Page 63

Rogene said, “Won’t it interfere with you becoming a nun?”

Catrìona gave her a hard look, no less steel in her eyes than in her brother’s. “I have only one chance to save my brother, who protected me my whole life.”

Raghnall gave Rogene a dagger. “Use it if necessary,” he said.

She took it with a shaking hand. While Raghnall turned back and led the men down the slope covered in grass and bush, Catrìona picked up two thick sticks. “I’d still like to spare lives and just knock them unconscious if I can.” She handed one to Rogene and they began climbing down the slope.

As planned, they appeared silently and calmly, as though they belonged there. There were no battle cries, no commotion. Claymores and daggers were in the sheaths in the folds of their cloaks. Gravel crunched under Rogene’s feet as she stepped onto the beach. The wind was fresh and brought the sharp, salty scent of the sea. Seagulls squawked, flying high above. The beach was filled with voices of the men throwing sacks and barrels and loading the cart.

Raghnall’s men blended into the lines of those carrying and throwing things. They got a few surprised glances, but, as Raghnall said, the castle and the village were big enough so that not everyone knew each other and there were enough new warriors circulating around. Raghnall had said they would just assume more manpower had come to help.

Rogene’s hair was done in a braid and hidden under her hood. She could pass as a boy or a young man, perhaps, at the first glance. Catrìona might attract attention with her dress, but so far, she talked to one of the workers by the cart without alerting anyone.

Rogene stepped onto the jetty and into the line of the warriors who passed sacks with clothes to one another.

Once everyone had blended in and was carrying and throwing things, they awaited Raghnall’s signal. Rain hammered against Rogene’s hood. Wet cold crept into her bones. She was shivering—no doubt as much from adrenaline as from the cold. Was she really about to kill someone? Take someone’s life?

Was she ready to do it for the man she’d known for such a short time and only slept with once?

A cuckoo called. Cu–ckoo, cu–ckoo. Cu–ckoo, cu–ckoo.

Rogene’s heart drummed against her rib cage. She caught a roll of cloth thrown to her and passed it, then laid her hand on the stick she had tucked into the belt of her tunic. A couple of men raised their heads, probably realizing that it was weird to hear the call of a cuckoo in the middle of a rainstorm.

Then, a moment later, came the third and final call.

Cu–ckoo, cu–ckoo.

She wished they were allowed a battle cry—one would really help her. But even without it, she turned and hit the warrior who stood with his back to her. Muffled moans of pain went through the jetty, and the sounds of bodies hitting the wooden surface. Waves splashed as sacks and men fell into water. The man Rogene had just hit slowly turned to her, his eyes wide in surprise and anger.

“Why did ye do that for?” he growled. Then, seeing the battle starting around him, his face fell and he reached for his sword. Fear hit Rogene in a cold wave. She grabbed the stick with both hands and hit him again right in the face. To her surprise, he lost his balance and fell into the river.

She gasped. But she had no time to ponder the man’s fate, as another man swung his sword at her. She ducked, out of sheer luck, and felt the backsplash of raindrops in her face as the blade passed an inch away from her nose. She retrieved her dagger and ducked again as he swung his sword a second time. Someone was screaming for help, but the waves were crashing hard now, and the storm had hit the beach in earnest. Someone who was fighting behind Rogene’s attacker fell and hit a barrel standing on the jetty. It rolled and tumbled the man off his feet, and he fell between two ships, hitting his head against one of them. The river swallowed him.

Surprisingly, the battle was dying out. Only a few enemy warriors were still wielding their weapons, and soon the last of the men had been thrown into the water or killed. Rogene stood panting and looking around. Raghnall came to her.

“Ye all right, wee Black Fox?” he said, touching her shoulder.

She swallowed through her contracting throat. “Yeah,” she said. “I think so.”

She knew she must be in shock. The realization that she’d just killed a man roamed somewhere in the back of her mind, ready to hit her like that black storm. But she didn’t let it. She couldn’t afford to yet, because she knew she might fall apart from guilt. And there was no time for that.

She had to save Angus. She had to focus.

“Good,” Raghnall said. “These men dinna have special clothes, and the storm will cover us. No one will look at our faces under the hoods.” He turned around and called louder, “Everyone grab something and let’s go.”

Breathing heavily, Rogene hid the dagger and the stick under her cloak and grabbed two rolls of wool. She passed by a few dead men who lay on the jetty. Pools of blood mixed with the heavy rain and poured into the river. She shuddered and kept looking before her, trying to ignore them. When she found Catrìona, surprisingly, the woman was much more together than she. Her dagger was bloodied, and her eyes shone with a fury that Rogene wouldn’t have believed could exist in the sweet young woman.

“Are you all right?” Rogene asked.

With a shaking hand, Catrìona wiped her weapon against her skirt, nodded, and walked with the men up the narrow path towards the castle.

The cart wouldn’t come up the path, the wheels struggling through the slippery mud, and the men simply left it on the beach. Everyone had packs, barrels, casks, and sacks in their hands. There were no cries of victory and no sense of it—not yet. They’d only gotten themselves an opportunity of a free pass into the castle.

“Did we lose anyone?” she asked Catrìona.

The girl nodded solemnly. “We lost two good men. Another is wounded.”

Rogene’s heart dropped. “I’m sorry.”