Kim Iverson Headlee Read online

  “Wolf,” said the bargeman in a heavy whisper.

  Wolf? A name? Or a watchword? Alain looked at Ruaud, who twitched his shoulders in the barest of shrugs.

  “Wolf!” the man repeated.

  Alain made the only response that came to mind: he howled.

  “Hey! Who the bloody ’ell are you? Who blew that—”

  Ruaud and Alain plunged into the swamp and waded ankle-deep water toward the barge. The man raised his pole to wield it like a quarterstaff—credibly well, in fact, but no match for two knights. The cold water and sucking mud provided only minor obstacles. Ruaud snatched the outlaw’s ankle and pulled him, screaming, off the barge, where Alain silenced his noise with Raven’s seax.

  They hauled themselves onto the barge and dragged up the body to dispose it with the others. Ruaud poled them toward the shore while Alain pondered their options.

  “I say we ride back to Edgarburh with Waldron’s gold and tell the old man his daughter is here,” Ruaud suggested after the bargeman disappeared to join his lawless brethren. “Let him send his men out after her.”

  Fists on hips, Alain studied the island. “We don’t know she is here. We need to verify it first.”

  “We, we, always with the we. Well, I say not oui but non!”

  Alain whirled on him. “That is your choice, of course. But the next time I see William, I will inform him that one of his knights would prefer to turn his back on a fight, a friend…and on someone in need.”

  Ruaud laughed mirthlessly. “That was low, Alain.”

  “Oui.” Alain finished securing the barge, strode to where the horses were tethered, and untied their reins.

  The sound of scraping steel drew his attention, and he looked up to see Ruaud offering him one of the outlaw’s scabbards, which he had removed from the saddlebow of the nearest horse. “Not the best of blades, but it will serve you better than a war-knife.”

  Alain couldn’t agree more. He accepted the sheathed longsword, looped the baldric across his chest, and returned to the task of coaxing a skittish horse onto the barge.

  “Why are you bothering to do that?” Ruaud asked.

  Though not in a mood to explain to someone who didn't intend to help, Alain said, “The other outlaws will be expecting a certain number of men and mounts.” He leveled his glare at Ruaud. “I shall devise a reason to explain why the man count decreased from four to one, never fear.”

  “Four to two, you mean.” Ruaud strapped on Pit’s sword belt, a snug fit but far better than Raven’s would have been. The horse Ruaud led onto the barge went placidly enough, perhaps because one of its companions already had boarded.

  “Thank you.” Alain didn’t bother to disguise his relief. “But I thought—”

  “Don’t thank me yet. God alone knows how many more outlaws we must face.”

  “Indeed.” After they guided the third horse aboard, Alain gripped his friend’s forearm warmly. “But our odds of success have just doubled.”

  “I knew the fool would spout some nonsense like that,” Ruaud muttered, apparently to no one in particular.

  Smiling grimly, Alain grabbed the pole to start pushing them across the swamp toward the island, praying with each thrust that he would find Kendra alive and unharmed.

  Chapter 8

  TO RATION THEIR strength, they took turns at the barge pole, navigating by the hill. Although neither knight had suffered any wounds more serious than cuts and bruises, the exertion and pain, combined with the deprivation of sleep, food, and drink, exacted a steep toll. The food and drink problem they remedied with the outlaws’ supplies, but progress through the swamp, chorused by howling that sounded louder as they neared the hill, remained slow.

  Alain was thankful to have Kendra’s image to spur him on. Between shoves, he studied Ruaud as the latter slumped against the bow, guzzling ale. Alain had sworn no vows for Ruaud’s safety, but he felt responsible for their predicament none the less. Though his shoulder was aching, and the calluses on his palms had grown calluses of their own, he stayed an extra turn at the pole.

  Just when he thought his arms were going to give out, he spotted the torchlit outline of a dock and huts along the shore.

  “Here, let me bring us in.” Ruaud levered to his feet and extended a hand. “You’ve been at it too long.”

