Firebrand

by Gillian Philip

  He did not get a chance to plunge it between Conal’s shoulder blades. The big man Torc drew his sword and took his head off.

  Not that I was immediately sure that was what had happened. Fearchar’s head stayed balanced on his neck for all of three seconds before toppling to the ground and releasing a fountain of blood. Slowly the rest of him slid from his horse and thudded to the earth.

  ‘Good blade,’ I remarked.

  Torc wiped it and sheathed it on his back, then spat on the ground. Cluaran shut his eyes and sighed through his nose. I got the feeling his patience was wearing thin.

  Torc’s brutish face flushed slightly. ‘Can’t break a truce.’ He had a funny accent. I knew he came from some other country, far to the south. ‘I wasn’t ’aving that.’

  Cluaran opened his eyes. They were watching the sky. ‘Don’t worry about Torc, Cù Chaorach. I’ll blame you for that.’

  ‘Fine by me. Now let us through.’

  The files divided for us with no more argument. When the last of us was clear of them, Conal broke into a gallop.

  We can’t have gone more than five miles before I pulled up my horse, and Branndair slunk alongside me, panting. Catriona and Conal halted too, and he gestured for the others to follow Aonghas.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘We’re being followed.’

  ‘Cluaran wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘No. There’s just one.’

  ‘Friend of Fearchar’s?’ he asked dryly.

  ‘Probably. I’ll take him. Go with Conal, Catriona.’

  ‘Be careful,’ she said.

  ‘Do I look like an amateur?’ Grinning, I unsheathed my sword. ‘Piece of piss.’

  ‘Better be. We need to get to the dun yesterday.’ With a withering look, Conal slapped the rump of Catriona’s horse so that it leaped forward into a canter. As she glanced back over her shoulder, anxious, Conal rode on behind her.

  I turned my horse. It was a handsome dark bay, darker now that it was sweating with nerves. A chilling thought occurred to me that our pursuer might be a Lammyr, and that I might not cope with it alone. So much for playing the alpha male and showing off to Catriona.

  I drew my sword off my back and kissed its hilt for luck. ‘What is it, Branndair?’

  He tilted his head to look at me, grinning, tongue flopping from his mouth. Then he looked again towards the approaching rider. We could both hear the heavy hoofbeats. Disdainfully, the wolf wrinkled his muzzle, limbs stiffening, and growled.

  I laughed. ‘Piece of piss, eh?’

  I shivered, though. No getting out of it now.

  The horse that came over the darkening horizon was huge, feather-hoofed. Damn, but it looked familiar.

  So did the thuggish shaven-headed fighter on its back. When he saw me he hauled the colossal horse to a halt and whipped his sword from its scabbard. The horse’s head swung, its snarling mouth dripping foam, and for the first time I saw that its eyes were black and flat, the eyes of a water horse: the eyes of a killer.

  Shutting my eyes, swallowing, I called the blue roan. I hadn’t meant to call him till we were far closer to the dun. I hadn’t thought I’d need to. I hoped he was going to get here in time.

  ‘Oy, shorty.’

  I raised my sword. Stupid bugger, getting me riled.

  ‘Put it down,’ yelled Torc.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Soddin’ well put it down.’

  ‘Aye. When you do.’

  He was close enough now for me to see the thin membrane of his horse’s third eyelid, flickering defensively across its black eye. Warily we circled one another, swords held to the side, Branndair snarling.

  ‘I’m not gonna hurt you,’ he barked.

  I laughed in disbelief. ‘Too right you’re not. Any last words?’

  ‘Not that you’ll ever hear, you friggin’ midget.’

  ‘You’re pissing me off now. Shall we get this over with?’

  ‘Get what over with?’ he roared. ‘I’m trying to offer you my sword and all you can do is threaten me!’

  ‘You’re trying to what?’

  ‘You ’eard me. Think I can go back with Cluaran after that?’

  ‘Cluaran was just fine with what you did.’ I narrowed my eyes.

  ‘Yeah, but his boss won’t be, will she? No way she won’t find out, mate. You might say I screwed up royally there.’

  ‘That’s your problem, mate.’ I flipped my sword in my hand and caught it.

  He grinned at me, did the same flip-and-catch trick. ‘I like your brother. Always did.’

