Kingdom Come (7 page)

She was standing quiet and rather pale as she gazed back at him.  He gazed at her a moment, studying her lovely face, seeing that she was calming. But she still didn’t look particularly well. Truth be told, he could still hardly believe what had happened but he was exceedingly grateful for whatever Fates controlled their destiny.  He was ready and willing to resume where he had left off. He went to her and put his enormous hands on her shoulders.

“I am going to find you something suitable to wear,” he said quietly. “You will stay here and not leave this room. Is that clear?”

She nodded. “I know,” she replied. “It’s not safe for me to wander around alone.”

He grunted and dropped his hands, kissing her as he fussed with his gloves. “Safe indeed,” he muttered, heading for the door. “Remember that this is not your time. There is no law as you know it and the characters you will come across have no morals and even less restraint. You must be cautious more than you have ever been in your life.”

“I survived going to school in South Central Los Angeles for eight years.”

“This is not Los Angeles. This is beyond your imagination.”

She shrugged in agreement, moving for the bed as if to sit. But she peered closely at it, realizing there were vermin on the coverlet, and wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she moved to the center of the room, away from the crawling bed. She waved her hands at him. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

“Throw the bolt on this door when I leave. Open it for no one.”

She nodded once more in silence. Kieran blew her a kiss with his fingers and quietly quit the room. He was filled with a sense of purpose and seemed preoccupied, too preoccupied to coddle his lady.  But she didn’t blame him and she truly didn’t give his manner much thought; she was more concerned with throwing the poorly made bolt. It took her a few tries to secure the old iron rod, mostly because she was inspecting how it was made before she actually secured it.   She pinched her finger on it, hissing in pain as she shook out the pinch.

It was oddly still now that Kieran was gone. Rory stood next to the door, looking around the cold and cramped room, a huge sense of shock sweeping her.  She moved away from the door with her hands on her mouth.

“Oh, my God,” she hissed, eyeing the details of the shabby, poorly made walls before her gaze came to rest on the bed again. “This is crazy. I just can’t believe it.”

She was staring at the bed with its very crude fabric cover; she suspected it was some kind of linen but she wasn’t going to touch it to find out.  His leather satchel was on the bed and she put it on the floor, away from the crawling bugs.  There was a small, crudely built window covered by some kind of ratty cloth and she peered from the window, feeling the cool sea breeze on her face and smelling the salt. It was a familiar scent and helped her disorientation. The sea, all over the world or in any time, always smelled the same.

She struggled to push the disorientation aside completely and focus on the here and now.  It was important that she come to grips with whatever had happened.  She touched the window frame, feeling the crudeness, seeing the lack of craftsmanship.  Fat iron nails held the wood together. Then she smelled it; it smelled like raw, untreated wood.  Whatever she was feeling, the truth was real in her fingers and her nostrils. Everything was real.

With a sigh, she turned away from the window and wandered back over to his satchel on the floor.  She sat down beside it, careful not to drag her butt on the rough-hewn floor planks; all she needed was a massive splinter to get infected. To keep busy and perhaps reacquaint herself with Kieran’s possessions that she had only seen after they had been buried for eight hundred years, she began to carefully rummage through his bag. 

The first thing she came across was a dirk; it was finely crafted and extremely sharp.  She took it out and inspected it, not remembering the weapon from the inventory list she and her colleagues had made of the possessions Kieran had been buried with.  She suspected that Hut may have kept some nicer pieces before burying Kieran and her interest grew as she rummaged deeper into the bag; she wondered what else Hut had kept.

There was a silk purse with a good deal of money in it; she removed the coins carefully, one by one, inspecting each individual coin with awe. That was the archaeologist in her.  She laid them all out on the floor, in a line, inspecting the size and shape and trying to determine the monetary value by the weight.   She was in the process of studying two smaller coins when the door suddenly rattled violently.

Rory jumped, frightened.   The door suddenly shook again, crazily, before the old bolt gave way and the panel flew open.  Splinters sprayed into the room and Rory screamed, covering her face to protect it.  A body was rushing into the room and she scrambled to leap up from the floor. But her gaze fell on the glittering dagger, lying next to the satchel, and she grabbed it as she bolted up.  It was an instinctive reaction; she’d never wielded a knife in her life. She didn’t even know how to really use it.

But she knew she was about to learn.

CHAPTER THREE

There were two men.

One of them rushed for Rory and the second went straight for the satchel on the floor.  Rory was hooting and yelling, holding the dirk as the man made a grab for her. She ducked his reach, remembering about the weapon on the man’s second pass and making a swipe at his hand.  She made contact, cutting his fingers as the man hissed a curse.

Rory was on the run; she leapt off the opposite end of the bed but the man’s long reach got her by the hair.  He pulled hard and she screamed loudly as he pulled her up against his cold, mail-covered body.  He stank like a thousand breweries filled with a thousand drunk, stinky bodies.  The stench was beyond horrible.