  Alain surrendered the pole without protest and moved to the bow to study the landscape.

  No one seemed to be patrolling the shore. Still, he would be a fool to assume the outlaws had not posted sentries. But where were they? In the huts?

  They got their answer when Ruaud maneuvered the barge up to the dock. Two men appeared from behind a rock wall above the line of huts, spears at the ready.

  “King!” challenged one.

  Not again! Alain wondered which king this Saxon rabble would hold in such esteem as to incorporate into their watchwords. Surely not King William.

  Then inspiration hit.

  Clearing his throat and roughening his voice, he said in his best imitation of Wart’s guttural Saxon accent, “Pit and Raven are making off with the gold!”

  “What?” yelled the other sentry. “Where?”

  Alain pointed across the swamp. “Take our horses. If you hurry, you can catch the fongers!”

  The huts erupted with a dozen men, all armed and clamoring to pile onto the barge and hunt down their erstwhile companions. Someone ran up carrying an armload of extra barge poles, which he distributed among the others, and the expedition shoved off, their curses drifting back across the murky waters.

  “Well done,” whispered Ruaud.

  “What in’ell was that all about?”

  Ruaud and Alain turned to find another group of outlaws bearing down on them with leveled spears.

  “I told you—”

  “Methinks you’ve told us a pack of lies,” snapped the lead man. He caught Alain’s hood with the spear’s point and pushed it back. “Fongin’ Normans!”

  The knights exchanged a glance, drew their borrowed swords, and the melee began.

  KENDRA HEARD the faint clash of steel on steel, rushed to a window, and threw open the shutters. But what the hill’s slope didn’t conceal, the darkness did.

  She tried to keep from indulging in the hope that someone was attempting to rescue her, or who he might be.

  The whine of a sword being drawn outside her chamber’s door and the clatter of feet on the stairs told her the guard had left his post. But had he left the tower?

  Only one way to find out.

  She stepped to the door and gave the handle a tentative pull. Miraculously, it wasn’t locked. She eased open the door a fraction and peered out: still no sign of the guard, thank heaven. She ducked back into the chamber and snatched the wineskin and the sack of oatcakes and dried beef the guard had brought earlier, and slung them over her shoulder. Praying for her luck to hold, she gathered her skirts and crept down the winding staircase, alert for sounds of the guard returning.

  On the ground floor, her good luck ended at its door. The guard had moved the huge bolt to exit but must have locked the door via key from the outside. Gritting her teeth, she resisted the temptation to pound on the door’s timbers; the last thing she needed was to draw the attention of her captors.

  As she glanced around for another way out, her gaze fell upon the wooden-planked flooring. Her mother had spoken of the Tor’s hill being riddled with caverns. What would be more natural than a tower with an escape route built into the hill?

  ’Twas worth a try. For the battle seemed to be dwindling, leaving no clue as to the victors. Regardless of who’d been fighting whom, someone would come for her soon.

  She set the wine and food down, shoved aside the rugs, and tapped on the floor, feeling a rush of satisfaction when the hollow sound confirmed her guess. Upon moving a chest standing on bare wood, she discovered a rope handle attached to a square set of bound planks. She gave the handle a firm tug.

  Fierce barks burst from the hole, along with an even f
iercer stench.

  Hand to mouth, she stumbled back.

  When the noises subsided, she crawled to the hole for another look. Growling began, low and menacing. Acting on faith that nothing was going to leap out at her, she dropped a few beef strips into the abyss. The sounds of greedy gnawing replaced the growling.

  Why would the outlaws keep a starving hound in an escape tunnel?

  Before she could puzzle out an answer, she heard shouts and the renewed clash of arms. With a whispered apology, she closed the hound’s prison, replaced the chest and rugs, snatched her remaining supplies, and bolted up the stairs. She fled into the opulent upper chamber, slammed the door, and braced it with her body, her chest heaving in time with her runaway heart.

