As he ran through the open clearing, Berengar spotted an open door partially hidden by moss and vines. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the werewolf close behind, gaining on him with each step. At the last moment, he threw himself across the threshold and slammed and bolted the door shut. The frame shuddered when the werewolf crashed against the door, and for a moment he thought it might come off its hinges, but the door held firm.
Berengar continued pressing his weight against the door until the pounding finally ceased. He was alone, at least for the moment. Still, the structure was expansive enough that the werewolf might find another way inside, and he needed somewhere safer to wait out the night. He turned and advanced through forgotten hallways, unsure what he might find.
Chapter Seven
Moonbeams spilled in through gaps in the ceiling, illuminating the path ahead. His footsteps echoed faintly as he wandered along an empty corridor. When he neared the end of the passage, he noticed a hint of firelight in an adjoining chamber. He crept toward the partially open door and heard a soft tune coming from within the room. He had company.
Careful not to make a sound, Berengar inched forward with the silver dagger in hand and cracked open the door. Tuck sat inside, warming himself by a fire and muttering the words of a lullaby. An open flask rested at his side.
Berengar lowered the dagger and emerged from the shadows.
“You made it.” Tuck’s voice was distant. “Shut the door, will you? I don’t think it can get to us in here.”
Berengar did as he said and sat opposite him. “How did you find this place?”
His companion merely shrugged. “Phineas left me. Can’t say I blame him. I’m always slowing him down—slowing everyone down, really. That’s why the captain sent me to Alúine. At least here I’m out of the way.”
Tuck was old for a guard. Though his hair was not yet entirely white, scant black remained among the gray. He’d probably been a fighter his whole life. It was doubtful he knew another path. Berengar could relate. When one spent a life killing men, it was difficult to find another profession. For many, it was all they knew how to do.
He surveyed the expansive chamber in the firelight. Apart from dust and cobwebs, the room was mostly barren. Based on what he’d seen so far, the whole place had been ransacked. Anything of value had been taken a long time ago. “What is this place?”
“Laird Cairrigan’s castle, it was.” Tuck took another drink of whatever was in his flask. “I never wanted to see the place again. Funny sense of humor life has, doesn’t it?”
“What happened here?”
Tuck stared into the flames with a vacant expression, as if a thousand miles away. “It was the only way to win the war. That’s what they told us. The moon was full, like tonight. Laird Margolin paid a man inside to open the gates to us. I was just following orders, wasn’t I?” His eyes grew misty. “Old Cairrigan begged us to let his family live, even after we filled his belly with steel. When his eldest daughter tried to run, we killed her next. I still remember the look in his wife’s eyes before I slit her throat. Not a day goes by that I don’t remember it.” He shivered. “After that, it was a mess. Servants running about, the tower ablaze…and then I saw him. Cairrigan’s youngest son. He was dressed as a peasant, but the likeness was unmistakable. I looked at him, he looked at me…and I couldn’t do it. I let him go. That counts for something, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?” He lowered his head into his hands and sobbed.
Berengar crossed the room and snatched the flask from the ground. “That’s enough. Get a grip on yourself. Right now, we have other things to worry about, unless you’ve forgotten the monster on the prowl outside these walls. Got it?”
Tuck wiped his eyes and nodded weakly. “Aye. You’re right. It’s the drink. It makes me say things I shouldn’t.”
“Good. We’ll keep watch in shifts and make our way back to the village in the morning. I’ll take first watch. Try to get some rest.”
His companion quickly fell into a deep slumber—which, given the amount of alcohol he’d likely consumed, wasn’t exactly surprising. If Laird Cairrigan and his family were indeed butchered by Margolin’s soldiers, it was easy to see why the brigands chose to rebel against his rule. The truth was, more often than not men like Margolin prevailed, no matter how many bodies they left in their wake. Berengar understood that as well as anyone. He held his hands just short of the flames and listened, waiting as one second slid into the next.
