She refused to worry about locating the passageway that Hall and Patrick had mentioned. If it was there, she would find it.
She had to.
It was her only chance to get inside.
Her only chance to surprise the mighty laird and mete out the punishment he and his Beast deserved.
Next to her the sword sparkled, as if a stray shaft of light had reflected off the weapon’s blade.
Her imagination must be playing tricks on her. There was no light to reflect. No moon, no fire, and no sun yet brightening the sky.
Curiosity piqued, she reached for the sword, surprised at how warm the metal felt to her touch. Distracted by the odd warmth, she inadvertently let her finger glance along the edge of the sharp blade.
She jerked her hand away and quickly brought her stinging finger up to her mouth. The coppery tang of blood coated her tongue and she fought back a momentary panic.
How could she have been so careless? To have her second chance at taking her vengeance cut short by such a small and insignificant wound was simply wrong. A perverted prank on the part of some bored god.
She waited for the pain she’d seen Hall endure. Waited for the debilitating weakness that had brought him to his knees. Waited, her unwavering gaze fixed on the sword, until once again she could have sworn a streak of light glimmered down the length of the metal.
She might have thought she was seeing things as a result of the wound, if not for the fact that she’d seen the first glimmer before she’d touched the blade. And after the wound . . . nothing out of the ordinary. Just the sting of a simple cut as anyone might expect. Not one single bit of the suffering Hall had endured.
How could that be possible? What was it that protected her from the effects of the sword but hadn’t protected him?
A little stab of longing pricked at her heart as she pictured Hall in her thoughts. She saw him as she wanted to remember him best, his face clean-shaven, his beautiful lips drawn up in the smile that never failed to squeeze her heart.
More than anything she’d ever wanted, she wished that he was with her now, as if his presence might somehow make her braver.
“I’m brave enough,” she whispered into the dark, denying that which her heart called out for. “As brave as I need to be. I’ve no need of him or any other man to make me into the woman I’m supposed to be.”
One day, if she repeated the assertion often enough, she might actually believe it. Until then, she would have to be vigilant in keeping him from her thoughts.
To do otherwise was simply too painful.
Her finger had ceased to bleed, and still nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Apparently the gods had more to occupy their time today than messing with her pathetic little life.
The first glimmer of gray pushed up into the eastern sky; it was time to get going.
She closed her pack and pushed herself up to stand, her muscles protesting a night of cramped inactivity in the cold. She had a long day ahead of her, and the last thing she needed was to get caught due to wasting time daydreaming.
Thirty
BRIDGET HAD BEEN here. In this very spot.
Hall squatted on the ground, balancing himself on one knee while he ran his fingers over the almost imperceptible depression in the soft earth.
She’d slept here. He was sure of it. And not too long ago, at that.
“We might well have already missed her.” Jamesy stared out toward the towers in the distance, ragged worry haunting his eyes. “What if we’re too late? What if she’s already inside? What if the Beast has found her and she’s already . . .” He clamped his lips together as if saying anything more would be too painful.
“We’re not too late,” Hall reassured him, rising to his feet. “We’re only an hour or two behind her at most. I can’t imagine the secret entrance into the castle will be easily located. It is, after all, secret. Have faith in that, Jamesy. Have faith that we’ll reach her in time. We still have an opportunity to find her before she makes her way inside.”
Hall had faith that he would find her. He would not fail in this.
“I’ve no wish to distract from the importance of the rescue at hand but, as close as we are to the castle, should we no consider coming to some decision about what we plan to do?” Eric’s gaze was fixed upon Tordenet as well. “Once we’re spotted, as we likely will be when we move in closer, we’ll no have the luxury of waiting for Patrick and his reinforcements.”
“We don’t need reinforcements.” Hall had tried to tell them this all along. “Not with the tools we carry.”
“Bridget carries the sword,” Jamesy pointed out. “Without the weapon, the scrolls are of little use.”
She had it now, but that would change as soon as Hall found her. There was no way he’d allow her to get close enough to the Beast to use the sword.
“You’ve naught to worry about on that count. I’ll have the weapon in my own hands before we confront Fenrir,” he assured. “But you must remember, each of the treasures plays an equally important part in what we attempt to do. The scrolls cannot contain the Beast until it’s forced from its host by the sword. Wielding the sword does no good if we can’t get to the Beast to confront him. That’s where the jewels come in.”
Hall pulled a small bag from his things and spilled out the contents into the palm of his hand. Sunlight sparkled off the polished facets of five distinctly different jewels, except along one rough edge where Orabilis had ground the gems with a rasp.
He handed one jewel to each of his companions, retaining the ruby for himself.
“It feels almost as if it vibrates against my skin,” Finn said, holding the emerald up between two fingers.
“The jewel is searching for its companions. Together they will create a barrier against evil Magic. Our task is to erect that barrier around Tordenet.”
“How do we . . . wait.” Finn drew the jewel close to examine it. “I dinna feel anything from it now.”
