Mael: Immortal Highlander, Clan Mag Raith Book 2 Page 14

  “I cannae tell you. Her hair, ’tis the same pale gold as yours. Your scent isnae the same, but perhaps ’twas altered by distant memory.” Before she could wheedle more details from him, he reached for her hand. “Do you dream of me?” He drew her to her feet, tugging her closer. “Do you wake wanting me there, my arms around you, my mouth on you?”

  Rosealise placed one hand on his chest, but she didn’t push him away for his boldness. “Never once, I’m afraid. You’ve mistaken me for another lady, sir.”

  “’Tis one thing I’ve never forgotten.” He brought his fingers to her lips. “How ’twas to kiss her. The taste of her mouth. The feel of her against me. ’Tis driving me mad no’ to ken if ’twas you, Rosealise.”

  A flush of color brightened her cheeks, but then she stunned him by moving closer. “Then you should kiss me now, and you will know.”

  While serving as defender to the Moss Dapple, Broden had taken many dru-widesses, but never had he kissed any woman but in his dreams. He put one arm around her waist, pressing her long body to his before he put his mouth on hers.

  Rosealise allowed him to kiss her as he wanted without resisting. Yet it soon became clear to him that she took no more pleasure in it than he did. When at last he lifted his head, she looked into his eyes with nothing but compassion in hers.

  Broden had his answer.

  “You’re ever kind to a bastart like me.” He touched her cheek with the back of his fingers before he stepped back. “My thanks, my lady.”

  A guttural sound drew his gaze to the passage entry, where Mael stood with his axe in hand.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  IOLAR WALKED OUT of the cottage late in the morning to survey the mortal village. The stink of sickness blended with the fragrant flowers blooming across the pastures and small gardens. From the windows of the cottage the scent of blood added a coppery note. He had enjoyed the mortal females, whose simple minds had contained a sumptuous wealth of superstition and myth.

  Their souls, however, had escaped him the moment he’d terrified the life out of their bodies. In the end it had all been a waste of his time.

  Thin wisps of smoke rose from scattered, human-shaped piles of ash and charred bone. Their mounts had been penned with the villager’s heavier plow and cart horses outside a small grain barn. Many of his deamhanan stood sentry on the roofs, watching the narrow lanes leading to and from the settlement. More had climbed the slopes, from which they scanned the skies for signs of favorable weather. All had glamoured themselves to appear as villagers. Upon seeing him each bowed before returning to their watch.

  Iolar kicked the dirt under his boots. The place appeared little better than a cesspit, but until a gate could be opened it would have to do.

  “My prince,” Danar said as he approached with two guards, stopping a safe distance to bow. He looked tired and dim, but his gaze remained steady as he straightened. “We’ve taken control of the settlement and the surrounding land. Patrols guard the boundaries for two leagues. My scouts report that clouds approach from the west, and should arrive before dusk.”

  “Set fire to that hovel,” Iolar told him, flicking his claws behind him. “Nothing in it still quivers.”

  Danar nodded to his guards, who trotted off. “How fares your wound?”

  “How do you think? It fucking hurts.” He looked down as Danar carefully removed the bandage to reveal the gash. As immortals the Sluath lived impervious to disease, but minor injury by iron required cautery. “Why didn’t you sear it properly last night?”

  “You recall your mood upon reviving, my prince?” the big demon countered. “I wished to leave you to your pleasures. I also prefer my head atop my shoulders, not stuffed up my ass.”

  “You’re a wise coward. Very well, do it when I am distracted.” Iolar sniffed the air and scowled. “Why do I still smell living mortals? Or is that my fault, too?”

  “The druid suggested we keep the healthiest of the plague-stricken alive for other purposes.” The big deamhan nodded toward a barn. “He has kept watch over them all night.”

  For a moment Iolar wondered if Galan had deceived Danar in order to save the mortals, and then discarded the idea. The druid had grown indifferent to the suffering of human kind, or he wouldn’t have been able to tolerate the grafting of his wings.

  “Remind me why I would wish to keep a great heap of whimpering, dying dirt-plodders on hand?” Iolar asked.

