“Why would I? A croft is a humble place to hail from.”
“Very well, let’s agree for the moment ye live in a croft. But ye are a Lathan soldier. Surely ye have been in the Aerie many times.”
“Aye, of course.”
“Always in and out through the main gates?”
Watching the color drain from his face pleased MacGregor.
“Aye.”
MacGregor hit him again, this time with his fist. The crack of something breaking—the lad’s jaw, or perhaps only a few teeth—sounded sweet to his ears. Ewan drooled blood. Ah, the jaw then. Another inconvenience. He would have difficulty speaking through the pain.
Unless MacGregor gave him something that caused him to forget that pain. He drew his favorite thin-bladed knife.
Ewan’s eyes’ grew big and round and he whimpered.
“Always through the main gates?”
MacGregor could barely believe his eyes when the lad nodded.
“Never through a another gate? A hidden gate?”
The lad’s head moved from side to side, slowly.
MacGregor laid the blade along the break in his jaw and pushed gently. His shriek was satisfying, but MacGregor wanted more.
“Tell me how to get in to the Aerie unseen.”
“Ah..ca…canna.”
“Canna? Or willna?”
“Ca…ca…canna. Dinna…ken.”
“I think ye do.”
“N…nay.”
“Ye will tell me, Ewan Lathan,” MacGregor announced as he slit open the lad’s shirt. “The faster ye tell me, the easier will be yer death. If ye make me continue to ask ye the same question, over and over again, I’ll make ye suffer. Over and over again.”
Tears leaked from the lad’s eyes, but he held his silence.
“Ye willna be saved. The envoy expects ye to be gone for days.” MacGregor signaled to one of his men to unbuckle the lad’s belt and strip him of his plaid. In moments, he stood naked and shivering, chill bumps—from cold or fear, it didn’t matter—breaking out all over his skin. Satisfied, MacGregor ordered his men to return to the keep. He watched them ride off then turned back to his prisoner. “Aye, I sent them away. Their constitutions are more delicate than mine. And ye canna harm me. Nor can ye outrun me. Now what was I saying? Aye, by the time the envoy returns to the Aerie and discovers ye never arrived, my army will be right behind him. Yer clansmen will be too busy to search for ye, and then they’ll be dead, too, and none will care what befell ye.”
“N-n-nay.”
“Ye think to plead with me? Surely, ye realize by now ye willna escape. Ye have so few breaths remaining. Dinna waste them.”
“N-na-nay.”
“Where is the secret way into the Aerie?”
The lad didn’t answer, not that MacGregor expected him to…yet. He started cutting. The lad whimpered and hummed, fighting screams, then suddenly coughed and spat a mouthful of blood—and meat—onto MacGregor before collapsing to the ground. MacGregor looked from the mess on his clothes to the lad’s crumpled body and back again.
“Ye bastard. Ye bit through yer tongue! All to protect yer clan’s greatest secret instead of yer life?” He knelt by the lad, heedless of the blood, and rolled him onto his back, then continued cutting as he talked. “Oh, aye, lying with yer hands underneath ye like that looks uncomfortable. It strains the shoulders, too, of course. No’ that it matter. I did tell ye yer life was forfeit, so I suppose ye had little choice but to render yerself incapable of speech. Well, I’m impressed. How did ye manage that with a broken jaw?” Another thought occurred to him, and he twisted the lad’s head to the side and pulled his lower jaw down, heedless of the agony he caused. “Can’t have ye drown in yer own blood.”
Ewan’s wordless screams echoed through the woods for a long time.
