“A clever man, your uncle,” muttered Draig, slipping his pack from his shoulder. Pulling off his thick woolen gloves, he rubbed at his fingers, trying to thaw them. Eain had slumped down by the wall, lacking even the energy to remove his pack. Chara glanced at Draig. Now that they had stopped, he saw the fear in her eyes.
“I wish it would snow,” he said.
“How can you want more snow?” muttered Eain. “I’ve seen enough snow to last me a lifetime.”
“To cover our tracks,” Draig told him. “A blind man could follow us.”
“There’s a nice thought. Help me with the pack, will you.”
Draig stepped across to where his brother sat and eased the pack from his shoulders. Feargol had begun to build a fire. Draig moved alongside him, squatting down. “No, lad, find the tiniest twigs first. You can’t light a log with a spark. Logs come later.”
Within minutes a small fire was burning within a circle of stones. At first there was precious little warmth. Little Jaim came over and sat beside Draig. He ruffled the child’s dark hair. “Don’t sit too close, now,” said Draig. “It might spit sparks.”
“My hands is cold,” said Jaim.
“They’ll be warm soon.”
Draig added another chunk of wood to the blaze. Then he stood and wandered back to the cave mouth. It was already dark outside. He trudged through the snow for a short distance, then turned to look back at the cave. Kaelin had chosen it well. It was deep and curved, the fire casting no flickering light against the wall close to the entrance.
Not that it mattered, he realized, staring out at the tracks they had made coming there. The wind eventually would fill them in, but not before Tostig found the cave, he knew. What then? Draig’s mood was somber as he made his way back to the cave.
“You see anything?” Chara asked him as he slumped down by the fire.
“Only our tracks.”
Eain was at the fire now, preparing his cook pot. Feargol asked him if he needed more snow to melt. Eain nodded, and the child took a wooden bowl and ran out past Draig, disappearing from sight. Jaim toddled after him, but Chara called him back. Draig removed his bearskin coat. Chara was still sitting by the far wall, her musket close by.
“Boy looks like his father,” he said, nodding toward Jaim. “Though he has your eyes.”
Chara said nothing.
“I had a son,” he went on. “A boy. Died when he was two.” He did not stare at her as he spoke, but out of the corner of his eye he saw her relax a little.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. Had a fever. Recovered. We were that happy, I can tell you. Then he just slipped away in his sleep. Fever took too much out of him, I guess.”
“I didn’t know you were wed,” said Chara.
“Aye, I was. She left me . . . four years ago this coming spring. Don’t blame her. Never was much of a husband.”
“Where did she go?”
“Lived with Eain for a while. Left him last year. Living with a crofter now, east of Black Mountain.”
“She was a sour woman,” said Eain. “Not a good word to say about anyone or anything. Days were either too hot or too cold, too windy or too damp. I told her once she was the most complaining woman I’d ever met. Whacked a cook pot into my face, she did. Knocked out a tooth. Damn, but that hurt.”
“She must have loved you, Eain,” said Draig. “Any other man had said that, she’d have cut his throat in his sleep.”
“I do miss her,” admitted Eain.
Chara eased herself toward the fire, and Draig moved back to give her room. Feargol brought two more bowlfuls of snow before Eain told him it was enough. Jaim sat beside Draig, leaning in against him.
“You are good with children,” said Chara.
“Don’t know why,” he said with a grin. “Can’t stand ’em. All that noise and mayhem.”
“He’s good with dogs, too,” said Eain, stirring dried oats into the cook pot.
Draig called out to Feargol. “Can you see the men chasing us now?” he asked.
Feargol closed his eyes for a moment. Then his face crumpled, and he sobbed. Chara scrambled across to him, taking him in her arms. Little Jaim began to cry, too. Draig patted his shoulder.
Eain sat nonplussed, idly stirring the porridge.
“What’s wrong, Feargol?” asked Chara, stroking her fingers through the boy’s red hair.
He looked up at her, tears falling from his eyes. “They killed Senlic and Patch,” he said.