Shadows crept in as the flames died low. Something whispered to him in the darkness. Berengar looked around the room. Tuck remained fast asleep. There was no hint of another presence. He sat up and reached for the dagger, only to find himself staring into the hag’s eyes. The blade fell limply at his side, and the hag leaned forward to whisper into his ear.
“Bring me the sacrifice. You have two days.”
Berengar felt a hand on his shoulder. Suddenly, the hag was gone. In her place stood Tuck, who stared at him with concern.
“Are you all right? You were mumbling in your sleep.”
“I’m fine,” Berengar said tersely. Sunlight streamed in through cracks in the walls. It was morning. The werewolf, if it remained in the area, would have returned to human form. “Let’s go.” He’d already lost one day; he couldn’t afford to lose another. “Can you find your way back to the village from here?”
“I think so.” Tuck looked as if he was still suffering the aftereffects of a night spent drinking.
Together, they made their way to the abandoned castle’s entrance. Berengar opened the door and saw notches embedded deep in the wood where the werewolf’s claws left their mark. Although the sun was fully visible outside, clouds lurked on the horizon, a reminder the rains in Leinster were never far away. Something stirred in the thicket at their approach, and Faolán emerged. When she reached his side, she immediately began licking his hand affectionately.
“It’s good to see you too. I owe you.” Berengar patted her head and looked her over to make sure she hadn’t been seriously injured. Fortunately, she appeared unharmed. Their reunion was interrupted by a woman’s scream. Berengar glanced up alertly. “That came from nearby.”
Faolán sprinted toward the scream’s source, and Berengar followed close behind, leaving Tuck trying his best to keep up. Whistling sounded through the trees ahead, and Berengar slowed his pace. He stole closer and glimpsed three rough-looking men surrounding a woman whose back was to him. Each man carried a rusty or beat-up weapon.
The brigands. He held a finger to his lips to warn Tuck to keep quiet.
“Look what we have here, lads,” the whistling brigand said to the woman. “What are you doing all the way out here, lass?”
“Leave me be.”
Berengar recognized her voice at once. It was Rose. She had lost her cloak, and her hands were stained with dirt.
The brigand grinned at his companions. “She’s the right age—and a pretty one too.” He turned his gaze back to Rose. “You’re a long way from Blackthorn, my lady.”
They think she’s Imogen. But why were they looking for her? Hadn’t Margolin’s niece been taken by the ogre?
He heard grass trampled underfoot, and two more brigands appeared with a familiar prisoner in tow: the hobgoblin Berengar encountered the night before. The creature’s hands were bound, and a rope was tied around his neck to prevent him from fleeing.
“We caught this one by the stream,” said a brigand who gave the hobgoblin a push, causing the creature to land on the ground. When he tried to rise, the brigand kicked him in the side, and the others roared with laughter.
As the hobgoblin’s eyes flitted around the faces of his captors, the brigands inched toward Rose, slowly tightening the circle.
She took a step back, but there was nowhere to go. “I don’t know what you want, but my name is Rose. I have a farm near Móin Alúin.”
“She doesn’t sound like no lady,” another of the brigands said. “Maybe she’s not who we’re looking for.”<
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The first man stopped whistling and studied Rose carefully. “That still doesn’t explain what she’s doing out here. You lot heard those howls as well as I did. You know what’s out there. What’s to say she’s not the beast? Let’s take them both back with us and be done with it.”
Before any man could take another step toward Rose, Berengar left the trees to face them, the dagger hidden behind his back. “That’s enough. Let her go—now. The hobgoblin too. Before I lose my temper.”
“Well, this is a surprise,” the whistling brigand said, looking past him to Tuck. “You know what we do to Laird Margolin’s men in our woods.”
“I told you once,” Berengar said, his size drawing the group’s collective attention. “I won’t ask again.”
