by BJ Hoff
The road was spongy from the recent rains, rutted from neglect and covered with debris. Although Jan Martova instantly tried to pull back on the mare, they were already too deep into the turn to recover.
The horse and the front wheels made it around, but when Sandemon felt the back wheels begin to skid, he knew what was about to happen. He whipped around, fumbling at the door that opened into the wagon.
“Brace yourselves!” It was all he had time to cry out before the wagon went into a sickening skid.
He thought they would surely capsize, but at the last instant the wagon careened, shuddered, then lurched to a dead stop.
Tierney had already felt the wagon begin to skid out of control. The instant he heard Sandemon’s warning, he dived for the wheelchair.
Throwing himself between the chair and the brass railing at the side of the wagon, he barely managed to break the impact of Morgan’s crash against the wall.
There was silence for a moment, then the sound of raised voices outside, coupled with the nervous whinnying of the mare.
He pried himself free, watching Morgan. “Are you hurt?”
Morgan seemed stunned, but otherwise all right. He waved off Tierney’s concern. “No damage, thanks to you. Go and see what’s wrong.”
Outside, Tierney found Jan Martova and Sandemon bending over the wagon’s right front wheel, which looked to be firmly lodged in the roadside ditch.
“What happened?”
Jan Martova glanced back over his shoulder. “I took a bend in the road too quickly. But we’re fine, I think. The axle held, and the wheel looks secure.”
Tierney eyed the listing wagon. “Can we put her back up?”
Jan nodded. “Nothing seems broken.”
Straightening, Sandemon looked around for a moment, then turned his gaze in the direction of the house, which was still not in view.
“We must hurry,” he said, his voice strained.
Both Tierney and Jan Martova looked at him, then at each other.
Sandemon reached out to clasp Jan Martova’s shoulder. “I have seen you with the wolfhound, running in the meadow. You are as fleet of foot as the red deer. Run now,” he urged, his eyes burning in their intensity. “Run to the house, as fast as you can. Tierney Burke and I are strong enough to raise the wagon without you. But neither of us can run as you do. Go now!”
Jan Martova’s black eyes searched Sandemon’s face for another moment. Then he murmured a sound of assent and turned toward the road.
Sandemon stopped him with a restraining hand. “Your knife—do you have it with you?”
Jan Martova looked at him, then drew his right leg up slightly to tap his boot.
Sandemon nodded. “Go now! We will follow as soon as we can.”
Driven by desperation, Finola searched and found deep within herself a semblance of self-control, a thread of sanity that still held. Forcing her voice above the cacophony in the stables—the horses’ frantic pounding and whinnying, Gabriel’s relentless weeping—she swallowed down her own fear and loathing in an attempt to reason with the man who held the knife to her throat.
“Please…please, don’t do this,” she ventured, cringing at the trembling she could hear in her voice. “You’ll be caught, don’t you see? My husband and his man will be back any moment…and there are others…you can’t possibly hope to get away with this!”
To her dismay, he laughed at her. Whipping her around to face him, he held her with one arm about her waist. He pressed close to her, unbearably close, bringing the knife so near she could smell the metal of the blade.
“Your husband the cripple will stop me, is that it? And what will he do, run me down with his wheelchair?” Again he laughed, an ugly explosion that split the torn mouth even more.
Behind her, Gabriel wailed louder.
“Shut up, I told you! Just shut up!”
In his rage, he suddenly threw Finola off, giving her a hard shove toward Aine and Gabriel. “You quiet him down! I mean it, or so help me, I’ll cut his throat before I even start on you!”
Finola’s shoulder slammed into the wall. Stunned, she sank down beside her weeping child, reaching for him and drawing him up against her heart as she tried to comfort him.
The warmth of Gabriel’s small body gave Finola a strength she wouldn’t have believed possible. She began to stroke his hair and croon to him in the Irish, pressing his face against her body. In no time her bodice was wet with his tears, though his muffled cries grew slightly less frenzied.
The man came to stand over them, legs spread, knife held blade up. He watched them for another moment.
Abruptly, he turned his attention to Aine. Without warning he grabbed her and hauled her up by one arm. She screamed, and he swore at her, raising the knife in warning.
Dismayed, Finola saw Aine’s self-control snap.
The girl twisted and bucked like a wild mare, kicking frantically at the man’s legs, shrieking and flailing her arms as she tried to fight him off. “Leave me alone!”
“You little alley cat! You’re not worth the trouble! I’ll be done with you now!”
With the knife clutched in one hand, he seized Aine’s throat with the other, shaking her as if she were nothing more than an empty sack of feed.
Finola stumbled to her feet, still holding Gabriel in her arms, pressing his face against her shoulder so he could not see what was happening.
Her mind froze. She felt weak, dazed, as if none of this were real. The stables seemed to recede from her view, dissolving into a mist. The sounds of the anxious horses faded, and even her son’s heart-wrenching sobs waned. Shadows rose, darkening everything about her, until the only thing that seemed real was the madman and his victim.
It was almost as if she had stepped back through the years and stood watching herself. She had been scarcely older than Aine the first time a man had attacked her, still little more than a girl when the second assault came—from the monster who now held Aine captive.
