Lords of the Isles

by Le Veque, Kathryn

  Though she could no longer see him, she could still feel him standing silent beside her. Ceana kept silent, too. She needed to save her energy.

  Her ankles were bound, the rope threatening to cut off her circulation. Thank goodness there was a barrier between the rope and her hose, because the rope tied tightly around her wrists was already biting into her flesh. Another length of rope was tied between the binds at her ankles and wrists, causing her back to arch and her to fall to the ground. She wasn’t the only one. Bodies thudded to the ground all around her amid curses.

  Ceana was hoisted off the ground, her body bouncing uncomfortably, pain searing against the ropes, and then she was tossed on her side onto a hard platform—the wagon. She winced at the pain shooting from her leg and arm where she’d been stitched. Several bodies were tossed beside her, all of them providing heat to each other in the cold night air.

  A moment later, the wagon started to move, the wheels cranking and the boards creaked as it rocked. She bumped against someone in front of her and behind her, their lengths pressed tight together.

  She tried to focus all of her energy inward, using the ride to their destination to rest, but it was impossible. Her body jostled uncomfortably and her feet and hands had started to tingle unpleasantly. She wiggled her fingers and toes, trying to keep her circulation going, but it did nothing but make it worse. So, she set to rubbing her hands and feet back and forth, working to loosen her bindings. When they were deposited, they’d still be bound, and she had no idea whether or not weapons would be nearby to cut them loose. They’d not been given much information beyond—return to Sìtheil.

  “What do you think is going to happen?” asked a woman somewhere in the wagon.

  Ceana remained silent. She had no idea and did not want to speculate, but rather to glean information and thought processes from the women who were essentially her foes.

  “Think it will be the wolves again?”

  “Or the giants?”

  “I imagine it will be any and all terrors and we will be left without weapons to arm ourselves.”

  Their conversation was downtrodden and left little hope for thinking positively. Their fears were real, and were the same that Ceana had. But she knew she had to survive, and if that was what she was given, she would fight against it. She’d find a big stick and…

  And what? Fight off a wolf with a big stick?

  She’d just end up dying.

  The only reason she’d not perished before was because Macrath was with her. And he’d be with her again, she hoped. But she also had to defend herself. Had to defend him. Had to pull up every moment of training she could recall her brother giving her. She couldn’t always depend on him to see her through.

  The rope at her ankles and wrists started to loosen and feeling came back to her appendages. She dared not loosen them further, because the guards would still need to pull her out of the wagon.

  Ceana listened to the sounds beyond the conversations being whispered in the back of the wagon, hoping to get an idea of exactly where they were being taken. The wheels had creaked over the wooden bridge and then sank into the earthen road. Sounded like there were two wagons. Judging from the conversations, female warriors were in one cart and the males in another, possibly two.

  They were on the road a while, and then there were sounds of scratches and whips against the sides of the wagon—tree branches? They’d made it into the woods. Lady Beatrice had said they’d be left in the woods. All Ceana had to do was concentrate on how long they drove and decipher any turns.

  She counted the minutes and when they’d reached about eight, the wagon took a sharp turn to her right. Another three minutes, then a sharp turn to the left. Fifteen minutes passed before they turned right once more.

  Seven minutes later, the guards shouted at the horses, and their whips cracked over the sounds of the wagons being hauled. Up a hill they went for four minutes. And then the wagons stopped on a crest.

  “All right you mangy vagrants,” a guard shouted. “You’re about to be left to your own devices.”

  But they weren’t immediately grabbed. She could hear things being tossed into a pile. Sounded like metal and wood—weapons?

  And then her ankle was grabbed and searing pain shot up her legs. The rope binding her wrists and ankles was caught up in someone’s grip and she was tugged free of the wagon, falling until her chest hit the ground and she grunted her pain. She smelled damp leaves. The forest floor.

