Chapter Twenty
Where the bloody hell had all these MacInnes come from?
Alec leaped from the ferry that had brought him, his hounds, a score of men, and his horse over from Kisimul. Flames shot up through the thatching on at least three cottages. Screams tore through him as he turned to whistle for Sköll. The horse trotted over, weaving between the chaos, so he could mount.
His men ran into the village, swords drawn to meet those torching the homes and attacking. Women and children fled toward the hills beyond to escape the carnage and smoke. With the pressure of his heel, Sköll turned toward four men who were setting Ruth’s bakery on fire as she tried to hit them with the heavy wood board she used to take bread out of the ovens.
“Run, Ruth,” he yelled. As she took off in another direction, eyes wide, Alec’s sword swung down in an arc, slicing through two of the men, taking one head and one arm. Turning, Sköll knocked the other two over with his hind quarters, delivering a kick to one that left him unconscious while the other ran off.
Alec jumped off Sköll to battle two more men who came at him, warding off their thrusts easily. One fell to his sword and the other lost his weapon. With a powerful stride, Alec grabbed the man around the throat with his hand, squeezing until the bastard’s eyes bulged. “What the hell are ye doing?”
The man couldn’t speak in Alec’s grip, but he didn’t have to. Beyond him stood another large, barrel-chested warrior. One Alec had known most of his life. And suddenly he knew exactly what was going on. With a surge of fury, Alec threw the man he held toward the flaming wall of the bakery but kept his gaze on his true enemy. Angus Cameron.
Fury burned as brightly within him as the doomed houses around the village square. Muscles taut and blood pumping fast, Alec strode toward the bastard. Angus Cameron was going to die.
Angus stared, a wide smile on his paunchy face. “I’d hoped to do this the easy way after I had my man lure Joyce away from Kisimul. It was easier for him to kill her off that rock fortress of yours.”
Lured away?
“Timid thing,” he said. “Hardly knew what was happening to her.”
Alec’s stomach clenched. Poor Joyce, sent to wed a chief hardly old enough to be called a man. She’d suffered in loneliness at Kisimul, dutifully giving him children despite her sadness. Only to have her throat slit, executed for doing her duty in staying with him. The woman hadn’t abandoned Kisimul and her children after all.
Angus shook his head. “With her gone, ye were supposed to marry my sister before your untimely death, leaving her in the seat of the clan until I came to claim it. But with the Maclean lass about, I’ve decided to kill ye now and take Barra by force.” With that, Angus charged, lifting his claymore high with one hand while holding his wooden targe with the other.
The heavy force with which Angus barreled toward Alec may have slaughtered a lesser warrior, but Alec was quicker than the Cameron chief. Muscles and sinew, honed from hours of swordplay and tactical practice, threw Alec into defensive action. He lowered, dodged the man’s bulk, and knocked his sword away as he turned, but Angus held onto the weapon. Alec spun and raised his boot, kicking Angus in the back with his heel. The force threw the man to the ground. He grunted as his round chest hit. Alec lifted his sword to strike, but the barking of his two hounds signaled for him to turn, lifting his sword in a defensive pose just in time.
George Macrae brought his blade down in a vicious, silent arc meant to cleave Alec at his shoulder. Instead, steel met steel, clanging loudly to add to the shouting of men and crackling of fire. Alec let the Macrae chief’s sword continue downward, controlling the impact. With a twist of his sword and bend of his arms, Alec brought the bastard close until they stared at each other between crossed blades.
Macrae’s teeth were gritted as he snarled at Alec. “’Tis your day to die, MacNeil, ye and your kin. Barra will belong to the Camerons and Macraes.”
His kin? Alec’s inhale battled past the tightening of his stomach at the man’s words. Behind him, Angus cursed as Alec’s large wolfhounds surrounded the man, snapping, barking, and biting when given the chance. Taking turns, they crashed their massive frames into him as he tried to rise. “Bloody beasts,” he yelled, but Alec was caught in a staring contest with Macrae. The bastard waited for him to glance at Kisimul, the place where he’d locked his only kin up safely.
