Highland Dragon Rebel

by Isabel Cooper

  Passionate as she was and had been, Madoc didn’t want to make assumptions that might leave her unsated, not with his breaking point so near. He took his weight on one hand, letting the distraction tame his lust an atom or two, and slid the other hand between their bodies, resuming his task of earlier with a more distinct goal in mind.

  Before long, Moiread was bowstring tense, her head tossing back and forth as her hips thrust upward. A little longer, a few more circles of Madoc’s fingers, and the spasms of her climax rippled through her. She turned her head to the side in time to bury her scream in the pillow, and clung to Madoc as he groaned her name and finally let go.

  Twenty-nine

  Moiread woke and didn’t know why.

  Around her, the room was quiet and dark, the shutters closed against the night air. Madoc slept next to her, turned on his side with one arm thrown over her waist. His lashes were long and dark against his cheek, his hair tumbled over his forehead. The sight was one to remember and cherish, but Moiread was on too sharp an edge to appreciate it fully.

  She was a sound sleeper. A day of travel and a good seeing-to doubled that. No bodily need had woken her, so she thought of those senses that were more than human, even when she slept. Had she heard a noise from outside? Breathed an unfamiliar odor? Seen a flash of light? Waking, she could perceive none of those.

  They were indoors, and high up. The door was barred. Anyone trying to open it would make more than enough noise to wake her and Madoc both. Moiread had thought them well guarded, or she would have kept watch—and yet, her instincts had brought her back to waking.

  The first thing was not to move. If no attack was visible and incoming, then she shouldn’t let an enemy know she’d sensed him. Moiread breathed deeply and slowly, like a woman asleep, and watched the room from under her eyelashes.

  There: outside the shutter, a sound. It was quiet enough not to wake a normal person, but whatever had made it was larger than a stray owl or rat.

  Moiread centered herself, pressed her hands against the mattress, and breathed out visio dei as quietly as she could.

  The world took on its overlay of auras. Madoc’s red-and-silver nimbus was fainter as he slept, and the room, not being living, looked mostly as it usually did. Without other distractions, it was easy for Moiread to see the glow beyond the shutters. It was silver-white, like hazy moonlight, but it flickered weaker and flared stronger as she watched. The creature giving off that aura was moving.

  As subtly as she could, Moiread put a hand over Madoc’s mouth, then nudged him in the ribs. He opened his eyes and, although he looked dazed at first, asked no questions. If they lived, Moiread thought, she’d buy him a drink for that.

  “There’s a thing outside the window,” she whispered. “Magic.”

  Then she dismissed the vision and rolled off the bed toward the side where she’d laid her sword. She’d just hit the floor when the first of the shapes came through the wall.

  * * *

  The last set of assassins had been murderers for pay, sneaking bastards, and generally unpleasant men. They’d attacked Madoc in daytime, however, not dragged him from a pleasant sleep to face them without armor, weapons, boots, or, for the love of Christ, breeches. Nor had they gotten themselves to the second story and then stepped through stone.

  He could find himself missing those men.

  By the side of the bed, Moiread landed cat-light in a crouch and came up in one smooth movement, sword shining like a beam of moonlight in front of her. “Come on then,” she snarled, and Madoc, grabbing for his own sword and dagger, thought he saw long fangs in her open mouth.

  Four men, or man-shaped beings, faced them, two coming in from each of the outer walls. In the darkness, Madoc couldn’t see much of them, but he got the impression that their arms were too long and their faces too short, and their eyes shone flatly red. Faint moonlight through the shutters glinted off edges and points, showing they were armed.

  They were also quick. Moiread blocked the two nearest her, but the other two shot across the room toward Madoc. He ducked behind the clothes chest and shoved it toward them, catching one in the legs, then desperately rolled sideways to avoid the point of the other assassin’s sword. The blade sank deep into the mattress, and a drift of tiny feathers flew upward.

