Too many. Fifty? She watched in growing horror as the hoard moved relentlessly toward the compound, the torches shining brighter, making the shadows in the flanking forest dance and leap as if the woods were alive.
How could so many have stayed hidden? How was this even possible?
She turned and shouted down to Archie, “Make sure the sides and the back stay put. They’ll probably try to swarm us.”
He nodded. “How many?”
“At least twice our number. Maybe more.”
Archie spoke to one of the runners. Sarah saw the woman nod, then dash away. Sarah aimed her rifle until she found Cormac.
Head of the snake, baby, she thought as she watched him through her scope.
“Once you see the head guy fall,” Sarah said to the women next to her on the catwalk, “just go for as many as you can. Remember to focus. You’ve got plenty of time. Wait for my signal.”
Sarah watched the druids stop fifty yards away. Cormac was in front wearing some ridiculous outfit with feathers on his head. He appeared to be dressed in animal skins, too. He had a heavy wooden staff in one hand. There were at least two dozen men with him, each holding rifles but not yet aiming them. The compound floodlights flashed back and forth over them.
“Here’s your chance to back off and not die today,” Sarah called out in a strong voice.
“I thought we could talk,” Cormac said. “I believe I have something you want.”
“He means our men,” Fiona said excitedly. “The baby! Maybe they’ll trade!”
Ellen’s gun sagged as she turned to Sarah. “He’s got Regan, please God, let us hear him out,” she said, pleadingly.
I knew I should never have let the bastard speak.
Nuala and Brigit stood firm, their rifles unwavering.
“What would that be?” Sarah called down to him.
“First, I’ll be asking you not to point your guns at us. Sure, that’s not too much to ask?”
Sarah cocked her rifle and fired twenty yards into the dirt in front of Cormac. He jumped and dropped his staff but didn’t retreat.
“Answer my question,” she said. Already she could hear the voices of the other women along the catwalk. If there was any chance of seeing their men again they clearly wanted that chance.
“They live still,” Cormac said. “Most of them.”
“Do they live in the sense that I’m living? Or do they live like the rocks and the grass live? Because it makes a big difference. I’m not bargaining for dead men.”
“They live. I assure you.”
“Screw your assurances. Show me.”
The light was growing stronger with the coming morning, Sarah could see the crowd, although not as large as she’d originally thought, was still big. But no women. They must still be back at the druid camp. Cormac spoke quietly to the man standing next to him and he turned and dove into the crowd.
“I will show you,” Cormac said, raising his staff again. “And it will honor Tyr and Freyja to do so. The very trees and the bushes will rejoice.”
God, maybe I should just shoot him? Sarah wiped her hands on her jeans and put Cormac back in her rifle scope sights again.
“Sarah,” Fiona said. “We need to listen to him.”
“Shut up, Fi,” Sarah said between gritted teeth.
“Here’s what you will do for me,” Cormac said as Sarah watched the crowd move behind him as if making way for someone. “For the assurance I give you that you will not die this day, you will preside over the sacrificial offering of your husband.”
Sarah clutched her gun as Mike was pushed to the front of the crowd. His hands were tied behind his back.
A semi-automatic pistol to his head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“So what do you say you, Missus? A man’s life to save the entire of New Dublin?” Cormac waved his staff to indicate the five women standing at the top of the gate wall with their guns trained down on him.
He was alive. That’s all that mattered. Sarah knew she was gripping her rifle to keep from shaking and to keep from shooting Cormac. Would that provoke the man holding the gun to Mike’s head to kill him?
Thank God, he’s alive. He looked tired and filthy. Sarah could see a line of blood down the side of Mike’s face but there was no way of knowing how recent the wound was or how bad. He was on his feet. And he was alive.
She didn’t have to see Ellen and Fiona turn toward her to know they’d bought into the bargain. And she didn’t have long to make up her mind.
“Fine!” she called down. “One life for the compound. And we have your word, Cormac?”