  “I can think of no purpose, other than brief amusement,” Danar admitted as he accompanied him into the barn. “But the druid swore you would approve. After he proved his loyalty to us last night, I was inclined to grant his request.”

  “Or you hoped it would enrage me enough to kill him. Don’t worry. I’d have done the same.” He rubbed his sore arm. “Take me to that idiot.”

  Inside the shadow-filled barn the low, dull moaning of the sick blended with the stink of their weeping sores. Galan had strewn hay under the bodies and covered them with blankets. Braziers glowed orange in the darkness as mounds of dampened herbs slowly smoldered upon their fat embers. Cries and groans rose in procession as Iolar trod over the mortals to where Galan crouched over a boy.

  “I can’t believe I have to say this to you, but Sluath do not coddle humans.” He frowned as the druid drew the blanket over the young male’s still, pox-riddled face. “Nor do we mourn their deaths. What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m keeping as many alive as may yet be usable.” Galan rose and faced him. “Sluath have the power to restore them to health.”

  “In the underworld, yes. Here I can only revive them for a short time before they succumb to the plague. So, you wish me to save the mortals.” Iolar looked up at the cobwebbed roof beams. “Have I taught him nothing, Danar?”

  “You’ve instructed him at length, my prince.” His second drew a dagger and used it to flick away the herbs from a brazier before he thrust the blade in the glowing coals. “The druid does not seem to learn.”

  “If you revive them as you say,” Galan said, “I shall make them your creatures. Under my sway they will do whatever I command.”

  Danar chuckled. “Then they’ll be your slaves, Druid. You ask for a personal army of the dying?”

  “I wish to make them scouts.” The druid told them of the dark magic he knew that would enslave the minds and wills of the plague victims. “Once they are bespelled I shall send them out to search for the Mag Raith shaman who attacked us in the ridges. He cannot be far from the spot, and he wouldnae suspect any mortal in passing.”

  “And when they find him?” Iolar demanded.

  “They beg the Pritani to come to their village, to aid a dying druid they found in the ridges.” Galan smiled. “While here we await his arrival.”

  Danar took hold of Iolar’s arm, and before the prince could jerk it away, he applied the heated dagger to the gash. The searing pain made him hiss, but as soon as the deamhan took away the blade the gash slowly shrank and disappeared.

  Galan stared, fascinated. “Fire heals you.”

  Iolar yanked his arm from his second’s grasp. “Would you like to discover what it does to you, Druid?” Without waiting for an answer, he reached down to press his hand on the chest of a dying mortal man. “Drag the others closer, and we’ll begin making your rotting scouts.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ONE GLANCE AT Mael’s face told Rosealise he had witnessed the kiss. His expression could be no more stunned than if the world had fallen down around him. She also suspected a lover’s fury would follow his shock, and would be taken out on Broden.

  That she could not allow. “My dear sir–”

  “Take your hands from her,” he said through his teeth, his eyes so dark now they looked black.

  Broden stepped away from Rosealise, but the guilt in his expression perplexed her.

  “’Tis no’ what you reckon, Brother. We but spoke–”

  “Alone here, and my bed still warm from her.” The big man took a step toward him.
“Oh, aye, I ken what you do, you conniving bastart.”

  “You are quite wrong, sir.” Knowing no other recourse, she put her hand on the trapper’s arm. “Please explain precisely why you kissed me just now.”

  “I wished but to taste her lips,” Broden said, his tone almost apologetic. “’Twas to test my remembrance of a lady I kissed and loved in the underworld.”

  “Loved?” Mael spat out the word. “To do thus, when you ken of my regard for Rosealise. How couldnae you look upon her and ken?”

  “I cannae recall the lady’s face, only the shade of her hair,” the trapper countered. “’Twas the same as Rosealise’s. She granted me the kiss, but felt no desire, nor I for her. She’s no’ the lady of my dreams.”

  She took her hand from Broden. “Mael, that is the truth. Broden and I remain friends, but that is all there is, or ever will be, between us.”

  Her lover’s head lowered, and his shoulders shook. Suddenly he roared and hefted his axe, and slammed it into the work table, cleaving it in two. As the wood split and their brew cups fell and smashed, Broden drew his sword and shoved her behind him.

