A settlement where the two prisoners dragged out of the cargo well had insisted again—their knees quaking as they pissed themselves in fear—that Thorgren had made his home in a turf-roofed longhouse at the center.
After Errol, Gavin and a dozen warriors had stormed inside with their swords drawn, a trio of terror-stricken maidservants had sworn they knew nothing of Tira before they had been ordered to flee and the longhouse torched.
It had sickened Errol to see the one room with its massive fur-strewn bed where he imagined Tira had been forced to lie with her captor, until a sharp whack on the shoulder from Gavin had prodded him onward to the next dwelling.
Most of the raiders had sought shelter from the foul weather and were inside their homes with their families, a fatal mistake.
One by one those men had been struck down by either Gavin, Errol, or the other warriors that had swarmed over the settlement from the three ships King Robert had generously provided, two more than the birlinn Errol had originally been granted. All of the raiders with their dying breaths denying any knowledge of Tira until this last one—thank God his wife, in hopes of saving her family, had revealed the truth.
Staring at the dead man from just outside the door, Errol felt no regret as flames engulfed the straw mattresses he had set ablaze; a moment more and the entire interior of the cottage seemed to explode from the fire’s fury.
The light rain pelting his head was no match for the conflagration consuming all the dwellings in the settlement, while Gavin’s roar above the rumbling thunder and gusting wind signaled for his men to return to their ships.
It seemed no sooner had Errol hoisted himself over the railing to stand with Gavin at the prow, than the three birlinns were shoved from the beach into deeper water. The wave-soaked crewmen clambered aboard with a hand from their fellow warriors.
Sea-foam splashed high into the air as oars struck the water, neither Gavin nor Errol saying a word as they stared grimly at the inferno they left behind.
The sound of wives and children weeping from where they were huddled at a distance from the soaring flames elicited no pity.
Long-deserved justice had been served for all the men, women, and bairns that Thorgren and his bloodthirsty raiders had slain, ravished, or left as orphans along the Scottish coast—and they weren’t finished yet, Errol’s thoughts fixed upon Tira.
His heartbeat still thundered as hope soared within him that soon, he would hold her again in his arms.
“Hoy is a large island, but we will find her,” Gavin said as if reading Errol’s mind. “It will be dark by the time we reach the eastern shore, but torchlight from that village will be enough tae guide us. It’s too many leagues away for those raiders tae know what’s happened here, and we’ll come upon them as stealthily. I vow they will suffer the same fate as these bastards, aye?”
“Aye, Laird MacLachlan. You have my deepest thanks?—”
“Och, Sutherland, save it for when we have your lady safely in hand. That will be thanks enough for me.”
Errol nodded, such gratitude flooding him that he felt again, much as with King Robert, that he couldn’t utter another word for the tightness of his throat.
Instead he glanced away from the burning settlement and looked eastward to where he would find Tira.
Did she sense that help was coming soon to free her? Please may she know that he hadn’t forgotten her, no matter the torturous months since last he had seen her…
“Awake,lass, we must flee! The village is under attack!”
Bleary-eyed, Tira rolled over from the wall as Brinda shook her again, hard.
“Get up, I tell you! The cottage is far enough from the settlement tae give us a chance tae escape, just as Thorgren intended if there came such a day. Here’s your cloak, Tira, we must go now!”
Tira did arise, startled that Brinda had uttered her given name, a rare occurrence.
Yet what did she care if the village was under attack? Thorgren had told her several groups of raiders abounded in the Orkneys, all of them contending with each other for more power.
Mayhap another leader was asserting his dominance now that Thorgren had gone raiding, who could say? One brutal captor would be the same as any other, which made Tira sink back onto the cot in numb resignation until Brinda grabbed her by the arm to pull her to her feet.
“Move, lass! Dinna you hear the screams? If the attackers discover you carry Thorgren’s bairn, you will be one of the first they slaughter.”
Tira gasped, her hands instinctively flying to her belly as Brinda threw the cloak around her shoulders and steered her toward the door.
The woman clearly believed enemy raiders had come upon the settlement, Brinda’s ominous words propelling Tira forward, and now she did hear screaming.
Piercing. Terrified. Women and children alike, Tira’s heart pounding in fear. She may want to die, but she didn’t want any harm to come to her child—God forgive her for even voicing such a terrible thing!
The four guards awaited them just outside, their faces grim in the light cast from the hearth and their swords unsheathed.
Without a word, two of them flanked Tira and took her arms to support her as they moved swiftly along a slope behind the cottage while the other two guards and Brinda led the way.
