Highland Dragon Warrior

by Isabel Cooper

  “He must have friends at court, then, to get away with it as long as this,” said Alice.

  “And so it could be,” said Madoc, his gray eyes thoughtful, “as he seems to be doing the English bidding now, but it could also be that he dwells on the border. His estate would be a long way from the places and people the English kings value, yes? Would Longshanks or his father have cared overmuch what the man did with his own vassals, so long as he kept the likes of our hosts out of London?”

  “Didn’t succeed, then, did he?” Cathal said, breaking the tension further with a wolfish smile. “I’ve been there. Douglas in Westminster, though, is indeed a prospect to make a man’s blood run cold—”

  “You should thank Christ there are ladies present, pup,” Douglas said amiably.

  Laughter rippled around the table, and there was ease in it, but Sophia couldn’t let herself be drawn away from the original subject, unpleasant as it was. “Your pardon, my lady,” she said, “but in all of these stories, did anyone ever speak Valerius’s name? The one he was christened with, I mean to say.”

  Closing her eyes, Lady Bellecote was silent for a long moment, during which Sophia did her best not to hope—and finally justified that effort by shaking her head. “If they did, it’s slipped my mind long since. I’m sorry.”

  “No, not at all,” Sophia replied.

  “But,” said Cathal, “you could tell us how to reach his lands, aye?”

  “Oh, certainly.”

  * * *

  The directions Lady Bellecote gave would have taken a man with a horse several weeks to follow. “And that may be the best way,” Douglas said, when Sophia and Alice had joined him and Cathal in private quarters, “even if it’s not the fastest. No question that Valerius would dearly love to get one of our family nearer to his place of power.”

  “He may not even be there,” said Cathal. “He and his men were far afield when I met him. Truce or no, it’ll take them a fair bit of time to return, unless he has greater powers than I’ve yet seen.”

  “Aye, or he’d been closer to home at the time of the truce, or gone home with his missing arm.”

  Cathal shrugged. “Then we’ll settle the matter all the quicker… Ah, damn.” He glanced to Sophia, clearly hoping that his sudden thought might not be accurate, but she had to nod confirmation. There was no knowing what Valerius’s death might do to Fergus.

  “And dawn breaks,” said Douglas. “The tricky bit when the other man’s taken hostages, lad, is that setting fire to the building generally doesna’ work very well.”

  “Thank you,” Cathal said, not quite through gritted teeth. “But every day that goes by is another day when Valerius might find a way to make the curse go forward again…or another means of attack,” he added with a glance toward Sophia.

  “There is that,” Douglas admitted and turned himself to regard Sophia, who sat still and tried not to squirm under the collective attention. “The dreams and the demons. The man’s too familiar with other worlds.”

  “Other worlds?” Sophia broke her silence. “I knew the demon wasn’t from the earth, of course, and I had my suspicions about the place of the dreams. I’d read things, but I’d no way of knowing it was true. My lord,” she added, aware of Cathal’s grin.

  Douglas didn’t smile, but neither did he look reproving, only solemn and thoughtful. “It sounds true. This world contains, or touches on, many others. You can reach some of them by dreams or trances, sure enough, and if you’ve taken both harm and plunder from the place you visit, I would wager it’s real.”

  “Do you know it?” Alice asked. “Could you go there?”

  “To the portion that Valerius has shaped? Mayhap, if Sophia were there already. Not, I think, without a link of that sort. And once there, I doubt I could do more than she has against the wizard. Until we know more, his defenses will hold.” Douglas took a slow sip of wine.

  “Best we find out quickly,” Cathal said, “as was my point. As I can’t kill the man, I can be human and stay out of his sight while I ask questions.”

  “Can you? With a magician who doubtless knows what to look for?” Douglas snorted. “I very much doubt it. He’s seen you before, and he’ll know you’ve reason to come after him. The man or his creatures will mark you five minutes after you’ve crossed the borders.”

