by Headlee, Kim
Through pain and exhaustion, each pair of eyes glowed at her with hopeful expectation.
Gyan cleared her dust-dry throat, knowing what her men wanted and needed most, but she had no idea how to begin. She glanced at Per. He nodded encouragingly: not much help from her beathach of a brother.
In the strengthening light, she recognized more of her clansmen’s faces. Few had remounted. Most stood among men whom, a mere two years earlier, they would have gladly embraced with steel. Now, some helped their Breatanach sword-brothers to stand; others were the grateful recipients of such aid.
This shared crisis had done more to forge unity than a hundred treaties or marriages ever could.
“Well done, mo ghaisgich!” My heroes. The full significance might have been lost on the Breatanach warriors but didn’t go unnoticed by the Caledonaich, who responded with fatigue-muffled claps and cheers. “Well done, my heroes, indeed. Together”—she paused to let the implication sink in for herself, as well as for her men—“Together, we have defeated the invaders. Their survivors flee, taking as their only plunder the tale of our awesome prowess.” She signaled Rhys to raise the standard. A breeze ruffled the sigil, making the legs appear to kick. “The Saxons will think long and hard before crossing swords with the mighty Manx Cohort again!”
Husky cheers ripped the morning. Smiling, she beheld the filthy, bloodied faces and noticed one warrior who had remained silent.
Recognition inverted her smile.
He stood apart from the others, feet squarely planted and sword drawn. His helmet was gone, his curly hair formed a dark nimbus about his head, and his armor looked more red than black. He was swaying; apparently, not all that blood was Sasunach.
Their gazes met. He glared at her as though still gripped by battle frenzy. It was all too apparent that he despised her.
Angusel. Her lips shaped his name but birthed no sound.
Her grief strained at its shackles, but now that she finally felt alive again, she refused to let that emotion control her.
Lips pursed, she looked away and gave the order to return to the fort. As the men obeyed, she slid a glance toward Angusel, but he had disappeared. His absence wrought more sadness than relief.
She reined Macmuir around to lead her troops home, earnestly hoping the enemy had left the island. Not for her sake, but for the sake of her weary sword-brothers.
All of them, even Angusel.
Chapter 29
THE LAST SHIPS scraped onto the beach beyond Rushen Priory’s walls as Arthur strode toward Niniane across the sand. “Did you bring enough men?” she asked him.
While most jumped fully armed from the vessels, one plump, robed figure descended shakily down a rope ladder, assisted by two soldiers.
“This”—his gesture encompassed the score of vessels and hundreds of soldiers—“is only half the force. Bedwyr’s men are sailing straight to the Saxon beachhead, where we’ll meet them.” Determination creased his brow.
“The sounds we heard last night…” She closed her eyes and shivered, though it wasn’t cold under the midday autumn sun.
“They didn’t try to come here, did they? To the priory?”
“No, thank the Lord. But they passed close.” Directing efforts to douse lights and hide valuables, struggling to remain calm lest the other sisters lose courage, ceaselessly praying the Lord would shield the priory…she shivered again. “Too close. Twice.”
“Twice?”
“At compline, it sounded as if they were heading toward Dhoo-Glass. I made sure the priory was dark to prevent them from getting the notion to visit us.” She shook off a fear-induced vision, the shreds of her prophetic power. “Just before matins, we heard them going the other way. Shouting, running, cursing, screaming…” She drew a sharp breath. “We feared we were next.”
“Did you See anything?” he whispered. “Gyan?”
She winced. Why the Sight had abandoned her remained a mystery. Perhaps because she hadn’t used it properly, God had withdrawn His gift? Whatever the reason, the pain wrought by its absence hurt as keenly as any vision she’d ever experienced.
“No, I—oh, Arthur, I’m so sorry!” Legs weakening, she stumbled into in his arms. “I—I Saw none of this!” Sobs wracked her body.
He cradled her head against his armored breast. The cool bronze doused the heat in her cheeks. When her tears had run their course, and she straightened, she found him looking not at her but at the cliffs hiding Port Dhoo-Glass from view, as if commanding them to divulge their secrets. His left hand dropped from her shoulder to close over Caleberyllus’s ruby. Upon his face, anxiety reigned.
