Haunting Warrior (48 page)

Back to the wall, Rory heaved in great gulps of air. They were trapped, just as Saraid had predicted. More rocks jumped and jittered down to the cove. He didn’t need to look to know it was some of Cathán’s men rappelling down the cliff, disturbing rocks that slammed to the ground.

He looked up and down the flattened line of men, women, and children and found every face turned toward his, waiting, watching, praying he would perform a miracle. But what in God’s name did they expect him to do? What?

He closed his eyes, tried to focus, tried to think beyond the clamor of panic in his head. There were horses up there, but none still mounted by riders. He whispered through their minds, looking through their eyes. The animals were tethered to a rope strung between two stakes. Apparently, these men knew what had happened to the last riders who’d attacked Rory and had taken precautions. Too bad Rory didn’t know how he’d incited the animals to act. He could send gentle suggestions into their minds, beckon them with a whistle, or see from their eyes, but make them follow orders? How had he done that?

He frowned, considering the question. Could it be as easy as suggestion?

Trying to slow his racing heart, Rory tried. He pictured them rearing, breaking free, stampeding. The horses began to toss their heads and paw the ground. From their eyes, Rory watched the back row of fighters turn and look at them with trepidation.

Rory smiled coldly and shut off the logical thoughts yammering in the back of his mind, insisting he couldn’t do what he was obviously doing. He sent a rush of alarm through the horses. They began fighting their lead lines and whinnying loudly.

“Kill them,” someone yelled, and Rory saw that it was Cathán and beside him . . . Christ, beside him stood Saraid’s brother, Eamonn.
The bastard.

“Kill the horses,” Cathán shouted again, and ten men pulled their swords and rushed forward.

Run
, Rory urged, pushing his thoughts into the horses’ heads.
RUN!

The animals acted as one, rearing and breaking free before the first man reached them. They jerked the hastily constructed tether, pulling up the stakes, and ran with it bouncing and dragging behind them. Rory sent warning, fearful that the dragging line would snag and break their necks. He showed them how to duck their heads, how to get under the line and toss it back so that it rode across their backs. Like circus animals, they obeyed with stunning mastery.

Cathán’s men gave chase, but not for long. Relieved that the innocent animals would not be slaughtered because of him, Rory slowed the last horse and looked back to the chaos.

The first wave of Cathán’s men were over the cliff, halfway down by now, and the next was following. Desperate, Rory looked out to sea, flinging his consciousness ahead of him, praying it caught on something. A bird, a gull with black eyes and white feathers, snared his thoughts and sailed them out to the ocean. He urged the gull to circle above the cliff where Rory and the others huddled in fear while Cathán’s men came like hot oil down from the cliff.

Even as the word shuddered through him, he caught a movement to his right. Another gull and beyond it three more. He tried to pull them together with the line of his thoughts, but they rebelled, squawking and skimming away. He circled with one and tried again, but the birds were not so easily controlled as the horses.

Frustrated, he forced his thoughts, snapping them like a whip, but now there wasn’t a bird in sight, and the one he rode began to list, disoriented and faltering.

His rage swelled in him as he came back to his body. What good was he if he could do no more than ruffle feathers?

Leary was moving up the line, weapon drawn. Behind him the other warriors stepped away from the wall and moved as one. They would fight, then, the old-fashioned way.

Rory looked at Saraid, wished there was time to say everything that needed to be said. She stared back at him, her eyes flat and emotionless. But her hand reached out, stopped him.

“I love y’,” she said. “Do not doubt it.”

The words fell like the spray of the ocean, fine and cold, remote and unknown. Did he believe what she said or did he believe those dispassionate eyes? He swallowed hard and dropped the saddlebag with the Book of Fennore in it at her feet. He didn’t need to tell her to do whatever it took to keep the Book away from Cathán. She, better than anyone, knew that already.

