“I think it may be prudent that one of us is awake tae keep an eye on things. Yer threat was the most serious one ye could have made, lass. They will steal ye from me do they have a chance, and they can keep ye prisoner in Tomhnafurach until the babe is born.”
“I wouldn’t go,” Taffy assured him, though her lids were growing heavy. “They couldn’t make me.
“Eat, lass,” Malcolm said, handing her a chunk of bread. He didn’t bother to argue about what the faeries could do if they chose to, or what would happen to her if they kept her imprisoned for that long. “We’ll be needing our strength. If the still-folk are angered enough, they may not allow us the shorter paths through the forest.”
“But that would put us in danger. They don’t want that, do they?”
“They don’t want you endangered. About now, they might well be happiest tae see me spitted on the end of a Campbell pike, though. They likely consider that I have betrayed them!”
“They wouldn’t dare!” Taffy said, appalled enough to speak with a mouth full of food. The bread was completely tasteless, as though the still-folk were no longer bothering to use glamourie on the fare they provided. “What will we do if they decide to be vindictive?”
Malcolm shrugged and took up his own piece of the loaf.
“We’ll do what I planned tae do before. We are going tae see a priest and be married. ‘Tis more urgent now than ever.”
“It is? Why?”
“Because, though they may still attempt tae take a married lady, it makes the kidnapping much harder tae complete. The still-folk fear the power o’ the church’s incantations. It is not something they understand, but magic all the same. It makes them wary.”
Malcolm picked up his plaid and shook it loose.
“Wrap up, Taffy lass, and have a wee sleep. We must away as soon as the sun has set.”
Taffy didn’t argue, for it was beyond her power. Whatever had moved over them in the dark had been vast and draining, and she had no choice but to surrender to healing sleep.
Chapter Ten
Taffy awoke in Malcolm’s arms and watched silently as the sun fell over the western horizon. She was much refreshed in both body and spirit, and felt prepared to resume their journey.
Malcolm, too, seemed ready to travel, even though he’d had no chance to sleep. But since the safety of true darkness had not yet embraced the land, he kept them lingering within the shelter of the hill waiting for night to fall.
Taffy reflected, as she washed with a dampened handkerchief, that she had rapidly become accustomed to tending to toiletries in Malcolm’s presence. Before her trip down the faerie’s road into this land, she had rarely so much as drawn off gloves or scarf in the presence of any man other than her father. Yet now, she bathed in plain sight of her lover and even allowed Malcolm to comb and braid her hair. Years of constraining etiquette had slipped away from her as new experiences enlarged her world, and she was beginning to have troubling doubts about her ability to resume the rigid standards of behavior worn in her previous life.
They ate another small meal of the tasteless bread and water, which they shared with an unenthusiastic Smokey. And then, despite his earlier skepticism and teasing about training for combat, Malcolm showed Taffy the proper manner for striking out with her fist. He made her practice hitting at his hands until he was certain she had mastered keeping her wrists locked and straight when she jabbed at her target.
“Good. Now hit harder, lass. Ye’ll no’ get more than one blow at a man. Best it be a ferocious one.”
The next punch she delivered with enough force to earn a grunt of approval. Striking out again and again, Taffy reflected that learning the art of fisticuffs was yet another process completely at odds with all other training she had ever had, which said that ladies did not strike out in anger—or for any other reason.
But Taffy determinedly put aside her childhood admonitions against women using violence to defend themselves. It might be that this lesson would unwoman her, ruin her feminine charm for other gentlemen of her class. But the usual skills of polite requests for aid to obliging gentlemen, and modest acceptance of adversity until such an obliging gentleman came along, might have served in her own sheltered world when such persons were readily available, but they were of no use in this one.
No longer caring so much for her parent’s horror of her occupation—after all, had she not already suffered the fate worse than death and found it to be not a terror but something profound and wonderful?—she went at her task with a will. Defense against a deadly enemy was no longer some abstract thing—a tale culled from an adventure novel about worlds across the sea. In this place, on this night, danger was near. She could sense it waiting all around them.
Malcolm at last declared her proficient in fisticuffs and then insisted upon a course of instruction for himself in the use of her rifle. She sensed that he found the weapon somehow distasteful, but he yet insisted upon learning about it.
The lessons were quickly accomplished, for Malcolm had used a flintlock before and understood the principles of projectile weapon. The only real difference was the manner of loading the rifle, and this was easily learned for the weapon was of simpler design.
Combined with his keen eye and fast reflexes, Taffy knew that the Winchester could be put to formidable use. Especially in the dark, when then enemy would be handicapped by their lack of sight. It wasn’t sporting of her to rejoice in this fact, but she did. Their enemies were legion and they needed every advantage against them.
Malcolm’s last act, before leaving their suddenly bleak haven, was to draw his dirk and cut a short twig of rowan, which he sharpened to a point.
He put up his knife and, approaching her, took her chin in hand and turned her head aside. He jabbed the twig through the stubborn jean up at the edge of her left collar until it was well secured in the warp. He then carefully wiped his fingers clean of sap.
Taffy looked questioningly at him.
