Page 38 of Blood & Claw

Not for the first time, he wished he’d left her behind in Farnoch.

Silently cursing himself, he urged the stallion on, Rùn’s heavy hooves churning up dust and dirt behind them as he leveled into a brisk canter.

“Why did you leave Braewall?” Ailsa asked after a short while, her breath tickling his cheek. She had her arms loosely wrapped around his waist.

Darach fought a sigh. Not this again.

He didn’t answer, hoping she’d leave it be.

No such luck.

“Are you a criminal? Has the king put a price on your head?”

Darach tensed; she was eerily close to the mark. “Can’t a man just leave his home because he wants to see a bit of Albia before he dies?”

“A mercenary gets to see Albia, does he?”

“Aye … some.”

His response was deliberately cool, yet that didn’t put her off. “Where have you traveled?”

“Far enough.”

Silence followed. He could almost taste her curiosity, hear the questions churning over in her mind. However, she’d just hit a stone wall. Darach had a rule. He didn’t talk about himself.

“I’ve always wanted to visit Duncrag,” she said after a pause, a wistful edge creeping into her voice. “Have you been there?”

“Aye … many times.”

“What’s it like?”

“Big and noisy … and it stinks.”

She made an irritated sound in the back of her throat. “Maybe … but it’s also the capital. Is the broch as imposing as everyone says?”

“I suppose so.”

She stiffened against him, clearly vexed at his terse answers. However, this time, she got the message and didn’t ask anything else.

Darach slowed Rùn to a walk, his gaze sweeping the potholed street.

It was mid-afternoon, and they now passed through the hamlet of Cleghorn. A cluster of stacked-stone roundhouses with conical turf roofs huddled on the shore of Loch Lethe.

Something was amiss here though.

They’d passed a group of villagers building what looked to be a funeral pyre on the way in.

The locals hauling branches onto it had halted in their task, watching Darach and Ailsa approach with furrowed brows and pinched features.

Darach had nodded to them, yet no one acknowledged him.

If anything, their expressions darkened.

He’d ridden on, and as they neared the center of the village, he continued his scrutiny.

Despite the bright afternoon, Cleghorn had a forlorn air.

He’d been here before, but the village had fallen on hard times since then. War had passed through recently. Burned houses and maimed men made that plain. Even so, there were signs of life. Industry. Women gutted eels and sold glistening trout on the roadside, their voices echoing through the damp air. Children played in the dirt, and dogs nosed around for fish guts and scraps.