by Hazel Hunter
“Take men and scout the caves to be sure,” the laird told Tormod and Raen in a low voice. “If you find the undead, lure them outside to us.”
While the caves were being searched, Diana and Kinley helped unload the weapons and supplies from the boats to make them easier to carry in. The laird’s wife handed her a heavy velvet bag.
“This is for you,” Kinley said.
Diana opened the bag and took out her Glock and the extra clip.
“Thanks, I still feel naked without it. Any druids around?”
“Oh, you’re hilarious,” the other woman told her. “If you so much as breathe on another druid, I’m throwing you in the dungeon for a month. I can do that now that you’re clan.”
Diana noticed that Kinley didn’t take any weapons for herself, but handed them off to the highlanders.
“Shouldn’t you be armed, too, Captain?”
“I am, Lieutenant,” she replied. She glanced at the cave entrance. “Here they are. Come on.”
They walked up the shore to meet Raen, Tormod and their search party as they emerged from the caves to report to Lachlan. Diana listened to the good news and the bad, which was that while they had found all of the caves empty, the far end of the passage in the largest cave had been blocked off by tons of rock and earth.
“We were able to emerge from the others near the castle,” Raen said. “But the passages and openings are narrow. Only two men may pass through them at one time.”
“We’ll spend the night in the largest, and use the others at daybreak,” Lachlan said. “Have the lads carry the boats in now.”
Diana started to follow the men inside, and then saw Neac handing Kinley unlit torches.
“Do you need a fire steel? Tormod has one.” She gasped as Kinley’s hand became engulfed in white-blue flame.
“Told you I was armed,” the laird’s wife said as she touched her fiery hand to the torches. A moment later the flames vanished, and her hand looked completely normal. “I don’t use it very often, but it’s my druid talent. By the way, you don’t want to get between me and the undead when I make like a flame-thrower, because you’ll go…” She made a combusting sound and tossed up her hands.
“Got it. And just so you know, I am never pissing you off again.”
Once they had stowed the birlinns inside the caves, the men settled in for the night, covering themselves with their tartans but keeping their long swords at hand. Lachlan made a bed for Kinley on one of the boats, but when he offered to do the same for Diana, Raen shook his head.
“Diana and I will take the first watch.” He rested his war hammer on his shoulder. “She can see the trail of anyone who approaches long before they arrive.”
“As you say, then, but return in two hours,” the laird said. “We will want you both rested at dawn.”
“There aren’t any trails out here,” Diana said as soon as they left the cave, and then saw his attention was elsewhere. “What’s wrong?”
Raen returned and gestured for her to come down. “There is something odd at the cliffs.”
Diana followed him down to the water, where he pointed to an enormous dark mound sloped down from a towering cliff to the rocky edge of the sea.
“It looks as if the cliff collapsed,” he said.
“The high tides probably eroded the base, and the weight brought the rest of it down. See that one in front of it, with all the jagged rocks at the bottom? That one will be the next to go.” As the wind picked up she shook out her tartan and wrapped it around her head and shoulders. “Do you want to get a closer look?”
He peered at the rockslide and nodded. “There is a path over there leading up to the cliffs. We should check for undead patrols, too.”
Diana walked with him toward the cliff path, but as they drew closer to the collapsed cliff the shore became littered with broken rocks and heaps of dark soil. The debris stretched all the way to the mound, which she could now see was a small mountain of the same material, as if someone had been dumping it off the cliff for so long or so frequently it had formed a slope. She bent down to pick up a chunk of rock that bore odd striations on it. It looked as if it had been repeatedly struck by a metal tool.
“I think the undead are digging tunnels under the castle,” Raen said. “’Twould explain the mound. They are filling barrows and carts with what they remove and emptying them over the cliff.”
“We need to go up top and confirm that,” she told Raen, who glanced back at the caves. “I’ll see their trails on the cliff. Those will lead back to where they’re digging. We’ll have a quick look, and then we’ll report what we find to the laird.”
His mouth tightened. “Agreed.”
The cliff path proved to be steep, and they had to go slowly to keep from sliding back down to the shore. Once Diana could see over the edge she made a long, slow scan of the empty plateau.
“What do you see?” Raen asked as he supported her from behind.
She climbed over the edge and stood on the cliff, which was glowing dull red with hundreds of crisscrossed trails.
“Legion. Lots of legion.” The trails didn’t appear to be originating at the castle in the distance, but moved parallel to the shore and then disappeared into a heavily-wooded area where several huge trees had been toppled. She pointed to it. “They’re hauling this stuff from over there.”
Raen looked from the trees to the shore. “This willnae be quick.”
“Then we’ll run.” When he nodded, she took off.
The big man paced her easily. When they made it to the trees they stopped and peered through them. Raen took her hand and guided her into the forest. Diana didn’t hear anything but the wind and the sea at first, and then a faint hammering sound drifted to her. The deeper they went, the darker the woods became. Then they crossed a crude path lined by uprooted trees and spilled piles of rock and soil.
Raen touched his finger to her lips, and led her closer to the source of the sound. Without warning he seized her, clamping a hand over her mouth as he took cover behind some bedraggled bushes. Diana watched as a bare-chested Roman trudged past them. He led a horse hitched to a cart filled with earth, and they were headed toward the cliffs.
