His heart kicked. Someone had raised the alarm.
Fuck.
Halting, he whipped around, grabbed Duana and Eithne by the arms, and pushed them ahead of him. “Run.”
Neither lass reacted as he hoped. Instead, they stumbled and smacked into each other, fear turning them both clumsy.
“Run!”
Choking out a curse, Duana took her sister’s hand. Together, they fled like hunted hinds across the drawbridge and into the meadow beyond.
Alar was right behind them.
Fortunately, all three of them were wearing black cloaks, which helped them blend in with the shadows. Unfortunately, though, the waxing crescent moon was high and bright, and the sky was clear. A faint veil of silvery light bathed the grass.
Alar’s gut clenched. Suddenly, the stretch between the walls of Dulross and the pinewood to the west seemed endless.
They’d hardly gone more than a dozen yards when arrows flew from the walls above them, peppering the ground like deadly hailstones.
“Don’t run in a straight line,” Alar called, even as heat rippled out from his chest. His tattoo was awakening, earth magic channeling through his veins. Good. His instincts would be sharper now. He’d run faster. “Cut left and right.”
He wasn’t sure the women had heard him, but he could hear their ragged breathing and panicked gasps.
Something whistled past his right ear then, so close the feather fletching brushed his skin.
Teeth clenched, he bowed his head and sprinted on, dreading the impact of something slamming in between his shoulder blades. They just had to hang on for a few more yards. Soon they’d be out of range of the archers on the walls.
A woman’s cry split the night.
One of the cloaked figures that fled before him was down.
An instant later, both Alar and Duana were at Eithne’s side. “Where did it get you?” Duana asked, her voice high and panicked. All the while, arrows flew around them.
“It didn’t,” Eithni ground out. “I twisted my ankle.”
Relief barreled into Alar. Grabbing Eithne under the arms, he hauled the lass to her feet. She shrieked as he threw her over his shoulder. “Run!” he barked at Duana. “And no matter what happens to us, don’t stop.”
13: THE LURE OF THE LIGHT
“HE WON’T JOIN us.”
“It’s too early to make that claim … he has until morning.”
Cailean snorted. “The Half-blood’s loyalty is to his wulvers … no one else.”
Leaning forward, Lara poked the embers of the fire with a stick. The flames had a hypnotic effect. It was hard to concentrate. “He’ll know this affects them as well.” Her belly tightened then. She was keeping up a stoic front, but the truthwas that ever since Alar had stalked off into the darkness, she’d worried he wouldn’t return.
She’d nearly cut his throat, after all. The Reaper take her, she’d been close to losing it. What if he refused to help them?
She’d admitted none of her worries to her companions. Nonetheless, some of them must have marked the blood running down Alar’s neck as he’d walked by.
Shades.They didn’t have time for this. The days were racing by. They had to reach The Shattered Crown by Gateway.
“Sitting out here like a fat grouse on a moor is making me nervous,” Roth grumbled then. The warrior kept glancing east, to where the home fires of Dulross glowed faintly through the trees. “They’ll know we’re vulnerable.”
“I don’t like it either,” Mor replied with a grimace. “But we need the Half-blood. We have to risk it.”
A tense silence settled around the gently crackling fire then. Of course, they’d already taken precautions; it would be foolish not to. Their mounts waited a short distance behind them. The horses were saddled and ready to go—although the elks and stags didn’t wear saddles and bridles.
