Voices above me. I could hear every word, not that any of it was any use. It was guard gossip, casual and cruel. Three fighters, I realised, pressing myself flat against the wall, pain screaming in the joints of my fingers and toes. The sound of them was so clear they must have been leaning over the wall. And then the voices faded, and footsteps rang above me, and the dreadful pain in my head eased.
Reultan. She must have seen the guards moving in my direction.
~ Thanks, I managed to tell her.
There was no answer.
The stone was better cut and dressed towards the top, and it was that much harder to find purchase. It was still a familiar climb, and if I hadn’t been cold, and scared, and half-blind with blood and darkness, it would have been easy. It was the stone of my land but I did not want its harshness to be the last thing I felt beneath the palm of my hand. I tried not to think about Catriona’s skin, the silky bristle of her hair, the bony beautiful shape of her skull. I tried so hard not to think about them that my right hand found the flat ridge of the parapet before I realised how high I was.
I didn’t know what was above me, but there was no warning bolt of pain from Reultan. Taking the deepest breath I ever took in my life, I hauled myself up and over the edge of the parapet, and flopped to my belly in its shadow on the battlement.
Already I couldn’t believe my luck in being up here and not being dead yet. I thought Reultan might leave me to my own block now, but she didn’t. I suppose it helped Conal know where I was, and besides, the pain of her intrusion had dwindled again to a dull ache.
The gate itself was well-guarded, but not against me. The sentries around the perimeter walls were more sparsely placed, and certainly the nearest one to me was not expecting to be taken from behind.
I slit his throat and held him in an embrace like a lover till his blood had leaked out of him, then lowered him silently to the ground. No point clamping my hand over his mouth: it wasn’t as if he could speak, and if you’re quick the shock stops them calling with their mind. As he slumped, I saw his face, and cold horror flowed down my spine. He was barely older than me.
He fought for Calman Ruadh, I thought as blood slammed in my ears. He fought and killed for Calman Ruadh. I shut my eyes, opened them again, waiting for the sickness to pass. This fighter was older than the little girl, older than Raineach’s stepchild. Older than her.
Not quite twice as old.
He fought for Calman Ruadh. He was at war and so was I. More conscience and I would fail. Swiftly I turned from him, and ran.
At a flight of steps that led down to the first courtyard, I slithered down the ten-foot drop where the steps joined the wall. That’s where I got luckiest. There was a small room just off the courtyard, no more than a cramped space with a shelf and a cot where guards could grab a brief sleep between spells of duty when the dun was under siege. It was occupied now, though not for its intended use.
Sorcha was a tough bitch who had joined in beating me more than once when we were children. She had hair the colour of a polished horse chestnut, and eyes that seemed to hold every colour of the moor. Right now they were more like a moor on fire, and she was glaring such hate at her attacker I was surprised he wasn’t wincing. I dare say she’d have been breaking his face if her hands weren’t bound. Now I had my conscience silenced. They were not young. They must know right from wrong. Yet they did not just kill for Calman Ruadh; they tormented for him.
I was glad Sorcha’s attacker was preoccupied: it made it stupidly easy for me to kill his companion, who was waiting his turn in agitation. She watched me do it, and she never let on, never blinked, her face never altered its twisted mask of rage and pain and despair. What a girl. I liked her for the first time. I reckon she probably liked me for the first time too, especially when I laced my fingers into her surprised attacker’s hair, pulled his head back, and dug my blade hard into his throat.
She spat out his blood and grinned. ‘Never thought I’d be glad to see you, shortarse.’
I took her shoulder and pulled her up before she had time to refuse my help. ‘Watch your mouth or I’ll put you back.’ Holding her against me, I sawed through the cords binding her wrists. She was tense as her bonds had been. I half expected her to bite my shoulder.
‘Aye, right.’ Sorcha flinched with pain, then, as if furious with herself, made herself stagger to her feet and drag her trews and shirt back into place. Her trembling hands were mottled and swollen, but she clenched and unclenched her fists till the circulation was back and the shaking stopped. I had to admire her; she must have been hurting. Her eyes glittered with furious tears and there was a blackening bruise down one side of her face. I was shocked: this was not a weapon of war with the Sithe and never had been, but Sorcha must have been a damn sight angrier than I was. Two now-ownerless swords were propped in their scabbards just inside the door, so she took one and drew it. Even I couldn’t watch what she did next.
