Page 35 of Farlan (Immortal Highlander Clan McKeran #3)
Chapter Fourteen
R ory grew exhausted by the time he reached the bottom of the curtain wall, as he’d had to jump from one stone stair to another rather than walk down them. Being reduced to the size of a barely weaned bairn frustrated him, as did everything else that had occurred over the last few hours.
How had he not sensed these creatures before they attacked him?
Only a few hours ago he had just finished handing out extra weapons to the clansmen who had been called on to protect their mortal vassals, and went from the armory to the forge, where he quenched the furnace fire and closed off the flue.
He had been about to go to the chatelaine’s bed chamber when Inga walked in and hurried over to him .
“Almost all of the chambermaids have vanished, and I’m afraid my granddaughter will be next,” she told him. “Is there something you can do to protect her and the rest of our people?” When he didn’t answer her she added, “Something with your druid magic?”
He stiffened. “I never told you such a thing.”
“Tasgall did some years ago.” She reached out to touch his arm. “At the time he was very worried about you, and wanted my advice. I told him to trust you, as I always have.”
She was speaking of the time when she and the laird had been lovers.
Rory had reacted to learning of that by locking himself in the forge and hammering out so many swords that within a month he’d armed every man in the garrison with two new blades.
He would not talk of that with her as if it meant nothing, either.
“What magic I possess, ’tis useless against the enchantments here,” Rory admitted. “I shall go and hunt the things responsible for harming our vassals.”
“I’ll go and bring Grace here,” Inga said, nodding quickly.
“Stay here, Chatelaine.” He went to the door, and when she followed him he held up a hand. “I shall lock you inside. The window and flue coverings shall prevent the bats from coming in and attacking you. Your granddaughter shall be safe with the other ladies.”
Locking the forge’s door from the outside merely required a spell stone on the threshold, but after he’d placed it, something had jumped onto his back, its claws digging into his shoulders.
He’d whirled and slammed it into the passage wall, knocking it off.
Another flew at him, seizing his wrist in its toothy mouth and biting him before he hurled it away.
Since being cocooned by the monstrous caterpillars, Rory had worn a shielding charm, which kept the creature’s venom from paralyzing him, but the magic still partly shrank him.
He’d been made too small to fight off the giant bat when it seized and flew off with him.
Now his strength had grown so diminished he suspected another tussle with the bats would end him.
Why should they do this to us? What purpose does such serve?
The long-eared brown bats that had shared his forest long ago had made whispering sounds at night as they hunted, but they had been tiny creatures who had lived on insects.
He recalled seeing a pair of bats out flying just after sunset several times in the past. They had roosted in the rafters of the stables, and Eachann had claimed they were not dangerous, for they fed on berries and fruit during the night that the spell trap’s magic restored by dawn.
These enchanted, monstrous versions of those harmless creatures seemed to be growing without check.
Were they shrinking their victims down so they might feed on them more easily?
If that were true, then why had they been storing their victims in the store room on the outer wall?
’Tis as if they were but half-enchanted by the bastart who cursed us.
Rory kept to the shadows as he made his way toward the great hall, and noted all of the stronghold’s guards had left their posts.
The laird would have gathered all their vassals and sent men to protect them while the rest of the clan hunted the creatures.
A shrill screeching sound made him stop by a window slit, and climb up the stone wall of the passage so he could look out at the back of the bailey below him.
Patrollers with torches had cornered one of the bats, which towered over them, and had apparently cut off one of its wings to keep it from flying away.
As Rory watched, the bat’s missing wing regrew, stretching out from the stump as it climbed up the inner curtain wall.
By the time it reached the top it was able to fly off toward the outer wall, where the other bat joined it in the air.
The two then circled around the patrollers, attacking them from behind with blinding speed .
Within a few moments all five clansmen had been turned into poppets, which the bats collected before they flew off toward the outer curtain wall storeroom.
If blades could not stop the bats, then he had little hope that anything else would.
A lec walked with Grace across the gallery above the lists, where he stopped for a moment.
He watched a large group of clansmen with torches mount the inner curtain wall with crossbows loaded and ready to fire.
Two guards walked along the top of the wall, one adding wood to the metal braziers with the other setting fire to them.
