Maids with Blades 2, page 76
He turned sideways, pushing her arm aside with his left hand.
When she made an unexpected return slash, the finely honed point of the bishou grazed his neck.
He sucked a quick breath through his teeth as a thin red line bloomed across his flesh.
Her heart pounded. An inch deeper, and he might have been slain.
He lifted his fingers to his throat, then withdrew them, frowning when he saw blood.
He clenched his jaw. His eyes grew as dark and heavy and threatening as a thundercloud. She would find no chink in his armor now.
But to her frustration, he still refused to attack.
Tension made her impatient. She tried to rattle him, clanging her forked sais against his blade.
But he shook off her advances like a duck shaking off rain.
Desperation made her careless. She made another impulsive stab forward with her bishou. If she could impale his heart, this standoff would come to a swift end.
But he anticipated the charge. While he diverted the bishou with his sword, his left hand snagged her wrist.
She gasped as he applied sudden, hard, painful pressure with his thumb, forcing her to drop the weapon.
She wrenched her empty hand out of his grip and took a backward step to regroup. Reaching inside her gambeson, she withdrew the second sais and then swept the pair down together in an X that whistled through the air with menace. They were defensive weapons with blunt prongs, but with enough force behind them, they could still kill.
He blew out a forceful breath. Pinned her with a glare of smoldering resolve. And transformed into the monster she’d seen at the tournament. Capable of violence and cruelty. Savage. Brutal. Unyielding.
In his gaze, for the first time, she saw the possibility of her own death.
Dread made her shaky. But she couldn’t afford fear. Too many souls depended upon her. So with an aggressive cry, she lunged forward with both sais.
He knocked one of them aside with the flat of his sword and spun away, but not before she caught the end of his blade between the tines of the second.
Trying not to think about the damage to her precious shoudao—the weapon she’d proudly earned at the age of twelve—Feiyan used brute strength to hold the blade aloft and trapped. The weapons made an awful grating noise as she slid the sais halfway up the length of the sword.
She intended to snap the blade.
What she didn’t foresee was that he would surrender it.
As he released the sword, her own strength worked against her. Momentum sent her staggering forward.
As she stumbled, he stepped in and wrenched the second sais from her grasp, flinging it aside.
When the handle of the entangled duandao abruptly struck the ground, angling the sharp tip toward her, she was still clinging to the first sais. And she was still falling.
For Dougal, there was no time for tact.
He instinctively tackled the lass, moving her out of the path of the sword’s point.
They tumbled together in the dirt and leaves. The sword fell harmlessly onto the forest floor, its blade still caught up in the forks of the trident. She wound up in his arms, on top of him, stunned and breathless.
He expected she’d be grateful. Aye, he’d been rough with her. But he’d saved her life.
He never imagined she’d resume her attack.
But as soon as she blinked away her shock, her gaze hardened again. She shoved herself up from his chest. Wrapped her hands around his neck. And pressed her thumbs with killing force into his throat.
Gagging, he grabbed her wrists and quickly pried them apart, forcing her to collapse down on him again.
Her face was inches from his. Behind the mask, she spat at him in rage and frustration. But he was close enough to see the truth in her eyes. Mixed in with her bloodlust was very real fear.
Under any other circumstance, he would have released her. It was against his nature to frighten small creatures. He was nothing like his brother, proud of the terror he inspired. He was nothing like the mac Giric clan, sowing horror against innocents. Nor was he anything like the monster he’d briefly become at Creagor, panicking crowds with his unleashed fury.
From his bruised throat, he grated out, “I’m not goin’ to hurt ye, lass. I swear it.”
She didn’t look like she believed him.
“I’ve got the advantage now,” he told her, wheezing. “I’ve disarmed ye. And I’ve got a good hold on your wrists. If I wished to do ye harm, I’d have done it by now.” He stopped to cough. “But I don’t. And I won’t. God’s hooks, I saved your—”
Without warning, she brought her thigh up hard against his groin.