Draig felt a cold touch of dread and glanced at Eain. “Shouldn’t have got involved,” his brother mouthed, silently. “Let’s go home.”
Draig shook his head. “Too late,” he mouthed back.
Feargol was crying again. Chara kissed the top of his head and held him close. Jaim moved alongside her, his chubby arms reaching up. Chara drew him in to the embrace, and Draig sat silently watching them. It seemed to him that Kaelin Ring was a lucky man. This was a woman to walk the mountains with.
“Feargol,” he said softly. The boy looked up. “We need to know where they are now.”
“They are coming,” said Feargol. “Senlic shot one of the riders. He’s hurt. They rode their horses after us but then found the deep snow. The hurt man has taken the horses away, and the others are walking now. They are following our tracks.”
“Are you good with a musket?” Chara asked Draig.
“No. Neither is Eain, though he thinks he is.”
“What about pistols?”
“No. No good with them, either.”
Chara sighed. “This would be a good time to tell me something you are good at.”
“I don’t quit,” he said. “Tostig won’t get you while I live. And I’m not the kind of man who dies easy.”
“Then let’s you and I go out there and give them something to think about,” said Chara.
“What about me?” asked Eain.
Chara moved to the far wall and swung on her sheepskin-lined long coat. Then she took up her musket. “You look after the children. Feed them and sit with them until we get back. And you should stir that porridge. It’ll burn else.”
“Black bits in his porridge every time,” said Draig.
“And the horse you rode in on,” said Eain.
There were a number of surprises for Draig Cochland as he followed Chara Ring through the snow. The first was that despite his lack of rest he was no longer weary. The second was that the cold was not affecting him. The fur of his bearskin coat was bristling with ice. It had also formed on his mustache and beard, where his hot breath had instantly frozen. Draig’s heart was pounding wildly, and at first he could not identify what he was feeling.
When he did, it was the most surprising thing of all.
He was terrified.
Draig was not unused to fear. Any man who would risk his life stealing other men’s cattle or belongings understood what fear was. A chance shot could bring him down. Soldiers could surprise him. His life probably would be snuffed out at the end of a rope. These fears were common and easily dealt with. Not so this unreasoning terror.
He stumbled on behind Chara Ring, following the line of tracks they had left earlier in the day.
Draig tried not to think about Tostig, but it was no use. The man’s face was constantly in his mind with its mocking half grin. Draig had always been frightened by him. There was something unhinged about Tostig, something cold and empty.
He had come to the Low Valley around six years earlier. At first he had been like every other outlaw: careful lest the Moidart’s soldiers learn of him. However, since the war in the south had started there were few soldiers in the north, and Tostig had grown more reckless and daring. Many of the vilest crimes of the last few years—rapes and murders—had gone unsolved, but Draig knew that Tostig and his men were behind them. One lowland farmer and his nine-year-old daughter had been killed in a raid two years earlier. It had stunned the lowland community, for the child had been abused before being murdered. No one h
ad discovered the identity of the killers, though it was rumored they were deserters from the army, passing through. Draig knew different. One of Tostig’s men had tried to sell him a silver engraved powder horn bearing the initials of the farmer.
Tostig was a man with no soul, and he had gathered to him like-minded men.
However, his evil deeds were not what bothered Draig Cochland. Draig was not responsible for the sins of others. What tormented Draig was that from the first moment he had met Tostig, he had known fear. There was something in the way the man looked at him, the way in which a butcher might study a carcass, measuring the cuts and the joints with a practiced eye. For some time after that first meeting Draig had suffered nightmares. He had dreamed Tostig was coming to kill him.
They went away after a while but returned after news came through of a traveler who had been robbed and killed. He had been tortured and partially skinned. Tostig carried a skinning knife, a small crescent-shaped blade sheathed horizontally on his belt.
Ahead of him Chara ducked down behind a fallen log and stared out over the snow. Draig moved alongside her. “You see anything?” he whispered. Chara glanced at him. He looked away, knowing she had heard the terrible fear in his voice.
