Warriors: The Rose and The Warrior Part 20

"They couldn't possibly have packed everything we demanded into one wagon," reflected Melantha, straining to see if there was another cart hidden somewhere in the shadows. "Where is all the livestock they were supposed to replace?"

"Perhaps it will be delivered at a later time," Hagar suggested.

"I'm sure they've at least got some fowl in cages on that wagon," mused Mungo. "Just look at how high it is stacked."

"That leader of theirs really ought to tell those chaps to stop banging on the b.l.o.o.d.y gate," complained Ninian. "In another minute they're going to crack the wood!"

"Look, they're taking off the blankets!" Lewis said excitedly.

The entire clan watched in rapt silence as the MacTier warriors severed the ropes holding the shroud of blankets in place.

"That's not what we asked for," protested Laird MacKillon in confusion. "What in the name of St. Columba are we supposed to do with a contraption like that?"

"Here, they're going to demonstrate how it works for us," said Hagar.

"Get down!!" roared Roarke, raising his arms to attract the attention of all the MacKillons who had lined up in a fascinated row on the wall head. "Everyone get down, now!!"

Before he could issue any further warning Melantha plowed into him, knocking him to the ground with such force he could almost feel his ribs crack.

"What the h.e.l.l is the matter with you?" he demanded, roughly shoving her aside. "Your people are in danger and I have to let them-"

His words died in his throat.

Melantha stared at him in ashen silence. She was s.h.i.+vering slightly, but that was the only concession she made to the arrow buried deep within her arm.

"Oh, G.o.d, Melantha, I'm sorry-"

At that point the first boulder was vaulted from the stone-throwing machine below. It crashed heavily into the battlements, shattering one of the merlons before smas.h.i.+ng with brutal power against the floor.

"Great G.o.d in heaven, they're going to destroy the castle!" Laird MacKillon realized, appalled.

Every MacKillon on the wall head immediately retreated a step, fearful of being crushed by the next missile.

"Bring the men in from the h.o.a.rdings!" shouted Lewis, helping Finlay scramble onto the wall head from his precarious little platform. "They aren't designed to withstand this kind of a.s.sault!"

Just then a huge boulder crashed into the small wooden gallery, tearing away its wall and more than half of its flooring. The powerful impact knocked Ninian down, leaving him dangling helplessly from one of the few remaining timbers.

"Help!" he cried, desperately trying to hold on as a flurry of arrows sailed toward him.

"Stand aside, Lewis!" roared Eric, racing forward. Ignoring the shafts flying all around him, the Viking warrior squeezed through the crenel, grabbed Ninian by both his shoulders, and hauled him to the relative safety of the wall head.

"Did you see what they did?" demanded Ninian incredulously. "They blasted away the very floor I was standing on! I could have been killed! Killed, I tell you!"

At that point another boulder crashed into the parapet close to Ninian's head, shattering yet another of the merlons.

"I don't think we can fight this kind of attack," said Laird MacKillon, his aged frame stooped with defeat. "I believe we must surrender."

"We will never surrender!" shouted Thor fiercely over the wall. "We would rather be smashed to pieces and die mangled and bleeding, but with honor-do you hear, you vile, filthy MacTier sc.u.m!"

"They won't withdraw even if we release you, will they?" Melantha asked, her gaze upon Roarke intense. "That's why they brought that machine. They intend to destroy us completely, regardless of what we do or say."

Roarke knotted the rag he had wrapped around her upper arm above the arrow, his expression grim. The MacTier warriors were merely following the orders of their laird, just as he had done for so many years. The fact that they had taken the trouble to haul this deadly machine all these miles meant that they had been instructed to put it to use, regardless of whether or not it was actually necessary. The rescue of Roarke and his men was secondary to this mission, he realized furiously.

The MacKillons had dared to lash back at their oppressors. For that, they would be destroyed.

"Stay down," he ordered tautly.

Melantha immediately rose to her feet, ignoring the pain gripping her left arm. "What are you going to do?"

He did not waste time answering her, but strode purposefully over to Colin. "Grab hold of me and put your sword to my throat," he ordered. "Finlay, you take Myles, Lewis take Eric, and Magnus take Donald. Tell these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds you will slay us before their eyes if they don't retreat at once. Do it now!" he snarled, seeing the MacKillons hesitate in confusion.