The others nodded their agreement.
“That’s because the jewels have connected with one another. Each of us will approach Tordenet from a different side. As we close in around the castle walls, the barrier formed by the jewels will prevent Fenrir from accessing all but the most rudimentary Magic. That loss of access should drive him from the castle and into our trap.”
“And we’ll tighten the noose once he’s outside the walls of Tordenet.” Eric stuck the jewel he carried into his sporran. “To trap him and drive the Beast into the scrolls you carry.”
“Exactly,” Hall confirmed.
“What of Bridget?” Jamesy asked.
“I’ll find her. I feel sure she’s headed to the shore side of the castle, which is where I plan to go now. As there are no gates along that wall, it will be the safest place for her to remain. With the jewel I carry turned over to her possession when I collect the sword, the barrier can remain intact, allowing me to go after Fenrir.”
“You are confident in this plan?” Eric waited only for Hall’s affirming nod. “In that case, I, too, am confident.”
Jamesy sighed heavily, as if struggling with some great internal debate. “I suppose we have little choice in the matter. We can but take up our positions to wait for Fenrir’s departure from Tordenet, and pray that you find Bridget and the sword in time.”
Hall remounted his horse and set out, Jamesy’s words ringing in his ears. He, too, had been praying for that outcome since the moment he’d found Bridget missing from their camp.
Thirty-one
HOW HARD COULD it possibly be to find one secret entrance?
Brie crouched against the rock outcropping, studying what she could see of Tordenet’s long protective wall. Though she’d spent several days at the castle when she’d been here before, she’d never seen it from this angle.
Now she wished she’d taken the opportunity to walk back here. It would have made life so much easier. But wishing for the impossible only wasted time. Her challenge at hand was to figure out how she
was going to get inside.
Between the rocky coast where she hid and the castle wall there lay a wide expanse of open ground. She could hardly expect to make her way across that area unseen if Torquil had posted guards on the wall walk. And surely, he had. It was the first thing she would have done if she were walled inside that fortress.
Squinting up into the sunlight, she tried to catch sight of any movement along the top of the wall walk, but it was useless. Either no one was there or the outer wall was simply too high for her to see movement beyond.
For the second time since she’d started her surveillance, water lapped up onto her feet and she scrambled to higher ground, cursing the icy cold that clung to her.
There were a few crevices large enough for her to wedge herself into, but the tide was on the rise and she had no idea how high the water might end up. Having wet feet in this weather was bad enough. The thought of a full-body dunk in those waters was enough to send her inching farther up the rocky ledge.
She could see no other course but to wait for night to fall before she crossed to the wall. How she would locate the hidden entrance without light, she didn’t know, but she had no other reasonable choice. Any attempt to cross now would make her an easy target and end her quest before she’d even begun.
The last thing she could afford was to be captured with the Sword of the Ancients in her possession. What a gift that would be to Torquil.
It would be better now to work her way back through the rocks along the shore and into the trees beyond, where she’d left her horse. Remaining here with the wind and the frozen spray beating at her body was hardly the sensible thing to do.
With her boots freezing over, thanks to the dousing they’d taken, the trip back to her horse was slow going. She lost her footing more than once before she traded the rocky cover for the protection of shrubs and brush and, finally, the trees.
She had a long, cold wait ahead of her this day, with little means of warming herself. She would gladly have given all she owned for even a small fire.
An involuntary snort of laughter escaped her, startling her horse. She glanced over to where her animal waited for her, his ears pricked up in alert apprehension.
“Easy,” she said under her breath. She doubted the sound had carried to the castle walls, but she had no desire to test her theory.
She needed to use more caution in the noise she made. Turning back, she leaned against one of the trees, peering out to study the castle wall and wait.
In spite of her discomfort, the idea of giving all she owned for anything, let alone a fire, still amused her. She owned so few items that if she bundled them all together in one place and set fire to the lot of them, she’d likely still be cold out here.
Possessions had never had any importance to her. She’d never cared one bit for the things that others coveted. Her bow and her horse were all that had ever mattered.
She suspected the idea of owning things was only on her mind now because of Hall. Because of the time she’d spent in wondering if her life might have turned out differently if she had wealth. If she owned things, perhaps then he would have wanted her enough to—
No! She balled up a fist and pounded it against the cold bark of the tree. Wandering down this path accomplished nothing. He had proven himself her friend, and that was all she could expect from him. He’d been honest with her from the first about what he would do.
Wishing and wanting only made her weak.
Her mind could be put to much better use trying to discover a way to find the hidden opening once she reached the castle wall.
What would Hall do if he were here? If she couldn’t stop thinking about him, maybe she could try thinking like him. If he were here, he might—
A big hand slipped over her mouth and tightened, forcing her back against an equally big body.
HE’D FOUND HER!
An overwhelming emotion that Hall refused to name filled his chest. It washed over him in a great wave, leaving his legs weak and trembling. Torn between a desire to crush Bridget in his arms and the urge to yell at her for her stupidity in having run off without him, he chose to resist both temptations.
