Page 38 of The Shape of Silence

Behind her she heard the soft thud of the spade abandoned in the dirt.

Morggán came to stand beside her a moment later, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from him after the labor in the garden. His gaze fixed immediately upon the riders beyond the trees.

“They would have turned already if they meant to skirt the forest,” he remarked, a frown lowering his brow.

Avery felt something tense low in her stomach, having thought the same thing.

“We should go,” she said at once, already turning back toward the hut.

Her eyes searched automatically for Charlie. She found him sprawled near the front wall where the sunlight pooled warmly against the wood, asleep with one paw stretched awkwardly before him. She clicked her tongue sharply. The hound lifted his head at once and after a moment, rose to his feet.

“Wait,” Morggán said.

Frowning, Avery turned and stared at him and not the coming riders. “Wait for what?” she asked, a bit disturbed. She’d not managed to stay alive and unscathed all these years by waiting to meet people, to find out if they meant harm or not. “I’m not going to—”

“ʼTis the mac Ruaidhrí,” he said. “These are my men, Avery. They’ve found me—or are about to.” He barked a short laugh, as if he couldn’t believe it.

Avery swung her gaze away from him and studied the coming horde more closely. She saw it then, the plaid fabric draped across many shoulders, the same green, blue, and brown as the one that sat folded neatly inside the house, the one she’d taken as her own from Morggán’s horse. Her own brow knitted, the relief she should have felt usurped by something entirely different.

His army had come for him.

He would leave now.

Avery remained where she was while Morggán strode forward toward the edge of the forest, probably meaning to call out to his men so that they didn’t ride right by, or turn along the forest’s edge.

She remained near the house at first, watching from a distance, but gradually drew closer to the grasslands, curiosity getting the better of her.

The riders had not yet seen the house hidden inside the trees. They moved across the grasslands in a loose searching line rather than a marching formation, their spacing widening and narrowing with the shape of the land. There were more than she first thought. Fifty or more, perhaps, as more riders emerged steadily over the rise behind the first.

These were true fighting men, she fantastically decided, cloaks thrown back from their shoulders, shields slung at saddle sides, swords and axes carried with the familiarity of long use. They looked as though they belonged to another world entirely. Their entrance—such as it was into her life—was very cinematic, she decided.

The horses, providing the low tremor beneath the ground, were only dark, distant shapes with their shifting thunder of hooves rolling faintly across the hills. Wind created greater movement, flapping banners, tossing dark manes, and fluttering cloaks. And then there was Morggán himself standing at the forest’s edge awaiting them, the broad sweep of grasslands before him, detail becoming clear in the approaching army. It looked unreal somehow. At the same time, it was exactly the way scenes in films sometimes appeared before music swelled as armies crossed landscapes toward destiny.

Morggán reached the outer edge of the trees and raised one arm high.

“Ho!” he shouted across the grasslands.

The nearest riders jerked sharply upright in their saddles. One horse reared half-sideways and then came a roar so sudden and joyous it startled Avery outright.

“Laird!”

The cry rolled across the hills from several throats at once. One rider thrust a fist skyward while another laughed aloud with unmistakable relief. The entire line shifted direction almost immediately, horses turning hard toward the forest now, their speed growing.

Avery crept slowly toward the southern edge of the clearing, keeping near enough to the trees that she could still retreat into shadow if needed.

Morggán stood waiting openly now beyond the shelter of the branches, a leader returned unexpectedly from the dead, she imagined theatrically.

The first riders reached him at a near gallop before hauling their mounts sharply back. Several voices erupted at once, overlapping too quickly for Avery to follow. Another man barked out a laugh that sounded perilously close to breaking with emotion. Even at this distance she could see the change in Morggán himself. Some tension she had not fully noticed these past days seemed suddenly to leave him in the presence of his own army. He seemed larger somehow, maybe not so much physically, but with the easy certainty of a man returned to his proper place.

The first man off his horse did not stop at a polite distance. He crossed the clearing in three strides and caught Morggán by both shoulders, as if to confirm that his eyes did not deceive him.

“You ugly bastard,” he said in their native tongue, and then he barked a laugh that broke clean through the clearing. “You live.”

Morggán staggered half a step under the grip and shoved him back with equal force. “Aye, and it took you long enough to discover that.”

“Took us long enough?” the man shot back. “Jesu, laird, but you did naught to help us. Could you not have flopped off your horse or what have you closer to the actual battle?”

Another rider swung down and pushed in without waiting his turn. “Move aside, Alasdair, I want to see if he’s whole.” He looked Morggán up and down in blatant inspection, seemingly satisfied. “But aye, we’re wanting to know why you moved so far from the fight?” He grinned wide, revealing a row of crooked but very white teeth. “Got me thinking you did not want to be found.”