Highland Dragon Rebel

by Isabel Cooper

  Now and again they shared the road with other travelers: mostly merchants, one minstrel, and once a small group of pilgrims bound for Saint Margaret’s chapel now that war and climate alike permitted such a journey. None shared the road for more than a few hours before their own business called them away, leaving Madoc and Moiread alone again.

  Madoc was more conscious of that solitude than he’d been during any of the days before Hallfield, even during the endless hours they’d spent together at the inn. As he rode south beside Moiread, both of them hale, well, and in their right minds, he found it difficult not to think of kissing her in the stables, nor of how she’d spoken afterward—not quite a promise of more, but more than a hint. Even with others nearby, he glanced sideways at her frequently, observing her seat in the saddle and the way her hair blew back from her face.

  Magical vision was no help. Madoc rode with his sight in the world of auras and magic that Moiread had showed him how to invoke. The brightness of all living things, and the colored haze around many of them, was itself distracting. More, Moiread was herself in that sight, and while her illusion hadn’t kept Madoc from wanting her, seeing her as a woman heightened his desire, while the play of lights in her aura and her dragon-shaped shadow were a constant source of fascination.

  For most of the first part of the journey, he could think of nothing to say. He felt stupid for it, calflike and all of sixteen, but if Moiread resented his silence, she gave no sign of it. Madoc thought she might attribute it—and his frequent moments of staring at her—to the mystical sight itself, and he would gladly let her believe that.

  Flirting had been easier in Hallfield’s stables. Riding in solitude, Madoc was too aware of how much he’d enjoyed it, but also of how closely and for how long he and Moiread would be companions. Finding aught to say that took both things into consideration was far from easy.

  “Was it as you remembered?” he finally asked.

  Moiread looked briefly startled, then confused, then comprehending. “Hallfield? Aye… Well, as much as anywhere ever is. Uisdean was different, poor man, but I canna’ say that was such a shock. Threescore and ten, or a time for every purpose, or whatever verse you’d like.”

  Her shadow stretched long and winged over the road behind them.

  “It must be hard for you,” Madoc said.

  “It is,” Moiread replied and sighed, shaking her head, “and then in a while it isna’, and that’s sad too in its way. We get accustomed. As we all do, in our way. It’s not as though all that many see old age, is it? Especially of late.”

  War and pestilence, Madoc thought, childbed and storm, not to mention accidents. One of his childhood friends had gotten drunk and fallen in the river when he was twenty. A miller had found his body in the lake two days later. Children had grown up hearing of his ghost.

  He nodded. “There’s truth in that. I’m not sure these days are any more violent than others, save for this war in particular. Though there are those who insist that the world is getting worse.”

  Moiread laughed, amused and scornful. “Always are, aye? The year I was born, the world was due to end by Christmastide. Even the pope said as much. My sister, Agnes, was right nervous about it, she always told me. When we were fighting, she’d say having me as a sister was nigh as bad.”

  “Quite a tongue on her, your sister.”

  “Oh, she may have been right. The Kingdom of Heaven is supposed to be quite a pleasant place, ye ken, and I wasn’t often pleasant as a child. You,” she added, with a twitch of her lips, “will kindly refrain from any comment on that.”

  Madoc bowed as well as he could from the saddle. “Do you not believe in the end of the world, then?”

  “Everything ends,” Moiread said cheerfully enough, given the subject, “and Saint John may well be right about the way of it. But in my life, I’ve heard of enough antichrists to get up a decent festival dance, if not an army, and yet I sit on this horse and talk with you, so I’m no’ inclined to believe in any new one to come along.”

  “Like splinters of the True Cross or the bones of saints, only the opposite,” Madoc said, and then whistled as a notion struck him.

  “Mmm?”

  “Wouldn’t it be terrifying if they all were real? One son of the devil born in each generation, all hiding away until the moment was right? Or each one having his chance and failing, but with another one coming along who might well succeed?”