Wincing, I gave her a look out of one eye. ‘Finished?’
‘Aye. I wish they were still alive to feel that.’
‘Sorry, I’m sure.’
‘Don’t apologise. Your timing’s great. Though it could have been twenty minutes better. Who’s with you?’
‘You want the good news or the bad news?’
She swore.
‘Hey, don’t worry.’ I winked at her. ‘The good news is I’m a one-man army. Where’s the other fighters?’
‘Everyone who refused to fight Conal is locked in the store rooms. That’s every one of us, by the way. Naturally,’ she added dryly, ‘the stores have been moved to the guard quarters.’
‘What about the others?’
Strictly speaking everyone over the age of fifteen counted as a fighter. But apart from the children, there were some who simply were not fighters, either by inclination or profession.
Sorcha looked uneasy. ‘I don’t know. We were split up days ago. Something changed. There was a sickness. It passed, but they said some people were infected, and others were carriers, it was a plague. They were lying, of course. They split us fighters from non-fighters, no other reason.’
My stomach felt hollow. I was about to curse, but I changed my mind. ‘Sorcha. I really, really need a diversion.’
‘Murlainn, right this moment you could ask me to kiss you and I wouldn’t poke out your eye. Don’t ask tomorrow, though.’ She winked. ‘What do you want me to do?’
38
THIRTY-EIGHT
That great silver lantern of a moon was unforgiving, but no-one was watching for a single fighter strolling round the courtyard perimeter and ducking into a side alley. I could almost hear her whistling. From the shadow beneath the steps I watched Sorcha disappear towards the stores, two stolen swords slung across her back, and in my head I wished her luck. That would have to be good enough. At the very least, she’d enjoy dealing with the guards who held her comrades captive like so many cattle.
Calman Ruadh did not expect revolt from within, and though someone would miss those two fighters soon, they’d obviously been expected to take their time with Sorcha. The young guard on the parapet was more of a worry, but I’d dragged him as well as I could into hiding. I knew the crannies and shadows of my own dun; I wouldn’t be much use if I didn’t.
From my hiding place I couldn’t see the gate, so I took a deep shaking breath and slithered back up to the battlement. When my fingertips were hooked over the edge, two more guards passed, but I hung there, unmoving, till they’d passed, then hauled myself up and scrambled behind a buttress. I was appropriately angry now, and it was overcoming my fear. I had no business crawling round my own father’s dun like a worm, and Calman Ruadh would pay for making me do it. I’d have liked to feel the weight of a sword on my back instead of one small dirk at my waist, but what mattered for me now was speed and cunning. The dirk would have to do.
Now I could see the gradient of the battlement where it began to rise over the arch of the gate. It swarmed with Calman Ruadh’s fight
ers, but that didn’t matter. The important thing was the great wheel that lifted the gate. The pulleys that operated it were well-guarded too, but at least I could see my path to it, and I was hoping to manage without the pulleys. Piece of piss. A run, and a rope to sever, and a mad leap, and the hope that my weight would carry the wheel round. Piece of piss.
Gods. I shut my eyes. I must be insane.
I edged closer, and closer yet. I had to be in position when Sorcha returned, or she’d never let me hear the end of it in the afterlife. When I was as close as I thought I could manage without actually tapping the nearest guard’s shoulder and introducing myself, I stopped. I pressed back, trying to make myself part of the wall. Pain lanced through my head from temple to temple. Reultan knew I had reached my endgame. Her block was ferocious and no doubt impenetrable, but it hurt like teeth round my brain.
The nape of my neck prickled. Block or no block, I’d been seen. I knew what a stare felt like, and this one could have cut me in two.
Looking to my left, I saw her. She sat against the wall, her bound hands hooked around her knees. Her face was bruised, her hair dishevelled, and her eyes were huge and hostile.
And my mind was blocked. Shit. I lifted my finger to my lips.