Once the undead had moved out of sight, Raen released her and signaled to follow him. He moved away from the path and up the side of a small hill.
Diana looked down to see torches blazing around a pit in the ground so wide and deep it could have comfortably accommodated Dun Aran and a small village. Inside it hundreds of undead were working, some mounding debris in big barrels that were pulled up by ropes. Others hammered on a wall of collapsed rock that filled one side of the pit. More of the legion were erecting elaborate frames of wood against the other three stone walls, as if they were building rooms.
Raen put his mouth right next to her ear, and murmured, “Look at the sea.”
When Diana turned her head she saw the ocean, much closer than she’d thought it would be. From their position in relation to the shore, they were standing directly over the sea caves. She glanced back at the pit, and saw one of the undead diggers wrench out a huge rock from the wall. He pushed it out of the way before working on the hole it had left in the collapsed section.
A cold chill filled Diana’s stomach. The undead were digging their way into the caves. She checked the sea again and clenched her jaw. Somewhere below them, the clan lay hidden. But judging by the legion’s progress, they could break through any minute. Before she could turn to Raen, lightning began to flash in the sky over them. When she looked at him, his cheek shimmered with power.
“Go back,” he whispered, and kissed her temple as he held her tightly. “Tell the laird. Save the clan.”
Diana tried to stop him, but her lover bolted away, ran to the edge of the pit, and jumped inside. She froze as she watched her savage man ply his war hammer against the undead. All of the Romans stopped working and rushed toward Raen, hefting their own hammers and tools as they attacked. The inside of the pit became clo
udy with the ashen remains of the slain undead, but through it Diana could see her highlander fighting off the hordes lunging at him. The attacking men clawed at his tartan and tunic until they hung in shreds around his slashed arms and gouged chest. His head snapped to one side as he took a hard blow from a sledge.
Raen was the strongest, fastest, most fearless warrior among the McDonnel Clan, but not even he could stop hundreds of undead from tearing him to pieces.
But she could.
Her legs felt good, Diana thought as she stepped out from the trees. Her knees didn’t wobble, and the cut on her foot had healed. Coming back through the portal had erased all the side effects from the seizures and the stroke. She would never be stronger than she was now.
She followed the path to the edge of the pit, where she let her tartan drop and pulled off her tunic. The undead were now piling on top of Raen, wrenching his hammer from his fist and dragging him to the ground. It tore at her to see him struggling, and strengthened her resolve.
As Diana stepped out of her trousers, she flexed her legs. They felt very good, maybe even better than when she’d been in college. She’d never been much of a sprinter, but she could run a mile in just under six minutes.
She’d have to do better than that now.
Standing in only her panties, bra and boots, Diana took her dagger and hissed with pain as she sliced open her forearm from elbow to wrist. Why did people kill themselves this way? She grimaced as she dropped the blade. It really hurt.
The moment her blood began to spill off the sides of her arm the fighting in the pit came to an abrupt halt. The undead backed away from her lover as they stared at her, their eyes glittering with hunger.
“Diana,” Raen gasped, and coughed.
“You tell the laird,” she called down to him. “I’m going for a run.” She raised her weapon and emptied her clip into the Romans around Raen, turning them to dust. “Anyone want some mortal?” she called out and flung the blood streaming from her wound onto the faces of the undead. “Come and get it.”
Diana turned and ran, dodging trees and brush as she fled through the forest. Already her heart was bouncing against the inside of her breast like a rabbit. She could sense the hundreds of undead coming after her now, and then heard the sounds of snarling and snapping behind her. For this to work she couldn’t get there too fast, so she slowed her pace to give the front runners a little time to catch up. Branches snapped and leaves thrashed all around her as the undead began appearing.
Okay, now she had to be faster.
Pouring on the speed made her thighs burn, and her bleeding arm throbbed like a root canal gone wrong. Still, the pain was a lot less than she’d expected. She’d gone through all the levels of hell during her tumor treatment: puking until she passed out, watching handfuls of her hair fall into the sink every morning, hiding her baldness with itchy wigs that made her sweat. One night she’d even sat and nibbled on imaginary French fries while she listened to a hallucination of Tonio singing the Ave Maria. Then she’d cried so hard her eyes had swollen shut. A cut on her arm and some strained muscles were nothing.
Her heart didn’t hurt a bit, but that was because she was saving his. She only wished she had told him she loved him, but Raen already knew that.
I think I’m falling in love with you.
I’ll catch you with my heart when you do.
A cold hand clawed at her back, as if to remind her she was supposed to be faster than this, but she focused on the cliff path. It was only a hundred yards away now, so she used every bit of energy she had left to sprint for it. The undead were almost on top of her, and if they dragged her to the ground all this would be for nothing. She was better than that—better than them.
Just before she reached the cliff path Diana swerved and took a running dive. She soared out over the edge of the cliff as if she had wings. That lovely moment lasted all of a blink before she plummeted downward. She rolled over in mid-air to see the hundreds of ravenous, mindless undead jumping over the edge after her. They shrieked as they saw the jagged rocks waiting for them below.