  Madoc brought his weapons up and blocked the next blow. The man in front of him fought with long knives: ideal for a small room, in the way that neither his nor Moiread’s swords were. He pushed in close, forcing Madoc back against the bed frame. Pained breathing from the side said that the other assassin was solid enough to hurt when he got several pounds of wood in the leg, but Madoc didn’t have time to be glad about that.

  One blade came around snake-quick toward Madoc’s neck. He caught it clumsily with the edge of his sword and ducked under, avoiding the partnered strike to his ribs and spinning himself around the attacker so that Madoc now pinned him against the bed. As he passed close to the other man, he felt a chill despite the exertion. His laboring breath brought him the scent of cold metal, too strong to be the blades.

  The wounded man was on his right now, sounding in better shape with every breath. The other was in front of him, not quite able to react yet. Madoc leapt backward, sweeping sword and dagger in arcs from the outside in, until he stood on his guard with space to fight. He could hear Moiread’s breath on the other side of the room. The scuffle of feet and ring of blade on blade mirrored his, but he lacked the leisure to find out more. He was simply glad to be in a better position.

  With that in mind, Madoc began to press his advantage, only to see the air ripple in front of him. The assassin stepped through the corner of the bed and emerged on Madoc’s left. His friend moved in again, a spiked length of metal heavy in one hand.

  * * *

  A small room, surrounded by humans, and foes who were quicker than mortal men: if the assassins’ master had set out to create the worst circumstances for Moiread to fight, he could scarcely have done better. That could mean all kinds of troubling things, but she didn’t have the luxury of pausing to consider them. The blades coming at her were far more urgent concerns.

  She cut high. One of the men dodged the blade, while the other came in for her kidneys. Moiread rolled backward away from them and sliced upward as she rose, blocking a sword aimed at her throat. The men didn’t have her strength. Her assailant’s arm gave under the blow, and she forced him back. He swerved sideways before she could follow through, though, quick as the flick of a snake’s tongue.

  Downstairs, voices were rising. Moiread couldn’t spare the time to listen, but she knew they’d be alarmed. Humans might or might not be able to hear the sounds of steel on steel from the floor above, but the scuffling and thumping would not sound normal. Before long they’d be running up the stairs. If they were wise, they’d have their own weapons, and they’d most likely do nothing except maybe die if one of the assassins could get free of Madoc and Moiread long enough.

  She was glad she’d barred the door.

  Both of the not-entirely men came back toward her. Patches of mangy fur dotted their faces and the backs of their hands, and Moiread thought she saw a flash of pointed teeth. They lunged and struck, collecting themselves as she dodged, and then one pivoted out of the way in time to dodge her return slash.

  Moiread let her sword arm fall, delayed long enough for the other assassin to get behind her, and then reversed the motion. Her sword itself was too large and too heavy to turn around in time, but her elbow moved well enough. It struck the man-thing in the face with a crack of bone that did her heart good to hear.

  The creature snarled. High, chittering, the sound brought to mind the titters of a monkey she’d seen in court some years back, all evil mischief and thwarted rage. Moiread hoped there was pain in the mix too.

  Stepping back, she swept her sword up in front of her again. This time it cut deep into an outstretched arm,
drawing both blood and another shriek—but the creature she’d elbowed recovered more quickly than it should have. Moiread threw herself backward, away from its oncoming stroke, and felt her back hit the wall. One elbow crashed through a window; she felt blood and splintering wood, and knew pain would come later.

  Try something new.

  She opened her hand and let go of her sword. As she’d thought it would, the motion got the creature’s attention. It moved in as Moiread snapped her weight backward. The assassin’s blade passed within inches of her torso, but she caught its arm with both hands. With a flick of her hip, she threw the creature forward, breaking its arm and sending its head through another shutter.

  Shards of wood lodged in its throat. Enough blood went up for it to be a fatal wound. Moiread wouldn’t trust in that, but she had hold of the creature’s sword arm, which meant that she had a shorter sword.

  Grab. Lunge. Stab.

  It even rhymed.