A centurion marched up behind him. “Lord Pendragon?” When Arthur rounded on the officer, his expression of supreme confidence made Niniane wonder whether she’d imagined the anxiety. “Sir, the scouts have returned from South Cove. The Saxons are boarding their ships. Our men are formed up and ready.”
“Good, Marcus. Start leading them up that defile.” He pointed at the draw slicing into the cliffs. “Reform them at the top. I’ll be along shortly.” The centurion saluted and left.
“What will you do?” Niniane asked.
“What I came to do, first.” He sounded as bleak as the wind-ravaged cliffs at his back. “What she would have expected.”
The confidence he’d displayed for his officer withered into resignation, and it disturbed her more profoundly than her failure to See what he’d needed most for her to See.
“Please don’t speak as though your wife is dead,” she whispered. “You don’t know that.”
“I don’t know that she isn’t.”
She stared at the sand through moistening eyes, wishing she could burrow into a hole and stay there.
He lifted her chin, compassion flowing from his gaze like a healing balm. “I’m sorry, Niniane. I know you can’t help what you See—or don’t See.” He let go and balled his fingers. “It’s just so bloody maddening! I could take not having her with me when I thought she was safe.” He ground knuckles to palm. “God’s bleeding wounds!”
She laid a hand on his arm. “I will pray for you, Arthur.”
“I don’t need it.” She found his claim difficult to believe. “Pray for Gyan.” She nodded as Cynda approached, muttering and dusting sand from her hands. Arthur exchanged a few Caledonian words with her before he said to Niniane, “Please look after Cynda until I determine it’s safe at port.”
Niniane voiced her agreement. Arms folded, Cynda stood beside her as Arthur quickly moved to join the unit marching past. Discipline forbade the men from audibly acknowledging his presence, but Niniane thought their pace seemed brisker, their shoulders more squared, their chins higher. Watching until Arthur disappeared into the draw, she prayed for him and Gyanhumara both.
Hesitation creased Cynda’s face. Then she spat. “That, for safe.”
Niniane felt her eyebrows knit. “What?”
“Gyan there, maybe hurt.” The older woman pointed toward the port. “Maybe others hurt. You and me, we go and heal, aye?”
She fingered her chin. Losing the Sight hadn’t left her utterly useless. Slowly, she nodded. “We will go and heal.”
BEDWYR STOOD at the ornately carved prow of his flagship as it bucked the swells beyond the enemy beachhead. Around him clustered the other warships under his command, awaiting his lookout’s report.
He stroked the snarling wolf’s smooth oaken neck with renewed admiration for the Scotti shipwrights’ art. Between patrolling runs, he’d spent the summer determining what made these vessels swifter and more maneuverable than the Brytoni design and found the answer in their knifelike keels.
Caerglas shipwrights still labored to refit the fleet with the new keel style, obligating Bedwyr and his men to sail the Scotti warships captured during last year’s battle. Though the new additions had taken some getting used to by the crews, the commander of the Brytoni fleet was supremely thankful for this option. And today, gods willing, they’d have another ship design to learn
.
“Commander! The Pendragon’s forces are beginning to engage.”
Shielding his eyes, he regarded his lookout swaying in the rigging atop the mast.
“Are the Saxons fighting or retreating?”
“Fighting, sir. Wait—” The lookout craned forward. “The Pendragon is pushing through, and the enemy is breaking off.”
“Report when the first ship touches water.”
“Aye, sir.” The crewman returned his gaze to the land battle.
The cohort breaking through already—that was fast, even for Arthur. The Saxons didn’t expect this, Bedwyr mused. It supported Arthur’s theory of a night attack on Dhoo-Glass, one that apparently had failed.
Yet at what cost?
Bedwyr ached with his friend. Gyan had captured his heart, though in a different way. True, her bright beauty dazzled him. What lover of women could remain immune to it? And he admired her courage and respected her intelligence. Most of all, he loved her for the positive influence she’d exerted upon Arthur before tragedy befell their son. He’d have sacrificed his right hand to save the child, but by the time he found out, only grieving with Arthur remained.