“The still-folk have no liking for rowan,” he told her. “Keep this near tae hand, but dinnae be touching it unless ye are in need, for it stings our flesh.”
Taffy touched her collar near the hand-length stick and then nodded at the compromise. Cold iron would stop them, too, but it would also bring them death. Rowan could inflict a painful wound, but probably not a fatal one. What she used to defend herself would be her own choice, she knew, but was grateful to Malcolm for providing her with an alternative to the rifle. She didn’t want to kill any of the still-folk. They were, she was coming to accept, some form of distant kin.
Night fell abruptly, snuffing out the last ray of sun. There was nothing left to do but go on. In silence, they shouldered their gear and struck out on the nearest southward path.
The way down from their hill was a grim little trail that wound tortuously through a spiny thicket that had never known a woodsman’s axe. The flora did not actively molest them, but it was of a most hostile aspect, and Taffy found herself treading the dark pathway with extra silence and care and searching the shadows for some sign of the beast that she sensed was stalking them whenever they were away from the faeries’ magic shelters.
Malcolm, too, moved like a wolf on the hunt: sniffing at the air, keeping to shadows, embracing the complete silence of the night. He and Smokey moved in tandem, two of a kind as they prowled the darkness.
Their extreme caution proved worthwhile, for presently the smell of torches reached them. Thus far, such had always meant Campbells.
Sensing Malcolm’s deep perturbation, Taffy closed the distance between them and pressed close to his side. She jerked her head at the path ahead, questioning if they should go on.
Malcolm laid his lips against her ear and breathed: “ ’Tis the priest I spoke of, Father Feehan, who lives in yonder croft. He has unwanted visitors.”
The smallest of moans hung in the thin air, telling Taffy of the dangers Malcolm had left unspecified. She shuddered involuntarily.
Always, it seemed, they
had arrived too late to help anyone at the mercy of the Campbells. But this was different. They were hard upon the scene, and this time the person in trouble was someone Malcolm knew.
Taffy turned her head, and after brushing her lips across Malcolm’s stern mouth, she sought out his ear.
“Can we do nothing to help?” she breathed, hefting her rifle with hands that still smarted from her repeated practice blows.
Malcolm pulled back, assessing her in the moonlight. She had to wonder what he saw. Trees loomed strange and twisted in the silvery light. The night sky was an ocean in which the moon had drowned and spread its light across the celestial seas. The piper looked both dark and grim in the black shadow, and she felt equal to his angry mood. Days of frustration were gathered at her back as well, urging her to some action against the monsters that hounded them. She knew the impulse could only be stronger in Malcolm, and worried for a moment at it affecting their judgement.
“We shall see,” he answered, more with his mind than with physical speech. He touched her gently on the cheek before pulling away and resuming his hunter’s stance. “I’ll no’ be putting ye tae risk. Stay ye back a pace and make no more noise than a mousie before a cat.”
Malcolm set a course uphill where they might easily survey the corrie. They crept to the edge of a small escarpment, and easing around a stand of gorse, Malcolm was able to peer down at the one room croft at the base of the hill.
He could not tell if anyone lingered within the walls of the hut, but there were half-a-dozen men outside, all ranged about a captive staked to the ground.
The prisoner’s robes of office were plainly seen in the moon’s bright light, and Malcolm breathed a word that Taffy had never heard, but nevertheless fully comprehended. She filed it away for future use. Dreading what more she would see, she crept closer to the edge and looked down.
Father Feehan was bound, hand and foot, to pegs driven deep into the ground. One of his captors held the priest’s head bent well back in the crook of his powerful arm. A stick had been placed between the old man’s jaws, canted at a sideways angle, forcing his mouth wide open.
As they watched, one of the other men lifted a hunk of peat from the fire kindled on the bare dirt before the croft’s narrow door. It glowed red and evil, skewered at the end of a pronged stick that looked for all the world like a giant fork.
“Lost the fire in yer belly, Papist?” a harsh voice demanded. “I can put it back for ye afore ye meet yer Popish God.”
Taffy divined what they intended and was filled with outraged horror. This demanded immediate action, regardless of what danger it might place them in.
“Malcolm!” she breathed, reaching for the rifle. One glance at her lover’s face told her that he also meant to intervene.
She looked down again. Father Feehan lay exhausted and silent as his tormentor approached, but that wouldn’t last, not once the embers were forced into his mouth and pushed down into his stomach.
“Give me the weapon, lass,” he ordered.
“Malcolm, maybe I should be the one to—”
“Give me the weapon.”
Frustrated, Taffy nevertheless complied. She was a better than fair shot, but Malcolm’s eyesight was still superior in the dark.
“Be careful, love,” she whispered, handing over the fearsome weapon, and wishing with all her heart that it was a cannon that would blow the evil creatures below straight to the hell in which they belonged.
“This may be a trap, lass. For those sympathetic to the cause. And they may have Sassenach flintlocks. Go down to the bottom o’ the slope and wait for me.” Malcolm threaded hard fingers through her hair and kissed her briefly. He looked into her eyes with a gaze that was as black and turbulent as she had ever seen. This night, there was no love moving in his pupils, only death.