  I grinned back. ‘That’s different, then. Innit?’

  Sheathing my sword, I held out my hand.

  Sheathing his, he took it.

  When we caught up with the others, camped for a few hours’ rest, I took him straight to Conal. Torc looked at Aonghas, then at Reultan, then at my brother.

  ‘Burnt my friggin’ boats,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m your bondsman now, Cù Chaorach.You idealistic—’

  The word he used was blunt, and succinct, and as Anglo-Saxon as he was. And the disgusted horror on Reultan’s face is a memory I treasure to this day.

  36

  THIRTY-SIX

  They were expecting us.

  What’s more, the dun was impregnable. That was how it was meant to be. That was how Griogair had made it, and Conal after him, and the rest of us had pitched in. Knowing it was our own fine work didn’t cheer us up.

  Calman Ruadh came out with two of his lieutenants to stand on the parapet. He didn’t jeer, only looked down at us with a smirk and limitless contempt.

  ‘If he lets his block down for one second,’ said Reultan coolly, ‘I’ll make his ears bleed.’

  I gave Torc a sidelong glance, and he raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Nice to see you entering into the spirit, Reultan,’ I said.

  ‘No point going along with this lunacy if I don’t,’ she retorted.

  ‘Is it true she’s a witch?’ Torc muttered in my ear.

  ‘Heavens, no,’ I said loudly. ‘We’re not allowed to call her a witch.’

  ‘Give it a rest,’ said Conal, but his heart wasn’t in it. He was too busy studying the walls and the defences, not to mention the three corpses dangling by their necks against the north wall. Two men and a woman. All ours.

  ‘They weren’t keen on defending the dun, Cù Chaorach,’ shouted Calman Ruadh. ‘Slackers. You’re better off without them.’

  ‘Don’t answer him, Conal,’ growled Aonghas. ‘Don’t give him the satisfaction.’

  Conal ground his teeth but he said nothing.

  I took a couple of paces forward to get a better look at the usurper. His pale red hair was cropped close to his skull. His eyes were pale too, and his eyelashes. He was a striking-looking bugger, I’ll give him that.

  ‘Calman Ruadh,’ I yelled. ‘When I cut off your balls should I feed them to my wolf or my horse? Or should I just feed them to you to stop your squealing?’

  Reultan tutted, but Aonghas laughed. ‘Murlainn, what are we going to do with you?’ He dug me hard in the ribs. ‘And what would we do without you?’

  ‘Let’s hope you never find out,’ I said. I liked Aonghas better, now that he wasn’t my captain any more. I was never going to like Reultan, but there you go, you can’t have everything.

  ‘Be good little traitors,’ shouted Calman Ruadh, ‘and wait there till I decide what to do with you. Come any closer to the dun, this one joins her father.’

  He yanked a small figure to the parapet beside him.

  ‘Gods,’ I said. Nobody else managed to speak.

  Uilleann’s nine-year-old daughter, the one he’d fathered on a wild night in the dun after a battle. She wasn’t Raineach’s, but Raineach had been fond enough of her to look after her when her mother was killed. I remembered her in the forge as a three-year-old, half-hiding behind Eili, daringly sticking out her tongue at me. The child’s hands were tied in front of her. She was trying not to tremble. Ther
e was a thin rope around her neck.

  ‘I let this one live.’ Calman Ruadh was loving this. ‘Thought she might come in handy.’

  ‘I made up my mind,’ I growled bitterly. ‘He can eat his own.’ But I’d lost my sense of humour now. No-one else laughed, either.

  ‘I’ll dangle her over the wall. Wouldn’t want to break her pretty neck, it’s awful fragile. Now, wait there like I told you. You leave, she dangles, but I need a while to plan some entertainments. Cù Chaorach, I’m looking forward to gelding your brother with a blunt knife.’

  ‘Shit,’ I muttered. ‘Me and my big mouth.’

  * * *

  ‘Anybody wants to throw themselves on Kate’s mercy, that’s fine with me.’ Conal looked like a black dog was biting his backside.

  Some of them must have been thinking about it, but nobody said anything. Yet.

  ‘Surprise attack?’ said Righil. He was reciting a rule-book for the sake of it.

  ‘You want to watch the child choke?’ asked Conal bleakly. ‘The last of Uilleann’s offspring? I don’t.’