Raen would live, Diana thought a moment before she slammed into the endless brick wall of the sea, and Tonio had been right. She had saved the one man she had ever loved. Since he was her world, that was safe, too. That she had to die to do it didn’t bother her in the least.
Chapter Twenty-Five
QUINTUS SENECA WATCHED from the balcony as the last of the guards caught the blood scent on the air, dropped their weapons and ran off. He didn’t know what had caused the frenzy, but it had effectively emptied the stronghold and the grounds of the starving undead. Behind him his new prefect hovered anxiously, too well-fed to join the hordes of men streaming toward the cliffs, but nervous for other reasons. Like them, all of his plans would soon be nothing but ash.
“How many have we lost?” he finally asked without looking at Ficini.
“All of the miners, the guards, the sentries and the mortals we just turned,” the prefect said. “The raiding party remains intact, but they are not enough to stand against the McDonnels. Tribune, the clan will be coming for the hostages, and they are no longer enthralled. We should kill them and flee.”
“Dinnae lose heart, Quintus,” the Marquess of Ermindale said as he came to join him. “We will go to join up with the reserves in the lowlands. There we will make more troops, and train them, and plan for the next opportunity. As for the hostages, they may be taken and enthralled again when we are ready to move against the king.”
He turned to regard the undead noble. “Do you imagine yourself my commander, simply because I turned you?”
“No, Quintus,” Ermindale said with a smile. “I am but the man who fed every member of his family to you, including my youngest daughter, whom you facked before you ended her. Ah, yes, I watched through the spy hole to your bed chamber. Then I gave you my life by allowing you to drain most of my blood from my body, and my soul by drinking your blood, and becoming undead. So now I am ready to be more.” He turned and drove his dagger into Ficini’s chest. The prefect tottered backward and collapsed into a pile of dust. “I am your new second.”
Quintus drew his sword and held it at the noble’s scrawny throat. “You dare murder one of mine.”
“I am yours,” the old man reminded him. “And I am far more valuable to you than that fool ever was. I own a dozen estates in the south that I use to house slaves before I sell them. We will occupy and modify them for our needs and purposes. The slaves will make excellent soldiers after you turn them, and no one will ken where we are.” The old man looked down the length of the steel. “You forget that I also possess the only manner in which you will leave here alive, Tribune. Kill me, and you kill yourself.”
Slowly Quintus lowered his sword, and looked down at the pile of ash. From it he retrieved his red cloak, but did not bother to shake it clean before he draped it over the marquess’s narrow shoulders.
“Very well, Prefect. We shall go south.”
“As you command, Tribune.” The marquess bowed. “And please, call me Dougal.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
THE CRACKLE OF fire licked at Raen’s ears, while the smell of wood smoke filled his head. When the taste of whiskey seeped into his mouth, he swallowed it reflexively. More followed, too much and too quickly, and he choked. His muscles bunched with pain as he pushed himself up to see Neac taking a drink from the bottle in his hand before he nodded to someone.
“I thought Abers indestructible,” the chieftain said as he plied a damp rag over Raen’s mouth. “And yet it required only two hundred of the blood-suckling bastarts to take you down. Lad, I’m ashamed of you.”
Lachlan eased down beside him and draped him with his own tartan. “How do you feel?”
“Hurt.” The word rasped from his mouth as he looked at the other, solemn faces around them. He touched his battered face as he remembered jumping into the pit. “Legion?”
“Slain,” the laird said but looked sick now.
“’Twas Diana, lad. We came out of the cave when the rock began to shift, and saw her jump from the cliffs. The undead followed.”
“They followed her blood trail, and came from all directions,” Neac added. “The woods, the village, the castle, hundreds of them. They all went over, even when the sun rose and they were burning as they jumped–”
“That’s enough,” a white-faced Kinley said as she sat down on the other side of him, and took hold of his broken hand. “Hey,” she said to him. “You are in so much trouble. As soon as you’re better, I’m going to make you clean out all the privies at the castle. Twice.”
Raen remembered now. His brave, beautiful lass, standing in her little bits of black lace, telling him she was going for a run. Painfully, he managed to sit up. They were on the beach with the birlenns, and a fire was burning. He looked up the cliff.
“She cut herself to make them chase her,” he said. “To save the clan.” He closed his eyes. “To save me.”
“We found the tunnels they were digging from the stronghold,” Lachlan said. “They must have caused the cave-in that sealed off the sea cave.”
It took three tries before Raen was able to stand, but once he was steady enough he hobbled to the edge of the sea.
Tormod joined him there, his clothes dripping wet. “I went in after her, but I couldnae find her,” he said, his voice hoarse with pain. “I’ll go again.”
“No,” Raen said.
His nightmare had come true. His Diana was somewhere out there, waiting for him. He waded in, ignoring the sting of the salt water in his wounds, but stopped when the laird caught up with him.
“Permit me the honor,” Lachlan said. “She will have a clan burial, but you are too badly wounded, lad.”
“I will find her body,” Raen told him, and looked in his laird’s eyes, stopping him. “I must do this.”
With that he sank under the water, and swam toward the depths.