Suddenly, reality came rushing back, with all its ugliness and clamor and mind-crushing terror. In front of her, Aine was pummeling her attacker with her fists in an attempt to free herself.
The man thrust the girl back and slapped her hard across the face. She screamed in pain. The assailant began to taunt her with the knife, pulling it back, then thrusting it closer.
Somewhere inside Finola, something snapped. The fear that only a moment before had been close to paralyzing her now vanished. In its place rose an anger she had never known, a rage so fierce, so intense, that the very force of it threatened to whip her into a frenzy.
Her ears drummed with the beat of her wildly racing pulse. She felt lightheaded, weightless, yet at the same time sensed a power welling up in her that had not been there before.
Her eyes swept her surroundings for a weapon and locked on a piece of harness with brass fittings carelessly looped over Pilgrim’s stall.
She set Gabriel to the ground against the wall with his back toward Aine and her lunatic assailant. Immediately the boy looked around and reached for her, renewing his wailing.
Everything inside Finola longed to scoop him up and try to flee the stables with him, but she could no more leave Aine to face this horror alone than she could have abandoned her son. Resisting his pitiful cries, she told him firmly in the Irish that he must stay where he was, that he must not move from this spot, no matter what. The child cowered into the corner, still crying.
Yanking the piece of harness off the door of the stall, Finola rushed the madman from behind. She went after her nemesis like a fury, using the harness as a whip, flogging him across the back with as much force as she could muster, which was considerable. She screamed as she drove into him, turning years of suppressed rage and pain into a battle cry. Like one of the ancient warrior-queens, she brandished her weapon against her old enemy.
The victim had become the attacker.
The house was now in sight, but they were still far enough away that Louisa was again tempted
to sit down beside the road to have a rest. Only the thought that she could soon remove her shoes and soak her feet in a nice warm bucket of water kept her going without complaint.
Beside her, Lucy was huffing as if they’d been walking the entire day without respite.
The wolfhound had pulled ahead a bit, though every so often he would slow his gait and come back, prancing and circling them as if to urge them on. “Can’t you go any faster?” he seemed to be saying.
He was clearly agitated, unusually fidgety. During the past few minutes Louisa had accelerated her own pace—not to humor the wolfhound, though his anxiety did unnerve her, but more because her own apprehension had continued to heighten. Her growing uneasiness was out of proportion, given the fact that it seemed to have no basis, but that did nothing to alleviate the dread. Now she was falling prey to Lucy Hoy’s infamous superstitions.
She glanced over at Lucy, and saw that the woman had her face set straight ahead, toward Nelson Hall, and was taking the road at as fast a stride as her short legs would allow. If Lucy sensed Louisa’s look, she didn’t return it.
“We will be home soon,” Louisa said somewhat breathlessly.
Lucy gave a nod. With her eyes still set on the house, she began to walk even faster. “I think we must hurry, Sister,” she said. “See, even the wolfhound knows we must hurry.”
Louisa looked at her, then at Fergus, who indeed had pulled ahead and was taking the road at a much faster gait. Abruptly, he stopped and turned, the uncannily intelligent eyes watching them. He barked once, then again, with an air of impatience and frustration.
After studying them for another second or two, Fergus seemed to make a decision. He barked once more, turned, and broke into a furious run toward the house.
Louisa had never panicked easily, indeed seldom panicked at all. But she panicked now. Seized by an icy shudder, she ignored her sore, burning feet, gathered her skirts, and began to run. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lucy falter for only an instant before following her lead.
28
Battle to the Death
What brings death to one
Brings life to another.
IRISH PROVERB
Taken completely off guard by the unexpected attack, the man tossed Aine from him and spun around to face Finola. The knife fell when he pushed Aine away.
Finola’s eyes went to the blade, but her courage faltered when she saw his expression. A look of utter amazement exploded into a spasm of murderous rage. He crouched, hunching his shoulders and thrusting his head forward like a mad bull about to charge.
Finola gave him no time. She swung the harness as hard as she could at his head.
He threw up his hands to protect his face, lost his balance, and went down on one knee. It took him a moment to recover, and in that time Finola rushed him again with the harness.
The brass buckle at the end of the leather smacked his cheekbone, cracking the skin. Blood spurted, adding a crimson trail to his skin’s furious red flush.
He shrieked with pain. Down on both knees now, he roared an oath at her. He scrambled to his feet, covering his wounded cheek with one hand.
Finola saw his furtive gaze sweep the ground nearby. He was looking for the knife.
She slanted a look at Aine. Conscious but obviously dazed, the girl lay on her side, knees drawn up to her chin like a babe, rubbing her throat with one hand.
The blade lay within an arm’s length of her.
“Aine—the knife!” Finola screamed. “Get the knife!”
The girl stared at her with a disoriented look, her eyes dull and blank.
Finola shouted again, and this time the warning seemed to register. But it was too late. Even as Aine uncoiled herself and scooted sideways to retrieve the knife, the man lunged for it and grabbed it up.
He turned back toward Finola, his face contorted, his eyes flaming.
