Elizabeth McBride (26 page)

She made her way around the far side of the fort, letting
the fort itself shield her from the battle. It was a steep,
rough descent to the beach. She used the cracks in the rock
for toeholds and handholds, bruising her fingers and scraping her shins. Near the bottom, the rocks were slimy with
seaweed, and she slipped and slid until her palms were
scraped raw.

Mhoire's feet hit the soft sand. Before her was a huge boulder. Oran was on the other side of it. She could hear
her whimpering and choking on her sobs.

And another voice. A man's voice. One she knew.

She plunged forward toward the sounds.

Irwin. Holding Oran by the arm. He must have heard the
din of the battle. He must have come to help.

"Thank God you are here," Mhoire panted. "We must
get her up to the fort."

She reached for Oran, but Irwin's grasp tightened, and
he yanked her closer to his side. Oran let out a low wail.

Mhoire stopped.

"You thought I was a good neighbor?" Irwin's mouth
twisted like a snake, and his pale brows shot up.

Him? Irwin was their enemy? Why?

"Give her to me!" Mhoire hissed. "God damn you to
hell! Give her to me."

"Drop the bow first."

Oh, no. That would leave her defenseless. She had given
her dagger to Nila. Her bow was her only weapon.

She stalled. "These are your men fighting here?"

"Nay. These are Britons."

"Britons? I don't understand."

"They're my friends."

Mhoire's eyes widened. "You are friends with the Britons? Why? You don't need them. You have everything!"

"Except power." Clutching a terrified Oran with one
hand, Irwin drew his sword from its scabbard with the
other. He pressed the point into the sand and leaned on it.
"You thought I wanted you, didn't you?" He cocked an
eyebrow. "I would have taken you, if I could have gotten
rid of Drosten mac Nechtan. I had hoped the wild boar
would tear him apart for me. For a time, I thought you
might manage to chase him back to his own country-you
were so determined. But then you married the man. When
I couldn't have you at all, I realized I really didn't need
you. And I certainly didn't want him around."

"But why are you fighting for Dun Darach now? You could have taken it easily when only the women were
here."

"You know I could not have seized it when it was in the
hands of the Scots, with no justification. That would be
stealing from a neighbor, and the king of Dal Riata would
have had me hung. But now everything has fallen into
place. We lured Drosten mac Nechtan, the great Pictish
warrior, here. You married him, which transferred Dun
Darach to the Picts. Now, with the help of our new allies,
the Britons, we can kill Drosten and take over Dun Darach
at the same time."

"Why do you say `we'?"

Irwin opened his mouth to answer and then clamped it
shut. His eyes focused on something behind Mhoire.

She turned, and her heart clenched in her chest.

"I
It is you after all," Mhoire whispered.

Colman stood a few paces away at the base of the cliff,
a gleam of triumph in his eyes. He took a step toward her.
"Drop the bow."

She let the weapon fall. Hatred, like nausea, roiled within
her.

"I never knew you to be sharp-witted," Colman said.

"You never knew me at all."

"I knew you as well as I wanted to." He took a few more
steps toward her. "You made a lucky guess."

"Nay. I realized that a Pict would never want to kill me.
The Picts need me to stay alive. They need me to have
children with their prince. Under Pictish law, the only way
they can keep Dun Darach is through my daughters. Gormach mac Nectan would never have ordered Drosten to kill
me."

"Ah, you show a bit of wit, my child."

"I am not your child."

"Nay. You are her child."

"And I'm proud to be! She was a worthy woman!"

"You have no idea what your mother was."

"I know what you are. A drunkard and a bully and a
liar."

A ruddy flush mottled Colman's face.

Mhoire let her rage flame. "You lured the Picts into this.
You had no intention of honoring Drosten's presence on this land. You had no desire for an alliance with his people."

"Why should I?" Colman spit out. "The Picts have
fought against us for centuries. They slaughtered our ancestors. Now we have a chance to wipe them out."

"With the Danes hard upon them, and the Britons at their
back. And now you, an Irishman, are joining hands with
their enemies." Mhoire shook her head in disgust. "And
your first goal is to murder their best commander. With the
help of this ... rat here." She gestured to Irwin and then
fixed her eyes on Colman. "What do you get from this?
What do you get for killing Drosten?"

"Fame." Colman's eyes glittered green.

"And you would kill me for that as well?"

"Who are you to me?"

"I shared your house! I mended your clothes, made your
candles, helped prepare your food, healed your servants!"

"You are her child, not mine."

Mhoire drew herself up. "I'm proud of that."

"You shouldn't be." The muscles in Colman's neck
tightened. "I saved her, you know. She was pregnant before
we even married. If your grandfather had known, he would
have cast her out. Sent her to the convent and locked her
away. But I took her. I married her."

"She never loved you."

"She might have!" Colman roared.

"Nay. Never. Not the way you treated her."

"You insolent girl! Don't speak to me like that!"

Mhoire stared at him, tried to gather her wits. Colman
had a dagger at his hip. Irwin held Oran in one hand and
his sword in another. Her bow was lying in the sand. Where
was Drosten? Drosten!

"So this is your revenge, is it?" Mhoire made a sweeping
gesture with her arm and as she did so, took a step toward
the boulders. "You take my mother's land, the land she
loved, and use it to further your own ambition."

Colman shrugged.