  * * *

  The point of the knife should have hit Madoc in the arm, even ducking away as he was. He saw its outline collide with his arm, felt nothing, and at first thought he’d been wounded and not yet realized it. That happened betimes, or so he’d heard. As he pulled himself back and around to the assassin’s side, though, he realized that there was no blood, and the fabric of his tunic was as yet intact.

  It seemed the creatures needed to be substantial to strike. He would be thankful for small blessings, if he survived.

  A shift of position put him in front of both assassins again, though Madoc didn’t know how long that would last. He feinted backward, tried to put more desperation in his face than he felt—that wasn’t saying much—and watched as one of the men advanced, swinging a morning star. Then he ducked low, practically going to his knees, and slashed low, forward, and in.

  Whatever the beasts were, they bled. And they had hamstrings, although one of them was now considerably lacking in that regard. He squirmed on the floor, letting out inhuman cries mixed, disturbingly, with good English blasphemy.

  His friend might have taken notice but didn’t pause, just moved in on Madoc in a whirlwind of blades. One hit the nightstand as Madoc ducked behind it, knocking pitcher and basin sideways to the floor in a crash of porcelain shards. If Madoc hadn’t already regretted fighting half naked, he would have then, though for a mercy, the broken bits missed him.

  The nightstand itself was too large and solid to shove as he’d done the chest. Indeed, hitting the oak made the assassin’s blades shiver. From the grimace on the man’s face, Madoc suspected he’d felt the impact right up his arm and into his shoulder.

  Madoc saw his moment and took it. One step forward gathered his weight. A spring up and over brought him to the top of the nightstand: a precarious perch, but one from which he had the twin advantages of height and surprise. Madoc’s attacker had been circling sideways to get at him. Now he gaped and tried to raise one of his knives.

  It didn’t work. Madoc swept his sword around and down, taking a knee to add further to the force of the impact. Flesh parted. Bone snapped. The assassin’s head tumbled from his shoulders in a gout of blood.

  Thumping filled the room, coming from the door. “What in Christ’s name are you playing at?” the innkeeper yelled. “Open up, or I’ll have the law on you!”

  “That,” Moiread said from the other side of the room, “could really only improve matters.”

  Thirty

  “Talk to him,” Moiread whispered. “You’re better at it, and I’d rather he didn’t see me right now.”

  Madoc wasn’t entirely thrilled about facing the innkeeper in his condition either. His tunic covered everything essential, though, and he needed no illusion to seem masculine. He wondered why Moiread couldn’t invoke hers, but had no time for debate, nor any real interest. As she’d said, he’d likely handle the encounter better.

  He unbarred the door and opened it a crack. The burly middle-aged man on the other side stared at him and then past him to see one headless body on the floor, quite a bit of blood, and another figure cursing and shrieking while it clutched its leg. He might have seen, even in the half-darkness, that neither looked entirely human. He couldn’t fail to realize that neither had come in through any human means.

  “I… You… Those—” the innkeeper stammered and raised a suddenly shaking hand to cross himself. His face, florid when he’d taken their money and served them dinner, was parchment-colored.

  “I know, yes. It took me by surprise too,” Madoc said, using his most calming voice and hoping that it cut through the assassin’s howling. That was growing fainter as the pool of blood spread.

  He heard footsteps and then Moiread cursing. “Stay still, ye wee bastard.” With luck, his body, distance, and the creature would block all she didn’t want the innkeeper to see.

  Madoc patted the other man on the shoulder, redirecting his stunned gaze. “My good man,” he went on, sliding into the most courtly and condescending tones he knew. The conversation would almost be a nastier bit of business than the fight, but there was likely no getting around it. “Don’t think that I’ll hold you at all responsible for the attack. You’d no way of knowing. Who could?”

  “Well, yes,” the innkeeper said. “But what—”

  “Best not to ask, I’d say. Best not to know. There are foul things in this world, and an honest man should trouble his mind about them no more than he has to, yes?”

