Lord of the Highlands

by Veronica Wolff

Page 33

 

  She’d been holding herself in check, desperate for Rollo to appear, but reality was crashing down around her. The foreign grittiness of it all made something in her snap.

  What was she doing there? Did she really want to live in a world where crazy, dirty, wild people ran around, going at each other with swords and knives?

  One more shrill shriek burst from her.

  “Haud your wheesht, woman. ” He pushed back his cowl, and Felicity suffered a surreal moment, wondering who, and how, and why this man seemed so familiar. She cried out again, unable to stop herself.

  “Bloody hell, would you please . . . Och, hush! It’s Ormonde. Will’s friend. ”

  Her breath continued to shudder in gasps, even though she now recognized the redheaded man from when she’d first arrived.

  Crazy, dirty, wild. And that, apparently, was her friend.

  “Where’s Will?” She’d tried to gather herself, but hysteria made her question come out as a wail.

  “Will is—”

  The slam of a body dropping to the ground behind them announced the arrival of a guard. A big bear of a man, with ragged brown teeth.

  “Och, hell, woman. ” Guarding her body with his, Ormonde spun to face the man.

  The guard stepped forward and another man dropped into the dungeon. This one had a goatee, his long sword already out and drawn.

  She was terrified. Maybe Rollo had been right. Maybe she didn’t belong there. I can’t do this. I really, really can’t do this.

  “Did you have to caterwaul so?” Ormonde grumbled, raising his dagger and bracing himself as the bearded one went for him.

  In her hysteria, Felicity focused on the second man’s ugly scrap of facial hair, so pointy, so absurd, like one of the Musketeers.

  I have to do this. I doubted Will before. He proved me wrong. I told him I’d never doubt him again. He’ll come for me.

  The other, beefier guard bolted, and her gaze shifted, watching in slow-motion horror as he headed straight for her. The guard scooped her up from the ground like a rag doll, forcing the breath from her body in a high-pitched wheeze. Wrapping his arm around her belly, he swept around behind her in a mockery of an embrace. He smelled sour, his breath panting out of his open mouth, foul like rotten meat.

  His knife was at her throat.

  Oh God. I just want to go home.

  “Drop it,” she heard the other guard say, and her attention was drawn back to Ormonde. The bearded guard was nodding at Ormonde’s dagger, his blade pointed at Ormonde’s chest, poised to run him through. “Drop your dirk. Now. ”

  “Can we discuss this?” Ormonde’s feigned nonchalance astounded her.

  I can do this. Will is coming. He’ll come save me.

  “There’s naught to discuss. You drop your blade, or she gets it in the throat. ” Ormonde followed the man’s gaze, coming to rest on the sight of the dagger at Felicity’s neck.

  Desperate to shut out the nightmare unfolding around her, she shut her eyes tight. Tears spilled in a hot flood down her cheeks.

  Hold on. He won’t let me die.

  She heard Ormonde’s knife clatter to the ground. Did that mean all was lost? Was he dead already? She opened her eyes, terrified of what she might find.

  But the sight that greeted Felicity sent relief swelling through her. Legs were emerging slowly into the chamber from above, as a man lowered himself down the ladder, stealthily, rung by rung, using only his arms.

  Will. He was there. He’d come. Crazy, dirty, wild men with swords didn’t matter. Not when she had Will.

  My Viking will protect me. We’re meant to be.

  She quickly looked back to Ormonde. She couldn’t spoil it by giving Will away, and fought to keep her eyes on his friend instead. If he’d also spotted Rollo, she didn’t know. The redheaded man seemed only to have eyes for the blade pointed at his chest.

  What could she do? She wished there were some way she could help them. Her eyes swept down, scanned Robertson’s body, lying in a bloody heap. She shuddered.

  She felt the man behind her stiffen. Had he seen Rollo? Should she scream? Create a distraction? Stomp on his foot? She was helpless. Powerless. The feeling chilled her.

  Events slowed, her perception the sluggish click of a camera shutter.

  The guard behind her was beginning to shout a warning.

  Her eyes went back to the bearded man. Would he run his blade through Ormonde? She watched him, watched in dreadful slow motion, focused, absurdly, on that beard. A curled moustache atop a pointed, brown goatee. Ridiculous.

  But then the man made the strangest face. A look of surprise. Then an eerie, blank sort of expression suffused his features. His eyes, deadened. His mouth, and that facial hair, all gone slack.

  He crumpled to the ground. Ormonde jumped aside just in time to avoid the man’s blade as it thrust awkwardly forward before dropping to the dirt.

  And there stood Rollo. Tall, with eyes that were shadowed and lethally intent in the flickering torchlight. He was utter calm. Utter stillness.