Colin immediately grabbed Roarke and pressed the blade of his sword against his throat.

"Cease your attack or this MacTier is dead!" he bellowed, moving closer to a torch so he and Roarke could be seen by the MacTiers below.

"Halt!" commanded the golden-haired leader, raising his hand into the air.

The MacTier warriors froze. The stone-throwing machine was poised to launch another boulder, the battering ram was inches from the gate, arrows were positioned against quivering bows, and men were dangerously exposed upon the ladders, yet no one dared move without the permission of their commanding warrior.

"Tell them they must withdraw if they hope to keep us alive," Roarke directed Laird MacKillon in a low voice. "Tell them if they return to their lands at once, you give them your word that we will be released unharmed in three days' time."

Laird MacKillon nodded and moved to the parapet to address the MacTiers below. "I'm afraid this is a most unfortunate situation," he began apologetically.

"For G.o.d's sake, try to sound angry!" hissed Roarke.

Laird MacKillon looked a bit startled by Roarke's curt directive, but then he nodded, apparently understanding that this was not the time for civilized deliberation.

"Return to your lands at once or we will slay the hostages," he said briskly.

The fair-haired warrior urged his horse forward. "We cannot leave without our fellow clansmen," he informed him. "We have been ordered to bring them home with us."

"And I suppose you were also ordered to ravage our castle and butcher every last one of us, weren't you, you depraved demons from h.e.l.l!" railed Thor, angrily shaking his gnarled fist at them. "One more arrow from any of you, and that big Viking chap of yours will be chopped up and ground into bread!" His wrinkled face was twisted with fury and his white hair was blowing crazily around his head, making him look truly macabre in the flickering torchlight.

"Tell them three days," Roarke prompted Laird MacKillon.

"If you leave at once, we will release these hostages in three days," Laird MacKillon told the MacTiers.

"But if you don't, we shall begin hacking off their heads and tossing them over the wall!" shrieked Thor, who was obviously enjoying the attention he was commanding.

The MacTier leader hesitated, reluctant to retreat from a battle without the prize he had been ordered to procure.

"Tell him to withdraw immediately, or you'll slay one of us just to help him make up his mind," said Roarke, not wanting to give the commanding warrior too much time to consider his situation.

"Leave now, or the Viking loses his head!" shouted Thor gleefully, not caring that it was Laird MacKillon who was supposed to be handling the matter. He raised his sword and lovingly caressed its s.h.i.+mmering edge, effectively giving the impression that he was more than a little mad, and capable of the most hideous acts.

Apparently he made an impression upon the leader. "Will you also release the prisoners you have captured tonight?" he demanded.

"Aye," said Laird MacKillon. "In three days."

"Very well." Believing he had little choice, the warrior turned his horse and motioned for his men to withdraw.

A deafening cheer rose from the wall head.

"Stay here and keep enough men guarding the wall to make certain they don't return," directed Roarke to Eric. "Donald, go with Lewis and a.s.sess the damage sustained by the castle. Post guards anywhere that looks vulnerable. Myles, organize a group of men to guard the prisoners caught by the nets in the castle. The ones in the pits can stay where they are for the night."

"Does this mean I can't carve up any MacTiers?" demanded Thor.

"I'm afraid we agreed to release them unharmed," Laird MacKillon said apologetically.

"That's outrageous!" blazed Thor. "Just look what those wretches have done to my pipes!" He pointed a bent finger at the ruined instrument lying in a heap upon the ground.

"Why don't you go with Myles and threaten some of the prisoners?" Roarke suggested. "Tell them all about how you're going to grind them up for haggis."

"It won't be the same as actually doing it," he grumbled.

"Now, Thor, I'm sure you can make those MacTiers quiver in their skins so hard it will be better than actually chopping them up," said Donald, trying to console him. "I know you had me worried when I first came here."

Thor's expression brightened. "Really?"

"Absolutely," Donald a.s.sured him. "Poor Eric couldn't sleep for days, he was so afraid you might hack him to pieces where he lay and turn him into a batch of bannocks."