  ‘Somebody needs to open the dun gate,’ said Raonall. ‘Otherwise we’re stuffed.’

  ‘That’s what they tried to do.’ Carraig jerked his head at the dun wall, where the crows were squabbling and hacking at the three bodies. ‘Nobody else will get near it.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes, they will.’ I rubbed my temples with my thumbs, wondering why I was opening my mouth again, after what happened last time. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Conal said, ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I’ve told you before, don’t patronise me.’ I wouldn’t look at him. ‘Of course I’ll do it. I’ll climb the wall and open the sodding gates, all right?’

  They were all staring at me, none with more horror than Catriona.

  ‘You want to die?’ barked Conal.

  ‘No.’ I went on fiercely rubbing my temples, glaring at the ground. ‘I don’t want to be gelded, either. However sharp the knife is.’

  Conal watched me for a long time. I didn’t meet his gaze but I could feel it.

  ‘All right,’ he said at last.

  ‘All right.’ My heart sank.

  ‘And since you’re into miracles? Get the girl out first.’

  * * *

  Of all the people I might have expected at my shoulder that night, she was the last.

  ‘You know the girl’s as good as dead,’ said Reultan crisply.

  ‘That’s what I like about you. You’re so positive and so damn nurturing.’ I stared at the dun wall as I rubbed wet earth across my naked chest and arms and belly. Behind me Catriona was dealing with my back and shoulders. ‘Can you cast a spell on that moon, by any chance?’

  It was like a great white lantern. Couldn’t have been a worse night. I had doubts about getting across the stretch of empty machair that lay between me and the dun, let alone up the walls.

  ‘No,’ she said. Thoughtfully she eyed me. ‘You missed a bit. There. You’re as pale as a slug. He’ll kill the girl whether Conal yields or not.’

  ‘I’m aware of that.’ I had to say it through gritted teeth.

  Catriona rubbed mud down my spine, making me shiver. I loved the way she wasn’t complaining or whining or trying to talk me out of it. Half of me wished she would. She was ignoring Reultan, and Reultan was pretending Catriona didn’t exist.

  Calman Ruadh had us besieged, despite appearances. There was nothing Conal could do, and in the morning his men would begin to drift away, either to go into the wilds, captainless, or to throw themselves on Kate’s mercy as she had always known they would.

  Or Conal could rally them and make his attack, and sacrifice the child. She was going to die anyway, everyone knew it. His fighters would think better of him for it, or at least they’d trust even more to his will and his strength. Conal, though, would never forgive himself.

  He might do it. I didn’t think he would but he might, and it would kill his soul. Cold iron within: what we dreaded most. I had to try this for him, and I had to do it for Raineach. Stupid. It wasn’t as if Raineach or indeed Uilleann would ever care again.

  ‘It’ll be next to impossible to block and concentrate on climbing,’ remarked Reultan.

  Catriona’s fingers stilled on my spine, trembling.

  Damn the woman. I rolled my eyes. ‘I’m also aware of that.’

  ‘So don’t even try,’ she said coolly. ‘I’ll deal with it.’

  Hesitating, I eyed her mistrustfully. ‘You can do that?’

  ‘It won’t be easy, but I suggest you trust me. You haven’t really got an option.’

  ‘I don’t care who your mother is, you can’t break into the mind of every fighter on those battlements.’

  ‘You’re right: I can’t affect them all. But I can do it to you. The only thing is for me to block your mind.’

  ‘Let you,’ I said slowly, ‘block my mind?’

  She shrugged. ‘Take it or leave it.’

  I did not like the idea of Reultan being anywhere near my mind, let alone messing about with it. Catriona’s hand lay on my back like a warning, but Reultan was right: I didn’t have a choice. ‘All right. You get me killed, I swear I’ll come back and haunt you.’

  ‘I quite believe it, but you won’t scare me. I shall throw wine goblets through your wailing insubstantial ghost. Now you’d better get started. You’ll have to take your time. As far as their eyes are concerned, you’re on your own.’

  As she stalked off, Catriona slipped her arms round my waist. ‘I hate her.’

  ‘Know the feeling.’

  ‘Is she telling the truth? Will she protect you?’