But she did not fear the shadows there. They were only reflections—complements—of what was in her own heart and soul.
“Have your savage-trainer close at hand, lass, and yer rowan. Scream and hit hard if any o’ the Campbells come by, and stab any still-folk who come next or nigh o’ ye. Cu, go wi’ her.”
Hearing the sound of rough laughter from below, Taffy didn’t waste time in argument. She slid quickly and quietly down the hill and into cover of the stunted trees. Smokey pressed close to her side as she waited, his hackles on the rise.
Taffy flinched as the Winchester spat and then spat again. There were confused cries boiling up in the air and the sound of running feet. There was more rifle fire and steadily less screaming. Finally, the breach clicked down on an empty load.
Realizing then that she had the ammunition belts, Taffy started out of hiding, racing back up the hill.
“Hsst! Toss it up, lass,” Malcolm instructed, not bothering to lower his voice. Taffy shrugged out of a belt and made the awkward uphill throw.
Malcolm reached for his own belt and returned her toss, planting his dirk in the soil near her feet.
“I’ll keep watch from here and shoot any who come tae the glen. Go down and cut the priest loose. If he cannae walk, leave him. Be swift, Taffy lass, we have little time tae spare. I sense others nearby.”
Mentally, Taffy protested the harsh order to leave the wounded priest if he could not walk, but she wasted no time in an argument of ethics. The sounds of gunfire would bring others to the scene. Campbells, covenanters, Gallowglas—there were so many who might come, and they were all potential enemies.
His dirk taken up in her left hand, her right was awkwardly encumbered with the silver knuckles. The long knife was warm to the touch, comforting in its protective power.
Knowing there was not an instant to spare, she turned and sped around the hillock, running at a reckless pace along the narrow pathway that led to the clearing.
There was a patch of deeper shadow waiting at the ledge’s base, cloaked in thin shrubbery and hidden from the moon. Her quick eyes saw movement there—a wild boar! She was sure of it.
Smokey gave a low snarl and tried to overtake her, but there was no room on the trail. Warned more by instinct than by sight, Taffy put on a burst of speed and leapt for the creature she sensed lurking behind the screen of leafy branches on the right of the trail.
“Malcolm!” she yelled, not as a cry for aid but rather a call to battle.
She had only a moment to gather impressions before she fell upon her quarry.
It was a man there, not the beast or even faerie she had half-expected, but he was still so inhuman a creature that she never thought to turn aside her dagger. He rose like a nightmare, pouring out malevolence as a storm did rain. He was dressed in the robes of the clergy, but she could imagine no one less suited to them. There was hate in those little, piglike eyes that looked up at her—and rage, endless and soul-consuming. Malice for her and all living things gleamed in his wrath-distorted face, and his lower jaw thrust up in jagged tusks.
Clenched in his right hand was a dirk of cold iron, and there were traces of blood upon it.
Instincts took hold. Knowing a wound from his knife would be fatal for her babe, if not for herself, she parried his stabbing blade away with the edge of Malcolm’s silver dirk, and without hesitation sank her silver knuckles into his gut.
Momentum carried her past him, spinning her into the open space beyond the trees.
“Taffy!” Malcolm shouted.
She landed unevenly on the packed earth and fell to the ground. But with a new agility of body that had come with the other gifts of the still-folk, she was able to roll immediately to her feet and turn about to face her foe.
There was no need for haste. Smokey had followed immediately upon her heels and done the job he was trained to do. Her attacker was lying dead on his back. Part of his neck had been torn and bled profusely while his throat was crushed in Smokey’s powerful jaws. The hound didn’t hold his prey long, just until it ceased all struggling. But it was an eternity to witness, and Taffy knew she would be haunted by the horrible image until her dying day.
Her answer was short in coming.
“MacColla!” Malcolm shouted, his footsteps only sporadically coming into contact with the earth as he came flying down the path she had just traveled. “Keep yer men back from my wife!”
“Your wife?” said the giant who came to an abrupt halt a safe pace back from Taffy’s dirk, which she realized she was holding in a battle-ready position. Smokey was crouched beside her, silent but likewise radiating warning at the strangers who ringed his mistress.
“Aye! Well, she shall be as soon as I get Father Feehan back upright.” Malcolm stopped just outside the circle of men who stood about Taffy, the rifle lowered, but hand still upon the trigger. He was breathing hard but managed to say gently: “Taffy lass, it’s safe now. We’re among friends. Ye can put up yer blade. Go o’er and cut the father free and see tae his hurts. Cu, come away tae me.”
He was lying that they were among friends, and Taffy understood that what Malcolm really wanted was for her to step away from these people so that she would not be hurt if he was forced into firing his gun. She tried to behave as though she believed Malcolm’s words, but it took all her will to lower her weapon.
“Certainly,” she managed to say, tucking the dirk into her skirt’s concealing folds and standing up from her half-crouch. Bile was rising in the back of her throat, and she feared for a moment that her quaking knees would give way. But her days of passing in and out of faerie magic had served her well, and she was able to fight back the weakening impulses.
“A Sassenach lady, is she?” MacColla asked, making no effort to detain Taffy as she slipped by him, though she felt his eyes on her face.
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