  Another body was dropped beside hers and then she was being dragged, her gown catching on sticks, rocks and roots, scraping mercilessly over the ground. The hood was yanked off her head, and she blinked trying to adjust to the little bit of light the moon afforded. She was in a pile of squirming bodies on top of what looked like a creag. She watched the last of the entrants be removed from the wagons just as roughly. One of the women hit hard on the ground, enough that when they took her hood off she remained unconscious.

  Ceana twisted to find Macrath, but the males must had been laid in a pile behind her, which was blocked by another female entrant.

  “It’s so… dark here,” someone whimpered.

  “ ’Twill be light soon,” another answered. “We need to stick together if we’re going to make it.”

  “We are not all going to make it. Best head back on your own. Better chances alone.”

  “Best you all watch you backs, as I plan on winning,” said yet another.

  A foul group they had. One planned to murder them all, one wanted to run it on her own, one filled with fear and another who looked for allies. And then there was Ceana, who kept quiet and to herself. She was going to find Macrath and then they were going to go it alone back to the castle—because she had a good idea of how to get back. Down the hill they must go first, and if they ran, perhaps the time would be about one and half what it was to travel on the wagon. About ten minutes past the hill, they’d make a left, travel about twenty-two minutes, make a right. Five minutes, then a left. Twelve minutes to the edge of the forest. ’Twould be grueling.

  The last of the entrants was tossed onto the heap and then the guards jumped onto the wagons. “We bid you farewell, arseholes! May the gods be never in your favor.” Gritty, nasty laughs followed.

  The wagon wheels cranked amid their laughter as they once more descended the hill. As soon as they were out of sight, Ceana continued the efforts she’d made on the wagon, but the way they’d tugged at the ropes when they pulled her off, it seemed like they were only getting tighter instead of loosening.

  Bodies writhed around her as everyone had the same idea.

  This wasn’t working. She’d heard them throw weapons. Where? She craned her neck, trying to catch sight of any glimpse of metal reflected in the moon’s light. There! About fifteen feet away. Rolling onto her knees and forehead, Ceana took a deep breath. This was likely going to scrape the hell out of her face, but how else would she get there? Craning her head forward, she braced herself and inched her knees forward. She repeated the move, her neck straining.

  Behind her, others had gotten the idea and inched forward, too.

  An excessive amount of time seemed to pass before her head clunked into the first weapon. Lying on her side, cheek pressed into the dirt, she glanced at the weapons. Swords, bows, knives. She scooted closer to a knife, and reaching behind her, grappled with nothing before her fingers hit against metal. A little too hard, she felt the sting as the blade made a small slice in her skin.

  Biting her lip against the pain, she slid the blade against the ropes, but she couldn’t seem to get a good enough grip to make any cuts. She grunted, cried out. Sweat covered her skin as she worked to get the rope undone before anyone else. Afraid to be left vulnerable when the woman who’d said she’d murder them all had already reached a weapon and was vigorously working the blade against her own ropes.

  A moment later a shadow fell over her, and her eyes flew open certain she was about to die, but Macrath smiled down at her. He sliced thro
ugh her ropes, and instead of relief, tingling pain flooded her limbs.

  “Come now, lass,” he said, reaching down for her. She grabbed onto his hand, and he hauled her up, thrusting a long dagger into her grasp and slinging a bow and a quiver full of several arrows over her shoulder. “Time for us to claim this as ours.”

  “Not if I can help it.” It was the woman from the wagon. Ceana turned in time to see her swinging her sword in their direction.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Macrath brought his sword up in time to clang against the female warrior’s. Sparks lit in the night where their swords met. She grunted against the strength of Macrath’s sword arm.

  Ceana scrambled to nock her bow, and pointed the arrow straight at them, but she couldn’t get a clean shot. They parried back and forth, but it was obvious Macrath was not putting all of his strength into it.

  Most of the other entrants had managed to inch their way to the weapons. Several helped each other to get free, but as soon as the fight began they fled. Ceana would have helped the others to get untied, but she was now worried that someone else might attack them.