"I might still do it." Thor gave Eric a menacing look.

"Ye should let my Edwina take a look at that arm of yours, la.s.s," said Magnus, moving over to Melantha. "I'd take the shaft out myself, but I'm thinkin' she'd probably do a fairer job of it."

"I want to see my brothers," protested Melantha.

"Of course ye do," said Magnus soothingly. "Let's just take care of this wee arrow first, and then they can visit ye in yer chamber."

Melantha shook her head. "I need to see them now. I have to make certain they are safe."

"I'm sure they're fine, Melantha," Colin a.s.sured her.

"How can they possibly be fine?" Melantha challenged, her voice ragged with despair. "Their father has just been murdered."

Thor frowned. "What's she talking about?"

Roarke moved toward her. "All is well, Melantha." His tone was low and soothing. "You have nothing to fear."

Melantha stared at him a moment, her eyes wide and haunted. "No," she whispered, the word barely audible amid the orders being shouted to the remaining men on the wall head. "No."

Roarke reached out, capturing her in the protective cradle of his arms just as a sea of black obliterated her anguish.

Voices were floating around her, wisps of sound on the cool night air. She struggled to make them out, but they were low and hushed, swirling around her in languid circles, just escaping her grasp. It didn't matter anyway. Nothing mattered anymore. There was a terrible emptiness inside her, a tattered, aching hole that had torn her apart, and although she couldn't recall what was causing her such unbearable grief, she was certain it could never be overcome. She sank further into the warm folds of darkness, vaguely wondering if she were dying. She hoped that she was. Surely in death there would be respite from this suffocating sorrow.

A soft whimper escaped her throat, stripping away some of the layers of blackness. She shook her head, fighting her ascent to wakefulness. But a slow, sure awareness crept cruelly through her flesh, causing her to feel the throbbing in her arm, the rising of her chest, the softness of the plaid lying over her like a fragile s.h.i.+eld against the world. I am not dying, she realized, and she was overcome with disappointment. In death she might have shared a fleeting moment with her father. In life, she would have to go on without him.

She opened her eyes, feeling utterly lost.

The chamber was washed in honeyed light, which emanated from a small cl.u.s.ter of dripping candles on the table beside her bed. The windows were open to the silky night air, filling the room with the sweet scent of pine, gra.s.s, and the acrid tinge of the torches still burning on the wall head and in the courtyard below. Melantha s.h.i.+fted slightly and was surprised by the lash of pain that whipped up her arm. She studied the neatly arranged bandage on her upper arm with complete detachment, as if it were someone else's limb affixed to her body. After a moment she turned her gaze to the other side of the chamber, searching for the sleeping forms of her brothers.

Instead she found Roarke stretched out in a chair beside her bed, sound asleep.

He did not look as though he could be overly comfortable, for his ma.s.sive frame made the chair appear almost ridiculously small. Nevertheless he was slumbering deeply, which told Melantha he must have been exhausted. She studied him through the soft haze of candlelight, noting the deep lines etched across his forehead, the taut set of his jaw, the dark growth of beard shadowing his handsomely sculpted cheeks. He looked older to her in that moment, older and far wearier, revealing a vulnerability she had never imagined to see in him.

She had always known he was not a young man, for the lines of his face betrayed the experiences of a life lived close to forty years. And yet she had never sensed the slightest hint of weakness in him, either in spirit or in his physical abilities. Of course he had demonstrated some discomfort during their journey here, but she had attributed that to the fresh wound in his backside, and given it no further thought. She thought of him on the wall head earlier that evening, racing back and forth as he directed the battle from every angle, antic.i.p.ating each move of his opponents, and shouting orders to men who had no reason to obey him. And yet her clan had obeyed him, willingly and completely, despite the fact that he was their enemy, and the warriors they fought were his own.

Roarke had done everything within his power that night to protect her people from the very men who had come to grant him his freedom, risking his own life in the process.

It was this that had caused her to throw herself at him when she saw one of the MacTier warriors training an arrow upon his chest. She had tried to tell herself that she hated him, for he was a MacTier warrior, and represented greed and brutality and savage force. But somehow Roarke had chiseled away at her loathing, until finally it was but a thin veneer of the dark, cold force that had sustained her so well these past ten months.

