* * *
They’d eaten their midday meal and were about to mount when one of the guards began gagging and coughing. Then the second one did the same. Horrified, Isobel watched as, within a few short minutes, they lay unconscious and near death. They’d shared the same food and she waited for the symptoms to strike her down, praying that Athdar was safe.
But they had not shared the skin of ale.
Could there have been something in the ale? She had, instead, drunk from a skin that contained the betony tea she so liked. Jean said...oh, God, not that she’d made it, but that it had been waiting for her this morn.
The sun above became blurry and Isobel’s legs felt weighted down. She knew Laria must be close, watching and waiting for her to fall, so she picked up her skirts and ran, moving slower and slower with each step. She fell then, tumbling into the field by the road, unable to move even though she knew that death, and Laria, tracked her.
Athdar!
Athdar, she thought as her body began to shut itself down.
Will he remember me or will I fade into the dark part of his memory like the others?
* * *
‘Athdar?’
‘Leave me be!’ he yelled from inside. The whisky did not block out their voices or her memories.
She was gone. She had left him after swearing she would never leave.
‘Damn it, Dar! Open this door before I break it down.’ Broc’s angry voice did not change Athdar’s mind about opening it.
‘Come on, man. Isobel is in danger.’ But Padruig’s quiet plea and mention of her name did.
He staggered across the clothes-strewn room and lifted the bar just moments before the two forced their way in. Knocked to the floor, he waited for them to climb off him.
‘Where is Bel?’ he asked, climbing to his feet and pushing his hair out of his face.
‘This was just delivered from the village.’ Broc handed him a small, folded packet.
Tearing it and cursing as he did, Athdar handed it back to Broc to open more carefully. Padruig paced, hand on sword, waiting for orders. When something fell to the floor from inside the packet, Padruig scooped it up.
He’d seen the writing before, when Laria wrote down instructions or a list of ingredients and supplies she needed. This was her writing now.
Come and learn the truth.
Come alone or she dies.
I am waiting.
Justice is waiting.
Padruig held out his hand and dropped the item that he’d picked up into Athdar’s palm after he read the note.
His black queen.
She did not think he saw her take it, but he had. He just couldn’t find the words to tell her not to, or to beg her to stay.
Laria had Isobel and would kill her unless he found them.
Only by facing the darkness inside his memory could he get to her. His refusal to do that yesterday was what put her on the road this day. He thought she would be safer away from him, but that had simply put her into Laria’s grasp. Now, she was in danger and his heart and soul knew he could not risk her.
He closed his fist over her favourite piece and read the words again. Dear God, she had not told him where to find them! Athdar knew he could not help her without facing all of it, even the dark, swirling madness that lay inside him.
‘I do not know where she is!’ he yelled out. ‘How will I find them?’ Broc grabbed for him as he fell to his knees.
He had to think. He had to concentrate.
He had to remember the accident Isobel had spoken of and where it had been.
He recalled the names she’d spoken over and over to him, trying to open the dark pit within him to find her. He said them aloud, caring not who heard them.
‘Jamie. Duff and Kennan. Robbie.’ Nothing.
‘Jamie. Duff. Kennan. Robbie.’ Still...nothing.
‘Athdar,’ Broc said. ‘I know where they are. Where she is.’
‘How do you know? Did Laria tell you something?’ he asked, grabbing Broc by his shirt and pulling him close.
‘I followed you. I followed you that day.’
‘What day, Broc?’ he asked as he flung his steward aside.
Black waves tumbled in his memories. Broc as a child, younger than him by a few years. Broc sneaking behind him, ever a few paces behind him. Unable to force what would come at its own pace, he walked away.
‘Where, Broc? Tell me where?’ he shouted. Athdar opened his trunk and got his dagger and his leather jack. Then he turned and waited for Broc to reveal the location.
‘The mill. The old mill.’
Athdar wanted to argue with him that there was no such place, when the image of it floated into his thoughts. They’d run past the mill, laughing and avoiding the place where the currents were the strongest, and turned into the forest.
‘I know where she is.’ He began to run, out of the room, down the stairs, to the stable.
Padruig and Broc followed close behind him, catching up as he threw his saddle on a horse and tightened it into place. Leading the horse outside the building, he vaulted up on top of it. He wanted to leave, but he needed something. He needed to take something. Something...
‘This,’ Broc said, tossing a looped length of rope to him. ‘You have to take the rope.’
He was completely at a loss to explain how Broc knew such a thing, but it was exactly what he needed to take with him.
‘We will speak later. After you bring the lady back,’ Broc said, smacking the hindquarters of the horse and sending him into a trot.
Athdar was through the gates and heading for the mill, all the while trying to figure out the way to go. Then he heard the sounds of boyish laughter in his head and saw a shadowy group of boys racing ahead of him. Only madmen saw and heard people who did not exist. But he followed them, even while knowing they could not be real, through the forest. It took a while for him to reach the current mill. And then he knew in which direction the old one was.