  Cathal leaned forward, hands on the table. The firelight showed the rich colors in his plaid, the same pattern as Douglas’s, but the faces above them were far apart in expression. “You can’t be sure of that. We can’t wait. And with you here and Moiread returning, it’s only my neck that I’m risking.”

  “Unless Valerius claims your mind and uses you against us. Or uses your body as a way into the castle,” said Douglas. “You never understood magic, and this is more complex than charging a line of spearmen. Be guided by wiser heads, will you?”

  The way the two of them glared at each other, there might have been nobody else in the room. Sophia didn’t know whether she expected the air to burst into flames first, or one of the MacAlasdair brothers to throw a punch, but she knew she had to nerve herself to speak before they did—and she knew that Douglas was right. Connections made magic.

  “Honestly,” said Alice, shaking her head the way she’d always done over her sons, and her siblings before that. “Good sirs, I’ll do it.”

  Both men swung their heads around to look at her, and although their forms didn’t change at all, in that moment Sophia could easily see the dragons under their skins. If they hadn’t both looked poleaxed, it would have been terrifying. As it was, she bit back the urge to giggle.

  “You?” Cathal frowned, but not angrily. “Could work.”

  “Yes, it could,” Alice said. “You fly me to the border of Valerius’s lands, or as far in as you think you can get before he notices you. I’ll go further in and ask questions. Sophia can tell me what I seek, though I suspect I know much of it already. Once I find it, I’ll return to you, and we’ll fly back here.”

  She said the word fly as if it were poison, but otherwise she spoke briskly and unflinchingly.

  “It’s dangerous,” Douglas said. “You do know that, madam.”

  “I think I’m more aware than you are, my lord,” said Alice, “having seen at least the signs of his creatures. If I sought perfect safety, I would have remained in France. And if you,” she added, rounding on Sophia just as she’d been about to protest, “can draw this man’s attention such that he’s throwing you into other worlds and setting demons upon you, then I can very well go to this man’s land and talk to his people. I’m quite human, and quite ordinary, and nobody notices women unless we’ve titles.”

  “He’ll have human minions, as well as the magical sort,” said Cathal. “Not pleasant men.”

  “There are plenty of unpleasant men in the world. I’ll do my best to avoid them. With any luck, most of them will still be out looting battlefields.”

  Sophia bit back her protest. The errand was necessary. If Alice was willing, Sophia wouldn’t degrade her sacrifice by trying to talk her out of it. For the second time that night, she reached over to Alice and took her hand.

  From her other side, though there was no physical touch, she felt Cathal’s gaze on her face. “I’ll do all that I can,” he said when she turned to look at him. His eyes met hers squarely; he wouldn’t insult her with more reassurance.

  Twenty-eight

  “Generally speaking,” said Munro, “you’ll want to kick a man in the knees or hit him in the nose. They both hurt like a right ba…devil, aye, and then with the nose, he’ll be blind for a space. With the knees, he’ll no’ be able to run.”

  “Not…” Sophia gestured vaguely to the air around her groin.

  She and Alice, for whom the lessons were really meant, made strange figures, standing in the practice yard while the wind blew their gowns around their legs and tugged at their plaited
hair. Such a sight was not unheard of at Loch Arach—Moiread had mostly worn breeches and a tunic, but she’d practiced a time or two in women’s dress, “just in case,” although those occasions had been rare. Sophia had never listened so quietly or looked so uncertain.

  Munro grinned. “Oh, aye, the ballocks are a grand target as well, mistress. Only not for the first strike, not unless he’s by way of having other things on his mind. A man in a fight will guard the jewels well, and a man fighting a woman will expect her to strike there first. Knees or nose, sir?”

  Cathal pushed himself off the wall and stepped forward. When he’d found that both women carried daggers, but neither had been trained, he’d thought to give instruction himself—until Munro had pointed out that few of his skills would be of use in any fight Alice might face. He was a big man. Even if he’d been purely human, a punch from him could have broken bones. He’d learned to be on guard against dirty fighting, but he’d never truly thought to learn it, not to the depths a man like Munro had, because he’d never even considered a time when he might need it.