“They’re dying right now,” Macrae said, his words seething out of his teeth like the hiss of a snake.
“Kisimul will never fall,” Alec said, and the recitation gave him strength. He turned, letting the man’s press fall forward past him, and spun to slice toward Macrae, but Macrae managed to get his sword up in time to block. Alec kept his feet locked in the sway of momentum, as if the ground tilted like a tossing ship. A lifetime of riding the waves gave him unbeatable balance.
“Kisimul will be ours, along with Barra,” Macrae said.
“Impossible,” Alec said as he parried back and forth with the obviously talented swordsman. “Kisimul is impenetrable.”
Macrae’s frown turned into an evil smile. “Kisimul is inescapable.”
A deep emotion washed through Alec, one that he’d never felt fully before. Fear. It rolled through him like an icy poison, threatening to numb and weaken him. He wanted to look toward the fortress in the bay. Only his discipline kept him centered on his foe. Even the sound of his dogs finding flesh on Angus, making the man scream as they continued to rip into him, didn’t pull Alec’s attention.
“Macrae, get them off me,” Angus yelled between curses, but his coconspirator ignored him, making it very clear that George Macrae aspired to control Barra by himself. Out of the corner of his eye, Alec saw Kenneth run up, his claymore bloody.
Macrae struck again, his sword ringing out and sliding down Alec’s blade. Without breaking his stride, shoving Macrae backward, Alec whistled twice, high-pitched blasts to scatter his lethal hounds so that Kenneth could advance. One deep yell from his cousin, the whoosh of his blade through the air, and Angus Cameron’s head thudded to the ground.
“Kisimul,” Kenneth yelled, but still Alec battled George Macrae, knowing the man needed him unfocused to win, but Alec parried each thrust, and Kenneth took off toward the docks. Men ran everywhere, and the slip of Macrae’s confident smile showed that the tide had turned.
With a growl born of might and fury, pushing past the fear that threatened to crumble his strength, Alec advanced, faster, harder, legs braced and arms burning with the heat of use. He slashed forward, practically chasing the bastard Macrae. Look away, and you are finished.
The man blinked, wiping an arm across his forehead as he blocked Alec’s blade. Alec felt him falter under his strength and changed the direction of his next thrust at the last second. His mighty sword clanged hard against the very top of his foe’s blade, sending it scattering across the rocks. “Camerons and Macraes are no more!” he yelled and lifted his sword high.
“And your family is no more,” George Macrae yelled back, making a last effort to throw himself along the ground toward his sword, but Alec’s blade caught him across the neck, slicing deep. He rolled to the side, his hands gripping the flowing wound. Only then did Alec look to Kisimul.
Fire. The very center of Kisimul glowed orange against the blackness of the night. Like when Cinnia had set the kitchen ablaze but a hundred times larger. Alec’s gut sunk deep inside. “Nay,” Alec yelled, his voice booming out in the destroyed village center. Fire still smoldered some of the houses, as well as many of the boats that had been tied at the dock, including the ferry. It was a conscious effort to prevent them from returning to Kisimul.
Alec ran, his hounds at his sides, as he searched the dock for a seaworthy vessel. “I need a boat,” he called to the warriors standing there, watching fire spark up in the sky over Kisimul. “My children,” he yelled. “Mairi.” He scanned the men but didn’t see Tor Maclean or Cullen Duffie. Out in the bay, the two MacNeil ships flanked two others, at least one of them belonging to George Macrae.
“The seaworthy ones have been burned,” Kenneth said, running up to Alec.
Ian hobbled after him, his face grim. “I should have stayed back.” His eyes reflected the flames.
Alec ran toward the far end of the dock where the broken boats, ghosts of his past, sat tethered. The Camerons had burned Joyce’s boat and his mother’s, but the decades-old rowboat, which had belonged to his father, lay half wedged under the boards. He yanked at it, desperation empowering his muscles as he brought it forward. “Oars,” he yelled, and Daniel ran up carrying some that were only partly singed. Behind him Kenneth was ordering boards to be nailed together. He’d have a boat built shortly, but Alec wasn’t waiting.