“You may be a monster of a man, but there are five of us, and only one sword between the two of you. I say we—”
Berengar drove the dagger through his throat before he finished speaking, and Faolán mauled an archer attempting to take aim. When another brigand swung a sword at him, Berengar caught the man’s forearm, snapped it, and used him as a shield to avoid a stab from another swordsman. The swordsman’s blade lodged itself in the abdomen of his companion, who dropped to his knees as blood stained his tunic. Berengar caught the swordsman before he could flee and bashed his head into a tree until he finally stopped jerking.
The final brigand—a younger man barely out of adolescence—tripped over his own boots in a panic, landed next to the hobgoblin, and dropped his weapon in the process. Tuck, whose sword hung uselessly to one side, stared at the scene in apparent disbelief.
“Thanks for the help,” Berengar muttered with unrestrained sarcasm as he stooped to retrieve his dagger.
“You saved me,” Rose said in gratitude.
“Consider us even.” He started toward the last remaining brigand.
“I surrender!” The young man scrambled backward over the wet earth. “Please don’t hurt me.”
Berengar grabbed him by the neck. The men would have killed him and Tuck without another thought—not to mention what they might have done to Rose. Anger coursed through his veins, and the world was replaced by a wave of red. In the next moment the brigand lay dead on the ground as the silver dagger dripped with his blood.
“You killed him in cold blood,” Rose said.
“You think he and his friends would have shown you mercy if I hadn’t come along?”
“That’s not the point. What gives you the right?”
“This dagger gives me the right.” He wiped the blade and returned it to his boot. As a warden, he could pronounce judgment as he saw fit—a power he exercised freely over the years. He’d spent enough time dealing with murderers and thieves to know who was deserving of punishment when he saw them. If he’d shown the brigand mercy, the man would have simply run back to his hideaway, gathered his companions, and returned.
Rose put her hands on her hips in a show of disapproval. “Just because you can kill someone doesn’t mean you should.”
Before he could form a response, a searing pain shot through his hand and traveled the length of his arm up to his shoulder. Violent spasms racked his muscles, and his hand involuntarily closed into a fist, refusing to open in response to his will.
Rose noticed his pained expression. “It’s your hand, isn’t it? Let me see it—maybe I can help.”
Berengar pulled the hand away from her. “Those men had a point. What were you doing out here?”
She hesitated, seemingly thrown off balance by the question. “I heard Evander went off in search of goblins. I wanted to make sure he was safe, but a beast chased me through the forest—the same beast that killed my father. I’m sure of it. Evander must have gone after it. I need to know if he’s all right.”
Her concern seemed genuine enough, which surprised him, given how she’d distanced herself from Evander in the village. Still, that didn’t mean she wasn’t the werewolf. “Take off that scarf and let me have a look at you.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I want to make sure you’re not the werewolf we encountered last night. If you don’t have a scar from where you were turned, you have nothing to fear.”
“As you wish.” Rose raised her sleeves, allowing him to check her for bite marks.
“She’s clean,” he said to Tuck, who still looked fairly squeamish. Good. He hadn’t looked forward to the alternative, especially since she’d rescued him from the bog.
Rose shot him a rueful expression. “You didn’t answer my question. Iain told me that Evander went with you and the guards. What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. We were pursued by the werewolf and I lost sight of him.” Berengar grabbed the hobgoblin and forced the creature onto his feet. “You’re coming with us.”
The hobgoblin did as he asked without resistance. The reward for the creature’s capture would be enough to cover his obligations.
“We should return to the village,” Tuck suggested. “If Phineas and Evander survived, that’s where they’ll be.”
They’d better be, Berengar thought. Otherwise, he had lost his guide to the bog.
While his companions started in the direction of Alúine, Berengar lingered behind to inspect his injured hand. Though the pain again subsided, his fingers remained tightly clenched. He pried back the bandages to find that the skin around the rusted nail had turned black. The surrounding gray area now extended beyond his palm and up his forearm. The underlying muscles were stiff to his touch—almost like stone. The wound was unmistakably worse, a sign the witch’s curse was taking hold.