“I thought I saw movement,” she replied, pointing toward a stand of trees. The moon was bright and high in the sky. Draig narrowed his eyes and peered at the trees. He could see nothing. “Is your musket loaded?”
“Yes.”
“Make sure the action is not frozen.”
Draig tried to cock the weapon, but there was ice around the hammer. He rubbed at it to no avail. Lifting the weapon to his face, he breathed against the action.
“I can’t loosen it,” he said. Then he noticed that the action of Chara’s musket was wrapped in a cloth. He felt foolish. “I am sorry, Chara. I am unused to these weapons.”
“Keep working at the action,” she said.
Then he saw movement farther down the slope. Three men emerged from the trees, following the tracks. Draig swore and rubbed furiously at the cold iron. Eventually the hammer eased back.
“Check the flash pan,” ordered Chara. Draig flipped it open. There was ice on the powder within. Chara saw it. “The weapon is useless.”
Four more men appeared, some twenty paces behind the first group. “Which one is Tostig?” asked Chara.
Draig suddenly felt the cold wash over him. It was as if he had fallen into an icy river. His hands began to tremble. “Which one?” said Chara again.
Draig sucked in a huge breath, letting it out slowly. “At the center of the second group. The one with the hood.”
Chara lifted her musket, removed the cloth, then cocked the weapon. Resting the barrel on the log, she brought it to bear. The shot boomed and echoed across the empty land. Black smoke drifted around Draig, making his eyes sting. He rubbed at them, then scanned the slope. One man was down, but it was not Tostig. The figure tried to rise, then slumped back to the snow. The others were running, though not away from the gunfire. They were struggling through the deep snow toward the trees at the foot of the slope. Chara was calmly reloading her musket. A shot screamed by above them. Another thudded into the fallen log. Draig cast aside his musket and drew a pistol from his belt.
“Wait!” ordered Chara. “You’ll just waste the shot from here.”
Drawing the ramrod from the barrel of her weapon, she tamped down the ball and charge. Lastly she filled the flash pan, snapping the cover back into place.
By then the killers had reached the tree line below. Draig could no longer see them. Another shot boomed from below. This time Draig saw the smoke rise. Yet still he could not see the shooter.
“We need to split up,” Chara said coolly. “They’ll be seeking to outflank us. You move right. Don’t use that pistol until you are close.”
As she spoke, she rolled away from the log, then ran into the trees to the left.
Draig lay where he was, panic sweeping over him. He struggled for control. You promised her! he told himself. You said you’d die before you let them get her. Be a man!
He swore, then rolled away to his right, coming to his knees and lurching upright. He almost slipped and fell but made it into the trees. Keeping low, he started down the slope, angling always to the right.
The moon vanished behind a cloud, and for a moment he was in nearly total darkness. A wave of panic rolled over him once more. They could be anywhere, within mere feet of him. Draig drew his second pistol and cocked it.
Another shot sounded from his left. A man’s scream filled the air.
At that moment someone loomed alongside him. Draig raised his pistol and fired at point-blank range, the barrel no more than a few inches from the bearded face. The man was hurled backward. His body tumbled to the snow, then rolled for several yards down the slope.
A second man appeared, a musket in his hands. Draig aimed his second pistol. It misfired. The musket thundered, the ball ricocheting from the tree by which Draig stood. Splinters stung his face. Dropping his pistols, Draig charged at the man, slamming into him and knocking him from his feet. They went down together. Draig grabbed hold of the man’s coat and vainly tried to punch him as they rolled down the slope. Both men slammed into a tree trunk. Draig gave a grunt of pain as the man head butted him. Grabbing the assassin by the throat, Draig reared up, then hammered a ferocious punch to the side of the man’s head. Moonlight glinted on a knife blade. Draig grabbed the man’s wrist. A wicked punch took Draig behind the right ear, but still he clung to the knife arm. His right hand scrabbled at his belt, pulling clear the long-bladed hunting knife Senlic had given him. The assassin tried to grab Draig’s wrist. He was not quick enough. Draig’s knife sliced into the assassin’s neck. Blood sprayed out. Draig twisted the blade. The man’s body spasmed and then went limp.