  Moiread gave him a long, considering look. “Should you ever decide to set up as a prophet,” she said finally, “you could probably start a fair-sized riot or two.”

  * * *

  “It does wear on us after a few hundred years,” Moiread said when the silence had crept up once again and the tension grown too thick, when watchfulness couldn’t occupy her enough to keep her from stealing glances at Madoc. “Seeing time pass for others, that is. None of my generation have felt it too keenly, or at least we’ve none of us spoken of it, but Artair has once or twice, and my grandfather did.”

  Madoc made a sympathetic mmm sound. “Have they any counsel for it?”

  “Drink. God. Duty. Endurance.” Moiread shrugged, chuckling wryly. “The same cure as for all else they can’t solve by force or trickery.”

  “And so it is with all men. We all apply the same poultices to different wounds, according to our nature…and a better man than me would say that God’s the most reliable of the three, in all cases.”

  “A better woman than me would believe it. And I’ll not say no, only that He works more slowly, when he does. Sometimes you need a quicker sort of balm, and it matters not that it’s no cure in the end. But my father’s brother was a monk for a decade or two,” she added.

  “Did it help?”

  “Might have, while it lasted. He said nothing of it to me one way or another, but we were never close. And he left a hundred years ago.”

  “Left the monastery?”

  “Left the world,” Moiread said, and smiled to see Madoc’s eyes widen. “I don’t know how, or where for… I suspect likely to a place akin to our next stop. Artair says we know how when it’s time, though he’s stayed longer than most of us ever do. They say the Old Ones could move back and forth like you go in and out of a house, but that was far in the past, and it’s not like they ever had much to do with us.”

  Madoc stared at her, then broke into laughter. “In the future, if you’re going to amaze me, could you do it more gradually?” he asked, shaking his head, his eyes alight with amusement and curiosity. “I’m almost struck dumb for not knowing what question to ask first.”

  “I’ll try to contain myself,” said Moiread, meaning that in more than one sense.

  The memory of their kiss still filled her with warmth, especially when she watched Madoc’s dark hair fall over his brow, or observed the clean lines of his body while he mounted his horse. Satisfying that lust, however, would take a while, and not just in a pleasurable sense. She looked like a man, and this wasn’t the battlefield, where priests and commanders alike could overlook what happened in a tent. She and Madoc would have to wait until they had a private room, and God alone knew when that was likely to be.

  She bit back a sigh.

  Meeting her gaze, Madoc looked swiftly away and cleared his throat. “The Old Ones, then.”

  “Our ancestors. Not human, nor even partly so. They wore man’s form as you’d put on a cloak. I don’t know if all shapes were alike to them, or if they were dragons in truth. It’d make their tastes a bit suspect, perhaps, if they were.”

  “Shall I joke about carrying off virgins now?” Madoc asked, but before Moiread could answer, he stiffened, and the humor faded from his face. “Wait. I thought I saw—” His eyes narrowed, and he peered off to the side of the road, into a thick clump of trees and brush.

  They didn’t stop then. Stopping would have let any watchers know they knew, and Moiread was bri
efly glad to see that Madoc didn’t suggest it. “What does it look like?” she asked quietly.

  “An…unraveling. A blurring. A—damn.”

  On the last word, he spurred his mare forward. The motion might have saved his life. One crossbow bolt sang through the air right behind him. Another punched into the flank of his mare, who screamed and reared up, beating the air with her hooves. Madoc clung to the saddle.

  The men in the brush knew a target when they saw one. Two more bolts took the mare in the chest.

  Moiread didn’t even have breath to swear.

  Fifteen

  There was a moment of grace for Rhuddem and Madoc both, a moment before she knew she was dying, before the wicked bolts piercing her organs made them fail entirely and her body with them. Screaming, she stayed upright for that instant, and that was long enough. Madoc kicked free of his stirrups and threw himself from the saddle with all the desperate strength he’d used to grip it earlier.

