Conor held up his hands for attention and pitched his voice low. Now that the tunnel was open to the catacombs, they had to be especially careful not to be discovered. “I don’t know what you saw or what you just experienced. I know that it was likely different for each one of you. But it was not real. The sidhe are trying to keep us from accomplishing our mission.”
The dazed expressions were fading from their faces, a sign that they were shaking off the glamours’ influence at last. He hoped that meant the others’ experiences had been less dramatic than his. It would be a struggle to force enough strength into his still-trembling hands to hold a sword. As it was, he’d barely been able to make his fingers move on the harp strings.
“What are your orders?” Larkin asked.
Comdiu bless him. These were men who were used to following orders. Clear direction would give them enough structure to shake off the illusion. “Bar the front entrance. No one goes in or out. Secure each room of the keep from the bottom up. Anyone who resists dies. Anyone who surrenders loses his weapons. We don’t have many men to accomplish this, and we don’t know if Daigh’s men even reached the tunnel.”
He should have thought to ask Aine, but his mind was still working at reduced capacity. He could only trust that Comdiu would be with them.
To his relief, the other eleven men seemed to come back to themselves more quickly than he had, sorting themselves into order and checking weapons. Maybe the harp’s music had helped eradicate the memory of their mental captivity, whereas he’d not had that advantage. Recollections of torture still lurked around the edges of his mind like shadows seen from the corner of his eye.
“You ready?” he asked. “This only works if we’re alert. No mistakes. If you think you haven’t recovered, speak now. You can stay behind. After what you saw, there’s no shame in needing time to pull yourself together.”
They exchanged glances, but no one volunteered. Conor hoped they were showing wisdom and not bravado. “No? Then let’s go.”
Conor climbed through the opening first, sword at the ready, but the center chamber of the catacombs was deserted. As the others climbed through behind him, he stayed alert for the sounds of onrushing footsteps, the shadows from the connected tunnels that would indicate they had been discovered. Yet there was nothing but the sound of their own breathing and the faint scuff of their shoes against the stone floor. A quick inspection revealed a steep flight of stairs leading upward.
He gestured for them to follow and quickly climbed the stairs, pausing at the top before pushing the heavy wooden door open. Had no one heard the harp and been curious about its origin? He had been sure they would already be facing down dozens of men, but the corridor was as still and quiet as the catacombs below. Slowly, he moved into the great hall.
It was empty.
Conor lowered his sword. “I don’t understand.”
“Maybe they’re elsewhere?” Larkin’s expression was equally confused.
“All the corridors lead into the hall. If anyone heard us, they’d be here already. Blair, Ferus, stay here on guard. Bar the front doors. Men, the rest of this level now.”
They spread out down the two corridors, dividing themselves evenly. As Conor passed the doorway to the catacombs again, it creaked open. He pressed himself against the wall, sword at the ready. The soft shuffle of feet on stone heightened every sense as he prepared to strike.
And then he let out his held breath. “You made it.”
The other Fíréin party flooded the corridor, and he automatically counted each man as they entered. He frowned when he came up one short. “Where’s Daigh?”
Ailill, a stocky young man with quick dark eyes, stepped forward. “He didn’t make it. He’s still below in the tunnels.”
“What do you mean he didn’t make it?”
“He didn’t come out of . . . whatever that was . . . at the sound of the harp.” Ailill cleared his throat. “He was already dead.”
Guilt and sorrow crushed down on Conor. He had been too late. He just as swiftly pushed the emotion away. They had no time for sentiment. “My men are checking this floor. Secure the upper level. Those who surrender, take prisoner. Kill the rest.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And be cautious. We haven’t encountered anyone yet, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t be making an ambush.”
“Aye, sir.”
Conor gave a nod and they moved toward the stairway that led to the next floor up. Uneasiness washed over him. This was all too easy. They’d been expecting a fight, and instead all they found were empty rooms?