The sun was beginning to fall lower in the western sky, making his stomach churn. He would never find his way to her in the dark, just as he could not find his way that night long ago. Blinded by sweat, he continued riding, urging the horse to continue its relentless pace. Whenever he thought himself lost, the five ghostly boys would appear before him, laughing and running as they had that day, never knowing the death that lay ahead. Finally, he saw the place where the path turned away from the river bed and into the forest and knew he was close.
The path disappeared, making it difficult and slower to get the horse through, so he dismounted and walked. After a step or two, he knew he needed the rope, so he pulled it free and carried it on his shoulder. He’d just turned back when he heard the crackle of dry brush behind him and was struck down, not by Laria, but by a giant of a man.
‘Where is she, Athdar?’ Rurik said, picking him up and punching him again. ‘What have you done with her?’
‘Laria,’ he choked out when he could get a breath in. He held his hand up to block the next punch. ‘Laria has her. She is waiting for me.’
Rurik dropped him on the ground and crouched down near him.
‘Why?’ Isobel’s father asked. ‘What is she planning?’
Athdar wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘She wants to kill me. She is using Isobel as bait to draw me there.’
‘What have you done now?’ Rurik asked, as he grabbed the leather jack and hauled him to his feet.
Athdar thought of all kinds of things to say or not say, but only one thing, one person mattered right now.
‘You can lay the blame on me later, Rurik. She will kill Bel by nightfall, if I don’t get there.’ He got his bearing, even as memories of being completely lost and running in circles through the dark forest flooded his thoughts.<
br />
‘How did you find me?’ he asked, as he began to trot towards the west, staring at the trees and looking for anything familiar.
‘I tracked her, from the main road.’ Rurik stayed with him, matching his pace even though his strides were longer. ‘I found the guards escorting Isobel dead and followed the signs.’
They were close, very close, now, and Athdar stopped and stared through the thick trees for the place where—
The arrow took Rurik out with amazing precision.
‘I told you to come alone.’ Laria’s voice echoed to him from some place further ahead.
‘Rurik,’ he whispered, crawling over to him where he lay face down in the dirt. He did not move. The arrow had pierced him straight through his back.
Of all the ways he thought the proud warrior would meet his death when it came time, this was not it. Rurik should have met it with a sword in hand in battle and not shot in the back by a madwoman whose true target was Athdar. He was about to move on when Rurik grabbed his leg.
‘Here, let me help you,’ he said, grabbing the man’s thick belt to pull him away.
‘Nay,’ Rurik gasped. ‘Get Isobel. Protect my daughter.’ Then Athdar felt his body go limp. He should take him back towards the mill. Broc would eventually send men and they would find Rurik and he might have a chance to survive. Any argument or thought of delaying to help Rurik was stopped when Laria spoke again.
‘Remember, if you kill me, you will never get to her in time. Come along, boy,’ she ordered.
He followed the sound of her voice as she continued to speak and watched for movement ahead of him. Then, just when he thought he would catch up to her, a wave of terror pierced him and he froze.
He had not recognised it at first, but now he did.
A wide chasm opened before him, the bottom not visible from where he stood. Then the sounds and sights of that day crashed inside his head.
‘Come now!’ he called out. ‘It is not wide enough to stop us. Are you afraid to jump?’
They were, but he goaded them on.
‘Get a running start and you will make it.’ He saw the uncertainty on their faces and would not allow that to ruin their adventure.
‘Cowards!’ he shouted at them. ‘Only cowards would disobey their chief.’
Athdar watched as they nudged each other, nodding and backing up to get a good running start to their jump. Smiling, he crossed his arms over his chest the way his father often did and waited for them to reach his side. One and then another soared into the air above the deep gash in the ground...
Their cries turned to screams as they plummeted down into the dark crevasse below them. Athdar watched in horror as the screams faded into a deathly silence. Only the sound of his breathing broke that stillness as he crept over to the side and peered down.
The bottom lay about twenty feet below him and his friends lay strewn across the small floor of the gully.
He stood at the edge now and looked down, the bodies still fresh and bloodied as they had been over thirty years before. Jamie and Robbie, his cousins. Duff and Kennan, Laria’s sons. Jamie dead already, his head twisted at an impossible angle. Kennan and Duff landed next to each, impaled on the old tree trunks that grew out of the bottom of the crevasse. Only Robbie yet lived.
Those bodies faded from his sight and were replaced with one more horrifying to him—Isobel lay unconscious at the bottom now.
‘If she is hurt...’ he began to scream out at her.
‘She is the only one I regret,’ Laria said almost quietly from across the ravine. ‘She understood a mother’s grief. She asked me to teach her. ’Tis sad you fell in love with her. Then I had to take her. You had to remember the pain. You had to feel the pain I lived with every day because of you.’
How did you reason with a madwoman?
’Twas impossible to do, so instead he began to look for a way to her. Realising that she stood very close to the edge, watching Isobel at the bottom, Athdar began circling the edge. As he expected, she moved as he did, mirroring his steps from across the chasm and never letting him get closer to her. As he walked over the ground, he forced his steps deep into the marshy soil, trying to loosen it.