Dragging his knife clear, Draig rose unsteadily.
Dazzling light blinded him, and he felt a powerful blow to his head. He tried to turn, then realized he was lying on the snow, his leg twitching. With a great effort he rolled to his belly and tried to get his arms under him, struggling to rise. His head hurt; the pain was worse than anything he had experienced before. He vomited on the snow, then tried to rise once more. His blurred vision began to clear. The dead man was to his right, and he swung his head ponderously, wondering what had hit him.
There was a figure standing close by. Draig blinked, then squinted at the man. It was Tostig.
“I can’t believe it’s you, you oaf,” said Tostig. “Did you think to rob me of my ten pounds?” Tostig was holding a pistol. Smoke was still seeping from the barrel. He pushed it back into his belt and drew a second gun.
Draig peered around for his knife but could not see it.
Tostig’s left hand moved to his belt, and Draig saw the crescent-shaped skinning knife slide from its sheath. “I don’t have time now to deal with you as you deserve, Cochland,” said Tostig. “But I’ll cut your eyes out and come back for you later.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said a woman’s voice.
Draig looked up and saw Chara Ring standing in the moonlight, a pistol in her hand.
Tostig turned toward her. She was some twenty paces from him. Tostig began to move slowly to his right. “Well, well,” he said, “a girl with a gun. What is the world coming to?” Tostig sheathed his knife. “Why don’t you run away, girl? This is a man’s game. You know you are not going to try to shoot me. If you wanted that, you would have fired when my back was turned. So just leave. See if you can escape.”
Chara’s pistol boomed, the shot ripping through Tostig’s throat. He took two steps back, his pistol dropping from his fingers. Chara strode through the snow. “I wanted you to see who killed you, dung breath,” she said coldly. Tostig fell to his knees, his lifeblood gushing from his ruptured jugular. Ignoring him, Chara moved to Draig. “You’ve been shot in the head,” she said, probing the wound with her fingers. “But it didn’t crack the skull.”
Draig swung away from
her and vomited again. “How many did we get?” he asked.
“I got two plus that scum bucket. You?”
“Two. That makes . . . I don’t know what that makes. Can’t think.”
“It makes five,” said Chara. “There are two more.”
“They must have got behind us.”
Draig heaved himself upright, staggered, then righted himself. Chara was reloading her pistol.
From the distance came two shots.
“They are at the cave,” said Draig. More shots followed. Then there was silence.
Draig was in agony as he stumbled after Chara. His head contained a roiling sea of pain, and he stopped twice to vomit. By then there was almost nothing to bring up. Even so his belly continued to spasm. Blood was flowing down the left side of his face.
Chara was well ahead now, and Draig called out for her to wait for him. He stood and held on to an overhanging tree branch to help maintain his balance. Chara did not pause or look back.
Got to help her, thought Draig, pushing on up the slope. It was then that he realized he had no weapons. His useless musket had been left behind at the fallen tree, his two pistols dropped when he fought the assassins, and his knife lost after Tostig had shot him. He was now as useless as the musket and in no condition to help anyone.
Even so he fought his way up the slope and staggered at last into the cave. Eain was by the fire, adding fresh wood. Chara was sitting with Feargol and Jaim. Close by were two bodies. One had been shot through the head, and the other appeared to have been hit from the side, a pistol ball having smashed through both cheeks of his face. Eain’s knife was jutting from the man’s chest.
As Draig turned the corner in the cave, Eain looked up at him. “Took your own sweet time,” he said. “You want me to stitch that cut?”
“I’ll do it,” said Chara.
“Can we go home then?” Eain asked Draig. “I’ve had enough of this Rigante blood nonsense. I’m happy as a Cochland, you know that? I don’t need any of this.”
Chara moved alongside Draig, and he felt her once more probing the wound in his skull. “What happened here?” he asked her.