Mike’s face never changed expression while his life was bartered and then flung away in the space of seconds by the woman he loved. Not an eyelash flicker or a muscle flinch to indicate the full weight of the betrayal. Maybe he thought he deserved it?
“Aye,” Cormac said, patting Mike on the shoulder as if he were a prize bull. “Open the gate and let us in.”
“I will,” Sarah said, “only wouldn’t that be a desecration to the gods? I mean, New Dublin is an abomination, right?”
Cormac frowned and glanced at his men who were looking at him.
“Come to us then,” he said.
“I’ll be right down.”
“Sarah, no!” Mike called out in a cracked voice. It was the sound of a plea and an order that ripped her heart out of her chest to hear it. She looked in time to see the man beside him smash Mike across the face with the butt of his gun.
*****
Sarah froze on the catwalk and put her hand on Fiona’s arm. Two men dragged Mike back onto his feet and the fact that he could stand reassured her.
“We’re waiting, Sarah,” Cormac called up to her. The druids began snuffing out their torches and holding their rifles against their chests as if ready to open fire.
“I need a few minutes,” Sarah said. “It takes time to get the gate up.”
“You have a quarter of an hour.”
Sarah turned to Ellen, Nuala and Brigit.
“You three stay here,” she said. “And whatever happens, just use your own best judgment.”
“If we open fire, they’ll kill you,” Brigit said.
“Probably. But if it comes to that, you know to shoot Cormac first, right? He probably has a next-in-command dying to take his place but you never know. It might end things.” She nodded to Fiona and together they climbed down the ladder. Archie met them on the ground, his face a contortion of anguish.
“Lass, you can’t do this,” he said. “You can’t go out there.”
Sarah took Fiona’s rifle and handed it to Archie.
“Archie, give her your handgun,” Sarah said. “Have you got another? Give her that one, too. Fi, you know what to do? You know where their camp is. If you don’t see anyone at first it doesn’t mean they’re not there so look.”
Fiona nodded as Archie handed her a gun holster with a gun in it and tucked a second semiautomatic in her waistband beneath her jacket. As Fiona buckled on the holster, he knelt and adjusted a loose strap on her boot, then stood and without a word walked away.
“Remember, it’s not about keeping safe now, right?” Sarah said, her hand on Fiona’s shoulder. “Go get your girl.” Fiona and Sarah hugged fiercely. “I love you, Fi.”
“I love you too, Sarah.”
Sarah pulled back. “It’s at least two miles. You know where Tommy tied the horse out back, right? You’ll have to run him the whole way.”
“What if the horse isn’t there?”
“Then go on foot.”
“Do you think Declan’s there?”
“You can’t think of that now. Remember what I said? We need to do the last thing they’d expect. Now, go.”
Fiona headed to the south wall to find the nearly invisible fissure they’d created in it that morning. Before she was out of sight, she ran to Archie and spoke to him briefly, then turned and disappeared. He looked back toward Sarah his face flushed and wet with tears.
Son of a bitch! Was that really necessary, Fi?
Sarah started for the first tower where she’d be able to slip over the top and climb down on the outside ladder without being seen. And without opening the front gate. She glanced at the women on the catwalk lining the interior. Every one of them was facing outward.
Archie came to her. “Do ye have everything you need, lass?” He wiped his eyes.
“What did she say to you?”
“It’s nothing. Nothing a-tall.”
“It didn’t look like nothing,” Sarah said, patting her sleeves and jacket pockets as if she’d lost something. “Tell me in case I have to throttle her when I see her again.”
“That’ll not be necessary, Sarah,” Archie said. “She just said she didn’t want to leave without telling me…she forgives me.” Archie choked up and Sarah put her arms around him and hugged him.
Good on ya, Fi.
*****
Fiona led the big gelding out of the woods behind the compound before she mounted. It was full light now and she could hear the sounds of the druid soldiers in front of the compound walls. For the first time since Ciara was taken, Fiona felt alive. Her blood pumped loudly in her ears as she gripped the reins and put her heels to the horse’s flanks.
