Princess of the Sword (22 page)

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Authors: Lynn Kurland

BOOK: Princess of the Sword
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That, at least, was something she was accustomed to.
She fought Dìobhail’s guardsmen coldly and with a detachment that might have earned her a nod of approval even from Weger himself. That might have eased her if it hadn’t been for the darkness that had followed her inside.
She couldn’t see who it was, but she could feel him in her wake, ten paces behind her, without a sword drawn or a knife flashing in the torchlight, sending men sprawling with spells alone. She didn’t recognize the magic that rendered him unseen, and she didn’t understand the spells that he used to fling his enemies away from him.
Damnation, she was
not
going to find herself in over her head again. Once she had Ceangail’s lord well in hand, she would turn and use the spells of offense Miach had given her. She refused to be intimidated by a lad who didn’t have the spine to even put his hand to steel.
She calculated furiously, but she couldn’t manage a full count of the men in the hall. Lads were strewn along the floor behind her in various stages of being overcome, but still more came at her. It would have been very useful if the bloody place had possessed even the smallest of windows. Apparently light wasn’t a sought-after commodity in Dìobhail.
She saw, in the gloom, a raised dais at the end of the hall. There was a chair there, not quite a throne, but more than a simple seat for supper. A man sat there, swathed in darkness, unmoving. Morgan supposed it might take her all morning to reach him, but she had no other choice. She needed free rein in the keep and ’twas obvious secrecy wasn’t going to win her that. She would have to capture him openly.
She continued her slow progress to the end of the hall. She was tiring more quickly than she should have been and that made her angry. She dredged up another measure of fury and continued, sending men scattering in front of her.
She realized, suddenly, that the man behind her was now fighting with swords as well.
It occurred to her, just as suddenly, that he was fighting
for
her, not against her.
She looked over her shoulder, then felt something rush through her. She wasn’t sure if that something was surprise, anger, or relief.
Miach stood there.
“What spell of un-noticing was that?” she demanded.
“Lugham,” he said, shivering. “Very unpleasant.”
Had it been him following her the entire time instead of Cruadal? She wasn’t sure if she should be furious that he’d felt the need to do so, or grateful that he had bothered. Perhaps she would determine that later, after she’d decided whether or not she should kill him.
She turned back to her own fight and continued inching her way forward.
After there were no more lads for her to fight, she turned on Miach. Fury it would be and he deserved every bit of it, the lout, for not having listened to her.
She realized that she’d forgotten, oddly enough, that he also bore Weger’s mark and his swordplay said that he had earned it, no matter how brief his stay. It took her quite a bit just to stand against him, and she supposed it would take more strength than she had to best him. She finally caught his blades between hers, then gave him a mighty shove backward.
“Damn you,” she said fiercely, “I thought you were going on without me.”
“I did,” he said, his chest heaving.
She blinked in surprise and lowered her swords. “Then you haven’t been following me?”
He rested his blades against his shoulders and simply caught his breath for a moment or two. “It wasn’t for a lack of trying,” he said with a dry smile. “I went on a little errand of my own, then turned back to look for you. I’ve been hunting for two days.” He paused. “You were going in the wrong direction.”
“I know that,” she muttered.
He smiled briefly, then sobered. “Cruadal was following you, which I imagine you knew. I caught him before dawn and clunked him over the head with my sword as he resumed his proper shape to fight me. I did him the favor of sparing his nose this time.”
“Good of you.”
“Aye, I thought so.”
She dragged her sleeve across her forehead, grateful for a brief moment to rest and enjoy the chill of the hall. Her cloak had been the first thing to go near the hall door, flung into some poor man’s face so she could have his sword. She looked at Miach and attempted a frown. “You didn’t need to come after me at all, you know. I would have met you in Durial.”
He looked at her gravely. “I know you don’t need my protection, Morgan, but I thought it best to offer it just the same.”
She pointed toward the dais with her sword. “I think I could have captured
him
more easily on my own. You might not like to watch what I have to do.”
Miach chewed on that for a moment. “I wonder if he has an opinion?”
Morgan looked to her left to find that the lord of the hall had risen to his feet and was standing there stiffly. It was difficult to judge his expression, for he was swathed in a darkness she couldn’t see through. Obviously more of that Ceangail magic that even Miach found unpleasant.
She put herself in front of Miach only to have him pull her behind him.
“Damn you, move,” she said, stepping around him.
“Nay—”
“Aye!”
“Absolutely not—”
Morgan decided, as she caught sight of the lord stumbling off his step, that arguing with Miach could wait. Miach backed into her, hard, when the man took a step closer. The lord looked at them in silence for several protracted moments, then lifted his hand.
Morgan watched as scores of men poured into the great hall. She turned to put her back against Miach’s but saw immediately that there was no point in it. They were sorely outnumbered.
She was appalled to find herself willing to let go of her blades because she knew she had magic at her disposal, but she had done several appalling things over the past few fortnights so perhaps this was just another to add to the list.
She listened to Miach toss his swords onto the stone floor, then did the same herself—almost without hesitation. She did, however, protest when Ceangail’s lord came to face her and held out his hand for her knives. Miach elbowed her in the back, so she acquiesced grudgingly. The knife Weger had made him was already there, so perhaps he had a plan for getting them all back.
