The Irish Warrior

“I am come,” she announced in a low whisper, as if it were needful, completely ignoring the fact that his voice made her smile in the dark.

He was standing tonight, and Senna was a bit awed by his height and strength. Firm, corded muscles were tensed in the darkness and his voice had to travel some distance down to her. She’d picked a strong one.

They fumbled through the keys, found the one that fit, and after swinging open his cell door with an ear-piercing screech that would have awakened the dead—but not the guards—they crept back along the dank corridor.

“What happened to them?” she whispered, gesturing to the empty cells.

“The Irishmen who witnessed your kindly welcome in the hall were all killed soon after, lady, and in intriguing ways, too, rest assured,” he replied gruffly, following her up the hall.

Looking back, she found his jaw set hard, his eyes dark and impassive. She turned forward again, her fingertips trailing along the slime-ridden wall. Were her men to have been killed, she would be spitting for blood. Waving a sword and howling. He was so…restrained.

She repressed a shudder and pushed open the door to the antechamber.

He stared at the crumpled guards. “Ye have gifts I would never have suspected.”

She frowned a little. “I have a few hidden talents.”

He regarded her sideways, briefly. “Aye.”

He nodded his thanks when she handed him bread, then they swung the packs onto their backs. They were off, creeping across the shadowy courtyard. All they needed to do was steal a few weapons, sneak through both baileys, and scramble over the castle gate without being spotted by the guards.

Senna tried not to consider anything other than the next obstacle. Thinking too far ahead made her nauseous.

Crouched and watchful, she guided them to the blacksmith’s hut. It was an elaborate affair, made of stone, two stories high. They stared up at the window on the second floor, far above their heads.

“It didn’t look that high in the daylight,” she muttered.

Finian’s hands closed around her hips. A startled breath whooshed out of her. “I’ll boost ye up,” he murmured, and his fingers tightened as he lifted her up against the side of the stone building.

She reached as far as she could, stretching, aware of the power of him through his thick curled fingers, his shoulders, the steady strength holding her body up in the air. She curled the tips of her uninjured fingers around the window ledge, and that was as far as she got. The injured hand was still strangely numb, and therefore, while it did not hurt, it did not seem to have strength either. It certainly would not help her scale the side of the building.

“More,” she whispered.

“I haven’t got any more.”

She scrabbled silently, panting and scraping her elbows and knees, but she wasn’t a fly, and there was no way she could climb up the side of the wall.

“Stand on my shoulders,” he said, a gravelly command.

She stilled, then bent her leg back. She must have kicked his chin or something, because he grunted. She slowed her movements and nudged her toe backward, felt for the ledge of his shoulder. She planted her foot on it, then did the same with the other. It gave her just enough lift to get her elbows on the ledge.

She pushed at the shutters. Locked. Stifling the urge to smash them, she felt around in her pack and pulled out a strip of dried meat. Working it between the two shutters, she lifted upward, unhooking the latch that held them closed. A small metallic clink rang out, loud as a shout, and the shutters creaked in opposite directions, one in, one out.

Quickly, she shoved them inward and shimmied through. Thrusting her arms out, she dropped to the ground. Her palms hit first and the rest slithered behind, until her knees hit the floor with a muted thump.

She scrambled to her feet. Her vision quickly adjusted to the deeper shadows. A black opening gaped straight ahead. The stairway.

Another black gaping hole appeared to her right. The blacksmith’s bedchamber.

She swallowed dryly.

She hurried down the stairs, weaving her way between tables and anvils, and tiptoed carefully around the oven, which was still heated to a pale orange glow. She swung the latch up on the door and inched it open. Finian stepped inside.

They crept back up the stairs, where the items in for repair and new works of deadly art were stored. Where the blacksmith was stored, along with his wife and children, but, praise God, no dog. After tonight, there would be one for certes.

They worked swiftly, without words. Within minutes, Finian was garbed in the powerful protective covering of an Englishman’s mail hauberk, flinching just slightly as the weight of it settled on his back. There was none to fit Senna. She picked up a knife that looked the right size for Finian, which he immediately strapped around his thigh. He grabbed another one and she belted it for him, around his left arm. She grabbed one for herself, a long, wicked thing that looked just right.

At that moment, the blacksmith spoke, muttering a few garbled phrases. They froze, staring at each other. Silence, then a murmured, “Move over.”