The warrior, known only as Banyan, backed up a step. His eyes flared wide in his smoke-blackened face. “I dinna ken, m’lord. Only been toting water and dirt to save what I could. Them arrows of theirs be soaked in a pitch that willna die easy.”
“On wi’ ye then.” He wouldn’t hold the man up. He’d search for Adellis himself. With a mighty yank, he pulled a burning arrow out of Hendry’s spice trunk and tried stamping out the flames. Banyan spoke the truth. Whatever pitch or oil they coated the arrows with only splattered and spread. With enough dirt piled on it, he finally smothered the fire.
“Adellis!” With long strides around the periphery of the camp, he searched and bellowed her name over and over. No clues or signs existed that gave him any hope she might be alive and hidden somewhere among them. He found little comfort in the fact that he had not come across her lifeless body.
A wider pass around the area took him into the woods next to his burning tent. His heart lurched at the sight of a hand, limp and pale, reaching out from the base of a tree, its owner hidden on the other side. He crashed through the thicket, then blew out a relieved burst of air. It was Edrid. He had died. Just as Adellis feared he would. A look back at the remains of his tent didn’t reveal how the spy’s body had come to be among the trees.
“M’lord.” A rasping whisper that sounded more like the croaking of a frog made him turn.
“Hendry!”
The lad stumbled forward.
He caught him and gently lowered him to his knees. The usually spotless linen of the knave’s tunic was torn, bloody, and blackened with soot. “Where ye be hurt, lad? How bad?”
The boy shook his head and patted shaking fingers toward his shoulder. “Arrow got me there, but it isna bad at all.” Then tears welled in his deep brown eyes. He turned his face away with an embarrassed jerk. “I failed ye, m’lord. Pray forgive me. I beg ye.”
Thorburn’s heart sank lower. He knew without asking what Hendry spoke of. “Did ye see them take her?”
“Nay.” The boy jerked his head from side to side. His tangled mat of ruddy hair fell across his face. “They was so quiet. When I ran to the place where I heard her last, all I seen was splatters of blood and tracks dug deep from the struggle. She didna go easy. I dinna ken what they did to her or even if she still lives. All I know for certain is that it looked like more than one took her.” His face twisted with the horror of reliving the moment. “Then the burning arrows came. From everywhere. Like God sending fire down from the heavens.” He hitched in a shuddering breath, face crumpling as his tears flowed faster. “Forgive me for failing ye, m’lord. I am so ashamed.”
“Ye have brought no shame upon yerself, Hendry.” Thorburn examined the wound in the lad’s shoulder. The burning pitch from the arrow had cauterized the puncture and trapped the blood. A purple knot swelled beneath his pale skin. It needed lancing and flushing out before cauterizing it again to heal proper. Hendry had always acted the healer if a true one couldn’t be found. The task would fall to either Ross or Valan’s provision knaves, Munro or Marcas. “How much time has passed since they took her?”
Hendry wiped his face on his sleeve, then stared out into space, his eyes narrowing to slits as he pondered. “They struck not long after ye rode out.” He frowned and made a face. “Mayhap close to an hour after the last of the guard disappeared beyond the hill. Yer lady and I got Edrid to the shade and sorted through all that we needed to tend him proper.” He shook his head. “That’s why she went into the woods. To gather more resin to mix with the myrrh.” He cast a sorrowful gaze downward. “She wanted him fit to send back to his family on the next ship.” He lifted his head. “For one from the north, she didna seem so hate-filled and cold as I’d always heard.”
That observation made Thorburn smile. He stood and helped Hendry to his feet. “It doesna matter where a person is from. That isna what makes them bad or good. It’s their heart that does that. Not where they’re born. My mother was from Norway.”
“Beg pardon, m’lord.” The knave ducked his head again. “Meant no disrespect.”
“I must see to the others now.” Thorburn helped the boy limp over to the trunks that had been saved from the fires. “Rest yerself ’til the guard returns. They should arrive soon, then Marcus or Munro can help ye.”
“I canna rest.” The servant shook his head and busied himself with sorting through the rubble, searching for more to salvage. “When they return, will ye set out to fetch her tonight?”
He wanted to set out now, but common sense and past battles held him in check. “I must think first. Gather more information.” The fact they had lost Edrid, their best scout, their finder of secrets, dealt an immeasurable blow to preparing a counterattack. He would do whatever it took to recover Adellis, but he would nay walk into it blind. Scanning his men and their knaves as they toiled to recover from the carnage, he pondered who might be the best to take Edrid’s place.
“Wylie,” Hendry said as he lifted the lid to one of the smaller trunks and peered inside. “All my candles are a feckin’ mess, m’lord.”
“What?”
“A feckin’ mess,” the knave repeated, slamming the lid shut. “I’ll have to chop them apart and make do until we return to Duart and better can be found.”
Thorburn scrubbed a hand across his mouth to keep from snapping at the lad who worried more about his supplies than anything else. “What did ye mean when ye said, ‘Wylie’?”
Hendry didn’t look up from the contents of a trunk so large, leather strips and iron banding reinforced its scorched sides. “That Wylie be a devious wee shite. Sly as a stoat and quick as a rat. He’s nay as honorable as Edrid was, but I’d bet my best cook pot he’ll find out just as much. Mayhap even more.” He shot a stern look over the edge of the raised lid. “I’d be happy to remind him he’ll be skint alive if he doesna return with helpful things that’ll aid ye in yer planning.”
Hendry’s uncanny ability to know what he needed before he knew it himself had always given him somewhat of an eerie feeling. But it saved time, and Hendry served him better than any knave he had ever known. For that, especially now, Thorburn was more than a little grateful. “Fetch him. The sooner I send him, the better.”
The dedicated lad managed a smile for the first time since Thorburn had arrived back at what was left of the camp. With a pudgy hand pressed to his sore shoulder, he limped away in search of the new spy.
As Thorburn looked around the decimated camp, he soothed himself with the knowledge that soon, very soon, he would bring down the fires of hell upon those who dared steal away the woman he had decided to claim for his own.
*
Adellis assessed hersurroundings without moving or opening her eyes. Experience had taught that it was much safer to appear unconscious in case someone watched. Naked, sprawled belly down across a padded pallet covered in the silkiest furs, she concentrated, taking inventory of her body. A faint burning throb stung in several places across her back. Other than that, she appeared injury-free. Amazing, considering her brother’s past tactics.
A sticky sweet aroma, as choking as thick smoke, lent a cloying greasiness to the air. She wanted to cough but suppressed it by sheer force of will alone. Something touched her back. Cool. Slippery. It slid across her flesh like the slimiest of eels. But she found it soothing. It eased the stinging effects of the poison Alrek had used to coat the spikes of his armor. Cowardly bastard. He had impaled her with so many of the tips, it was a wonder she still lived. She probably had the scars of her flailing to thank for her survival. The thickened skin had prevented the barbs from going too deep.
“I know my lady be awake,” whispered a timid voice she didn’t recognize. A young female. With a lilting accent, even more singsong than normal in the isles or Norway. A Dane perhaps? Adellis wasn’t sure.