The first of Cathán’s men dropped from the dangling ropes as he raced to join Saraid’s brothers and stand against the invasion. Behind him came the rest of Leary’s men and women fighters. Even the elderly and untrained women took up weapons. He prayed Saraid would stay where he’d left her. Sword in his hand, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Tiarnan, Michael, Leary, and Red Amir. Mahon was down the way, leading others Rory didn’t know. Hell, even the kid was there, ready to fight. To defend.

He gave one last look at Saraid, but she wasn’t looking back. Instead she seemed to be staring at something next to her. Something he couldn’t see. Her eyes had widened with terror, and her face drained of color. Was it the Book? Was it talking to her? Fucking with her mind when she needed her head in the game?

He wanted to shout at her, to pull her attention away from whatever it was, but Cathán’s men were on them and the fight was for the right to live.

S
ARAID stared at Ruairi’s retreating back with a hard knot of rage in her belly. To have sacrificed so much only to have him at risk once more . . . Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw her youngest brother.

Stunned, she spun. Only seconds ago he’d been between Tiarnan and Michael, sword in his hand, murderous fear in his eyes. Now it was blood on his face and death in his gaze. And she realized . . . it wasn’t Liam. It was his death.

“No,” she whispered, but before the word even left her lips, Michael appeared behind him. His throat had been slit, and blood soaked his tunic. The horror hadn’t even registered before Tiarnan and Leary, Red Amir and Mahon Snakeface stood with them. All of them, dead. As her eyes traveled over their features, the heart she no longer thought she had shuttered to a stop.

“Sorry, princess,” Ruairi said, and though she tried not to look, her eyes found his. He’d been cleaved from neck to chest, hacked to pieces by an ax that was still embedded in his flesh.

“No,” she said again. “No.”

The rage inside her became something hotter, greater than mere fire. It bubbled and gurgled, and then it burst, molten and flowing. All they had done, all they had survived only to die on this beach, leaving her here, alone, only half of who—of
what
she should be . . .

The wind blowing off the sea razed the shore before whipping through her skirts. She took a deep breath of it, pulling it in. Remembering the words her mother had spoken. Oma said she was powerful. That she didn’t
need
the Book. That she could have saved Ruairi on her own. She’d tried. She failed, and now it might be too late for Saraid, but it wasn’t too late for the others.

All around her were shouts and violence, but she closed her mind to them. Closed her eyes to the death spirits that waited beside her. She pushed out, listening for that one note, that haunting song her mother had told her about . . . and there it was . . . just out of reach. She breathed deeply, this time keeping her panic at bay, not letting her fear dilute her determination. She stretched, stretched until she could pull the song inside her, letting it resonate in every part of her body. The straining notes filled her, reverberating from the sheer rock wall, the massive waves pounding the beach, the foaming tide. Without even realizing she moved, she stepped out of the sheltering cliff, ignoring the shouts from the women and children who still huddled there.

There was blood on the rocks and broken shells. Blood on the men she loved. Tears filled her eyes, and she brushed them back angrily. There was no place for fear here.

Saraid clenched her eyes, following the faint music down into the depths of herself, seeking, seeking . . . she found another note, then another, and now the song swelled around her and she could hear the euphony, the rise and fall of harmony and melody, a voice filled with vibrato wavering over the waters, through the sky.

She focused on the pitch and tone of the song, and suddenly the feel of it was everywhere. It plunged into the pit of her stomach and tightened around her gut. She was hot and cold, part of the music—a string pulled tight over the pegs and bridge. She raised her arms and she called to the dead—the dead of the past, the dead who had fought this battle already. The dead who would fight it again.

They appeared like a dream, first shadowy figures and then color and motion. She saw her father, strong and whole, and at his side was his army of warriors, men who had given their lives to save the women and children beneath the cliff. Bain saw her, gave her a gentle smile. And then he drew his sword and let loose a war cry that was music in itself.

Her brothers continued to fight, unaware that they’d been joined, but above, the men on the dangling ropes paused and scanned the shore. They could not see her dead soldiers, but they could feel them. Her father ran to meet them, grabbing the ropes and pulling himself up hand over hand. The others followed while more spread amongst the fighters on the ground, using stealth and trickery, baiting Cathán’s men, giving
her
men a chance. But still, there were too many and every man Bain disarmed was replaced by another.