“Let me go, you asshole,” she tried to swing the dirk at him but she wasn’t very good with the weapon and he easily slapped it away. “Let me go!”

The man had his mouth by her ear.  She could hear him inhale deeply. “Ye smell sweet, little chit,” he hissed in his horrible, foul breath.  He licked her ear and she yelped. “Ye taste sweet, too.”

Rory was terrified and furious. She began to struggle wildly, trying to kick and punch him.  He was trying to get a good grip on her while his companion robbed Kieran’s satchel, but she was moving around so much that he couldn’t get a good hold of her. She was twisting and cussing at him in odd words he did not understand. Something about a mother’s shucker, he thought. The girl spoke strangely but she was fine and delicious.  It was his last coherent thought before a massive body suddenly appeared in the doorway and an enormous blade plowed through his midsection.  He hit the ground dead.

Rory was pulled to the floor when the man fell, his hand still wrapped up in her hair. By this time, the dead man’s companion had drawn his weapon and charged Kieran from across the room.  As Rory wrapped her arms over her head and tried not to get kicked or, worse, stabbed, a massive swordfight with thirty pound broadswords commenced over her head. She was petrified.

But Kieran was cool as he charged the man who had come at him.  His enormous broadsword sang through the air with deadly accuracy as he both defended himself and Rory, still struggling on the ground.  He thought of nothing else at the moment but dispatching the man; to think of anything else, including Rory, could divert his focus and quite possibly cost him his life.  So, at the moment, he concentrated on the kill.

The enemy soldier ended up kicking Rory in the back as he went after Kieran, a sharp kick from a sharp boot that caused her to grunt in pain.  She managed to unwind the dead man’s hand from her hair and crawl away from the fighting, getting kicked in the mouth as she went.  She could taste blood as she threw herself against the wall, trying to stay clear of the blades singing over her head.  She was too scared to even watch; she tucked her face into her knees and covered her head.

Although it seemed like hours, the fight only lasted a matter of seconds.  Kieran had his kill within eight strokes.  He managed to cut low and slice the sharp edge of his blade across the man’s knee, causing him to double over. When the man folded in half, Kieran brought the sword up and nearly decapitated him.  Before the man even hit the ground, Kieran was at Rory’s side.

“Lib,” his voice was full of fear. “Are you injured?”

Rory’s head came up, blood trickling from her split lip. One look at Kieran’s anxious face and she threw her arms around his neck, weeping hysterically.

“Oh, my God,” she sobbed. “I want to go home. I want to get out of here.”

He picked her up and held her tightly, allowing himself to feel his terror. “Are you well?” his voice was shaking. “Answer me, sweetheart. Did they hurt you?”

She shook her head unsteadily and he sighed heavily with relief. “’Tis all right,” his bass-deep voice was soft and soothing. “Everything is all right now. You are safe.”

“It’s not all right,” she wept, now angry as well as frightened. “Those guys busted in here and… and one of them grabbed me while the other guy … oh, hell, I don’t know but I think he was robbing you. I couldn’t really see.”

He soothed her gently, rocking her softly as held her. “’Tis all right now. It is over.”

“I want to go home,” she repeated, begging.

He sighed faintly as he continued to rock her. He didn’t know what to say; she couldn’t go home. She was home.

“Your lip is bleeding,” he ventured gently, trying to get her mind off something other than the panicked need to go home. “Are you sure you are all right?”

“I’m fine,” she pulled her face from the crook of his neck, wiping the trickle of blood from the corner of her lip. “For the most part, anyway.”

He set her carefully to her feet and tipped her chin up so he could inspect her split lip. “Did they strike you?”

Her tears were fading and she sniffled, wiping at her lip again. “No,” she replied. “I got kicked while you guys were fighting.”

He sighed faintly. “I am sorry,” he kissed her cheek gently and helped her stand. “But you are otherwise unharmed?”

She wiped away the tears from her face. “Yes,” the tears were gone but the panic was still there. “But I really, really want to go home.”

He sighed, fixing her in the eye. “How?”

Some of her agitation returned. “Go back to the beach, I guess. Sit there and wait for another storm.”

He lifted an eyebrow, attempting to force her to think about what she was saying. “Is this so? You will go sit on the beach for the rest of your life hoping another storm will come and send you back to your time?”
            She was about to nod forcefully but stopped short when she saw the look on his face.  Then she tried to pull away from him, shaking her head.

“I don’t want to stay here anymore,” she said, fighting off tears once again. “I can’t. I want to go back to where I came from, where I belong.”

“If you go back to where you came from, I must stay here. I cannot go with you.”

Her gaze snapped to him as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her. The hazel eyes widened for a moment as she realized what she had been asking, and what his response was.  She was moderately irrational and coming to realize it. Fear was doing strange things to her though processes. She suddenly didn’t feel like pulling away from him any longer.

“I’ll never leave you,” she murmured. “If that’s my choice, I’ll choose staying with you hands-down.”

“Are you sure?”