“I am sending you to lead a contingent of men and retake the keep, securing it against further attacks. When Aodh has been dealt with, you’ll need to retrieve the girl as well. Prepare to leave within the hour.”
The men rode for Thurles straightaway, their mounts tearing up the dusty road that led from one keep to the next. ’Twas a short ride, not even two hours from start to finish. During the ride, they discussed strategies for retaking the keep, deciding they would need to scout out the location of Aodh’s forces before making any final plans.
Upon arrival, ’twas clear the attack was all but complete. Aodh’s men had secured the keep, the village still burning.
“He has men in the village, still,” Broccan observed from their vantage point, lying flat on their bellies in the bushes outside the village. The army waited behind them out of sight.
At that statement, Dallan looked more closely at the movements of the men only to see the truth in Broccan’s statement. A steady stream of villagers snuck past the marauding warriors and into the countryside. Far more, however, were trapped, pursued, captured, and wounded as the invaders went from cottage to cottage, pillaging and burning each one along the way.
“Why wouldn’t they leave the villagers alive?” Finn asked under his breath. “If they mean to take the place of the lord, would they not need them?”
Dallan, nearest to Finn, turned to his friend. “It means Aodh isn’t here for the lordship. He’s here for hostages and heads.”
“Aye,” Diarmid, on Finn’s other side, added. “Aodh is no fool. He knows he cannot hold a single fortress in the middle of enemy lands and so far from his own. He’s not here to stay, just to destroy.”
Dallan looked back to the scene before them, a grim one indeed. As he watched, a pair of men yanked a woman out of her cottage by her golden hair, grabbing her braid and pulling viciously as she screamed.
His stomach soured. The color of the woman’s hair reminded him of Niamh, sending a shock of anger through him. Anger at Niamh. And anger at the bastard who would treat a woman so cruelly. Luckily, Niamh was safe somewhere far from here, he was certain, and unable to do any more damage than she had already. This poor woman, however, needed all the help she could get. When at last Illadan gave the signal, Dallan headed straight for the cottage and the woman with hair like spun gold.
Chapter Six
Niamh sprinted downthe hillside, herbs forgotten, stumbling over her own feet in her haste to get to her family. All she saw was fire. All she smelled was smoke. Destruction swirled about her in a blur of black, grey, red, and orange. Ash. Smoke. Blood. Fire.
“Líadan!” she shouted her mother’s name as she neared their cottage. She still couldn’t make out whether it was on fire, or simply surrounded by the smoke of nearby cottages. “Máire!”
She inhaled a deep breath of smoke, forcing her to stop and cough it out of her chest. Bent over double, she caught sight of the man coming up from behind her just in time to sprint the last stretch into her cottage. She slammed the door behind her, turning around and using her weight to hold it shut as the man tried to force it open.
Her mother and Máire shot up from where they’d been hiding on the ground behind her worktable, tucked in the far back corner of the room.
“Get that table over here!” Niamh shouted, gesturing at them to hurry. “We must bar the door and get out the back! They’re torching all the cottages!”
The two women worked to carry the heavy table over to Niamh.
The door behind her flung open a hand-span before it thumped shut again.
She couldn’t hold it much longer.
They tipped the table on its side.
The door thumped again.
A sinking feeling took hold in the pit of Niamh’s stomach. She realized now that the moment she moved to let them pin the door with the table, it would instead fly wide open.
“Run out the back,” she told them, her voice trembling. “Go.”
“God will break his own legs before I leave my only daughter to die,” her mother grumbled, moving to stand beside her and help hold the door closed.
Máire followed right behind her, glaring pointedly at Niamh for her attempted bravery. “We’ll never leave you behind,” she whispered, grimacing as something remarkably heavy hit the door.
Twice more, the door shook behind them.
The third time, it opened completely. Two men barreled through the doorway, dropping torches and setting the cottage ablaze as they entered.
Máire screamed. Her mother fell forward, landing against the table.
Niamh’s heart raced, her head feeling too light.
The first man went after Máire, dragging her toward the back of the cottage. The second grabbed Niamh’s braid, pain shooting through her head as he yanked her out of the threshold.