Once again, her power was naught in the face of reality. She scanned the rocky beach. There was Tiarnan, still on his feet, and Michael, fierce and mobile, beside him. Ruairi fought like a warrior, giving not an inch, taking as much as he could. And Liam . . . she paused, searched again. Where was her youngest brother?

She took a step forward, shaking off the hands that tried to hold her back. Where was Liam? And then she saw him. He lay crumpled on the hard beach, facedown in the wash of the tide.

Something inside her roared with rage, the feeling traveling up and out, spreading across the bloody surf, surging up the cliff’s face and across the flatlands to the forest and beyond. Birds burst from the trees and into the skies, and still her rage traveled, a silent scream that echoed on forever.

R
ORY caught a movement from the corner of his eye. A man, fighting beside him—there and then gone. Another flash, another ghostly figure he couldn’t bring into focus. His opponent saw it, too, cursed and dodged. Suddenly the man’s weapon flew from his hands and he screamed. Screamed with terror. Still, he reached for another knife and advanced without pause, and Rory parried, slashed, fought the man back.

They wouldn’t win. Cathán’s numbers seemed undiminished while theirs . . . he stared at the bloody beach. God, they were being slaughtered.

He jabbed with his sword, made a lucky hit, and brought his opponent down, but before he could fully turn, another man had taken his place. Sweat poured down his face, stung his eyes. He jabbed again, wasn’t so lucky, lost his footing, and might have fallen had not something shaken the earth. He staggered, caught his balance as the other men paused. The tremor seemed to come from the very air, and it shook and tore through the battle, clawed its way up to the cliff. Birds burst into the air like rockets on the Fourth of July.

He didn’t know what had caused it, but it seemed like a sign. One part of him fought hand to hand, but the other part soared into the air and rushed at the winged creatures, pulling them together with the tight jerk, not giving them a choice this time, not letting them evade. Rory spread himself out, calling them in until suddenly he was at the center of a flock that swelled and grew. Not just gulls now, but albatross, pelicans, cormorants, gannets, sandpipers, and even wrens soaring in the sky, wing to wing, a storm raging beneath the heavy gray clouds, caws and beaks moving in a cacophony that muted the thundering tide and drew the attention of the startled humans on shore.

Leary’s men began to shout, and then Cathán’s men turned, some still dangling like spiders over the beach, and Rory brought the birds into an arrow of their own. A deadly point that swooped and stabbed, pecking, flapping wings in rage, diving for eyes and ears and fingers that held on to swinging lines. Now jubilant shouts from below rose up and clashed with the terrified screams from those above. One man lost his grip and crashed to the sharp, stoned beach with a sickening thud. Seconds later, four more hit with an impact that crushed their bodies.

Now the birds spread, diving in like bombers, chasing the ones above, herding the soldiers like cattle. The men turned inland, running for safety, but Rory reached out again and called back the racing horses, reining them in and pointing them toward the cliffs once more. They charged into the scattering men, splitting the ranks into a dozen fractured pieces. And still the birds came, creating a wall of feathers that spun like the eye of a storm, bearing down on those who remained.

Cathán was shouting at his men, ordering them to stay together, to turn and fight, but he might as well have been telling the rain not to fall. Rory saw Eamonn, pale and terrified, watching the world tilt sideways. His eyes were haunted, his face pulled in a grimace of terror. Then he, too, broke and ran for the forest. He was Saraid’s brother, and for that reason only, Rory let him go. Cathán would not be so lucky.

Rory pulled on the line that held his flock and focused the fearsome force on Cathán. It seemed the gnarled warrior felt the shift in the air, felt the eye of the hurricane center over his head, and then the storm exploded around him, chasing him to the edge of the cliff. But Cathán was smarter than the others, and at the last moment, he swerved, heading for the forest. As Rory turned to pursue, he heard Saraid screaming at him and suddenly his control snapped. The birds burst free of his rein and scattered, vanishing like raindrops in the wind.