  And so he’d become a set of pells.

  “If it please you, sir?” Munro asked.

  After a quick bow of apology, Cathal caught hold of Alice’s shoulders—the typical Explain yourself, woman, and do it quickly grab—his grip firm but, he hoped, not too tight. She kicked out and connected a solid blow to his upper shin, but well below the knee.

  “Skirts,” Munro said, shaking his head as Cathal released Alice. “Nothing for it but practice, I suppose.”

  “I don’t think I can pass as a boy,” Alice said, sighing, “so you’re right. I’ll see if I can’t get the motion down, at any rate. Sophia, you try.”

  With Alice, Cathal had only hesitated to gauge his strength; she might have been one of his younger men. When Sophia stood before him, her face sober with concentration, his hands at once felt larger than usual and less a part of him. He took her by the shoulders and felt desire flare up at once, quick and consuming.

  For a second her eyes widened, darkened, and he knew she felt it too.

  Then she brought her fist around and up, and hit him squarely in the nose.

  It wasn’t a strong blow. Sophia dropped her hand back to her side no more than a breath after the contact. “Oh!” she said, dismayed, but with a hint of pride underneath it. “Oh, I didn’t think that would work. I’m sorry.”

  “No. No, don’t be.” Cathal blinked quickly, shaking his head to clear it. “That was the point.”

  “Don’t worry about Sir Cathal, mistress,” said Munro, chuckling. “Might sting a bit for him, but you can damage the castle as easily as you can truly hurt him. That’s why he’s out here with us… Aye, sir?”

  “You have the right of it, man.”

  He’d also wanted to be around Sophia. Not wise, that, but he was going to go off and perhaps die in a few days, so he would give himself that indulgence. He’d also wanted to be useful—and truth to tell, he’d longed for a task.

  They waited on the weather because a cloudy night would give Cathal the necessary cover. Naturally, the skies had been fair, and while Douglas settled into the running of Loch Arach, Cathal had found himself with time on his hands.

  By God, it was nothing to complain about, being free of the duties under which he’d chafed for months. He wouldn’t have taken them back again if Douglas had offered. It was only that he’d been used to activity. Now there was waiting, and then the journey, and then—if they were fortunate—Fergus’s recovery.

  And then?

  Once he’d had a ready answer to that question. Only, looking back on the last few years of his wandering life, Cathal was no longer sure that was the answer he wanted—battles for causes he didn’t believe in for a succession of lords who would come and go like clouds crossing the sun. That path had satisfied him once. Had the war not come to Scotland, would it have done so indefinitely?

  He knew not.

  “Now,” Munro said, “we’ll get to knife play shortly, but remember that a weapon can be taken from you. Your feet and hands, well…” He glanced at Cathal and made a face, as both of them remembered Valerius. “They can be taken, but it’s a sight harder. And you’ll see how even that little tap made a man like Sir Cathal go cross-eyed. Speaking of eyes…if you’ll come over here, sir? It’s hard to explain this next one without demonstrating.”

  “Don’t get carried away,” Cathal said. “I’ve only the pair, you know.”

  The ladies both laughed, as Cathal had intended. If he didn’t survive the next few days, his last memories might as well be of Sophia, eyes shining with mirth. If he did survive, he’d want those memories too—wherever he ended up going.

  He’d been a warrior for most of his life. Blood was the price of every battle; he didn’t seek death, but neither did he fear it. Perhaps that was why the second possibility lay as heavily on his heart as the first did.

  * * *

  This time, things went awry without the help of demons or dreams, and Cathal had no suspicion of a problem besides the ones he’d already known himself to have.

  He sat with Douglas in the solar, drinking ale and planning as best they could: lists of provisions for him and for Alice, likely times and sources of cover, how long he should wait concealed before taking action, and what kind of action that should be. Douglas had voiced his opinion in favor of abandoning the quest and returning to Loch Arach—and had done so in such a way as to make it seem the only sensible option.