Pain shot through his loins. To his credit, he didn’t let go of her. But as a dull ache began to spread low in his belly, it took great fortitude not to push her as far away from him as possible, where she could do him no injury.
Instead, he rolled her onto her back and pinned her to the forest floor.
Her eyes shot silver sparks at him, and her mask fluttered with every angry breath.
She was like a wild kitten caught in the high branches of a tree. Stuck in a place she didn’t want to be. Unaware of how she’d gotten there or how to get down.
Dougal could have helped her. He could have calmed her. Guided her back to reason. But like the cat, she was too stubborn or feral to realize that.
So she left him no choice but to physically restrain her until she stopped trying to kill him.
Her gaze steamed like a blacksmith’s forge, and her mask began to suck in hard as she gasped. With Dougal crushing her ribs, he realized she might be having trouble breathing.
Since his arms were occupied, he resorted to lowering his head and using his teeth to tug down her obstructing mask.
If he’d lingered an instant longer, he was sure she would have bitten off his nose. She screamed in rage, thrashing beneath him, as if he’d just torn off every stitch of her clothing and meant to ruin her.
That was the last thing on his mind. In fact, if she weren’t so desperately fighting against him, he’d laugh at such a suggestion.
Dougal was hardly a ravager of women. He was a champion. A protector. Kind. Gentle. Compassionate.
But of course, she wouldn’t believe that. To her, he was the enemy.
Eager to be out of biting range, he sat back, anchoring her hips. There he felt the poke of something hard under his right thigh. Sweet Saints! Did she have yet another weapon?
“What’s this?”
When she didn’t answer, he forced her arms together above her head and held her wrists there with one hand. With the other, he rummaged under her cloak to see what she concealed.
“Get your hands off me!” she shrieked. “Stop! How dare you? Help! Help!”
Her loud screeches of outrage made him wish he’d stuffed her mask into her mouth. He hoped no one was near. To unknowing eyes, it would appear he was a ruffian accosting an innocent maid.
As soon as he laid hands on the grip of the weapon, he recognized his dagger.
“How did ye come by this?” he asked, drawing it from its sheath.
“Let me go, you son of a whore!” She squirmed in frustration.
“Did ye steal it from the innkeeper?”
“Get off of me!” She bucked up, trying to dislodge him. “Satan’s spawn!”
He held the dagger up to give it a closer inspection. A jewel was missing. “And where’s my damned emerald?”
“Unhand me, mac Darragh,” she spat, “or I swear I’ll…”
Chapter 11
Feiyan knew she’d made a grievous mistake the instant the words left her lips. Which was one instant before mac Darragh’s eyes darkened, his brows lowered, and his lips pressed together into a grim line.
In the damning silence that followed, his deathly quiet whisper rang in her ears like the bells before an execution. “What did ye say?”
She bit her lip. It was too late to take back her words. Too late to pretend she didn’t know exactly who he was.
“How do ye know my name?” he demanded.
“The…innkeeper,” she improvised. “The innkeeper told me.”
He shook his head. “’Tisn’t the name I gave him.”
She gulped. Of course it wasn’t. And he didn’t need a soothsayer to work out how she recognized him.
“Ye were there,” he accused in a harsh whisper. “At Creagor. Ye were there. Ye’re one o’ them. Ye must have found my claymore. Ye’ve been trackin’ me.”
There was no point in denying the truth. He’d already figured out that she wanted to kill him. It didn’t matter if he knew why she wanted to kill him.
But now she was helpless. And he was armed.
Her eyes flitted to the jeweled dagger. His knuckles had grown white on the handle. At her glance, he loosened his grip. But he didn’t lower the dagger.
“Don’t fret. I won’t murder ye,” he said through his teeth, reading her thoughts. “I’ve got a much better use for ye.”
She swallowed the bitter tang of dread. What did that mean?