He winced at the memory of the worst ale-head he’d ever suffered.
Good thing Arthur’s work at South Cove was proceeding quickly.
Staring across his watery domain at the cliffs, he tried to imagine fighting on a surface that didn’t constantly throw everyone off balance. Land troops had no need for the extra measures of strength and agility that made a good shipboard warrior. Nor did they need ironclad stomachs, he thought with an irreverent grin, no matter how loudly they complained about camp rations.
Bedwyr’s men, all specially selected and trained for naval warfare, would acquit themselves with honor anywhere.
“My lord, the Saxons are shoving off,” called the lookout.
“How many ships?”
“Twelve, sir. The remaining soldiers are trying to buy time.” The crewman’s teeth flashed a grin. “They don’t have long.”
Bedwyr moistened his salt-dried lips. “Raise the signal.”
The lookout drew a length of cloth from under his tunic and tied it to the rigging beneath the Scarlet Dragon. As the saffron semaphore unfurled in the stiff breeze, he started down from his perch.
The warships set oars to water and lunged forward to cut off the Saxons’ escape.
The enemy loosed swarms of arrows at the Brytoni fleet, but panic forced the archers to let fly too soon. Most of the arrows fell harmlessly into the sea. With a practiced eye for the distance, Bedwyr brought the fleet closer and answered with fire. Saxon volleys dwindled as more men devoted their energies to beating out the flames. The ships began wallowing like cows trapped in a bog.
A few set course toward the Brytoni line and the freedom lying beyond. One bore down upon Bedwyr’s flagship at ramming speed.
Like a dancer, the Scotti-built vessel pivoted and glided out of the way. Bedwyr ordered out the grappling hooks. A tremor rocked the decks as the vessels scraped together. A few unwary crewmen from both ships fell overboard, their screams drowned by a horrific screeching and cracking of hulls.
The Saxons fought with desperate fervor to board the flagship. Bedwyr and his men battered them back to carry the fight aboard the enemy ship.
Hand-to-hand combat upon a wildly pitching deck sluiced with seawater and urine and blood, compounded by the danger of burning rigging, presented quite a challenge. Bedwyr harbored no doubt that Arthur had the easier task of this operation.
Fighting near the mast, he heard a shouted warning. He dived and rolled as the crosspiece crashed onto the deck. Its glowing end clouted his shoulder, and agony exploded in his brain.
His opponent lay pinned, screaming, beneath the burning beam, clothing alight. The stench of roasting flesh flooded his nostrils. Lifting his sword and gritting his teeth, Bedwyr performed the only merciful act.
Before the fire began to bite into the deck, he ordered the return to their ship, for the fighting on this one had ceased.
CALEBERYLLUS WAS a cruel taskmaster.
Arthur stared at the weapon dripping Saxon blood. What else could imprison him on this corpse-littered beach while he ached to discover the fate of his beloved Gyan?
Ridiculous. It wasn’t his sword’s fault.
These Saxons couldn’t be blamed, either. They’d only gotten in the way, paying for their blunder in crimson currency.
What constrained the Pendragon to see the event to its inevitable conclusion was a precept embedded in him from the moment his fingers had curled around the hilt of his first wooden practice sword. Duty governed him so naturally that he seldom wasted a second thought upon his decisions.
Today, he felt the chafing weight as surely as if an iron band wrapped his throat. He swallowed thickly.
No predicting how she might react to him. If she was alive. Had time eased her grief or intensified it? Did she love him anymore? Or had she found—God, please, no—someone else to comfort her?
Would he have the chance to tell her any of this?
Clenching his jaw, he exiled his doubts about the future to concentrate on the present. Instead, perversely, his mind reviewed the raw memory of the afternoon’s work. He grimaced. The exhausted enemy force had stood no chance against rested men lusting to avenge their companions’ deaths.