He climbed into his father’s rowboat, and Daniel pushed him off into the bay. Water immediately began to seep into the bottom, but Alec just rowed, putting every bit of his remaining strength into his back and shoulders, pushing forward with his feet braced. Gurgles came up from the wormholes in the sides and the cracks of neglected wood. Smoke on the light breeze gave a haze over the water, as if he moved through an otherworldly, ashy mist. Halfway across, he heard the frantic barking of a dog. He’d left four on Kisimul with Mairi, Cinnia, Weylyn, and Millie. And Bessy Cameron. His face swung around toward the horrible scene of fire spitting up over the turrets of Kisimul. Could Bessy Cameron have started the fire? Been part of her brother’s plan to take over Barra Isle?
Seawater flooded the bottom of the boat, making it sluggish. At this rate, it wouldn’t make it to shore. “Mo chreach,” Alec cursed and dropped the oars into the rusted holders on the sides. He grabbed his boot, tugging until it released. Dropping the second one, he stood in the foot of water in his father’s doomed boat. Without a thought of anything but reaching Kisimul, Alec dove into the black sea.
…
“Use the iron bars,” Weylyn called up to Mairi. “They’re a ladder down.” He’d been the first to venture into the dark, narrow hole of the freshwater well. Mairi kept Cinnia before her as they faced the damp wall. Their heads were just below the upper edge of the well, where the air didn’t scorch her throat with every inhale as it had in the room. When she looked up, the glow of fire filled the rectangular opening, spurring her to slide Cinnia and herself down, her foot kicking, searching for the next rung.
“Hold on, Cinnia,” Mairi said to the quietly weeping girl. “The well will keep us safe.” The girl shook in Mairi’s arms. Or was that Mairi shaking? Flashes of light appeared to the sides of Mairi’s vision, and she realized her breathing was much too fast. And if she fainted, she’d drop Cinnia, and the two of them would fall into Weylyn, probably killing them all when they hit the bottom and drowned. The thought sped her pulse even higher, but she made herself count to four with her inhale and then to five with her exhale.
Mairi’s foot caught the rung, and she and Cinnia lowered another head-length down into the hole.
“It’s cool below and not smoky,” Weylyn called, his voice small. He must be far below.
“Are ye to water yet?” Mairi called, her toes finding another rung. She pulled the two of them lower, kicking at her own skirts that bunched up around them. She guided Cinnia’s foot to occupy the same iron rung, rooted to the wall, and slapped at both of their skirts that were lifted to expose their legs to the cool air filling the long, tight space.
She heard the echo of a plop as if Weylyn had dropped a pebble in. “Almost,” he called up. “I’ll stop here. Ballocks, it’s dark.”
Although his voice was naturally high since he was seven years old, the inflection reminded Mairi of his father. Alec. Where are ye? Hurry. I’m trying.
She felt the press of desperate tears and blinked. She inhaled against Cinnia’s hair, the sweet scent of soap covered by the bitter tang of smoke. Shivering, her fingers curling around the cold, wet iron, and a small whimper broke from her lips.
“Are ye afraid?” Cinnia asked, her face toward the wall. They were far enough down now that the fire raging above didn’t light the mossy walls. It was good to hear the girl speak.
“Kisimul will protect us,” Mairi echoed the words she’d heard Alec say.
“Ye’re shaking,” Cinnia said.
Mairi lowered them another rung. “I don’t do well in dark, small spaces.”
“Why?”
Oh Good Lord. Mairi didn’t talk about her time at Kilchoan, under siege by her absent husband’s lecherous son, Normond MacInnes. She preferred to stuff the experience deep inside where it couldn’t hurt her, but being trapped in the well, feeling her elbows touch the sides and her back brush the wall behind her… It was bringing the memories to the surface like air bubbles released under water.