Mac Darragh might have feigned to care for her welfare when he assumed she was a hapless outlaw lass. But now he knew she was more than that. And Feiyan knew who he was. She’d seen him at Creagor. She knew the violence of which he was capable.
She’d lost the element of surprise.
She’d lost her disguise.
And she’d lost her weapons.
The only way she could survive now was by her wits.
She raised her chin with smug assurance, bluffing for all she was worth. “They know where you are.”
“Who?”
“My clan.”
“So ye’re a scout?”
“That’s right. I’ve been following you. And they’ve been following me.” She beamed up at him. “In fact, they should be here any—”
She ended with a gasp as he swept the dagger down to her throat. She felt its steely tip against her throbbing pulse.
“On your belly,” he commanded, lifting an inch off of her.
She hesitated for an instant. But she had little choice with his weapon at her throat. He might not intend to kill her. But she was damned sure, given the option of her sacrifice or his own survival, his dagger could make a swift decision for him.
“Slowly,” he said, releasing her wrists.
She obeyed. But for one instant, she still thought she might be able to gather her limbs beneath her and leap away.
That instant was short-lived.
The moment she rolled over, he pressed his knee into the small of her back. She felt the point of his dagger at the nape of her neck.
A shudder of horror passed through her. Every assassin knew the fastest way to ensure death was a deep stab to the base of the skull. She dug her fingers into the soil, afraid to move, afraid to not move.
He didn’t kill her. Instead, he cut through the ties of her mask and dragged it from around her neck. Seizing one wrist and then the other, he wound the cloth of the mask to bind her hands together behind her back.
Satisfied she was helpless, he quickly gathered up her weapons, all except the yan zi fei dao, which he left stuck in the tree. Then he sheathed her duandao and stuffed the rest into his pack.
She’d almost inched her knees forward enough to make a final spring for freedom when he thrust an arm under her belly, picked her up bodily, and set her on her feet.
“Let’s go.”
He grabbed her by the arm and propelled her forward. But the long-legged warrior walked at so brisk a pace, it was difficult for her to keep up.
“Where are we going?” she asked. She didn’t expect an answer. He didn’t give her one.
For nearly a mile, the only sounds were the leaf-scuffing passage of their boots, the flap of cloaks, and her labored breathing.
Finally he muttered, “How did ye track me?”
She lifted her chin with pride. “You have a crack in the heel of your boot.” Then, just to twist the knife, she added, “A child could have tracked you.”
“Maybe. But ye’ve had no contact with your clan,” he reasoned. “So I’m guessin’ they’re still lookin’ for a man on horseback.”
She bit back a curse. He was right about that. No one would guess he’d abandon such a fine warhorse.
In truth, she wondered if her clan was in pursuit at all. Once they found his claymore, they would know who he was and where he was headed. They would see no need to rush when they could simply let him return home and march on his castle as an organized army.
Only Feiyan had recognized the need for expediency. A sheer madness in the Westlander’s manner. An otherworldly rage that couldn’t be reasoned with and had to be addressed without delay.
To her, mac Darragh was an arrow loosed in a wild wind. No one could predict where he would land. He might well return to finish what he’d started at Creagor. To triumph where he’d failed. And next time, he might send Hallie to her grave.
She couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t wait for the Rivenloch army. Which was why she’d gone after him herself.
Now, however, she regretted leaving no crumb for her clan to follow.
If only she’d killed mac Darragh when she first had the chance. While he was sleeping helplessly under a tree…his face pale in the moonlight…his hair as dark as a raven’s wing…his mouth curved up slightly in the sweet depths of slumber…
“How many are there?” he asked, startling her from her reverie. “How many o’ your clansmen are in pursuit?”
She arched a defiant brow. “All of them.”
He smirked. “How many mac Girics are there?”
She blinked. “Mac Girics?”