It had been too long since any of the horses had been ridden and he was ready to run. Fiona would have to go the long way around the woods up by the pastures in order to avoid the druids, but the way was clear after that with little to impede a full-on gallop through the cropped weeds and tractor paths.
Finally! She was going to get Ciara back! She rode down the first hill slick with dew and felt the horse slip and then skitter to try to regain his footing. She tightened the reins to give him something to lean on until he recovered then let the reins snake out of her fingers so he could have his head.
However you want to do it, lad, she thought as she crouched low in the saddle with the sight of the rushing pasture in front of her between his ears, as long as it’s fast.
Ten minutes later she was on the main road, the compound well behind her. She let the horse open up into a gallop. With the sound of his pounding hooves reverberating in her ears, Fiona felt the power of her mission, and her love for Ciara spurring him on faster and faster.
When she came to Seamus’s pasture she slowed him to a trot and then stopped. She swung down and led him off the main road. Even she, the poorest tracker in the compound, could see the many footprints the druids had left behind as they emerged here from the woods to advance on the compound.
This is where they came out. Sarah’s directions were to go to the site of the mass grave and then go deeper into the woods, bearing north. The trees were thick here but Fiona knew she’d make faster time—and quieter—if she left her horse behind. She flung his reins over his head and loosened his girth. Hopefully he wouldn’t wander far.
The massacre site had been turned into twenty small mounds with crosses on them. Fiona thought of Declan and his men digging and filling each of these graves and her heart ached.
Please let me find them alive.
She walked quickly between the graves until she reached the other side of them where she nearly stumbled into the clearing with the arrangement of stones. Tucked to the side and half hidden was the altar. Fiona’s legs began to tremble when she saw the rust-colored stains on the stone. And she started to run.
Within minutes, she heard them. Women’s voices. Fiona crouched on the outskirts of the clearing until she could get her bearings. Fifteen women sat around one side of a campfire in a clearing about twenty yards wide. The fire was nearly out but there was a pot sitting on the embers. Fiona spotted Margaret at once, sandwiched between two other women. Four small children sat at their feet playing in the dirt. She strained to see if one of the children was Ciara and her heart sank. No. She glanced at the seated group. Nobody was armed that Fiona could see.
Across the clearing, Fiona saw a group of wooden cages. People were inside them. Her heartbeat quickened. She debated pulling a gun on the women and forcing them to take her to Ciara but decided it would be better to find her, herself, if possible.
Carefully, quietly, she walked around the clearing keeping to the woods as much as possible. When she reached the furthest side of the clearing from where the women were, she saw the cages were set in a half circle around the campfire—four in front and three behind those.
Seven was not a good number. Not for the total number of men who went out searching. Minus one for Roddy, that still left two unaccounted for. Forcing herself not to panic, Fiona crept to the back of the last crate. The body inside was still. Fiona crept on her knees, feeling the mud from the last rain saturate her jeans, and sharp sticks stab into her hands. Hearing her approach, the body came alive with a jerk.
Fiona stared into the startled face of Declan’s sister’s husband, Chal. The man jumped into a crouch.
“Dec!” Chal whispered hoarsely. “Dec! It’s Fiona!”
Declan!
Fiona grabbed the bars of Chal’s cage. “Where is he?” she asked.
“Fi?”
The sound of his voice triggered a sudden surge of joy in Fiona. Before she could respond, she heard, “Mummy?”
Fiona wrenched herself away from Chal’s cage and ran to the sides of each of the other ones, watching as the men inside came alive—some had more than one inside—until she reached the cage in front. She sank to her knees and gave a low moan. Declan, filthy, bearded, wild-eyed, knelt in the cage and in his arms was Ciara, her blue eyes sparkling, her arms reaching outward.
“Mummy! Mummy!” Ciara tried to leap for her but Declan held her firmly. “Mummy!” the child screamed. Fiona grasped the baby’s hand and felt Declan’s on top of hers.