  Keeping her feet braced, she observed the entrants still sawing through their ropes and those who stood trapped in fear, their eyes glued on Macrath.

  In the darkness of night, everywhere she looked, she saw shadows. The black tree-limbs swayed in the breeze, reaching toward her like giant’s arms. The eyes of the owl looked like that of a wolf. What sort of dangers would be leaping out at them? Because if the final game meant only two winners, there had to be more to it than simply finding their way home.

  A gurgling sound and the press of several of the entrant’s hands to their mouths had Ceana whipping her gaze back to Macrath and the woman he fought against.

  Macrath stood over her body. Ceana could barely make out the blood slipping from the woman’s throat. A clean cut across her neck. A quick death. He turned his gaze to Ceana, his mouth grim. Even in the dim light of the moon she could see he struggled with having to kill the woman.

  “Go on, all of you,” Ceana managed to say to those who watched with horror.

  They didn’t say anything, but turned and fled—not all in the same direction.

  Ceana tucked her arrow back in the quiver and met Macrath halfway. She wrapped her arms around him, but they were quickly reminded of what a precarious position they were in when an arrow whizzed past.

  “That was close,” Macrath said, grabbing her hand and running into the cover of the trees.

  “We have to go down the opposite side,” Ceana said.

  Macrath shook his head. “Everyone is going that way, we should keep our distance.”

  “But how will we find our way back?” She chewed on her lower lip, heart pounding hard against her ribs.

  “We’ll circle back around, but keep well away from everyone else. The forest is dangerous enough without having to deal with any more of the entrants trying to kill each other.”

  As the words left his mouth, a death cry filled the night air. Two down. Ten to go.

  Macrath picked up his speed, their fingers entwined. Being so much shorter than he was, Ceana had to work twice as hard to keep up. Ignoring the shooting pains up and down her legs, she ran as fast as she could.

  When her lungs felt like they would burst, she let Macrath’s hand drop and stopped in her tracks, bent over to catch her breath. Her heart pounded hard in her ears and she felt nauseated.

  “We cannot stop. Not yet. Let me carry you.” Macrath came to stand beside her, his palm resting on her back as he massaged her spine.

  Somewhere in the distance a wolf howled, reminding her just how much danger they were in. Wolves. She hated them. Would hate them forever.

  Ceana straightened, her lungs no longer spasming and the nausea passing. She shook her head. “I can keep going.” She couldn’t let him carry her all the time. Doing so would only weaken him, and she would not leach away the energy he needed to fight.

  “Are you certain, lass?”

  She nodded. Macrath held out his hand again, a smile tugging at his lips.

  Ceana marched forward, pulling him along. “Well, are you coming, warrior?” Every part of her body protested, but she couldn’t let him down. Had to prove that she could keep up. They continued running down the opposite side of the hill, and once at the bottom, they circled around to the right, slowly picking their way through the trees. Whenever there was an owl hoot, or a stick cracking that hadn’t been one they stepped on, they crouched low, and listened, making eyes and nodding or shaking their heads at each other. Luckily every howl of a wolf didn’t sound close enough to be a danger.

  They continued on like this until the first rays of orange started to break through the forest in streaks of glowing light.

  “The creag is wider than I thought,” Ceana murmured.

  “Aye, but I think we’ll have missed the other entrants.”

  Ceana nodded. They came over a small ridge, and perhaps seven feet below, they caught sight of the road, and lying facedown was the body of one of the male entrants. An arrow in his back. He’d not even been given the chance to fight.

  A whistling cracked the dawn air, and an arrow pierced the grown beside her feet. “Archers,” she hissed, jumping back.

  Without thinking, Macrath tossed her over his shoulder and turned in the opposite direction. He ran back down the ridge and several hundred yards before ducking behind a fat tree. He settled her behind him, his body covering her from danger.

  “At least we know where the road is,” he said, an attempt at humor.