  He hit the ground hard. One whole side of his body took the impact, and it jarred through muscle and bone alike. Before he’d caught his breath or blinked his vision clear, Rhuddem pitched over on her side as well, a stroke of fortune sending her in the opposite direction from Madoc.

  The world was hazy and stank of blood.

  * * *

  Long-practiced reflex and alien duty blended for Moiread. With hardly any more thought than she’d have used when walking, she drew her sword and leapt off Shadow. The gelding was no destrier, and Moiread had never fought well on horseback.

  The bastards were likely reloading. She had a window, but a small one.

  She saw Madoc bolt from the saddle and hit the ground. His mare’s body blocked him from her view shortly after, and Moiread didn’t know if he was hurt. She thought she should check, then realized that if she missed her opportunity, it might not matter. She settled for a quick glance in his direction as she sprinted for the tree line.

  His eyes were open. He was breathing. That would have to be good enough.

  * * *

  Nothing hurt yet. Pain would come later, when his body realized that the danger was past—assuming he lived to see the danger past. Madoc shook his head to clear it.

  The first thing he saw when his vision cleared was Moiread darting past him with the bare blade of her sword shining in the sunlight. He’d almost forgotten their practice bout, particularly how fast she’d been—not lightning, but far quicker than most mortals.

  Madoc rolled up to his feet. His bones seemed intact, or intact enough to hold him, and that would suffice. He drew his own weapons, sword and dagger falling easily into his hands, and began to run as well. On his way, he dismissed the visio dei. The world became its normal self again, mundane and deadly.

  He got close enough to Moiread that her shadow fell across him as they entered the underbrush, and she looked over her shoulder to focus her gleaming eyes on him. She jerked her head leftward, then almost immediately veered right, and he knew what she meant. The assassins had likely split up, and they should do so as well.

  Madoc followed her orders, dodged around a young sapling toward where he saw movement, and ignored the impulse to look back.

  * * *

  Trees were a damned mixed blessing. They and their branches made running hell. Moiread had nearly tripped over two small logs by the time she reached the first clump of armed men, and her face was well and truly scratched.

  The trees did provide some cover. She was glad of that. Crossbowmen needed time to reload, but they might have been clever and saved a shot for, say, an angry Scotswoman charging at them with a sword. She ducked low and swerved around trunks just in case. With any luck, Madoc would do the same. She’d not had time to instruct him, any more than she’d been able to tell him he should stay put.

  A moving target was probably best, in any case.

  Three of the assassins crouched on a small ridge—two men with crossbows, hastily stuffing bolts into place, and a big fellow with an ax to guard them. He was in a good place for it too, right where the trail opened onto the ridge, right in position to meet Moiread.

  By God and the saints, she hated it when she had smart enemies.

  * * *

  One tree had grown so large that its shade and roots choked off all plant life beneath it. Two of the men had taken up a position there—one fellow with a crossbow, the other with a spear and a shield, and a long sword at his waist. From what Madoc could see in the shade of the trees and the excitement of the moment, neither looked particularly reputable, but both looked to have some experience in violence.

  Neither saw him at first. He moved lightly, and Moiread was making enough noise in the other direction to be a more-than-adequate distraction, particularly when what she did made one of her opponents bellow in pain. When both greasy heads turned toward the noise, Madoc saw his moment and lunged forward.

  Catching the movement out of the corner of his eye, the spearman turned and quickly raised his shield arm. Madoc’s sword hit metal rather than flesh, the impact jarring up his arm to his shoulder. He was inside the man’s range, though, safe from the jabbing spearhead, and he recovered quickly, letting the force of the rebound carry his sword over and downward.

  Battered leather armor kept the stroke shallower than it might have been, but it pierced flesh nonetheless. The spearman snarled an oath, nostrils flaring with pain, and shifted his weight quickly backward. The outside leg of his breeches grew dark with blood.

