Page 137 of Blood & Claw

When she looked up, the bend in the path she’d been trudging toward was still impossibly far away. She reached it eventually, only to find another stretch of snow-covered track beyond. A groan lodged in her throat.

Her foot caught on a root hidden beneath the snow. She lurched, nearly falling to her knees. The effort of recovering her balance sent a wave of dizziness through her.

Keep walking. The command echoed inside her skull.

Her legs felt as heavy as anvils now. The wildness that had sustained her through the night was gone, burned away. In its place was a vast emptiness.

She wasn’t the only one suffering. Next to her, Kayla trudged on, lips tight, head bowed. A few feet ahead, Darach was weaving slightly now, his shoulders rounded.

All three of them were beginning to stumble like drunks when the narrow valley they’d been traveling through suddenly opened out.

A great fort rose above them.

She came to an unsteady halt, lips parting as she craned her neck, taking in the high wooden palisades ringing the fort where braziers burned like beacons. Snow frosted the beehive-shaped broch crowning it.

Ailsa blinked as snowflakes settled on her eyelashes. “I didn’t know there was a fort like this in The Goatfells.”

“There isn’t,” Kayla replied next to her. Her mentor’s face had drained of color.

“That’s because, until recently, Craeg Aonaranach didn’t exist,” Gregor said. The druid had stopped beside them, his eyes shining as he gazed up at the broch.

Craeg Aonaranach. Ailsa glanced back at the fort. ‘Lonely crag’. Indeed.

Kayla turned to him. “You built this?”

He smiled, enjoying her confusion. “Not alone.” He nodded to the warriors who’d halted behind Kayla, Darach, and Ailsa. “Get them inside,” he ordered. “The king will be waiting.”

Ailsa stiffened. The king? She shared a look with Darach as rough hands pushed them forward.

They stumbled down the path that led to heavy iron gates.

Heads turned as they passed inside. And the moment they did, it was clear this wasn’t a fort like Braewall or Farnoch. No children were playing in the market ground. No crones sat in the doorways of squat stone roundhouses with the aroma of boar stew drifting from open doorways, smoke wreathing from turf roofs.

Instead, long timbered buildings lined the wide space inside the gates. Barracks. Lean-faced warriors, their muscled limbs tattooed with woad, trained in the snow. The clash of iron blades rang through the crisp air, blending with the barked shouts of the bullish-faced female warrior with long black hair spilling over her broad shoulders training them. “Put some spleen into it!” she roared.

The woman glanced then over at where Gregor marched his captives toward the path leading up to the broch, her dark eyebrows drawing together. The druid ignored her stare.

It was a slog up the hill—past a stinking offal pit, smiths’ forges, and more long wooden buildings, some of them barracks, others ale-halls—to where the broch loomed above them.

Lightheaded with hunger, Ailsa followed the others through a second gateway and into the yard beyond.

More warriors trained in here too, although they stopped sparring when they saw Gregor and his captives.

Gazes tracked them as they were marched up the stone steps, the iron chains from their collar to their wrists rattling. Warriors hauled open heavy doors to admit them, and then they were out of the bone-chilling cold, their boots crunching on rushes in the entrance hall.

A curtain swept aside, and they entered the main hall itself.

A cavernous space yawned before them with two large stone hearths at its center. Galleries of at least three levels wrapped around the edge of the space, rising up to where woodsmoke drifted out from a hole in the high roof.

Warmth washed over Ailsa, and the aroma of oatcakes and pottage nearly made her knees buckle. Gods, if only a hot meal were awaiting her.

Stains darkened the rushes underfoot. Shields and spears studded the walls. Warriors lounged at the long tables, hands still wrapped around cups, trenchers before them, their conversations fading into a thick, uneasy silence as the prisoners were dragged in.

Everyone stared at them.

At the far end of the hall, a figure reclined at a table upon the high-seat. A trencher filled with bread, cheese, and fruit sat before the man. They’d clearly interrupted his noon meal.

Beside her, Darach’s sharp intake of breath made her glance his way.