"Does the king of Dal Riata know?" Mhoire asked, stepping back again.

"Of course, the king knows."

"But he's not part of this, is he? I see how few men you
have here." She gestured again, took another backward
step. "If the king supported you, there would be a battalion
of warriors on this beach, not a few dozen. Is he humoring
you? Is he amused by this?"

Another wave of color saturated Colman's face. "The
king knows the value of destroying the Picts."

"You fools! What value? The value of avenging an ancient wrong? What good is that when the Danes are at our
doorstep? How will that help when they burn our forts and
kill our men and take our children as slaves? You need the
Picts as friends, not enemies!"

Colman gave her a cold stare. "We need Drosten mac
Gormach dead."

"And you have been using me to achieve that," she stated
flatly.

"I needed to get him away from his homeland, away
from the bulk of his forces. I needed to get him someplace
where he would be vulnerable."

"But you haven't been able to get rid of him, have you?
He'll survive this battle today."

"Nay. Today, I will kill him."

"How can you be so certain?"

A malevolent smile split Colman's face. "He'll give himself up. Once he sees that I have you."

Mhoire's eyes narrowed into slits. "You don't have me.
You will never have me. Just as you never truly had my
mother."

Colman's smile disappeared, and he lunged for her.

Oran shrieked. Mhoire stumbled back and scrambled behind a boulder. Reaching behind her neck, she pulled an
arrow from her quiver and clenched it in her fist like a
dagger. Suddenly, Colman whipped in front of her. She
plunged the arrow into his chest.

It hit his leather breastplate and bounced off.

Colman staggered, cursed, and reached for her arm. She
kicked him hard in the shins. He recoiled. She stabbed
again. Higher. Aimed for his neck. But Colman saw her
thrust coming and jerked back.

There was movement at her side. Irwin! Diving toward
her with his sword.

Oran screamed-a shrill animal sound-and hurled herself at Irwin's knees.

Mhoire swung around to Colman, sweat pouring in her
eyes, her arrow raised high like a spear.

Colman's jaw clenched and his brows lowered. She
knew he was ready for her this time.

Her grasp tightened on her arrow.

She swung her arm. But before it completed its arc, a
blood-curdling yell cut the air.

Colman's mouth opened in horror, and he sank to his
knees. Blood snaked around his neck and oozed down his
chest and his arms and his hands. He lowered his eyes to
his limbs and then raised them to meet hers. He stared at
her, wide-eyed. And then his pupils clouded, and he fell
face down in the sand.

Towering over him stood Gormach mac Nechtan, his
long gray hair as wild as the wind and his scar a lightning
gash down his face.

Mhoire went rigid, and the sound of her own pulse
roared in her ears. Then she felt a hand cover her fist, which
still clutched the arrow. Gently, it pried apart her fingers.
A quiet voice spoke in her ear. "Let me have the arrow,
mo milidh. It's over now."

There was no celebration in the hall.

Gormach's warriors, who had crashed onto the beach
like a tidal wave, had added their force to Drosten's handful
of men and quickly ended the battle. But the victory over
Colman and Irwin did not ensure their peace.

"Don't you think that the Dal Riata king will leave us
be?" Mhoire asked, reaching for Drosten's hand. They were
sharing a bench in front of the hearth fire. Gormach sat on
a second bench that was positioned across from them.
Elanta was busying herself nearby with a pot of nettle soup,
and Nila was making an infusion of chamomile to settle
Mhoire's nerves.

Drosten squeezed her hand. "He didn't contribute much
to this skirmish, that is true. But I doubt that he will ignore
us altogether."

Mhoire looked over at Drosten's father. Strain had tightened his face, leaving long grooves down the sides of his
mouth. "This is not how you wanted it to be, is it?"

"Nay, lass. I wanted to avoid war with the Scots and the
Irish. That's why I arranged your marriage to my son. It
would not be wise to try to keep Dun Darach through force.
If the Dal Riata king decided to lay siege, we would have
to bring in an army from Pictland. Then we'd have an allout war. We can't fight the Danes, the Britons, and the
Scots at the same time."

"What are you saying?" Mhoire asked.

Drosten slipped his arm across her shoulders. "He's saying that we can't stay here."

"But we must!" She turned to him. "Everyone here needs
us. We can't abandon these women again. Besides, this is
my home."

Gormach answered. "I traveled here to congratulate you
on your marriage," he said roughly. "I didn't know what
trouble you were in. So I take no joy in making you leave.
But I cannot allow my son to fight a worthless war. Either
the both of you come to Pictland, or you divorce."

Drosten's arm tightened across her shoulders and drew
her closer to his side. "My father is right, Mhoire. We must
go back. If we had even a small claim to Dun Darach, we
might manage to stay. We could possibly even negotiate
an agreement with your king. But as it is, a Pictish presence
here could only be seen as an act of aggression-thieveryand your king's pride would force him to confront us on
the battlefield."

"But surely there's got to be another choice!" Mhoire
cried. She appealed to Nila and Elanta, her eyes wild. "Isn't
there among you some connection to my grandfather?
Some thread of relation? Could any of you inherit the fort?
Could Drosten and I stay by your favor?"

Elanta looked at Nila. Calmly, Nila poured the chamomile infusion into a cup, wiped her hands on her skirt, and
extended the cup to Mhoire.

"Drink this down, child," she said firmly. "Then we'll
walk to the chapel."