  Ceana smiled meekly, but her eyes were drawn back toward the road, the vision of the dead man lying face down flashing in her mind’s eye. “They’ve been picking off the entrants as they downed the hill. I’m glad we went the other way.”

  Macrath settled his hands on his hips, giving her a chance to admire his long, lean, muscled body. Even in a situation like this, she could appreciate his magnificence. “Aye, but it can’t be as easy as all that. There has to be more.”

  “If we stay off the path, we might escape whatever it is.” She swiped a flyaway hair from around her forehead.

  “Aye. A leader never willingly walks into a dangerous situation they know nothing about. We’ve got no one to scout out the enemy for us, so we’ll have to keep our eyes and ears keen to anything out of place.”

  Ceana nodded her agreement. “Should we go quietly back to the road, and seek out the archers? We could take them out with my bow and arrow.”

  He reached forward and tucked another tendril behind her ear. “That would be a good idea in case they’ve also been charged with some other task down the line. They’ll know the way back and could have a few other traps set up.” He eyed her. “How good of a shot are you?”

  Ceana smiled, proud of her skill, and eager to be of help in their last game. “I’m an excellent shot.”

  “Verra good.” Taking survey of the lightening forest, Macrath said, “Follow me.”

  They crept over fallen logs, hid behind trees, ran when there was grass to soften their steps. When they neared the ridge before the road, they both stilled. Macrath made a hand signal for them to get down and crawl the rest of the way up the crest, until they could see the road.

  “Scan the trees,” Macrath whispered.

  Both of them scrutinized the limbs. The coming winter was on their side and made it easier to flesh out anything that didn’t belong. Ceana nudged Macrath with her elbow, then pointed toward the other side of the road and westward. Sitting in a tree was a well concealed archer. But, the tip of his arrow had caught the light of the rising sun and glittered like a beacon to his hiding spot.

  Macrath saw the man, nodded and mouthed, Are you ready?

  Ceana inclined her head and then nocked an arrow. She took aim, making sure her own arrow didn’t catch the light, a deep breath, and then she let it fly. Her arrow struck the man in the center of his chest and he fell out of the tree with a startled cry. Qui
ck to nock another arrow, they were both immediately on alert for any other archers, but there was only an eerie silence. Even still, they waited to see if any arrows would fly their way or if another archer would leap from his perch to check on the downed man. When none came, they picked their way along the edge of the road, hidden by trees. By the time they’d made it to their first turn, the sun was out in full force, lighting the forest through the sparse tree limbs. A thin, trickling burn split through the forest beckoning her. Her stomach grumbled and her mouth was dry with thirst. Her muscles ached, as did her wounds.

  “Can we rest but a moment?” Ceana asked.

  Macrath stopped, his eyes scanning their surroundings. “Aye.”

  Ceana dropped to her knees, sunk her hands in the cold water and splashed it over her face, then sipped from her palms. Gods, but it was good and ice cold. Her stomach and throat were instantly appeased. And still she sipped more, savoring the water as though she’d not had any liquid in days. When she stood, Macrath bent down to drink, and she took up his watch, scanning the forest for any signs of man or beast—or one in the same. They appeared to be all alone. They’d not seen anyone since shooting the archer, and while on a normal day Ceana might have thought that was a good thing, today it only unsettled her.

  Where were the other entrants? Where were the guards and beasts who should be stopping their trek back to Sìtheil?

  “See anything?” Macrath asked, his voice low.

  Ceana shook her head. “Not a thing. Isn’t it odd?”

  “Aye.” He squinted his eyes as he turned in a slow circle. “They cannot have all perished and there is no way in hell the council would let the journey back be so easy.”

  Ceana grabbed hold of Macrath’s arm and sank against him, her limbs shaking from the rush of panic and the exertion of their journey.

  “Not much longer,” Macrath soothed, tucking her against him.

  Not much longer… A cold knot settled in her stomach. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. “We need to keep moving she said.” Her skin crawled, and though she was exhausted, her muscles itched to move.