“I was trapped once,” Mairi said and took another inhale of cool air to feed her aching limbs. The two of them lowered as one to the next rung.
“Tell me,” Cinnia said. “If he survived then perhaps we can, too.” Her voice was faint against the sounds of flames eating away at the wood above them, and Mairi could hear the tears in her words.
She kissed the back of Cinnia’s head. “Of course we will.” She inhaled and exhaled a long breath. God, please let us live through this. Swallowing against the burning grit in her throat, she released the tight hold on her nightmares. “I hid inside a trunk once, to escape a bad man. He’d been certain to find me in my chambers and was quite surprised to see I’d eluded him. But I was still there, locked in a dark, small wooden trunk. Problem was, I couldn’t get out. So, when he left, I had to sit in the trunk until someone noticed me.”
The words resurrected the memories of being crunched down in the chest. They beat at Mairi, making her heart pound and her hands tingle. Hours crawled by, nearly a whole day, before one of the kitchen maids brought up her meal, and she pounded on the trunk before the woman left. Hours of praying, crying, aching.
“Ye’re breathing really fast,” Cinnia said. She reached her hand to lay on top of Mairi’s. “Don’t worry. We aren’t trapped. Kisimul is protecting us with its walls.”
We are safe. The top is open. We will get out. Mairi repeated the words in her head and concentrated on slowing her breath. Flames danced above, licking at the walls. Mairi could almost hear the click of teeth in the crackling, like the fire was a great beast biting the hay and the beams holding up the ceiling. She glanced above at the bright light of orange, swirling and undulating as if the fire were truly alive. The heat traveled down the well, prickling against her cheeks, their bodies the border between the cold underneath and the fiery burn above.
“We should sing,” Weylyn called. “Da says it helps to keep one brave.”
“Good idea,” Mairi said, forcing her voice to sound cheerful as she watched the dark beam engulfed in flames directly above them. Crack!
Weylyn’s young voice echoed up the well toward her as she watched the beam, her breath stuck in her wildly beating chest. Crack! The beam was going to give way, and if it hit the well, flaming wood could shoot right down the hole.
“Lower,” Mairi yelled, already bending her knee, her toes searching for the next rung. “Cinnia, move, we need to go lower.”
The girl gasped at the loud popping and groan above. The whole room was about to crash down on top of them. “Climb down past me,” Mairi said. Perhaps she could block the flaming debris from going farther.
“I’m afraid to fall,” Cinnia said, clinging to the iron rungs in the wall.
Mairi stepped down below her two rungs. “I’ll catch ye if ye fall, but ye have to move. Now!”
Part of the beam fell across the mouth of the well, sending sparks showering down the tube to fall on their heads. “Cinnia!”
The girl stepped down, her sobs open now. Mairi stroked her leg and felt her shaking. She grabbed the girl’s foot. “I’ll guide ye to the lower rung.” Together the two of them traveled farther down toward Weylyn. “Keep singing, Weylyn, so we know when we’ve caught up to ye.”
His voice grew louder as he sang the words of a Christmastide carol. Mairi gasped as he grabbed her foot. “I’m right here,” he said.
She looked back up at the blazing rectangle about twenty feet above them. It truly looked like the gateway to Hell. “Cinnia, climb down past me,” Mairi said, pulling her one foot and hand off the rungs for her to pass. If falling wood made it down, hopefully she would block it from reaching Cinnia and Weylyn. If she were going to die tonight, she would do it trying to save the two children. God, give me strength. Please. Shield us.
As if reading her thoughts, Cinnia began to say a prayer in Latin. Her whispers added to the ominous sound of cracking and snapping above. The beam was totally consumed by flames, just a dark mass of char suspended above them. “Flatten against the wall,” Mairi instructed, her breath coming in desperate pants. Her gaze fastened to the beam, half of it broken free so it hung like a flaming sword, pointed down the throat of the well. A resounding crack and snap sent lit wood down the shaft just seconds before the entire flaming ceiling fell on top of the well. The sound of their screams filled the core of Kisimul.