Within a fraction of a second, her mind clicked through three decisions: she would not, could not, run and leave the children. She would kill the madman if she could, rather than endure for the second time his hideous abuse. But if she failed, she would not resign herself to death and make it easy for him. She would fight him to the end.
He came at her then, his face cut and bleeding, his lips pulled back over his teeth, his eyes blazing. He was sweating, panting, cursing with every breath. He was no longer even partially sane, but had degenerated to something savage, a primal beast driven entirely by blind, mindless rage.
He had recovered from her attack and was fast and surefooted again, with the quick, instinctive movements of a wild animal in deadly combat. Finola had lost all the advantage of surprise, and she was tiring. Her throat burned, and her chest hammered with pain from exertion and terror.
But something had also been released in her, some instinct so ancient, so fundamental, that it fueled and energized her, equipping her for the conflict. At this moment in time, she was no longer a victim, but simply a woman, a woman fighting with every part of her being, with her very life, to save her loved ones.
At this moment, her own life had value to her only as it provided a kind of weapon—a weapon to ensure the protection…the deliverance… of her son and stepdaughter.
And so as the beast came for her, crazed and more dangerous than ever in his rage, she risked it all—her strength, her sanity, her flesh, her life—in one last desperate attempt to stop him. Something deep in her spirit cried out a great, impassioned plea to God and all His angels, and sent it roaring up inside her to explode into a deafening battle cry as she rushed headlong against her enemy.
Through glazed eyes and a cloud of pain, Annie saw Finola raise the piece of harness high above her head, leaving herself open and vulnerable to the knife.
Finola gave a terrible scream, and the harness slashed down with a singing blow over the madman’s head just as he charged her.
Annie rubbed her aching throat as she watched, breathless.
The man roared in agony but didn’t go down.
Wheezing, gasping, Finola attempted to evade the thrust of the knife by hurling herself to the floor and rolling off to the side, then scrambling on her knees into the open track between the stalls, only a short distance from the back of the stable. She pushed herself to her feet, glanced behind her, then looked toward the stable door.
Stunned, Annie thought for an instant that Finola was about to desert them, was going to run out the stable door, leaving her and Gabriel behind.
But as she gradually regained her senses, she grew angry with herself for even thinking such a thing. Finola would never abandon them, never!
As Annie watched, Finola turned to face the madman. Her clear blue gaze, usually so gentle, now blazed with fury. Her long hair was tossed and tangled, hanging in wild disarray about her face. She stood as if daring the man to advance: legs planted wide, teeth bared, the piece of harness still looped about her wrist.
A fire burned out from her, and she looked for all the world like one of the wild warrior women of the ancient legends.
Annie felt a surge of wonder and pride as she witnessed Finola’s courage. But her elation was short-lived. With a piece of harness as her only weapon, even a warrior queen would have little hope of defeating such a formidable enemy.
She tried to haul herself up off the stable floor to help, but was struck by such a sickening wave of dizziness she reeled and fell back. Weak beyond belief, she could do nothing but lie in the dust and pray.
Trembling, Finola saw that her attack had only fueled the madman’s rage. Snarling, growling like the mindless beast he had become, he lunged at her, flung himself on her. He threw her to the ground and fell onto her back, pressing her face down into the hay-strewn floor. At any moment, the vicious knife blade would slice into her flesh. But she would not give up.
As she struggled against the weight of the madman on her back, Finola’s mind flashed to the family she loved. She thought of Gabriel, her tiny son…and Aine, the stepdaughter she had come to cheris
h as if she were flesh of her flesh. She thought of Morgan, and her heart wrenched with a great sorrow. She prayed that somehow God would deliver her loved ones, that they would not fall victims to this monstrous savagery.
Darkness was fast bearing down on her. Still she struggled, trying to throw him off, covering her head to ward off the attacker’s blows.
When the howling and snarling rose to a clamoring din, a roar so thunderous the stable walls seemed to pound and shake, she felt the instant of her death had surely come. If this were the end, she would go down fighting. The last image before her eyes would be her son, and the last word on her lips would be the name of her Savior. She lifted her head out of the dust…
Suddenly, through the veil of her tears and the blur of her pain, she saw a brindled gray thunderhead explode through the open hay doors at the back of the stable and come flying toward her.
For one chilling moment she thought the murderer at her back had been, after all, Satan incarnate, and that he had called up his fiendish minions to finish her off. She saw the bared fangs, the snarling mouth, the eyes, savage and blazing with fury, barreling down upon her, and knew an instant of utter, mindless panic.
And then she saw that it was no hellish demon roaring toward her, but instead their own Fergus, the wolfhound.
The madman was still upon her, but his blows had abruptly ceased.
Instinctively, she began to scream the blessed wolfhound’s name, over and over again, like a litany.
“Fergus…Fergus…Fergus!”
She felt the man-beast roll off her back, his savage growls cut dead. There was a final bleat of terror, then a howling, inhuman scream of agony.
Wrenching around, Finola watched in stunned disbelief as the massive wolfhound, great chest heaving, buried his snarling, tearing jaws in the madman’s throat. He gave one violent shake, and in an instant the stables were silent.