“The lock is on top,” Declan said.
“Behind you, Missus!” one of the gypsy men yelled. Fiona pushed herself to her feet, pulling her gun and swiveling around to face four women, including Margaret, standing before her. One of the women pointed a rifle at her.
“Sure, this is a surprise,” Margaret said. “I honestly didn’t think you’d care enough. Put the gun down, lass. Cormac will want ye alive. If possible. Move away from the prisoners now—unless you’d care to risk the baby accidentally shot?”
“Mummy! Mummy!” Ciara shrieked as Fiona moved away from the cage.
“How about if I just shoot your ass instead?” Fiona said. “Turn you into worm fodder for the gods?”
“Nobody needs to be shooting anyone,” Margaret said. “Especially now that you’re here. We’ve had the devil’s own time keeping the baby quiet, haven’t we?” Margaret turned to the other women who stared coldly at Fiona.
“Please, lass,” Margaret said, “by all means, take the child. She wants you to. Dagda knows, we want you to.”
Margaret smiled and Fiona remembered all the times she’d seen that smile—Margaret laughing at something Siobhan said. Margaret bringing over scones when Ciara was born. Margaret minding the little ones so their parents could work.
That evil, heinous smile.
“Don’t listen to the lying bitch, Fi,” Declan growled from the cage. “She’s naught but a murdering harpy.”
“Such language,” Margaret said. “But perhaps this will help make up your mind.” She held up a large knife and she wasn’t smiling any more.
“You know what they say about bringing a knife to a gunfight, Margaret?” Fiona said, her stomach churning, her muscles tensed.
“I do, lass. I used to love watching the old American westerns when I had cable. Such exciting stories. No, this knife is for you for afterward. But if you put the gun down I’ll let you hold her one last time.”
“Why don’t I just shoot Annie Oakley here and hold her as much as I want?”
Startled by her words, the woman with the gun let the barrel drop. “We’re not murderers,” she said plaintively.
“Stupid shite!” Margaret snarled at the woman and grabbed the gun. Fiona fired into the g
round in front of Margaret who dropped her rifle onto the grass. It was still too close, Fiona thought. If that crazy Margaret lunged for it…
When Fiona saw Margaret’s eyes dart to something in the woods behind her, Fiona started to move away. But she wasn’t fast enough. The cold hard feel of a rifle barrel jabbed into the small of her back and made her freeze. Before she could think what to do next, she felt her jacket lift as her hidden handgun was snatched out of her waistband.
“Drop your gun, Fiona,” Margaret said. “You’ve done your best, lass, and now it’s done.”
“Fi? What’s happening?” Declan asked desperately. His view of Fiona was blocked from his cage.
“Do it, lass,” Margaret said, as she picked up the rifle in front of her. “Or your husband is the first one I kill. And the bairn the second.”
Fiona let her gun fall to the ground. Then turned slowly to see Regan standing behind her, pointing her own gun at her.
“Not so stupid now, am I?” the girl said with a sneer.
*****
Surely to God she wasn’t going to open that front gate? Mike thought. Sarah was smart—she’d surely know it was murder if she opened the gate. Mike stood, held up by the two men next to him. He was seeing everything double and his head clanged like a deranged vespers bell.
Just seeing her again, hearing her voice, gave him strength. It filled him with hope that they would see each other again, just perhaps not in this life. His eyes stung with tears and he realized he almost didn’t care what happened to him now. He was longing to see her again at the same time he dreaded it.
Stay inside, love, he prayed. Do not come out here. Dear God, make her see it’s hopeless.
She materialized at the side of the front gate and was running in front of the compound before anyone knew she was there. Cormac whirled around as Sarah ran toward him—and the front gate stayed resolutely shut. It was all Mike could do not to smile. Even the very last thing the woman ever does is the one thing you don’t expect.
Three more women joined the others lining the top of the fence, their rifles pointing downward.
Irish End Games, Books 4-5-6 Page 22