  “Yes, m’lord.”

  “We’re all right. We’ve dealt with the matter, and I’m certain it won’t happen again. And, of course, we’ll pay well for the damage to the room. There’s no point in you suffering for this night’s work, is there?”

  “Thank you, m’lord,” said the innkeeper. “Will you be, ah, staying the rest of the night?”

  “We will.” Madoc hadn’t known before he answered, but it made sense in retrospect. Wandering out into the night was probably more dangerous than lingering. “And we’ll need water and soap as soon as you can manage them. After that, I suggest you get some sleep, good man. We’ll settle up come the morning.”

  As he watched the man’s retreat, Madoc reconsidered. Now that the fight was over, the smell of blood and death in the room was nauseating. It was impractical to leave—and likely too late. Madoc sighed, shut the door, and lit the candle by the bed. Light revealed a scene less pleasant than the smell had been.

  “Dead,” said Moiread, standing up from the hamstrung creature. “Damn. I’d hoped we could ha’ made the thing talk. Now we’ll need to get rid of the bodies, but first I’ll ask for your aid.”

  “Of course,” Madoc began, but when she held out her arm, he stopped and stared in as horrified surprise as the innkeeper had done.

  The flesh around Moiread’s elbow bristled with wood. The points had stuck right through the cloth of her tunic, and the once-brown fabric was a dark, dripping red.

  * * *

  Had she been able to tend her wound one-handed, Moiread would have done so before her body realized what had happened. The wooden shards had started hurting like the devil before Madoc had gone to the door. Only the importance of him placating the innkeeper—and then her desire to get information out of the assassin beast—had let her put off her request.

  As it was, she bit her lip and looked away as Madoc drew out each sliver. Her other hand clenched at her side. If she’d been on the battlefield, and he a page who knew nothing of her, she would likely have been yelling and swearing. She did swear, under her breath, with the next-to-last piece. It was lodged sideways and required turning to get it out, and for a little while, all she saw was white.

  “My thanks,” she said afterward, drawing her ruined tunic over her head. That hurt too. Everything would for a while. Best to concentrate on other matters. “Not sure what to do with the bodies. Mayhap if we throw them out the window, I can go drag them off and bury them.”

&nbs
p; “To hell with the bodies,” said Madoc, reaching for her arm again. “You’ll need a dressing on that, or…good God.”

  He gaped. Moiread followed his gaze. The sight that met her eyes was, to her, nothing remarkable. She’d known it almost from birth. The wounds were closing up, their edges drawing slowly together as she watched. Vessels knit, then muscle, then skin. Bones would have taken longer, but she’d been lucky.

  “Aye, well,” she said with a shrug. “Good of you to think of it.”

  She didn’t want to look too closely at Madoc’s expression. When he gave her a smile, she wanted to remember that instead, however faint it was, and she cursed herself inwardly for her doubts. Madoc knew what she was. He’d seen her transform. He’d gone to bed with her regardless, and surely that was as much as she could want.

  There was knowledge and knowledge.

  A clean transformation could be majestic. Watching her flesh move as it healed wasn’t.

  None of that made any real difference. There were tasks at hand. She reached for her clothing, tattered and bloodstained as it now was. “Let’s have done with this. And you should come with me. Best you not be alone here.”

  * * *

  Dragging inhuman corpses out a window in the dead of night went about as well as it possibly could have. The innkeeper and his guests had evidently decided to turn a blind eye for the rest of the evening. Madoc heard no sounds of alarm and saw no lights go on, throughout the whole endeavor. The village was small enough to have plenty of space around the inn, so he doubted neighbors would raise the alarm.

  Thank God for small mercies, he supposed.

  After the bodies were gone, the room did smell a touch better. The innkeeper brought two basins of water and some strong lye soap. Madoc and Moiread washed the room as best they could, then did the same to themselves. The sting of the soap and the cold water felt right to Madoc. The process also occupied his mind, which he needed, lest he descend too far into guilt, worry, or both.