  I put an arm round her shoulder. ‘Don’t know. I’d better get on with it anyway.’

  ‘You’re cold.’

  ‘I’ll soon warm up.’ All the same I put my arms round her and let her body heat soak into me. Her face was pressed against my neck. Must be getting dirty. I didn’t mind. She didn’t seem to either. Still, even through the mud I could feel her face was wet.

  ‘You’ll make me streaky,’ I said.

  Her jerky laugh was that little silent gasp she used to make when she was mute. ‘Please come back,’ she mumbled.

  ‘I love you,’ I said. And then the moon slid behind a wisp of cloud, and I had to make myself pull away.

  Conal and Reultan and Aonghas were watching me. As I turned towards the dun and took a breath, I felt something like sheet ice slam down across my brain. I winced. It felt so strange I curled my bare toes into the coarse damp grass, just to ground myself in reality again. And then, while the moon hid its face and dark shadow patterned the machair, I ran.

  37

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I’m under no illusions. I know what got me across the machair without twenty arrows in my ribcage. Undoubtedly I couldn’t have done it without Reultan, but that would not have been enough. And my fieldcraft is good, but that wouldn’t have been enough either. Not without the help of Calman Ruadh’s men.

  I ran low and fast, half-crouched, darting from shadow to shadow and flattening myself against the earth at any movement on the parapet. I wore only trews, mud, and a dirk at my waist. My head was already beginning to throb with Reultan’s intrusion, but that was a pain I could ignore. At least I didn’t have to worry about maintaining a block of my own against searching hostile minds. Adrenalin screamed through my veins, and I had that feeling again of being naked and flayed. Any of the guards on the parapet could turn at any moment, look my way, but they didn’t. Some of it was luck. Most of it was arrogance. They knew they’d won.

  Two of them turned and leaned over the parapet. I lay in a scrape of earth, still as a hare, watching them as they bellowed insults at Conal and his men. There was laughter behind them, and another figure was dragged up to the parapet wall, hands bound, a rope round his neck. I was glad that at least it was an adult figure, because they looped the rope round a buttress of stone, wrestled him to the edge, and lowered him slowly. The man kicked and struggled, cho
king on the end of the rope in the moonlight. It lasted a long time, and he died to the sound of their jeers, but it’s a pity he couldn’t appreciate how much his death helped me. I got to the base of the dun wall while the moon lit his death struggles and Calman Ruadh’s fighters hooted their derision at Conal. Nobody looked at a shadow moving across the machair into the deeper shadow of the dun.

  I sat with my back against the dun wall and looked at the moon for a while. I needed to get my breath back, and I needed to think. I was surprised at how afraid I was.

  ‘Smaller one next time, Cù Chaorach!’ I heard Calman Ruadh’s voice echo across the machair. ‘Keep your distance.’

  I held my breath till it hurt, waiting for him to shout The girl’s as good as dead and so’s your sneaking brother, but there was only silence, apart from occasional laughter and a muffled weeping from within the dun. Conal must have tried a feinting move, or even an advance. The death of the prisoner had been nothing to do with me, unless he’d done it to distract them. They hadn’t seen me. Don’t be such a damn coward, I told myself.

  This wasn’t the keep wall. I’d climbed this a hundred times or more. No-one could see me. No-one could see me. What was I scared of? Not seeing Catriona again? Dying now and leaving her to live and die without me? Abandoning her to Calman Ruadh and his men? I hoped Conal would have the sense to cut her throat before she was taken. I hoped he’d have the time.

  Now I needed to stop thinking.

  I wiped my palms on my trews and ran them over cold remorseless stone. I knew this stone, it was hacked out of my land, the blood and sweat of my ancestors ran through it like veins of quartz. The stone was fine. It was mine. My fingertips found a crevice; my toes found another. I climbed.

  I hadn’t bargained on how much my head would hurt. Reultan’s block was like ice against my brain. Halfway to the top I had to stop and hang there like a desperate spider, grinding my forehead into the wall to make the stinging stop. I wondered if she was doing it deliberately. For long moments I couldn’t see for the pain, and I twisted my forehead against the stone till the skin broke. At least it took my mind off the terrible throbbing pain inside it, but now there was a trickle of blood running into my eyebrows, and in seconds I was having to blink it out of my eyes.