Yet in chamber after chamber, the only things Conor found were the remnants of personal belongings and weapons. “I don’t understand this,” Conor murmured to Larkin, who had accompanied him with two other men. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
Ailill’s group met them back in the great hall several minutes later, looking as baffled as Conor felt. “It’s empty,” Ailill said. “There’s no one here.”
“Why set the sidhe on us if there’s nothing to protect?” Larkin asked.
But Conor knew. The sidhe depended on human passions to sustain them and their strength. Starved for pain and fear on which to feed, they’d simply taken the opportunity that Conor and his group presented.
“My bigger question is where are the men? Ailill, Larkin, Seanán, and Tomey with me. The rest of you, secure the entrances. Check every last nook and bolt-hole to make sure we haven’t missed anything. We’re going to check the catacombs.”
Ailill looked doubtful, but he followed Conor down the stairs without question. When they emerged into the heart of the catacombs, he took the torch he’d left burning and lit the others scattered around the space.
Five tunnels branched off from the main space, including the two they had broken through with the runes. That left three unexplored. Conor nodded toward the one from which he’d seen light coming, a sure sign of human presence. The sidhe hardly needed torches. He lifted a finger to his lips and gestured for the men to follow him.
Their footsteps crunched on a scattering of gravel over the hard stone floor as they entered the tunnel. The foul smell grew steadily stronger as they proceeded. It was the stench of living men, not dead. Did that mean that prisoners might still remain?
Just as Morrigan had described, the cells were tiny holes in the rock, barred by metal grates. He held the torch out to illuminate the interiors, looking for signs of life.
The prisoners might not have been dead before, but they were now.
Dirty hands curled around the bars, faces frozen in terror and agony as if they had died mid-scream. Some of the men had bloody gashes where they had thrown themselves against the bars in an effort to get out. This must have been the source of the screaming he heard when he had played the shield around the fortress. They had been ensorcelled.
Conor pushed aside the knowledge that he was responsible for these gruesome deaths and signaled the men to follow him past the cells. The tunnel widened slightly into an alcove housing a table and two stools—a guard station. The smell of recently burned pitch still hung in the air. He touched the torch set into the bracket in the wall. Still warm. He signaled a warning to keep alert for resistance. And then he stopped short.
Sweat broke out on his forehead as he saw the small room that lay ahead. He nudged the door open with his foot. His fingers trembled around the grip of his sword.
The storeroom where he had been tortured. He’d somehow hoped the sidhe had fabricated their illusion from nothing, but now he saw they had rendered every detail faithfully. Boxes and crates packed the perimeter of the room, leaving just enough space for the trestle table to which he had been tied—or, rather, not tied. Bloodstains darkened the wood and the stones below. It may not have happened to him, but it had happened to someone else.
He backed out of the room so fast he nearly knocked Larkin over. “Keep looking. Go.”
Larkin gave him a concerned look, but he led the party onward. Conor hu
ng back to mop the sweat from his face and wrestle his breathing back under control.
It never happened. It was all in your mind. Pull yourself together.
Conor flexed his fingers around the soaked leather wrapping of his sword and forced himself forward, just as Larkin pushed open a second door. The warrior stumbled back with a cry, holding his sleeve over his nose and mouth.
“Dear Comdiu, what happened here?”
Conor pushed his way to the front of the group out of obligation, not curiosity. The stench hit him first, the horror of the sight soon afterward. He closed his nose and squeezed his eyes shut as he pulled the door closed again. Too late. He barely made it to the side of the corridor before he emptied his stomach on the stones. From the sounds around him, he wasn’t the only one.
“That explains where the inhabitants of the fortress went,” he said, wiping his mouth.
“Why did we not smell them before now?” Ailill asked.
