“We need him, Aislinn. Come.”
Cameron grabbed Clive by his tunic and shoved him back inside the keep, the man starting to weep piteously.
“It wasna my idea! Earl Seoras demanded I deceive William for the ransom! He wanted more gold for his quest tae become King of Scots. Have mercy, Laird Campbell, just as you granted me a week past, I beg you!”
“Cease your babbling, man! The dungeon! Take us there or die right here!”
Aislinn had never seen Cameron’s face, sweaty and blood-splattered, look more chilling, Clive’s sobbing instantly silenced as he bobbed his balding head.
With all of them coughing, the smoke growing thicker, she followed close behind Cameron as he shoved Clive ahead of them at sword point, the man leading them to the right until he stopped in front of a heavy oaken door.
“Through there, Laird!”
So close to her father and brother, so close! Aislinn jumped when Cameron kicked open the door into what looked like a yawning pit of blackness, other than a sputtering candle in a wall sconce at the bottom of a flight of stone steps.
“How many guards are down there?” Cameron demanded, but Clive wildly shook his head.
“I dinna know—they might have fled.”
“Pray, man, that one or two remain tae open the cells—aye,pray!”
Cameron went down the steps first, pulling Clive along with him, while Aislinn followed with her sword point now pressed against her cousin’s back.
Thankfully there was little smoke, but she coughed all the same, feeling lightheaded of a sudden—she imagined from the painful swelling on the side of her head. So much for her skill with horses, but there was nothing to be done for the bump right now.
She glanced behind her at the sound of raised voices in the distance—aye, her father’s kinsmen coming to find him!—and mayhap some of Cameron’s men had joined in the search. Such gratitude filled her for whoever led the Irishmen, but she hadn’t recognized anyone among those fighting so ferociously in the bailey.
A second flight of steps lit by another wall sconce and they finally reached the dungeon—the stench so thick of sweat, urine, and waste that Aislinn leaned against a dank wall for a moment to catch her breath.
“Aislinn?”
Cameron’s voice filled with concern, she tried to give him a small smile, but truly, she felt like retching.
A dimly lit hallway went to the right and the left, with no guards in sight. Clive pointed to the nearest cell door where someone clutched the bars of a small opening—Aislinn gasping at the ashen face peering out.
“Daran!”
Hearing her cry his name, her brother began to laugh and weep at the same time as if half crazed, but how could it not be so after what he had suffered?
“The keys, MacGodfrey!” demanded Cameron.
“T-the keys, aye, Laird!” Whimpering again, Clive stuck his hand in a wall niche near the steps and then shook his head. “They’re gone—och, the guards must have taken them!”
Cameron’s vehement curse echoed up and down the hallway, while Daran’s wild pleading made her heart sink.
“Aislinn, help us—help us! I don’t want to die in this wretched place!”
“Aislinn is here?”
A raspy voice drifting to them from inside the cell, Aislinn rushed to the opening and clutched her brother’s hand, his fingers ice cold.
“Daran, Father is still alive!”
“Aye, sister—but I fear not for long. Saints protect us, am I dreaming?”
“No, no, it’s not a dream!” she tried to reassure him as she pressed her face to the bars. “Aye, Papa, it’s me, Aislinn! We’ve come to get you out, but the keys are gone!”
A terrible wail broke out from Daran, which made her spin around in desperation to see smoke curling down the steps like ghostly fingers. “Cameron, what are we to do?”
