Page 60 of Alec

She nodded, and she edged toward the huge beetle, but a shower of ice came down from the ceiling of the tower roof, covering her in the beetles.

“No,” Olivia gasped, her legs frozen to the floor now. With one last jerk of her arm she tossed the salt on herself.

The room plunged into complete darkness, as if night had fallen, and Alec went deaf. A sudden blast of wind came into the tower, whirling around both of them as it tore the golachs from Olivia’s body. Burned-out torches on the walls flickered to life as the white insects fell to the ground, melting into big droplets of clear liquid as if made of water. Red flecks shimmered on the stone floor, sucking up the remains until they vanished. The glassy tracks they had left on Olivia also dissolved, dripping down her body until she was standing in a clear puddle, which the floor also quickly absorbed.

The wind grew stronger, shredding the glassy substance on the walls and rocking the matriarch golach. Yet on the back of the huge insect the bulges continued to swell, and sprouted legs and antennae.

“My lady,” Alec shouted so she might hear him over the wind. When Olivia looked at him with wide-eyed amazement, he tossed her the pouch. “The matriarch.”

She yanked her feet out of her boots, which still remained frozen to the floor, and ran over to pour the salt on the giant golach’s swelling body. The creature went still, and then must have made a terrible sound, for Alec sensed the vibrations of it in his bones. The golach’s body began to give off reddish sparks as Alec released his bowstring, sinking an arrow into the matriarch’s side. A heartbeat later he hit the insect twice more, making its icy carapace crack. The golach tried to raise its wings, but the manner in which it had wedged itself into the tower wall kept it from escaping.

The wind died as suddenly as it had come in, and then buffeted Alec’s shoulder once, twice, and then a third time before it stopped entirely.

The arrows in the matriarch’s side turned white as the bulges on its back stopped moving and began to collapse. Somehow the cow-size beetle managed to unwedge itself and started to climb down from the ledge, making stones collapse all around it.

“You shallnae escape,” he muttered, nocking two more arrows and drawing his bow.

Olivia darted in front of him and touched his arrowheads, and when she took her hand away he saw salt crystals gleaming on the steel. She then stepped back and nodded.

He targeted the golach’s head and released the arrows. They struck, pinning the insect’s writhing body to the wall beneath the arrow slit. For a long terrible moment Alec thought it would have no effect, and then it exploded into a cloud of icy shards. He dropped his bow and threw his arms around Olivia as the glassy substance on the walls did the same thing.

Covering her head with his arms, Alec shielded her as much as he could while the tower shook and shed the golach’s casing. The glass turned liquid and sank into the stone floor and walls around them. A few moments later it had completely disappeared.

Alec lifted his head once the noise stopped, his chest heaving as he took in the sight of the tower room. No trace of the matriarch, the golachs she had spawned, or their work remained. Outside the sky had turned a pale greenish purple, as if they had spent an entire night battling the creatures.

He recalled how the torches had lit themselves as the room had gone dark. Mayhap something helped.

“Are we okay?” Olivia asked, her voice distant and muffled.

He was pressing her face into his chest so hard she likely couldn’t breathe, Alec realized, and released her. “Aye. ’Twould seem so.”

Olivia went to the door to look outside in the passage, and then came and took his hand. “Everyone’s waking up out there.”

He walked with her through the passages, where the clansmen and vassals sat or lay on the floors with dazed expressions. He helped the men to their feet and told them to attend to the mortals, and then took Olivia down to the great hall with him.

The laird and his wife were helping Ben with the patients he had been tending, all of whom had been freed from their glassy shrouds. The moment Tasgall saw him he strode over and embraced him as if they had been parted for centuries.

“You saved the clan, Brother.” He held him a moment longer before he drew back and bowed deeply to Olivia. “My thanks for your aid, my lady. If no’ for your daring, we should all be trapped forever within that white world beyond.”

“White world?” she asked.

Ava came over and hugged her. “We can explain later.”

As Farlan joined them and gave Alec a hearty slap on the back, he made himself smile and listen to their congratulations. At the same time his gaze kept straying to Olivia. Being the center of attention suited her, although she was still shy enough to blush as Elspeth and some of the other maids came to embrace and thank her. She looked so alive in the stream of greenish-yellow dawn light from a nearby window that it almost hurt to gaze upon her.

She could have her pick of males now among the clan as well as their vassals, Alec thought, and that was for the best.

“I must go and assure all have been freed from the enchantment,” he told Farlan, and left the hall.

Alec went first to assure the men in the garrison quarters had been freed, and then issued orders for them to perform a sweep of the stronghold, the bailey and the walls. He accompanied the chief of the watch to the tower, where his men had already resumed their posts. From the battlements he could see no sign of the beetles’ work or the MacBren, although the tents still stood next to the stables.

“How could the night come and then pass by so quickly?” one of the guards asked another.

The second man made a contemptuous sound. “’Tis this facking place, playing tricks upon us again.”

“To your posts, lads,” the chief of the watch said, his expression troubled.

“Send a man to report all to the laird,” Alec told him, and then went down and out of the tower to inspect the gardens, the lists, and finally the stables.