  “And leave the girl to Valerius?” Cathal snorted and shook his head. “Don’t be an ass—”

  “Then don’t be sentimental. You know how such matters work. You’ve left men behind before, I don’t doubt.”

  “Men. Soldiers who took pay. Not women who volunteered to help us and couldn’t win a fight against a kitchen boy with a meat knife. And I left them to other men, not creatures like Valerius. And those were fights I knew I’d never a chance of winning.”

  “You’ve no great chance of winning this one,” Douglas pointed out. “You can’t even kill the man, remember?”

  “I could take him prisoner. After that…” Cathal shrugged. He didn’t like torture, didn’t think it did much in most cases, but if he could bring Valerius into a room and cut bits off until Fergus came back all the way and Sophia was out of danger, he’d live with the memories.

  Douglas shook his head. “And if I were him, I’d have safeguards for just that moment. Spells to call demons down on all of us, mayhap, or throw Fergus’s soul out into the pit. ’Tis much easier to cast the deadlier ones when you’re standing in front of your target. That’s assuming you can even reach the man, much less capture him, mind you. You’ve not thought this through.”

  The dragon-blooded had few children and spread them apart a fair way in time. At Cathal’s birth, Douglas had been a man full grown and more. He showed his maturity, as neither Moiread nor Agnes would have, by not adding of course out loud, but Cathal heard it nonetheless.

  “I’ll have you know…” he began, standing up from the table, and then he heard the footsteps running up the stairs.

  Whatever their differences, their blood and their training was the same. Douglas’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword in the same moment that Cathal’s did. Douglas was the one who called “Come in” warily at the knock on the door, but they both turned to face the visitor, not expecting an attack but ready for one nonetheless.

  Edan was there instead, his face creased with worry. His bow was quick and clumsy. “My lord. Sir Cathal. There’s been an accident, and Mistress Sophia bids you come when you can.”

  That it was Sophia doing the bidding kept Cathal a shade calmer than might have been the case, but only that shade. Plenty of dying men could send for a confessor. He practically raced his first few steps down the stairs, and he didn’t slow until Edan managed to tell him and Douglas more of the story.
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br />   By the time he reached the room where Alice lay, with Sophia bustling around at her side and the sharp smell of herbs in the air, Cathal no longer had the sick feeling that the world was tilting beneath him. Still he couldn’t be completely relieved. In addition to pitying Alice, he knew that this latest mishap might bring on the question he and Douglas had been debating much sooner than either of them had hoped.

  “Her ankle’s broken,” Sophia said, dipping strips of linen into a bowl of water. She’d spared a quick glance for Douglas and Cathal, but didn’t look at either of them as she worked. “I’ve sent for Donnag, but it’s obvious.”

  “My lord,” said Alice, her face green-white and her voice unsteady, “have you ever considered that your castle has too damned many stairs?”

  There it was: the stairs being washed, like the floors, to prepare for Lent and the end of winter, the stone slippery, and Alice hurrying to dinner. A hundred such falls happened every day, and people had broken worse than ankles before. It was probably just ordinary mortal bad luck that it had happened now to Alice.

  Cathal thought so, at least, but he glanced at Douglas, for whom distance and time still evidently hadn’t removed all ability to speak with a look. “There’ll be no magic about this,” he said. “The wards would have told me, if I didn’t know already.”

  Alice shook her head. “Believe me, I’m more than capable of doing myself a bad turn without sorcery. I’m…aaaagh—” She broke off as Sophia started to wrap her ankle, the bandages wet and smelling strongly. After a few moments she added, panting, “—sorry for it, considering.”

  “Don’t be stupid. It’s not your fault,” Sophia said. “I only wish that… Well, never mind.” She’d glanced at Douglas before breaking off, and Cathal could guess that she’d been about to wish for a real bonesetter or even a physician, but didn’t want to insult her host. “It should heal well enough, if I’m doing this right and you don’t move.”

  “It’ll take months, though,” Douglas said, “unless you’ve magic beyond what I’ve heard. None of us can heal humans.”