Page 58 of The Splendor of Fire
Calum changed direction and ran west, jumping down a rocky slope, stumbling forward, but stayed on his feet. The men clustered behind them confused, then regrouped and resumed the chase.
Racing at a pace she wouldn’t have thought humanly possible, he galloped across the moors, increasing a gap of twenty yards over their pursuers. His breath came in rhythmic bursts. In, in, out.
Coming down the last moor, he hefted her onto his other shoulder and turned southeast. She beat on his back and pointed across his face toward the western shore.
He slapped her hand out of his face. “We don’t have time to row a bloody skiff all the way to Dun Ringill!”
Legs pumping, he made his way through a rock formation and down a boat slip, tossing her into the bìrlinn where Iain waited. “GO!”
“OARS!”
They all three pulled on the oars in tandem, creating distance between bìrlinn and the shoreline. The men rushed onto the slip and arrows sank into the wood of the boat.
Iain put one hand on her head and shoved her to the deck. “ Stay down, ya mad wooman. Let’s hope they don’t hit the sail.”
After two minutes of rowing a mighty wind raked up over the sea and Iain loosed the sheets, the bìrlinn racing away through the waves.
Calum hauled her up until she was eye level with him. “What onearth were you thinking? You nearly got yourself and us killed! I knew you were up to something when you dropped the argument this evening instead of pressing and pressing me like you had for weeks.”
She pushed him away and began signing, furious that once again everyone wanted her to digest what they wanted but wouldn’t listen to her voice.What was I supposed to do? You wouldn’t help me when I asked!
Iain steered the boat speeding at broad reach. “Aye. He wouldnae help you cos ye wanted tae disobey orders. Orders! Does tha’ word mean anaethin to ye, wooman?”
She moved in front of Iain, signing in front of his face so she couldn’t be ignored.Not when Niall MacKinnon is knocking at me door for hours every night and trying to break in on the nights he’s in a bad mood! What am I supposed to do? Let him in? I needed a distraction.
They looked at each other and Calum threw up his hands.
Iain groaned. “Noo hoo are we supposed tae argue with tha’?”
Calum shook his head. “I dinnae ken, but Chief MacLean’s going to be furious.”
Furious? Why?
Iain burst with indignation. “Because ye didnae follow orders! As we’ve been sayin’! Are ye no’ listenin’? Ye need yer ears cleaned oot?”
But I did it. I took down the siege engine. A siege engine meant for D-U-N-V-E-G-A-N.
“We dinnae know it was for Dunvegan, we are just goin’ oan yer word!”
Hurt cramped her heart and she was unable to toss his words aside like a man might have done.What was it for then, Sea? It weren’t for sending a man across the country by way of air travel. What other keep named D-U-N-V-E-G-A-N is on Skye? A keep owned by a chief who doesn’t care anything about the Wolf and is friends with the Beithir.
Cowed, Iain held his tongue.
Calum breathed out hard and plonked down on a bench. “The siege engine went up in a huge ball of fire. You should have seen it. Lit up the whole area. Then before you knew it she had taken out every tent and tree on Sleat.”
Moira took the seat beside Calum and shook a curl out of her eyes.My bucket was leaking.
Iain spluttered, then chortled, then broke into hysterical laughter. “Yer doolally. Carryin’ a leaky bucket o’ pitch around a camp o’ three hundred caterans—wi’ open flame and fire aboot— climbin’ their siege engine.”
Calum drew his brow down trying to give them both a stern look. “It isnae funny. She coulda been killed. …Although I didnae expect that whoosh, and for the fire to shoot down a row of tents like that. Like a dragon had just flown overhead.”
Iain secured the sheets. “Nae. No’ a dragon.” He made her little beak with his fingers, opening and closing it. “A wee Birdy.”
Chapter 17
DUN RINGILL CASTLE - JULY 5, 1385
Léo woke early in his old bed, in the garret room at the very top of Dun Ringill. As he put his feet to the rough wooden floor, he half expected to see Maman open the door and tell him it was time to begin lauds. He’d slept hard, harder than he had in more than a year and a half, comforted by the old familiar smells and the weight of the quilt his mother had stitched for him when he was not yet born.