The lord of Ceangail handed off their gear, then nodded to his guards, a handful of whom drew their swords and looked prepared to do business with them. Morgan walked with Miach out of the hall, through more passageways laden with spells, and up stairs into a chamber that at least had light from windows set into one of the walls. Even though winter was fading, the light streaming into the chamber was cold. Perhaps the sun didn’t shine very well in Ceangail.
Morgan found herself turning around again and again, unable to find a comfortable place to rest her gaze. There were window seats set into the wall to her left, tapestries of battle lining the far wall in front of her, a hearth set into the wall to her right, stone floor beneath her feet that was uneven in spots . . .
She felt her mouth fall open. The stone floor beneath her feet was uneven in spots that she recognized.
Miach’s arm was suddenly around her shoulders. “Are you going to faint?” he whispered urgently.
She shook her head sharply, but willingly allowed him to keep her on her feet as she continued to gape at the chamber she was in and let unbidden and unwanted memories of it wash over her.
She had lived in the keep she was standing in.
She was surprised the possibility of it hadn’t occurred to her before, but she’d never stopped to consider it. She’d been thinking about spells and magic and righting wrongs. She hadn’t been thinking that she might be walking back into a place where she had lived as a child with her family.
“Leave us,” the lord of Ceangail demanded of his men.
“But, my lord,” one of the guardsmen protested, “surely not. There are two of them, and only one—”
The lord laughed. Well, it might have passed for a laugh if a great amount of imagination was used. Just the sound made Morgan shiver.
The man walked his guardsmen to the door, telling them all along the way quite bluntly how he would reward their disobedience. Morgan took a deep breath, then looked up at Miach.
“Tell me again how this is better?”
“We’re being underestimated.”
She wished suddenly that she’d had her cloak. She was far colder than she should have been, given the circumstances. “I’m not happy with you,” she muttered.
He took off his cloak and wrapped it around her. “Would you dance with me just the same if our good lord of darkness here could produce any minstrels?”
She shot him a glare, though it was a weak one. “Are you trying to distract me from my unpleasant thoughts about this chamber, or my unreasonable fears about this chamber’s lord?”
“A bit of both,” he said with a grave smile.
Morgan smiled in spite of herself and was cheered, also in spite of herself. There was something about Miach that was very grounding, as if he were a keep whose foundations reached deep into the earth, with soaring battlements, scores of chambers full of unexpected delights, and several pairs of boots near the door encrusted with mud from the garden.
Well, that and he had a very lovely smile.
“I suppose we could fight our way out with magic,” she said with a sigh.
“Difficult.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “Even for you?”
“I’m not particularly eager to have anyone know I’ve been here,” he said. “A battle would require quite a substantial bit of magic considering what’s here, magic that would leave my presence very plain to anyone who cared to look for it.” He shivered. “This place is so slathered with Olc, it’s making
me
queasy. Can’t you feel it?”
She shook her head. “I just thought I was hungry. I haven’t eaten in two days.”
He smiled at her, an affectionate smile that was almost sweet enough to make her forget where she was. He started to speak, then looked up and sobered abruptly. Morgan found herself pulled behind him. She would have argued, but he had taken her hand and put it against his back.
There was a dagger shoved through his belt, hidden by the back of his tunic.
“I think I just might dance with you as a reward for this,” she murmured.
He tightened his hand around her wrist briefly, then put his hands down at his sides.
Morgan supposed the lord of Ceangail wouldn’t find them as cooperative as he’d hoped.
Or perhaps he wouldn’t even find them worth his notice. Morgan looked over Miach’s shoulder and watched in surprise as the man took their weapons from his final guardsman, shoved him out the door, then barred it. He then turned and walked across the solar to the hearth, tossing their weapons onto a long bench set against the wall as he did so. Without comment, he squatted down and kindled a fire by eminently pedestrian means.
Morgan wondered at that. Perhaps he was so full of magic that he didn’t fear what they might do to him. Apparently that was the case, for he merely fetched a bottle of wine and three silver goblets from a table near one of the windows, then came back to the fire where he set his burdens down on a low table surrounded by not-uncomfortable-looking chairs.
“What’s he doing?” Morgan whispered to Miach.
“I have no idea.”
“Food, then torture?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he heard your stomach complaining and thought to appease it.”
She pursed her lips. “Are you ever serious?”
“About food and dancing? Always.”
“Well, the first I believe,” she muttered. She pulled the dagger out of Miach’s belt and hid it behind her back. If things went south, at least she would have some means of protecting them. She hadn’t bothered to hide her magic and she was actually surprised to find that Miach hadn’t either. Surely this lord of Ceangail could sense what they were, if not who.
Perhaps he could, but he certainly didn’t seem to care. He merely stood in front of his fire with his back to them. Darkness surrounded him, a darkness so complete that he almost wasn’t discernable. The firelight flickered quite merrily over the wine bottle and the goblets, but it made no mark on him. He was mad if he thought she and Miach would simply sit down and have a pleasant afternoon drink with him.
She leaned closer to Miach. “What now?”
“I have no idea,” he said with a shrug. “We could rush him, I suppose, or try to dazzle him with a spell or two. I’m inclined to merely wait and allow him to make the first move.”
She wasn’t surprised by that tactic, and she would have told Miach so, but the lord was slowly turning around to face them. Morgan took a step forward and stood shoulder to shoulder with Miach. If nothing else, they would fight together. She took a firmer hold on her blade and prepared herself for the worst.
The lord of Ceangail took a handful of steps closer to them.

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