“The druid must have sealed the room with some sort of magic,” Conor said. That many bodies, rotting without proper preparation or burial, should have filled the fortress with a stench that would have been noticed for miles. With the seal broken, they’d have to deal with the bodies quickly. No doubt Niall had meant them to serve a double threat, considering they had most likely been ensorcelled. The wards had at least mitigated that danger. As they’d learned from the siege on the city, the magic didn’t die with its victims.
Faint sounds drifted from elsewhere in the tunnels. He held up his hand for silence and listened. Probably just the scurrying of a rat. But a rat didn’t explain the light they had seen earlier or the fact that some of the prisoners had been alive just hours ago. That suggested a caretaker, one they had not found. Yet there were no other doors in this corridor, and they reached the dead end without seeing any sign of life.
The second corridor yielded nothing more than more storerooms, thankfully only containing a scattering of crates, some old weaponry, and battered furniture. Thorough examinations of the spaces revealed no one. The third and final corridor, however, yielded much more interesting results: a series of tiny rooms packed with six narrow cots.
“Soldiers’ quarters,” Conor said. “Cheery place to bunk.”
“Better than next to dungeons,” Tomey said.
None of these rooms looked as if they had been occupied for some time. Conor ran a hand across a table and held up dust-covered fingers. “Either they’re far stealthier than we think or there’s no one here.” He realized he should have posted a guard at the near end of the corridors to ensure that no one could slip into one of the areas they’d already checked. A stupid, novice mistake. Maybe his experience really had rattled him more than he’d thought.
“Ailill, Tomey, stay here in the central chamber. Raise the alert should you see or hear anything suspicious.”
Neither of them looked pleased with the assignment, but they were too well disciplined to say anything other than “Aye, sir.”
Conor leaned against the wall of the main chamber and pressed his fingertips to his temples. So far none of this had gone how he’d planned. There were no guards at the fortress, though the bodies appeared to match the numbers Morrigan had revealed. There were less than a dozen men in the dungeons. So where was Meallachán?
“I want to check the cells again,” Conor said, indicating he wanted Larkin to accompany him.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? If they’re ensorcelled . . .”
“The wards will have driven any sorcery out.” He strode back down the corridor, his sword in hand, though at this point he didn’t truly expect to encounter any resistance. He breathed through his mouth to avoid vomiting again while he looked through the bars of the cells. The expressions on the faces of these men would give him nightmares for weeks. Still, he checked each cell as thoroughly as he could, peering into their dark recesses.
Then he reached the last one, and his fears were confirmed. Meallachán.
The old man was dressed in only a shift over his dirty body, sprawled against the wall in a space not even large enough to stretch out in. His eyes were closed, his face peaceful as if sleeping, though dried blood and the uneven jut of his fingers suggested torture as well. At least it didn’t appear he’d been ensorcelled. But that just raised the question of how he had died. A closer look gave Conor his answer: the freshly bloodstained shift said he’d been put to the sword. Recently.
A chill shuddered through Conor’s body. He’d been killed when they breached the catacombs. That meant there was at least one man at large here.
“See if you can find the keys,” he said when Larkin walked up behind him. Some prickle of danger, a sense of self-preservation, made him spin just in time to raise his weapon against an incoming thrust. Not Larkin. His attacker was bulky, blond, and well fed. His clear, determined expression didn’t suggest the influence of sorcery.
Before Conor could even think of mounting a defense, the man crumpled to the ground. Conor blinked until he comprehended Larkin’s holding his sheathed sword like a club. He looked down at the motionless attacker. “I figured he’d be more useful to us alive. I didn’t kill him, did I?”
Conor knelt to check the attacker’s pulse and found it strong. “He’s alive. For now.” He frowned and pulled aside the man’s shirt. A pink scar lay there. The shield rune. And somehow, he knew. “I presume this is Somhairle. Help me move him.”
“To where?”
“To the storeroom. Somehow I have a feeling he’ll be familiar with it.”
Larkin looked confused, but he didn’t question Conor, merely helped him hoist the man and drag him down to the room from his illusion. Conor jerked his head toward the table. “Help me lift him.”