‘I was a child, Laria. You know that,’ he said, keeping an eye on Isobel to see if she roused. ‘My only sin was being a stupid and proud child.’ He remembered the words he spoke that caused his friends to plunge to their deaths now.
But he had been only a child. It had been a terrible, horrifying accident.
‘You should have remembered them. You should have paid a price,’ she shrilled, the madness and pain in her voice echoed through the dark woods.
She still had the bow with an arrow nocked and ready, so he had to be careful. When he thought the ground could take no more without pouring into the gulley, he began trotting. No matter that insanity fuelled her efforts, Laria was older than he and could not keep up the pace he set.
‘I should have remembered them. I should have...’
Somewhere deep within him, Athdar had remembered them. It had caused his nightmares and sleepwalking and the pain that he had no explanation for. He might not have realised it, but he had held his friends in his soul while waiting for his mind to remember them.
‘I remember them, Laria,’ he called to her as he stopped there on the edge. ‘I remember Duff and Kennan.’
Laria tried to stop then, wobbling and losing her balance as she leaned too far towards the pit. As she lurched back trying to compensate, she fell, sliding down the side, taking soil with her.
He watched as she pitched herself forwards in the last second and landing against one of the large rocks on the bottom. She died instantly, her neck broken from the impact. The only sound now echoing across the pit was that of his breathing.
Pushing his hair out of his face, he studied the loosened edge and tried to work out the best place to try to descend to Isobel. He listened for signs of her breathing and heard nothing, so he found the rope he’d brought and, after tying a knot in the end, tossed it around a sturdy tree and dropped the length down into the chasm. Fearing it would not be long enough, he smiled grimly when it reached the bottom. Thinking only about getting to Isobel, he took a deep breath and climbed down into the pit of his nightmares.
When he reached her, he touched her face and felt warmth where he feared the coldness of death. Without delay, he picked her up in his arms and managed to get a quiet moan out of her. Athdar allowed himself to hope he had found her in time then. He still had to get them both back up the side, but he would manage.
He had to.
It took him longer than he expected, but in a while he carried her away from the ravine and laid her on the ground. Tapping her cheek, he finally roused her from the drugged stupor Laria had put her in. Her eyes fluttered open and closed a few times before she focused on his face.
‘Dar,’ she whispered. ‘You found me.’
‘Aye. And I’m not letting you go. Ever, Isobel. You are mine.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bel smiled then, the corners of her mouth curving only a bit, but she fell back to sleep before he could say more.
A good thing considering the terrible news he would have to give her when she woke. Realising he could not carry her all the distance back to the mill where he could get help, he searched nearby until he found Laria’s horse, lifted her in his arms and mounted.
Now that he knew she was alive and would be well, he took her to Lyall’s cottage near the mill as fast as the horse would carry them. Leaving her in the man’s care, he returned to where he’d hobbled his own horse next to Rurik’s body. Knowing that Rurik’s horse must be nearby as well, Athdar whistled as he’d heard Rurik do and the trained mount came to him. Once again, it took more time than he thought it would, but he could not leave Isobel’s father in t
he dirt after he’d tried to save her.
* * *
It was hours into full dark by the time he led Rurik’s horse carrying his body out of the forest near the near mill. By then Broc, Padruig and a full contingent of MacCallum warriors were there to help.
Isobel made her way out of the cottage then, a bit wobbly and escorted by the older man. From the look of her slow steps, she must be sore from her ordeal. First she met his gaze and took a step in his direction, but then she caught sight of her father’s body draped over his horse. She gasped and began to run to him, only stopping when Athdar caught her up in his arms.
‘I am sorry, love,’ he whispered against her hair. ‘Laria...shot him,’ he said, trying to think of a way to soften the blow of her father’s death.
‘And damn near killed me,’ Rurik muttered gruffly.
Isobel screamed and pointed as her father raised his head. They both ran to help the men move him. Apparently the half Scots, half Norse giant was hard to kill after all.
Using the cart from the mill, they took Rurik back to the keep where Ceard practiced his knife-wielding skills to remove the bolt. Knowing he was in the best of hands, Athdar took Isobel to their chambers where he planned to spend several days sorting through the reasons why they were staying together. And he allowed no amount of bellowing from his bride’s father to disturb them during that time.
No MacCallum dared to approach their chambers and no amount of cajoling, suggesting or threatening changed that in the coming days. By the time Rurik fought his way out of that damned sickbed and made it there, it took him one glance to know he stood no chance of separating them ever again. He was quite certain he’d worn the same expression in his eyes when he’d rescued Isobel’s mother all those years ago.
Worse, or better depending on how he examined the situation, Athdar’s actions had saved the young woman who Rurik had claimed as the daughter of his heart when Rurik could not.
* * *
By the time Jocelyn and Margriet arrived, Rurik had begun to grow accustomed to the idea of their marriage, or rather, he’d begun to stop opposing it. Mayhap, considering that Athdar had also come back for him, even when believing him to be dead, having him as husband to his daughter was not the worst thing in the world.
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