He grunted in discomfort and returned to the trail before the others took note of his absence. Tuck, who held the hobgoblin’s leash to prevent the creature from fleeing, followed Faolán north. The hobgoblin briefly caught Berengar’s eye and held his gaze, as if reminding the warden of his help against the werewolf. As far as Berengar was concerned, he’d returned the favor by rescuing the hobgoblin from the brigands, though in truth the creature wasn’t likely to receive better treatment at the hands of Margolin’s guards. Still, the hobgoblin knew where to find the stolen thunder rune, and Berengar was determined to recover it—no matter what.
His thoughts turned to the mention of Lady Imogen. The brigands weren’t searching for her by accident. Was it possible she was still alive? If that was true, killing the ogre was only half the job. He had promised to discover Imogen’s fate, and the ogre’s lair was the best place to start. His stay in Alúine continued to raise new questions. Given the presence of the ogre, the werewolf, the Dullahan, and the hag, why hadn’t Margolin hired one of the church’s monster hunters, or at least paid a mercenary to do the job? Instead, he’d sent Berengar to kill the ogre and retrieve his niece. Something didn’t add up. At least the Dullahan hadn’t shown up again. Berengar thought again of his conversation with Godfrey and wondered if Godfrey had any more information to share with him. Perhaps the friar knew something about the hag that would aid in the removal of her curse.
Ahead, Rose kept to herself, looking downcast. Berengar wasn’t sure if it was her run-in with the brigands or Evander’s whereabouts that troubled her. In either event, he supposed his behavior hadn’t helped. When many might have left him in the bog, she had lent him aid and asked for nothing in return. He let out a sigh of regret and quickened his pace. “Sorry about back there. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was only trying to keep you safe.”
When she turned to face him, the anger was gone from her face, replaced by an expression of resignation and unexpected weariness. “I’ve treated soldiers before. I know what kind of world this is. I’ve seen enough death, that’s all.”
“Evander told me you trained to become a healer. That explains why you did such a good job patching me up.”
For the first time, she smiled a little. “It was my dream. I wanted to make a difference. Things were difficult here even back then.”
“Still are,” Berengar remarked. “From what I’ve seen,
there are plenty of people in Alúine who could use your help.”
“You sound like Evander. I hope he’s safe.”
“He’s brave,” Berengar replied, which was about the highest praise he could offer. “He stayed and fought the beast when others would have fled.”
Rose shook her head. “He thinks killing the creature will make everything like it was.”
“Evander told me what happened to your father. He also said you were to be married. I can see that you care for him. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have risked going into the forest to find him.”
“Aye, I loved him—love him still. But there are other concerns. What does it matter to you?”
Berengar shrugged. “The pain of losing someone never really goes away. I know what that feels like. But you have someone who loves you. That kind of thing doesn’t come along that often, and it doesn’t last forever. Take it from someone who knows.”
Rose’s brow arched in surprise, and she started to reply, but Faolán interrupted her with a loud bark.
“Look,” Tuck said as Phineas and Evander approached through the forest.
When Evander saw Rose, his eyes widened in shock. “Rose? What are you doing here?” He ran to her side and embraced her, and this time she did not push him away.
“I went looking for you—to make sure you were safe.”
“We ran into some brigands on the way,” Berengar said to Phineas. “I took care of them.”
“And look what you brought back with you.” The guard’s eyes lingered on their captive with visible delight. “Where are the rest of your kind?”
The hobgoblin stared up at him in a show of defiance.
Phineas spit at the creature’s feet. “We’ll see if we can’t make you talk after we throw you in a cell to rot.” He returned his attention to Berengar. “Well done. I’ll see to it that you’re properly compensated when we reach the village.” He motioned for the others to follow. “Let’s go. It’s a short way to Alúine from here.”
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