  His arm extended as if he’d just thrown a ball, or a dart. Or a knife.

  Felicity’s eyes went to his sgian dubh, quivering deep in the man’s back.

  She looked back up to find Rollo’s gaze devouring her. The flex of his jaw and the hard cast to his eyes were all that marred his outward calm.

  Her heart soared. She knew what the set of that strong jaw meant. He’d come for her. He’d make this all go away.

  My Viking will always come for me.

  The surreal slow-motion unfolding of events exploded into rapid-fire action.

  Ormonde squatting to retrieve his blade.

  The cold press of steel on her throat, grown urgent.

  Will, a shuffled step and a quick leap toward her. He led with his hands. Hands that grabbed the guardsman’s face. It was a savage gesture, without thought, like an animal pouncing, mauling his prey.

  She pulled away, out from the path of Rollo’s feral leap. Away from her attacker’s knife.

  The guardsman’s neck sounded a morbid crack, a hollow echo in the dank stone chamber. His fall, a dull thud.

  Rollo went to Felicity at once. Wrapped her in his arms. His hands were all over her. He felt her face, her throat. The feel of him, solid against her, was like a homecoming.

  Will, her home now.

  Stroking her hair, he pulled her close, and then pushed back again, to ensure with his eyes what his hands had discerned. That she was unharmed.

  “You came,” she cried. “I knew you’d come. I told him to watch out—that you’d come. ”

  “How could I not?” His hands stilled, cupped her cheeks. Rollo leaned in to kiss her tenderly. One chaste and lingering kiss on her mouth, still damp from her tears.

  “I hate to interrupt you lovers, but I’d rather we make haste from here, before Robertson’s wee army of God discovers we’ve regained possession of his pretty prize witch. ”

  “Aye. Are you fine to travel?” Will asked her gently.

  At her nod, he tucked her close. Her eyes widened.

  “Where’s your cane?”

  “I couldn’t very well climb down the ladder with it, could I?” He gave her a small smile.

  “You came down to save me with nothing but that little knife in your sock?”

  “A man has his hands too, aye?” He squeezed her waist, emphasizing his point.

  She gave a startled laugh, and spied a flicker of joy on his face in response, as if only now it was hitting him that she was safe. That Robertson was dead.

  “But you’re right,” Rollo said, turning to his friend. “We need to be away, and at once, before my brother comes sniffing about. ” Lifting his arm, he said to Ormonde, “For once I’ll ask for your assistance, man. ”

  “Oh God be praised,” Ormonde said, rolling his eyes. He stepped to Rollo, offer
ing his shoulder for the short walk across the chamber floor. “Finally. The man accepts help. ”

  “Don’t gloat,” Will told him, with a rare twinkle in his eye. “This will be the last thing I ask of you. ”

  “Indeed,” Ormonde said, growing serious. “From this moment on, you are the one who’ll be called upon. The Sealed Knot men don’t forget a debt. ” He looked at the bodies littering the floor behind them, some complicated internal calculation knitting his brow. “And so it is here I must say good-bye to you. For now. ”

  They climbed back up the ladder, the red-haired man’s ominous words hanging in the air.

  Chapter 24

  “So . . . cool,” Felicity said, kicking at the edges of the dirt pathway. “You’re telling me the Romans marched right here? Like, along this very track?”

  “Aye, along this very one. ” Rollo stopped and turned, studying the path they’d just traversed. Some stretches were a deep and well-defined track, when all that was left of others was an eroded scar in the earth.

  The Roman road was concealed by a dense thicket, which rose like a canopy around them, its mossy branches gnarled with age, dark and smelling of lush, rotted undergrowth, like some forest primeval. He’d had to slash their way in, edging carefully through and into the heart of what felt to Felicity like some long-slumbering dryad, vaguely malevolent and poised at any moment to creak into life, wrapping its woody claws around to seal them in forever.

  “What you see is the ghost of the Roman Empire’s north ernmost border. ”

  “Did you have to say ghost?”

  “Don’t fret, you. ” Chucking her chin, Rollo gave a low laugh. “Though many know of the Roman fort in Kincladie Wood, few know this ancient road exists as well. ”

  “That just means they’ll never find us,” she said with dramatic gloom, chafing her arms and walking on.

  “Afraid we’ll rouse the big Green Man from his slumber and he’ll come and eat us?”

  She nodded nervously, an exaggerated frown of fear crinkling her features. “That’s almost exactly what I was thinking. ”

  “Fear not. ” He wrapped his arm around her, hugging her close. “I shall protect you. I’m a valiant knight, remember?” Rollo kissed the top of her head. “And besides,” he added, patting his sporran, “there’s a reward for you at the end. ”