  Someone with a heavy, uneven tread thumped up the stairs. She whipped her head around, searching for anything that might serve as a better weapon than her dagger. But in this den of plush luxury, nothing presented itself. Nothing except…

  The hearth—of course! She scurried over, grabbed the poker, and thrust it into the hottest embers for as long as she dared.

  The footsteps thudded closer.

  Fighting to control her breathing and her shaking hands, she took a position beside the door, cocked the glowing poker, and waited.

  CLUTCHING HIS side, which was aching and bleeding freely where one of the outlaws had struck a lucky thrust, he dragged himself up the last few steps. By all accounts Kendra was being held in the uppermost chamber, but he needed the proof only his eyes could supply.

  Even if she proved to be his final sight on earth.

  He reached the landing and paused, gasping, to marshal strength. She might be guarded inside the room, though heaven alone knew how he’d battle a flea, never mind anything larger. In the heat of combat, he had killed the tower’s guard before thinking to ask the man how many of his companions were stationed within.

  Of Ruaud’s fate he couldn’t be certain. They had become separated soon after entering that Godforsaken maze, when foes kept leaping out at random intervals like sparks from a pithy fire. Alain thought he’d heard his friend’s cheerful swearing after he had won free of the maze to reach the windswept summit, but whether or not the sound had been a trick of his battle-engorged senses, he had no idea.

  After the initial clash, Alain had lost count of how many men he had maimed or killed. He shifted his hand to examine the flow of blood, unable to recall which outlaw had inflicted the wound. The number of men surviving to mount a second attack, he had no wish to contemplate.

  As he stared at the door, pondering his next course of action, its edges blurred. Soon the loss of blood would render most options impossible.

  He sucked in a breath, raised his sword, yanked on the handle, and stormed into the room.

  Searing agony branded his torso.

  As he gulped air, his knees buckled, and he fell. Darkness enveloped him. With the darkness came a single, devastating thought:

  I have failed. Again.

  RUAUD D’AUVAY tore through one of the huts near the dock, hunting for something to quell his hunger. As near as he could tell, all the brigands had either departed—thanks to Alain’s foolhardy but brilliant ploy—or lay stiffening under the stars.

  Poking into casks, boxes, and open shelves yielded him two loaves of crusty bread, a generous fistful of dried beef strips, a cheese wheel, and all the wine he could swill.

  Not a bad start.

  He slung a full wineskin over his shoulder, lopped off a hunk of cheese, and carried it along with the beef and a loaf outside. He selected the side of the hut that gave him a view of the marsh and maze’s entrance, though he doubted any threats would come from the latter quarter. He and Alain had made short work of the ill-trained, ill-armed men.

  As he chewed on the beef and washed it down with the surprisingly good wine, he reviewed the fight. Not counting the three who had escorted the Normans, the bargeman, and an unknown number who had abducted Lady Kendra, Ruaud and Alain had either killed or duped another three dozen outlaws. That made for a sizeable band by any reckoning, but Ruaud could not recall seeing anyone who had acted as the leader.

  An unpleasant thought made him swallow his cheese hard. He eased it down his throat with several swallows of wine.

  What if the outlaws’ leader—in all likelihood their fiercest and most skilled warrior—was guarding Lady Kendra? How would Alain, weary from captivity, battle, crossing the marsh, and climbing the hill, fare against such a man?

  The lad’s passion for his bride ought to help, but every body had its limits.

  He changed positions, but the angle prevented him from seeing the summit and the tower that crowned it.

  Resolve flared in his heart to make sure Alain and Lady Kendra were all right.

  Ruaud collected himself for the ascent, but his left knee buckled as pain shot up his leg. He massaged the knee hard, willing the pain to abate, with no success. One of the fatherless sons had connected with a savage kick, toward the end of the skirmish, after Alain had broken away to go after the woman. He judged himself fit to fight on level ground, but the injury rendered climbing damned nigh impossible.

  As if in a dream, he became aware of faint, angry shouts wafting across the marsh. The outlaws, no doubt, but why they were shouting Ruaud couldn’t begin to guess. Brawling among themselves, perhaps?