“’Tis for the archers,” the war master told her. “They shall light their arrows before they shoot them.”
“Does fire kill things here?” she asked, unsure if he would even answer her.
“’Twas what ended the murderess that brought Ava into the spell trap,” the war master said.
“She tried to burn our lady in Rory’s smelting furnace, but when the laird took Ava from her, she instead fell in.
We found naught left of her but ash and some bone bits, which the enchantment didnae restore or heal on the next morning. ”
She thought of Tonje’s obesity, and the greed for pricey food that had ultimately killed her. “Destroy the body thoroughly enough, and not even magic can bring it back.”
He regarded her with a lifted brow. “Do you mean to end someone, Mistress Johansen?”
“Those bat things are at the top of my list. So is this Bodach goblin jackass.” She eyed him. “How about you?”
“I’ve longed to end the curse on my clan for nigh on a thousand years,” he said softly, and went back to watching the men.
“’Tis my position among my brothers to defend us all against every threat.
I’ve schemed and fought against this place since we became trapped here, and failed every time.
Yet none of them ever utter a word of reproof against me. ”
“Instead you blame yourself for it.” Just as she had always accepted her mother’s greedy demands and barely veiled hatred as her due, when in reality she’d done nothing to deserve being treated so harshly. “It’s not your fault, you know.”
“Aye, and so I tell myself the same over and again.” He glanced at her. “You and I, we’re much alike, I think.”
“We’re both pretty people, sure.” Grace eyed him. “That doesn’t make us better than anyone.”
“Yet our looks fool the others,” Alec chided.
“ Even in this cursed place all gaze upon us and believe us to be as flawless as we appear. Only we ken that behind the mask of our beauty lies much darkness. Trouble stirs it, and fear stokes it. Unlike the others, we must ever hold back our true selves. They wouldnae call us beauteous if they saw what we hide from them.”
That he understood her better than even Farlan startled Grace a little, but she could detect a familiar weariness in his tone now. Alec had suffered because of his looks, she suspected, for a lot longer than she had.
“You’ve terrible secrets, too,” he continued. “I see the weight of them in your eyes.”
“I was trained to keep quiet. I’m also quite good at smiling and looking perfect for people who think I’m an idiot. Maybe that’s a by-product of being cold-hearted.” She wondered if it had been worse for him, but knew better than to ask.
“My grandsire chained me in a barn every night, and beat me for the smallest mistake,” Alec said, as if he’d peeked inside her brain.
“Villager girls meddled with me when I couldnae fight them off, and then their lads thrashed me for being so beautiful. My sire’s blood permitted me to heal fast, and live to endure another night, only I couldnae smile. ”
“I’m sorry.” Grace wished she could say something more. Then she wondered why he was confiding in her about such personal issues. “You seem to be handling it well.”
His mouth curved a little. “Olivia came to me, and saved me from myself. She helped free me from my past, and all the resentment and anger I carried inside me. She loves me in spite of my beauty.”
Now she got why he looked at the petite brunette as if no other woman existed. “You are extremely lucky.”
“She’s the greatest boon of my life,” he said, and without missing a beat asked, “You’re in love with Farlan, aye?”
She really hadn’t known if she was, Grace thought, but she didn’t want to be. She might not have a choice anymore.
“I think I am, but we haven’t talked about it. For now he thinks it’s just sex for me, and I’m okay with that.” She looked down at her hands, and saw she had clenched them so tightly her nails were cutting into her palms. “It might be better in the long run.”
“’Tis naught wrong with guarding your heart for a time, but the truth willnae remain hidden. Let Farlan suffer a wee bit longer,” Alec told her. “Unlike you and I he’s had a merry time of it, grinning and jesting and making everyone love him.”
“Olivia didn’t have an easy time of it.” When he eyed her she added, “I’m not prying, by the way. I just noticed how she avoids talking about her family. Ava does, too.”
“My wife, she’s the warmest, most loving woman I’ve ever encountered,” the war master said. “’Tis a wonder, considering she remained locked up and constantly starved near her entire childhood. Do you ken, she forgave in truth the crazed woman who inflicted such on her.”