An assessing stare. Narrowing of her eyes. Then she stuck out her tongue.
The child was guarded, but they weren’t taking any notice of her. I smiled at her. She didn’t smile back.
Please, I thought, please don’t let the guards turn in the next thirty seconds. As I slunk down beside her, she moved her wrists towards me, and I sawed carefully at the cords. Impatiently she shook her hands, and though the blade of my knife nicked her before I could pull it back, she didn’t flinch or gasp, just glared at me meaningfully. Grinning, I worked my dirk under the cords and sawed hard this time. It took seconds, and I cut her, but her hands were free and she grinned back. Then she grew serious, and lifted her eyebrows.
I gave a tiny shake of my head, and looked towards the courtyard.
The whole place was still. A bored sentry yawned, kicked at a loose stone, turned on her heel towards us.
My heart practically choked me, and the child pressed against my side. Instinctively I wrapped an arm round her, but the guard didn’t have time to catch sight of us. There were yells and cries of rage in the courtyard, and the ring of sword blades. The guards who didn’t instantly leap down to the courtyard waited up on the battlement, swords drawn and watching. Sorcha’s ban-Sithe shriek of defiance split the air, and the released fighters behind her gave a howl of fury, and then the two forces collided.
Sorcha’s makeshift detachment was seriously out-numbered,but they were seriously angry too, and humiliated, and out for revenge. This was as good as it was going to get.
‘Run,’ I told the child, and grabbing her arm, I shoved her towards the steps. She only had to stay out of their grip for minutes, and the fighters in the courtyard weren’t going to bother with her. For myself, I sprinted for the wheel that opened the gate.
The distracted guards saw me then, all right. One yelled, and brought up his sword too late, and my dirk was in his side. I yanked it out just as his friend came for me, and leaped and rolled, slashing at his hamstrings as he tried to turn. Then I was up on a buttress and taking a flying spring over the third as he ducked reflexively. And I was running, running for the wheel, and leaping into space.
I think I shut my eyes. Stupid, but true. I crashed into solid wood, found purchase more by luck than judgment, and dragged on a jutting spoke, legs flailing. The rope that held it jerked taut, and I slashed ferociously at it. The blade found purchase; grimly I sawed it back and forth.
It gave sooner than I expected and I swung wildly, not just trying to move the wheel but trying to make myself a moving target, too, as arrows whined around me. Beyond the gate I could hear the roar and thunder of Conal’s fighters storming across the machair. Oh, gods, the gate had to open. It had to open now.
Trouble was, up here on the wheel, the leverage wasn’t the same. The chains we used to pull on it hung down fifteen feet and more; that was what turned the thing. My weight was dragging it, slowly and surely, but not fast enough. I kicked and swore, felt it give, grabbed for the next spoke, kicked again. It turned, inch by inch, and an arrow slashed across my thigh. It enraged me. I screamed at the wheel, kicked, grabbed another spoke. The thunder of horses was close. Too close. The gate had opened inches. Wide enough for a ferret, not a horse.
I wasn’t going to do it.
Something slammed into me and I thought I was dead. Shock almost made me lose my grip on the spokes, but I fumbled, regained it. The thing hanging round my neck, arms almost choking me, was a nine-year-old child. I laughed, though it came out like a gasping cough.
See? I didn’t need extra height. I didn’t need extra weight. Not when there was another shortarse to help me. The wheel groaned, and swung round, and I managed to clamber up two, three more spokes. Grunting, I climbed again, the weight of the child almost killing me now. Her legs were locked round my waist, clinging on like a human grappling hook.
The arrows had stopped flying so thickly, and I saw the courtyard was filling. They could not concentrate on us any more, dangling like bowshot-practice, because Conal’s troops were forcing the gate wide and slashing their way through Calman Ruadh’s fighters. Out of the corner of my eye, through blood and sweat, I could make out only the fast flash and glitter of blades, the agile twist and leap of bodies. I heard screams, and war-cries, and above it the agitated howl of Calman Ruadh.
‘Get the CHILD. THE CHILD. HANG THAT FECKING GIRL…’
I smiled at her, and she smiled back, still locked round my neck. My arms were about to give way.