All at once, she realized that his hostility wasn’t against Rivenloch at all. How could she have been so wrong? Mac Darragh had turned up at Creagor, not because it was the site of the Rivenloch tournament, but because it was a mac Giric holding.
That changed things.
“Aye,” he said. “How many are there?”
“Thousands.”
He scoffed at the obvious lie.
“They… We’re scattered all o’er Scotland,” she boasted. That was almost true. The main Giric stronghold was in the Highlands. Then she asked carefully, “What grudge do you have against…my clan?”
The sudden tightening of his jaw and the blaze that flared in his eyes made her regret her question. His stony cold silence for the next mile was the only answer he gave.
The sky reflected his mood. Dark and ominous clouds lowered like his brow, stormy and threatening. The quiet was not the quiet of calm, but of the uneasy stillness before a violent maelstrom. The sharp chill in the pregnant air was as unsettling as his frigid gaze.
Despite the cold, Feiyan’s brow was dotted with sweat. Hot and breathless from his ground-swallowing pace, she tried to force him to a slower walk, dragging her feet.
“I’ll carry ye if I have to,” he warned.
Feiyan scowled. “Nay.” She’d been slung over a warrior’s shoulder once already this month, helping her cousin Jenefer win a castle. She had no desire to be packed around again like a sack of grain.
“Then keep up. We don’t want to get caught in the storm.”
A few heart-pounding miles later, she realized she had to slow him down. Once they reached his castle, once he realized his clan wasn’t in danger, he’d have no reason not to get rid of her.
So she exaggerated her fatigue. When they reached a grassy glen in the wood, she yanked away from his grip and sank onto one of the bare boulders in the middle of the expansive meadow.
“I have to stop,” she wheezed.
“Here?” He cast a nervous glance around the clearing. It was risky to be so exposed. The woods at the perimeter were deep and dark enough to harbor hungry wolves. But he was probably more worried about vengeful clansmen.
She said breathlessly, “You intend to use me…as a hostage…aye?”
Of course that was his intent. Otherwise, he would have abandoned her by the trailside and made better progress on his own.
“If it comes to that,” he muttered.
“Well, if I take another step…I’ll collapse…and I’m no use to you dead.”
He seemed to hear the wisdom in her words. “Fine.” He hunkered down beside her and uncorked his costrel of ale. “Only a few moments, though, aye?”
She nodded. She didn’t want to be left behind either. She still had a mission to finish. If she let him go on without her, she’d lose his trail in the rain.
He offered her the first sips of ale, tipping her chin back with surprisingly gentle fingers. It tasted like ambrosia, wetting her dry throat. If her hands had been free, she might have snatched away the costrel and guzzled the entire contents in one thirst-quenching gulp.
“I don’t want to harm ye,” he murmured as she drank. “Ye know that, aye?”
She almost choked on the ale.
He said, “But I may have no choice.”
Choice. Choice? His words made her blood simmer.
“No choice,” she echoed bitterly. “Just like you had no choice, going after my kinsmen at Creagor?”
“Shite.”
His lips compressed into a grim line. He popped the cork back into the costrel and drilled her with a dangerous gaze of warning.
But she was too stirred up to heed it. “You attacked men who were armed with blunted weapons,” she snarled.
With a growl, he stormed to his feet and wrenched her up by her arm.
Uncowed, she spat, “Some of them were children.”
His grip tightened.
“And you almost killed my cousin Hallie.” Her voice broke.
“I never meant…” Then he stopped with a subtle intake of breath. His grip abruptly loosened. His eyes searched hers with a curious intensity. “What did ye say?”
As she opened her mouth to reply, the heavens opened, loosing their store of rain all at once in a pounding downpour that drowned out all other sound.
Pulling his hood over his head, he tugged her forward at a run. The rain fell with a roar, thrashing the grass and bouncing on the muddy trail. Fat drops pelted Feiyan, peppering her face, drenching her hair, soaking her woolen cloak.