  Or had they found their dead companions?

  He chewed on that thought a while, the implications souring more with each passing moment. If the corpses had been discovered, the men would return to confront him and Alain—probably were en route already. And they knew this lair far better than Ruaud did, in spite of any defense he could devise. Alain and Kendra, in the tower, would be safe enough for the present, unless they’d been captured.

  In either case, Ruaud’s injury had rendered him powerless to assist them.

  A skiff tied to the dock presented another option: he could cross the marsh and seek help. According to Alain, this hill lay near Thane Ulfric’s demesnes.

  By God, that arrogant Saxon should be dealing with this lawless band! Not King William’s knights, who knew little about the land and less about its people.

  Although Ruaud preferred the honesty of open combat, a fresh spate of muted shouts convinced him to hurry. Even if he neared the outlaws out on the marsh, the thick fog should shield him from notice.

  He limped into the hut to refill his wineskin and replenish his food supplies, stuffing everything into a musty but serviceable sack. Upon striding to the dock as briskly as his knee allowed, he tossed the sack into the skiff’s bow, stepped in, sat, and began rowing.

  Bracing his feet against the skiff’s sides didn’t put too much strain on his injury, and he made good progress.

  Progress to where remained the key question.

  For, unlike when they had traveled toward the island, with its conical shape peering through the mist, Ruaud had nothing by which to navigate. He could be rowing in circles and never know it.

  He mused about Alain’s penchant for prayer, wishing that he, Ruaud, had cultivated similar habits. Surely God wouldn’t bother heeding the supplications of someone who hadn’t bothered with Him until well into his fourth decade of life.

  And yet he couldn’t let the logic deter him.

  “Holy Father, I—” Biting his lip, he frowned. It seemed brash to petition God directly, when he didn’t feel worthy to address the most minor of saints. But he had no idea which saint to call upon in this situation, so he let the skiff drift while he shut his eyes and hoped for the best.

  “Father God, I know I haven’t thought about You much over the years, but You must have seen how well my friend Alain honors You. I ask—no, I beg for Your help. Not for my sake, but for the sake of Your faithful servant Alain and the lady he loves. Please deliver them from their ordeal.”

  As he added a gruff “amen,” a thought occurred that he hoped would ensure his petition’s success. “And if it should please You, Lord, to deliver me from this in
fernal swamp, I promise to be more faithful in worship henceforth!”

  “DEAR GOD, no!”

  Kendra dropped the poker as the familiar figure crumpled at her feet.

  The poker and the body hit with loud thuds. He wasn’t dead—his ragged breaths attested to that fact—although he would be soon if she didn’t stop the bleeding from that nasty gash in his side.

  Too bad her aim hadn’t been lucky enough to cauterize the wound.

  But since he was already unconscious, one more burn couldn’t make any difference to him, and it could make all the difference in his survival.

  She snatched up the poker and hurried over to the hearth. While the iron heated, she dragged him the rest of the way into the room, shut the door, blocked it with a heavy chest, and set about collecting pillows and coverlets to make him comfortable.

  Once he was arranged to her satisfaction, she studied his attire. The jerkin, unevenly tanned and slashed in myriad places, appeared to be too tight to remove without risking further injury to him. She drew her dagger and sliced away enough of the leather to expose the wounds.

  The scrapes and scratches had long since stopped bleeding, but blood welled from the deadliest gash. She found one of Dragon’s clean undertunics, tore off several strips, and pressed the thick wad firmly into place. He groaned and writhed but didn’t wake. After repeating the process with two more wads and tossing them aside, she was relieved to note that the flow had become a slow oozing. That, however, could change with any abrupt movement he might make. She applied another strip.

  Stroking his limp hand, she glanced at the glowing poker while debating her plan. She despised the idea of having to hurt him again, but his condition left her with little choice.

  When she couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer, she stood, retrieved the poker by its wooden handle, and returned to his side. She removed the last bandage wad, pulled the ravaged flesh together as best she could and, grimacing, applied the heat.