He couldn’t afford to startle her and risk a scream that might alert the whole castle, so he opted for the only action that seemed reasonable.
Her horse sensed his presence before she did, and he stilled when she turned to murmur comfort to the animal. Nothing to be gained in giving her a fright if she mistook him for one of Fenrir’s men.
Moving stealthily forward, he made his way through the trees to a point where he was close enough to reach out and slip his hand over her mouth to prevent the scream he feared. Or at the very least, stifle one should it come.
In his vision of the way this would go, he would announce himself as he pulled her back toward him, once he had her close enough that he wouldn’t need to raise his voice. It was a sound plan.
Unfortunately, as he should have considered in dealing with this particular woman, her reaction wasn’t at all what he anticipated.
Bridget wasn’t a screamer. She was a fighter.
Her teeth clamped down hard on one of his fingers. At the same time, her free arm swung up toward his head, leaving him barely enough time to stop the wicked-looking blade she aimed directly at his face.
“By Odin,” he snarled, shoving her away from him. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Wrong with me?” she hissed, stabbing her index finger into his chest. “What kind of an addle-brained thing was that to do, you great fool? Grabbing me from behind and scaring the life right out of me! Yer lucky I didn’t gut you right then and there.”
“My apologies for alarming you. It was not my intent. As a matter of fact, it was alarming you that I had hoped to avoid by my actions.”
Bridget still glared at him, but the finger poking his chest stopped. When she turned from him she muttered something that sounded very much like witless turdling, but he chose to let the insult go unchallenged.
In hindsight, he could see that Bridget was right. Not about the gutting, of course; he was never in any danger of that. But he did recognize how his actions had been so easily misinterpreted.
He wouldn’t fight with her now. They had too much to do. He’d found her, safe and sound, and that was what really mattered. If all went well, they’d have more than enough time for arguing later. He looked forward to it, in fact.
“I see you’ve come alone. What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked, crossing her arms in front of her as if to completely shut him out.
“This,” he answered, and pulled the ruby along with a thin leather strap from his bag. “This is what I’m doing.”
While she watched without comment, he tied the strap around the middle of the jewel and then wrapped it around the other direction end to end before tying it again. After ensuring his makeshift necklace was securely knotted, he held it out and dropped it down over her head.
“What’s this for?” she asked, followed by a little gasp of recognition. “It’s one of the jewels we recovered. Why are you giving it to me?”
“For protection.” Though it wouldn’t work for long, should the essence of the Beast attack, it might give her enough time to escape. “And I’m not alone. Eric, your brother, his friends, all of them are positioned around Tordenet right now, each of them carrying one of the jewels.”
“Little good the jewels will do them if we canna get inside to confront the Beast. And with only the five of you, yer no likely to meet with success in storming the front gates. So why aren’t they here with you, waiting for dark to hunt for the hidden entrance?”
“Because we don’t need to go inside. Fenrir will come out to us.”
Bridget looked skeptical. “I find that hard to believe. It would be a far wiser strategy to remain behind the walls of Tordenet. And the Beast, foul as he is, strikes me as being at least as smart as I am.”
“Likely much smarter.” Fenrir had a millennia of experience that Bridget didn’t
have. “But every living creature has a vulnerability of some kind. An enemy has but to find that weakness and exploit it. In Fenrir’s case, he can’t bear to be separated from the flow of his Magic. It is as life and breath to him. It drives him in all he does.”
Though it was clear Bridget still doubted him, she was at least listening. “Assuming I accept yer story as truth, how would we manage to exploit this vulnerability you claim he has?”
“We’ve already begun. With the jewel you wear and its four companions, we’ve formed a ring around Tordenet. A ring that effectively blocks the flow of Magic into the castle. Fenrir will have no choice but to leave the protection of the castle walls, seeking that which he must have. And when he does, I’ll be waiting for him outside the front gates with the Sword of the Ancients in my hands and the Elven Scrolls of Niflheim at the ready.”
Bridget’s gaze shifted to her horse and back, a quick little movement that signaled her thoughts as clearly as if she’d spoken them aloud.
Sure enough, the Sword of the Ancients hung from her saddle, its hilt peeking out of the sheath that sheltered the weapon.
“I canna allow you to do that, Hall. For one thing, yer no safe anywhere near that damned sword. We saw all too well what it can do to you. And I ken from experience that it’s no the same danger to me.”
“I’ll handle it with caution.” How stupid did she think he was? That he’d carelessly risk another encounter with that deadly blade?
“For another thing,” she continued, shifting her feet as she glanced quickly to her horse and back again, “wielding this blade is my right. Justice is my right to serve upon Torquil MacDowylt and the Beast. I will not let this opportunity slip through my fingers. No even for you.”
“I understand your feelings.” Hall glanced toward Bridget’s horse, estimating which of them could reach the animal first. “And you already know that I respect your abilities as a warrior. But . . .”
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