“Wholesale slaughter” came closest to describing the grisly mess his men now labored to clean up. Untapped energy escaped in the form of boisterous joking as some soldiers stripped the dead of arms and armor and others stacked bodies and pieces of bodies for disposal.
Though battlefield humor might seem callous and out of place, with the corpses still limp and the wounded screaming for help, well did Arthur know its purpose. No soldier could look death in the eye without blinking. Those who failed to relieve the nervous tension went mad. Most chose to laugh about their daring exploits and narrow escapes, casting aspersions on the parentage and sexual preferences of the vanquished foe.
Today, their laughter stung him like brine on a gaping wound.
Upon Cai’s suggestion after the Dun Eidyn debacle, he’d learned to find his release in a woman’s arms. Besides the physical pleasure, it reassured him that life marched on, no matter how men tried to butcher each other. Those women hadn’t meant anything to him.
Gyan had to be alive! If not, he’d never forgive himself…and he’d save some choice words for God. And if she lived, and still loved him, he never would let her leave his side again.
Squealing gulls drew his attention, squabbling over a fish. The gulls’ raucous fighting reminded him of himself and his wife, with one marked difference. The birds shrieked and dived and pecked at one another with reckless abandon, free to follow their own choices. But no gull tried to hold any of the others back.
Pondering this revelation, he wiped Caleberyllus with a handful of grass pulled from the sandy bank. As the blade disappeared into its scabbard, he noticed the long cut on his right forearm. He couldn’t recall any Saxon getting that close, though that was hardly unusual. The cut didn’t hurt much, and the blood had already dried.
Recognition jolted him. The wound bore an uncanny resemblance to the one he’d accidentally inflicted upon Gyan’s arm last year.
His left hand briefly touched the linen wrap covering the fealty-mark on his neck. That scar, symbolic of an oath far more profound than a bond between warriors, would forever bind his heart to hers regardless of how she acted toward him. His regret intensified.
Reluctantly, he returned to the task at hand.
Bedwyr appeared to be dealing with the Saxon warships with his usual efficiency. Golden flashes and black plumes erupted from the condemned vessels. Widening red circles marred the bay’s greenish hue.
In combat, the Saxon warships were outclassed by their swifter Brytoni and Scotti counterparts, yet as troop transports they knew no equal. Arthur regretted that only half would be salvageable.
This seemed desti
ned to be a day of regrets.
Mercifully, the fitful breeze coaxed the smoke out to sea, taking with it the stink of blazing destruction, though death smells clung stubbornly to the beach.
He watched Saxons jump ship and paddle for shore, only to be dragged under by the pounding surf. Many surfaced, choking and flailing. Some didn’t. He sent Marcus with a unit to round up the survivors.
While the Brytoni fleet bobbed serenely offshore, the flagship split away and rode the waves onto the beach. Arthur strode forward as men disembarked to drag the vessel from reach of the covetous waters. Bedwyr stood at the prow, looking as if he’d stumbled through the caverns of hell.
“What in God’s name happened to you?” Arthur asked.
Wincing, Bedwyr touched the blackened leather on his shoulder. “I argued with a burning crossbeam.” He smiled wanly. “Care to wager which of us won?”
Yet another damned regret: not having one iota of humor to banter with his best friend. “You should get that treated soon.”
“I plan to. We’re going to port,” Bedwyr said. “Have you any wounded?”
“No. We suffered only minor casualties.” As Arthur regarded his arm, sorrow provoked his sigh. “Nothing that can’t wait.” Duty’s burden grew heavier. Small wonder he wasn’t sinking into the sand. “Go. I’ll meet you there later.”
“Dolphin dung, Arthur! You’re coming with me.” Bedwyr raised his uninjured arm, palm open. Arthur checked his retort. “Marcus can finish here for you.”
“You’re right.” Thank God for friends who possessed more sense than he did. “I’ll tell him.”
EMPTY BUCKET in hand, Niniane threaded between the drab tents toward the central clearing where the rock-lined firepits had been dug. She didn’t need to glance inside the tents. The moans and screams and curses, and the stench of blood and offal and vomit, reaffirmed what she already knew.