For the first time, there was a spark of disquiet in Larkin’s eyes. He stayed rooted in place.
Conor shot him a stern look. “On the table. That’s an order.”
Doubt written all over his face, Larkin complied and then backed to the door. “What are you planning on doing?”
Conor lashed the man to the table with several lengths of bloodstained rope. “Right now? Nothing. When he wakes up? I have some questions to ask.”
Larkin recoiled and Conor didn’t bother to explain his thinking. He expected he would have to do little other than invoke the memories of everything Somhairle had witnessed, perhaps assisted in. At least he hoped so. But what did it say about him that Larkin thought he was capable of torture?
And what will you do if Somhairle doesn’t tell you what you want to know?
He squared his shoulders and stuffed a rag into the prisoner’s mouth. He wouldn’t need to answer that question. Somhairle was a mercenary. He would do whatever it took to save his own skin.
Conor just prayed that the man’s sense of self-preservation was better than his ambush skills.
Conor posted a guard on the storeroom while he and Larkin went upstairs to explain the situation to the other men. “I’m questioning one man downstairs. Keep your eyes and ears open in case there are more. In old fortresses like this, it’s nearly impossible to check every secret passageway and room. We’ll post guards on each opening of the tunnel as well while we wait for reinforcements from Ard Dhaimhin.”
“And Meallachán?” asked Cairell, one of Daigh’s men.
“Dead.”
“So this whole mission was a failure,” Ferus said, his disappointment reflecting that of the men around them.
“Not a failure. Once we secure this fortress for Ard Dhaimhin, it will be an excellent strategic outpost for us. For now, everyone is on guard. We’ll set up watches as soon as the sun comes up. But for now, stay where you are. Anyone who isn’t one of us is to be captured. If you must, kill before you let anyone escape.”
“Aye, sir.”
Satisfied that they knew their job, Conor returned to the catacombs. Larkin rushed to catch up with him. “I’m coming with you.”
“Are you my conscience now?”
“Someone needs to b
e.”
Conor rounded on him. “Let me make one thing clear to you, Larkin. I am in command here. What I choose to do for the safety of our party and the success of this mission is my business. If you interfere, you’ll be watching a hole at the end of the tunnel for the next two weeks. Do you understand me?”
Larkin shrank back a little, as Conor expected. “With all due respect, sir, I’ll do what my conscience demands.”
“As will I. Now come and keep your mouth shut.” He made his voice hard, but inwardly Conor was proud of the young man for standing his ground. Principled, if more than a little naive. He had saved Conor’s life, though.
Conor moved brusquely into the room where Somhairle was still tied to the table. The tension in the ropes that bound his wrists said he was awake and trying not to show it. “Remember what I said,” he told Larkin. “Keep out of my way. If you’re going to stay, you’re going to help. Wake him up.”
Larkin just lifted an eyebrow.
Conor sighed. Nuance apparently wasn’t Larkin’s strong suit either.
“Fine,” he said. “If you won’t help, you can clean up when I’m done. Blood draws rats, and we can’t afford vermin in our supplies.”
Larkin looked sufficiently horrified, but Conor was gratified to see movement beneath the prisoner’s closed lids and a slight increase in his breathing. Good. He was afraid.
Conor didn’t give him long to contemplate his situation before he struck him soundly across the face. Somhairle jerked and his eyes opened, but he didn’t cry out. Conor leaned over and smiled. “Hello.”
The man’s eyes wavered between Conor and Larkin, then settled on Conor again.
“You should know I don’t particularly enjoy torture. I tend to believe that men who inflict pain on others for their own pleasure are the smallest kind of human beings. That said, I’ve been on the receiving end one too many times to not see its usefulness.”
Confusion showed on the man’s face. That worked in Conor’s favor. He continued in a neutral tone, “I already know you are Somhairle, the commander of this fortress—that is, when there was still something to command.”
The Sword and the Song Page 16