She swallowed the sob threatening to escape from her throat.

Roarke's eyes flew open as his hand shot to the dirk at his waist. He swiftly scanned the dimly lit room before finally studying Melantha.

"You're supposed to be asleep," he told her, releasing the hilt of his weapon. He rose and went to the table to pour her a cup of ale.

"I'm not tired."

He raised a skeptical brow as he handed her the wooden goblet. "All is quiet now, Melantha," he a.s.sured her. "The MacTier army has retreated, and the wall is heavily guarded to alert us should they return. Your brothers are safe, and are spending the night under Beatrice's care. As for your clan, there were a few injuries, but they were relatively minor, and they have been treated. Everyone who is able to is sleeping, including the MacTier prisoners. Except," he qualified, "for those who are too frightened to close their eyes after Thor's ranting about turning them into meals for the next year, and Gelfrid's talk of giant rats lurking in the shadows."

"I must see for myself," she murmured, although she made no effort to move. Just holding the goblet steady in her hand seemed to require an enormous amount of energy. She could not imagine where she would find the strength to actually rise from her bed.

Roarke regarded her sternly. "You have been injured, Melantha, and although the wound is not serious, you did lose a fair amount of blood before Gillian managed to st.i.tch you closed. It is essential that you rest, or you will be of absolutely no use to anyone tomorrow."

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Gillian took the arrow out?" She could not imagine her gentle friend accomplis.h.i.+ng such a feat without dissolving into a fit of weeping.

"I removed the arrow," Roarke told her. "I have had more experience in these matters than Gillian, and I believe she was very relieved when I offered to do it. Fortunately for you," he added dryly as he took the cup away from her, "Magnus was not available."

She leaned back against her pillow, feeling immeasurably tired. She was dressed in a simple linen chemise, which left her arms bare but for the bandage, and the pale skin of her chest naked except for the slender silver chain and pendant she always wore. She frowned, thinking the green stone looked far paler than it had before. Telling herself it was just the light, she lifted it to s.h.i.+mmer in the amber glow of the candles. The orb was unusually warm against her fingertips, almost as if it were radiating its own heat.

" 'Tis a pretty piece," Roarke commented. "Was it your mother's?"

She shook her head. "The only jewelry my mother ever owned was a plain silver ring my father gave to her when they were wed. When the MacTiers came, they made everyone bring their valuables into the courtyard and drop them into a pile. I hid the ring in my shoe. But then they made us take off our shoes and boots and place them in another pile, and one of the warriors found the ring before I could hide it." Her tone was flat as she recited the story, but her fingers had tightened around the pendant, bleaching the skin of her knuckles.

Roarke cursed silently. It was obvious Melantha's ring had meant a great deal to her, and it filled him with rage to know his own clan had stolen it from her. "Was this pendant something you took during one of your raids?"

She nodded. "One day we captured a coach that was traveling to your holding. Inside we found a half dozen crates bearing silver chalices, crosses, and trays, and one well-fed priest who seemed a little too eager to hand over everything to us. I thought it odd the way he kept patting at the bloat of his waist, and ordered Magnus to search him. A small box was belted to his girth, and in it lay this pendant." She released her grip to let it glitter once again in the candlelight. "I wanted to sell it with everything else, but Magnus said 'twas by luck that we had found it, and so it would bring us further luck if I wore it." She dropped the orb against her skin. "I think he just liked the idea of me having something from the MacTiers, even though he knew it could never replace my mother's ring."

No, thought Roarke, not even the rarest of jewels could hope to ease the loss of that simple, worn band.

"Do you believe they will return?" she asked quietly.

"They will not return tonight," he a.s.sured her, lowering himself into the chair. "Thor did a fine job of making them believe that my men and I would be slain if they did, and that is not what they want. Although they have been ordered to subdue your people, it cannot be at the cost of my life or the lives of my men. That would not be a good victory."

"I see." Her tone was flagrantly bitter.

"This was not my doing, Melantha," Roarke reminded her. "You knew the risk of attack when you decided to take me and my men prisoner. I tried to warn you, but you refused to listen."