It was silent. Someone held their breath, someone let theirs out in a long, slow hiss. There was a single intersecting place in the corridor, a point where the lines of their sights crossed. Invisible vectors ran at odd angles across the stony space.
A scuffle came from behind Balffe on the curving stairwell.
“Balffe?” a hoarse voice called up.
“Aye?” He threw the word over his shoulder.
“Any sign?”
His eyes held Finian’s. “Nay.” A series of curses floated up. “Search the stables.”
Senna squeezed her eyes shut. Finian nodded once and turned her away, guiding her down the stairs behind them.
“My sister,” Balffe called out quietly.
Finian craned his neck to look over Senna’s head. “Is well.”
Balffe nodded.
Finian turned and guided Senna away. Balffe watched from the shadows. A gleam of reddish light from a torch shone on the side of his face, then he turned away.
Chapter 60
Out on the fields, the grass was a bloody mattress where dead men lay. Brian O’Conhalaigh, locked in a death struggle with an English soldier, gripped the hilt of his sword tighter with a sweaty hand and swung. The blade met bone and the man fell over, his last words an unintelligible groan.
Brian was pulling his sword free of the body when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a mace being lifted, hurtling toward his head.
With a shout, he threw himself to the side. He fell across the body of the man he had just killed, and found himself staring into the sightless eyes of another dead man. Beyond him lay another, and another.
He rolled to his feet. The iron ball was coming again and he couldn’t move away fast enough. It barreled toward him.
Something changed its trajectory. Instead of smashing into his skull, it blew by, an inch from his nose. Its owner dropped to the ground in an openmouthed scream that never made it out. Above stood Alane.
Grim-faced, he stuck out a hand.
“Jesus,” Brian muttered, grasping it to rise. “I owe ye my life.”
“I’m no’ worried of that debt. Stick close and you’ll repay me soon enough.” He turned back to the chaos raging around them.
Brian looked around in stupefied amazement. The carnage seemed to stretch for miles. The stench filled his nostrils, his feet walked on blood-sodden ground. His arms, his legs, were leaden weights, dragging on him, as if he’d been dropped into an ocean fully clothed. The muscles were cramping and shuddering, but he couldn’t stop lifting his blade. He couldn’t stop killing them or they would kill him.
&
nbsp; A horse galloped by, jarring him. He stumbled and dropped to a knee.
“’Tis only de Valery,” Alane’s voice said from behind.
“Oh,” Brian replied dumbly, stumbling back to his feet. He was so thirsty his throat crackled when he inhaled. When he exhaled, it was like hot wind blowing over a burn.
“We’re outnumbered,” he muttered.
“Aye,” Alane agreed. “Let’s go,” he said, and plunged down the small hill back into battle.
Weary hotness filled Brian’s eyes as he followed him down, but Alane was only approaching a small group of Irishmen who stood in an area the fighting had passed by. Brian followed. In the distance, he could see the de Valery knight urging his horse up a hill, straight for the justiciar’s standard.
“He’ll get himself killed,” he croaked.
The Irishmen turned.