  “Rosealise, go to the forest and find Domnall,” he said quickly. “Stay with Jenna, and bid him return at once.”

  “You chary fack.” The big man tossed his axe down to clatter on the slate floor. “Ever still you regard me as Fargas, when I’ve never once given you cause. You ken I’d hack off my very arm before I’d smite any female, or a man I considered my brother. Never again, Broden.”

  “As you say.” The trapper’s eyes narrowed, and he jerked his chin at Mael. “Yet you crept in here to spy on the lady. She gives you her affections and you treat her as property, no’ beloved. Leave Rosealise in peace, and I shall believe you.”

  “Aye, but I’ve more to say, to her.” Mael regarded Rosealise. “I nearly lost you last night, so close to death you came. The harsh words I spoke, the threat I made, all came from the grip that terror had upon me. Fear begets anger in me.”

  “Then you will always be angry with me, for I draw closer to death every day.” She went to him, and caught his hand in hers. “You cannot keep me sequestered in the castle and wish it to revive me after death as it did Jenna. I know that hope spurred you to speak as you did last night, not my foolishness. Mael, you must accept my fate.”

  “Ken that my heart, ’tis yours, my jem.” He touched his brow to hers. “But for as long as you draw breath, I shallnae accept your fate.”

  Rosealise blinked back the sting of tears. “That I cannot accept, sir.”

  “Then you ken my quandary. I must patrol now.” He moved back and took a bundle from his belt. “More herbs for the lady’s tonic, as this dawn Edane bade me gather.” He tossed it to Broden, who caught it with his free hand. “The true reason for my return to the castle.”

  Mael scooped up his axe and left, and Broden released a heartfelt sigh. When he turned to her Rosealise saw his handsome face had grown pale and damp. The hand in which he held his sword also trembled slightly.

  She had caused this unhappy situation, which lately seemed to be all she did. At least she could reassure the trapper that he had not been the cause.

  “What Mael said to you… You must see that he’s very angry,” she assured him. “Once he’s had time to calm himself and think it through, I’m certain that he’ll regret it.”

  “I earned every bit of it.” He sheathed his sword. “’Tis all truth. Naught fills my heart but hatred. I’ve no’ cared for another but myself. ’Tis ever been thus.”

  “Codswallop,” Rosealise said firmly. “You spoke with great affection of the lady you met in the underworld. I suspect you concealed your dilemma regarding me out of your regard for my lover. Jenna told me that you’ve done nothing to Edane to earn his contempt.”

  “I’ve taunted him too many times,” Broden said, sounding weary. “’Twas my sire’s way with me, and I reckoned would toughen his sensitive hide. Edane would laugh to ken that in our mortal lives I ever envied him. As a lad he didnae thrive, and still his kin doted on him. His sire sought for him every comfort and ease.”

  “While you had little or none, and had to be strong to endure,” she guessed. A sudden thought made her peer at him. “You could have easily used your great strength against Mael, but you instead drew your sword. Why?”

  “’Twas at hand.” He sounded uneasy now. “Mayhap the next time we quarrel I shall clout him.”

  “I think you’d sooner take up chimney sweeping.” Rosealise was finally beginning to understand the trapper’s surly nature. “You never defend yourself with your power, do you? You know what it can do, but you don’t wish to hurt the other men. Just now you were afraid not of Mael, but for him.”

  “I’m but a man, my lady,” Broden said softly. “And I’ve a temper, just as Domnall and Mael and the rest. Only I may never truly unleash mine. My brothers oft forget this, but I cannae.” He glanced down at his hands. “I dare no’.”

  “You serve as a fine example to me.” An incredible gift that doubly served as a perpetual burden, and yet Broden bore it without complaint. She would learn to do the same with her own. “I believe that proves beyond everything that you have a good, kind heart, my dear sir.”

  His gaze grew remote. “You but ken me in this life, my lady.”

  Edane came in from the gardens carrying a heavy mound of sacking-wrapped blades.

  “Kiaran follows with iron shields on the sled. He reckons we may use them to…”

  His voice trailed off as he looked from the ruined table and shattered crockery to the trapper.

