Chase could either join in the fray, hacking his way through the four men blocking the stairs, slowing his progress to Christiana, or he could find an alternative route.
“Her tower!” Chase called to Hall, sheathing his weapon as he chose to follow the alternative.
Bracing his hands on the wall surrounding the landing, he hefted himself up to balance upon the top ledge, and then, after a quick scan below, he jumped, aiming for a hay-filled wagon off to one side.
The impact of the landing jolted up his legs, but he had to keep moving. Across the courtyard, the dark tendril of smoke curling from Christiana’s window had grown.
He rolled from the wagon and ran, drawing his sword once again and losing it just as quickly when Ulfr tackled him from the side, driving him to the ground.
There had been four on the stairs with Hall. He should have remembered to check for the fifth.
“The tower burns,” he managed as Ulfr’s knee crashed down on his chest.
Above him, Ulfr lifted his arm, drawing back the knife he held with a scream. Grabbing Ulfr’s shirt at the shoulders, he jerked the man forward, smashing his head into his opponent’s face. Blood spurted from Ulfr’s nose and he fell back, but only for a moment.
A moment, as it happened, was all Chase needed to scoop up his sword and have it at the ready as Ulfr attacked, with the single-minded ferocity of a maddened animal. Chase’s blade slid into the other man’s chest, slicing a path through muscle and organ, and Ulfr dropped to his knees, surprise blanketing his expression. Chase withdrew his weapon, already running toward the tower before Ulfr’s body hit the ground.
At the tower he stopped, drawing in a deep breath before kicking the door open to the sound of splintering wood. Smoke billowed out around him as he burst into the room. Flames licked up around a pile of blankets, their unburned ends trailing out onto the hearth.
Torquil held Christiana facedown on the table, where the bastard bent over her with obviously only one thing on his mind.
HALL CUT HISeyes toward the tower, but only for a second. The blades flashing in his direction required his full attention.
The sight of smoke curling from the tower explained his little brother’s leap from the railing.
“Godspeed,” he huffed in Chase’s direction, though he knew the other was too far on his way to hear it.
He hoped the lad hadn’t broken his legs upon landing, just as he hoped Chase would make it to his lady in time. But if Torquil waited in Christiana’s tower, no amount of good intentions would enable his fine Faerie friend to destroy that monster unless Hall was successful in his part of their siege.
With a roar that had weakened the knees of far better men than these, he lifted his leg and kicked, his foot landing solidly in the center of the lead man’s chest. Like a row of shoddily stacked peat staves, they all toppled backward, each tumbling onto the man behind him as they scrambled to break their fall.
Freed of them, Hall slipped through the door and headed for the back stairs. The object of his search would be found in the laird’s tower, behind a stone above the fireplace, if Bridget MacCulloch was to be believed.
A glance into the open door of the solar revealed evidence of his worst fears. Hugo the minstrel had met a fearsome end indeed, his head torn from his body. No man could have done such as that, lending credence to his suspicion that Fenrir himself had joined with Torquil. Which made finding what he now sought that much more imperative.
He hurried on, nearing the narrow staircasebefore he was set upon. Artur pounced on him, wrapping one arm around Hall’s neck to cling there like a fetid tick upon a dog’s ear as he plunged his knife into Hall’s right shoulder.
Pain radiated out from the wound, slowing Hall’s movements as he took stock of his injury. Nothing vital. No important organs involved, just a clean slicing of meat and sinew.
Then the little bastard withdrew the weapon and, with a madman’s scream, plunged it down again.
Like a horse under attack by a bloodsucking fly, Hall flung himself backward, smashing his attacker into the wall behind him, taking them both down in a heap.
The hilt of the knife protruded from Hall’s shoulder, twisted at an ugly angle. It was higher than the first wound, making it difficult to reach his sword when Artur came at him a third time with his sword drawn.
“I guess we’ll see whose arse ends up on the pointy end of a sword now, won’t we?” Artur sneered, slowly moving in for the kill.
Hall pushed himself up the side of the wall to stand, waiting, watching the other man’s eyes. When Artur circled his wrist, taunting with the motion of his blade, Hall threw himself forward, knocking aside the smaller man’s blade as he jerked the protective token from around his neck with his left hand. He brought it slamming down, feetfirst, into Artur’s throat as they fell back.
It took a moment for the man to stop his twitching. A moment that Hall used to catch his breath and gather his strength before pushing up to stand again.
Leaning heavily against the wall, he followed the narrow, curving stairs up to the little guardroom and into the laird’s private chamber.
There he found the hiding place under the mantel already open and the box he sought sitting out on the table.
At least he presumed it was the same box, though the jewels Bridget had claimed adorned the lid were gone. Deep scratches marred the wood, as if someone had dug the jewels out of their resting place.
But the loss of the jewels wasn’t the worst of it.