  A touch: not a fatal one, nor even crippling. The man dropped the spear and brought his shield around to block Madoc’s following strike while he drew his sword.

  His friend was kneeling on the ground with a crossbow in front of him. A bolt was already in place; the man was now cranking the bow back. Aiming would come next. Then the shot.

  * * *

  The man with the ax swung. Moiread ducked behind a tree, then around, and forced her way through the brush toward the first crossbowman. He bolted to his feet, grabbing for the dagger at his waist and letting the bow tumble to the ground.

  She didn’t have the chance to pursue him. His friend with the ax was quick; he turned and hacked at Moiread again, and she hastily spun to block him. She’d bought herself time, though, with at least one fewer crossbow bolt coming at her head, and that had been her immediate aim. The other fellow would find it harder to hit her with the first man in the way.

  For the moment, Moiread could turn her attention almost fully to the axman. Abruptly, she shifted her weight back, dropping her sword from the ax. Before the other man could register that and follow the opening through into her kidneys, she whirled away, snapped a leg up, and kicked him in the stomach.

  Armor helped him, and her foot would ache for it later, but the man staggered. Moiread spun again, landing on the leg she’d used to kick and bringing her sword down overhand onto the joint of his elbow.

  He screamed.

  He didn’t scream for long.

  Even while his hand was falling to the ground, ax clutched in his beefy fingers, Moiread drew back, lunged, and slid her sword through armor, skin, and flesh alike—a good, clean strike between the ribs, and turned so that the bone wouldn’t catch the blade.

  The man died fast, with a look of puzzlement mixing with the pain on his face. Moiread had seen that often.

  * * *

  The woods around had gone silent. Most creatures ran when men fought one another, even those who would later make a leisurely meal of the loser. In the quiet, Madoc heard three sets of quick, panting breaths, all slightly out of rhythm. He felt sweat running down his neck—or mayhap blood, since he didn’t know what injury he might have done himself in his fall or the run through the forest—and ignored it.

  He circled as wide as he could, given the ground, luring his foe out and using his body as cover against the crossbowman. The other lunged and Madoc met his blade. He feinted
a few times, only to find himself tapping at the man’s shield. Neither moved decisively for a span of moments. No sun dappled the ground on this overcast day. Beneath the trees, it was almost as dim as twilight.

  When the opening came, it was slight. The other man just missed his step, and the shift in weight dropped his guard by a fraction. In that instant, Madoc darted in and struck, carving a long line with his dagger down the shoulder of his foe’s sword arm. The next moment Madoc was leaping sideways, away from a return slash at his neck.

  As he dodged, he also threw the dagger with a quick overhand motion that had served him well in contests and hunting. It took the crossbowman in the throat. He didn’t make a sound, but fell backward, blood pooling onto the dark earth.

  Madoc turned back to face the swordsman, blade ready. His enemy had other ideas, knowing himself to be alone and doubly wounded against a hale opponent who might shortly have an ally.

  “Quarter, sir!” He stepped swiftly back, almost stumbling onto the corpse of his ally, with his sword and shield both raised protectively. “Gimme mercy, in God’s name!”

  “Fine words from a murderer,” said Madoc. “Throw down your weapons.”

  * * *

  Both men fighting Moiread had armed themselves for close combat while she was dispatching their friend. One had a short sword, the other a cudgel, with which he made a decent attempt at braining her as she drew her sword from the first man’s rib cage. Ducking hastily, she took the blow on her shoulder, where it hurt like the devil but didn’t break any bones.

  Moiread rose, slashed, and caught the son of a whore across the neck. The spine was a sturdy piece of work; she didn’t quite take his head. It was a near thing, though, and she turned from him confident that there’d be no more trouble from that quarter any time soon.

  A crouching strike to the thigh did for the third man. It wasn’t as immediately fatal, but he dropped his sword and fell to the ground, clutching at the wound and calling on the saints. Moiread stepped back and eyed him.