‘Good girl,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’
Her smile faded. ‘I think my father’s dead.’
I thought about lying. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘he is. But he’s proud of you.’
The smile came back, and then my sweating palms lost their grip and we fell together.
I managed to twist so that she fell on me, not that it did my lungs much good. If the fighters around me hadn’t been so preoccupied, I’d have had it, because I couldn’t breathe for a while. We lay there like corpses, the girl on top of me, and that’s what they all must have thought we were. At last I sucked air into my lungs in a great whistling gasp. I took her arms.
‘Run,’ I said. ‘Do as you’re told this time.’
I caught the flash of her pixie-grin and then she was off, running and lost among the dun alleyways. I couldn’t worry any longer. I snake-crawled to the nearest corpse and wrenched the sword out of its bloody fingers.
There comes a moment, luckily, when instinct takes over. Later that dawn I found that the arrow-wound in my thigh was quite bad, but I didn’t feel it then, and it wasn’t bad enough to bleed me to death. I just fought like I was fighting Eorna, like I wanted to thrash him, like my clann was watching and wanted to see me beaten, like I wanted to prove them wrong. My flying bare feet found bellies and throats and other points where flesh was soft; my blade whipped and snapped with a precision I couldn’t have achieved if I was thinking about it. I was in a trance of ecstasy. Ecstasy.
Later I thought: is this how it feels for a Lammyr? But I didn’t think it then. Just as well. It might have stopped me in my tracks.
I saw Sionnach and Eili, fighting like mirror images, catching one another’s moves and echoing them with a deadly efficiency. I saw Aonghas, and Reultan, and Sorcha; Carraig, Righil, and Orach. No fast moves from Torc, who was simply hacking his blunt and brutal way through the fighters who came at him. Most of Conal’s fighters were off their horses now; being mounted had given them an advantage but now they were hungry for close-quarters duelling. Nor did my horse, or Conal’s, or Torc’s, need a rider to encourage them to join a battle. The blue roan had one of Calman Ruadh’s fighters by the throat, shaking him like a dog with a rat.
I needed to find Conal.
Reultan’s block was gon
e now; she had abandoned me to my own efforts, and fair enough. At least my head had stopped hurting. The minds around me were a chaos of violence and fury, and I couldn’t lock onto Conal at all. Furiously I rubbed my eyes. They were blurred once more with blood; the wound on my forehead had split open again.
There. I caught a brief glimpse of him as he leaped and turned in the air, then he was gone, and I had to fight my way through to him. Someone else was doing the same, hacking down Raonall to get closer to Conal. Raonall staggered back with Calman Ruadh’s sword in his guts, cursing his killer in a spray of bloody spittle as he stumbled and went down, jerking.
Luthais’s scream: I never heard anything like it. The man hurtled though the ranks, at the last minute springing up to run on heads and shoulders towards Calman Ruadh, who reached swiftly to whip his sword from Raonall’s belly. The wide slash as he brought it round just missed Luthais’s ankles. He was quick to recover his balance, though, and Luthais’s rage was too wild with grief. He hacked violently, and missed, and Calman Ruadh’s backswung blade half-severed his head from his neck.
The clash had brought Calman Ruadh closer to me than to Conal, though only just.
‘Mine!’ I screamed.
‘No!’ yelled Conal.
‘Mine! I claim him!’
All right. That may have been impetuous. Conal stared at me, not just livid but horrified, but I had no time to endure a bollocking from him, and he had no time to give me one. I turned and raised my sword as Calman Ruadh, grinning, came towards me.
A space cleared around us. Partly it was that the battle was reaching its end, and only the last small deadly squabbles continued around us. Partly the survivors were intrigued that I’d been stupid enough to claim Calman Ruadh, and in front of so many witnesses, too. It was between him and me, now, till one of us was dead. No-one had the right to intervene on a claimant’s behalf. True, accidents happened. But unless Calman Ruadh had an unforeseen heart attack right now, or a meteor fell on his head, it was up to me to kill him. A claimant laid his claim, and took the consequences.
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