  “Say naught to me,” Broden warned him.

  He shoved the bundle of herbs atop the swords before striding out. The archer’s jaw sagged as he watched the trapper go, and then he eyed Rosealise.

  “Do I now slight him by breathing?”

  “No, but he’s had a trying morning.” She took the herbs to set them aside, and then noticed the color of the blades he’d brought. “These swords are made of iron?”

  “Aye. ’Tis the only metal that may slay the Sluath.” He put down the bundle. “What of it?”

  Rosealise thought of the iron warrior left behind in the ridges, and the sword he had carried, and then looked around the kitchens.

  “Everything made of metal that I’ve seen inside the stronghold resembles iron, but it’s not. I believe it’s all made of bronze.”

  Edane looked perplexed. “How could you ken thus?”

  “By my cleaning, sir. Iron takes on a reddish-orange patina when it rusts, as you see,” she said, gesturing to the swords. She then took the cooking pot from the hearth’s edge and showed him the corroded patches she had not scrubbed from its outside. “Bronze turns black, brown or green.”

  “’From the copper and tin used to make it, aye,” the archer said thoughtfully. “The first Pritani forged in bronze, but ’twas long before the Mag Raith. Iron ’tis harder and stronger.”

  “Yet the builders used bronze inside Dun Chaill.” Rosealise set down the pot. “Only the warriors are made of iron.”

  Edane’s brows rose. “Mayhap we’re no’ the first to battle the demons.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  MAEL PATROLLED THE edge of the forest until dark, when a wide bank of storm clouds blotted out the last of the sunset. He walked down to the stream to watch the approaching storm with his far-reaching sight. None of the tell-tale flashes of light that heralded the Sluath riding the clouds appeared.

  “Any sign?” Domnall asked as he joined him on the bank.

  “Naught on the ridges or above them.” He waited for the chieftain to pour his scorn on him for the clash in the kitchens, but the other man remained silent. “You should ken that I near brawled with Broden this morn.”

  Domnall eyed him. “If I’d found him with hands and mouth on my lady, I’d hurl more than harsh words.”

  Doubtless Rosealise had related the confrontation to Jenna, who kept nothing from her husband. The chieftain’s und
erstanding, however, eased some of the weight on his mind.

  “The trapper yearns for a dream. I ken the sting of finding such, only to have it snatched from my grasp.” He’d offered the lady his heart, and she’d refused it, but that was her right. “She’ll no’ forgive me, will she?”

  “I’d spare you the answer to that, Brother, but we need you in the stronghold this night.” The chieftain frowned up at the heavy clouds. “More than the prospect of the Sluath returning sets my teeth to grate. The appearance of the scroll map I only doubted, but the iron warrior luring Rosealise from the keepe direct to the demons, ’twas no’ by chance.”

  Mael nodded. “Something beholds us that we cannae see, and puts us to dark purpose.”

  “I dinnae believe in kithan or spirits,” Domnall said, “but this watcher may employ magic to conceal its presence at Dun Chaill. ’Twould explain much we couldnae fathom.”

  “A dru-wid, then, one following the dark path, like Galan.” He nodded toward the ridges. “One who carries a grudge against the demons.”

  “Or fears them,” the chieftain countered. “’Twould be reason to fashion iron warriors to defend the castle. Aye, and the bespelled traps. Come.”

  As they walked back through the forest to the stronghold Mael considered how they might discover the hidden foe.

  “If we openly hunt the watcher, he’ll ken,” the tracker said. “We must use cunning, as with a wounded animal.”

  “The falconer and his kestrels can patrol from the air,” Domnall said as they walked back through the forest. “Yet we need measures put inside the stronghold. You must become our watcher now. Edane may best ken how to reveal this bastart.”

  Domnall said nothing about Broden, but Mael guessed he’d put him to a similar task as well.

  “Should we find this watcher, what then?”

  Domnall stopped at the edge of the trees and looked for a long moment at the ruins. “We gave twelve centuries of service to Galan and the Moss Dapple. Before that, our work went to our kin, and the tribe. No more do we serve the wonts of others. We’re a clan now, and ’tis our stronghold. We fight for what’s ours.”