wished it. Unable to face another day without the one person who meant more to her than life, but who she would never be allowed to love as long as one other person stood in their way.

  “Atty, I came to beg your forgiveness!” Madigan called out. “Forgive me! I...I lost the man who was my life to a Mutah army. And I think, all this time, I’ve been forcing you to bear the blame for his death.”

  She moved closer and got down on her knees, ignoring the wet ground and the mud staining her gown to reach out toward the woman huddled in a small ball, her arms clasped around her legs.

  “If you go, I will lose the last two people in my life who mean everything to me. So I’m begging you...I’m pleading with you...don’t go. Give me another chance. Please. Give me the chance to try and accept you. Yulen...Yulen is part of me and all I have left of Rory. Liam says Rory would approve of you. And there is no way I can deny the fact that you’ve become Yulen’s whole life. Please, please, Atty. Stay. Yulen’s men have accepted you. You can see it in their faces. And Liam...Liam fights for you as fiercely as he did for Rory. Atty...Atty, please. One last chance. Please.”

  She reached toward the warrior woman and slowly held out a hand to touch her. As Atty remained withdrawn in her misery,
Madigan’s fingers brushed the dark blue sheen of hair falling over the woman’s back and sides. She felt its warmth and silkiness, and it surprised her. Unable to help herself, Madigan let her hand drift in the soft waves. She lifted a lock to her nose where she caught the faint scent of mint in it.

  Fresh tears flowed over her cheeks. Her breath caught in her chest. Yulen loved the smell of mint. He had the servants make his soap with it. Soap this woman had used four nights ago before walking into his arms and his bed. Before she was kidnapped by Collaunt’s man and taken away. Before Yulen had been forced to sneak into Bearinger, into its lower dungeons, so he could take her virginity and save her life.

  Now that she looked for them, it wasn’t hard to see the traces of blood on the pants Atty still wore. Madigan remembered the night she’d forever left behind her girlhood with the man who later gave her a son. For her it had been a night of love and soaring passion, in a bed filled with red tulip petals.

  Not a cold and filthy dungeon, without the time to love, to prepare, or even the chance to savor what should have come afterward.

  But Atty had accepted it, without complaint, without sorrow or regret, because she loved Yulen. Because of her fate in life to have been born different, she would accept anything he could give her, and always would.

  Would any other woman give as much?

  “Oh, God, what have I done?” she whispered to herself. Without being aware of what she was doing, Madigan leaned over and put her arms around Atty’s shoulders, and buried her face in the dark, morning glory hair. She held her that way for a long time, until she felt Atty begin to pull away. Glancing up, she saw that the warrior woman would not look at her as she got to her feet.

  “Atty...listen to me. Please. Just give me this one last request.”

  To her relief, Atty paused, her back still turned to her.

  “Yulen will be back soon. I...I have my tent erected on the other side of the stream. I want you to go there and clean up. You’ve been through so much, and I have been a fool. I’ll have a pan of warm water brought to you so you can clean up before he gets back. Atty, please,” she said softly, slowly. “Have your first night together. Make my Yulen happy. Give him joy. Let him give you your joy.”