Chapter 38

CRàDH PRISON - SEPTEMBER 28, 1385

O nly fifteen minutes later the door opened. Springing to her feet from where she was lying beside Léo's writing, Moira didn't move fast enough to escape. Cursing herself, she backed up toward the wall as the door banged shut behind Fingon.

"Shall we try again to have a talk about why it is you've become such a thorn in my side?"

She pointed to her lips. What shall I say?

The firelight cast shadows over the bags beneath his eyes, giving him a menacing appearance. He clasped his hands behind his back. No. He wasn't clasping his hands, he was digging something out. Her heart pounded. A dagger.

Behind him, the slat in the door opened without making a sound and she saw Mowbray's familiar face staring back at her.

He signed in front of his face. I'm here.

Signs. He'd learned her language.

Fingon stalked closer, dagger extended between them. "I want you to tell me everything. Why you're working with the Beithir. Why you're spying for him. What you really did with my gold. Where Léo has gone. Tell me everything, Moira."

Mowbray signed. Attack begins soon .

Turning her attention fully to Fingon, she moved her feet apart, just outside her shoulders, and brought her dominant leg slightly forward. She pointed to her lips and slowly shook her head. I'm not Moira.

The statement appeared to disarm Fingon for a few moments and he looked at her, trying to discern her meaning. She bent her knees and bounced softly on her toes. She remembered Beithir's words. Fight to get away. Not to win.

"Who are you then?"

The Bird.

The door banged open .

She flew forward just as Fingon swung the dagger up at her. Using all her might she clung to his weapon arm, and with the other hand she held his body away, bringing her knee into his groin over and over. Moaning, he doubled over, and she pulled his weapon arm forward, driving her hand into his and snatching the dagger from him. In one clean motion she swept the dagger into his back, then turned and ran.

Ahead of her in the corridor, Mowbray unlocked doors and gates. All around her the doors to cells banged open and she suddenly found herself amid dozens of men. She had to get past them.

Looking over her shoulder, she saw Fingon crash through the door of Léo's cell and head toward her, bloody dagger now in hand. Men shoved and pushed her, but she stayed on her feet. Fingon muscled through the crowd, growing closer and closer. Shouts drowned out all thought as the crowd carried her away from the corridor that led to the sea gate and toward another corridor she'd never been down before.

Fingon broke through the circling men and knocked her off her feet just as someone caught her ankle and pulled her out of the horde. Arms lifted her and she was carried along beside a tall, elderly man.

"Come on, lass. Name's Gillie. Remember me?"

There was no time to answer even if she could. Ahead Mowbray ran along, looking back at them and shouting to Gillie, his voice lost among dozens of others. Down three flights of stairs she skittered, colliding with a stone wall. Again, Gillie lifted her to her feet just before Fingon reached her.

Pushing her through a heavy door, she found herself on the wrong side of the island; the water gate that faced Skye was to the south. Dismay filled her. They were on the western edge of the island against the sound.

Waves crashed upon the rocks and swirled around them, and she knew there would be no escape. There was nowhere left to run. In the commotion of hundreds of screaming men, Gillie was shoved to the ground, and the dagger swung toward her.

Instincts sharp, she ducked but was knocked sideways by a fleeing man. Colliding with the ground, she dodged legs and stinking feet. A man stomped on her arm. A rasping cry came to her lips, and she looked desperately at the boulders that created a natural wall around them, helpless to find a way out.

Fingon crashed toward her, shoving men to the right and left. She couldn't get away. Back against the ground, Fingon loomed over her. As if happening in slow movement, the dagger came down just as a man crashed into his arm, and it bounced off a stone to the right of her face. Rolling backward, she got to her feet and sprinted between men trying to climb to a higher point.

If she could make it to the boulders, she could see a better way out. Springing onto the prisoners, she began to climb their backs, finding footholds on shoulders, spines, and buttocks.

Fingon scrambled after her, the dagger sinking into a man to her left as she pulled her legs out of the way. The man screamed and fell backward into the shoving crowd. Getting to her feet, she had only a second to look at the swirling water and the men jumping, and disappearing, beneath the waves.

Nausea gripped her stomach. Black, sucking waves. The kind that carried you out to sea or drowned you.

Fingon stumbled to the top of the boulder wall, his eyes trained on her in bloodthirsty rage. All around her men blocked her path, making it impossible to climb away. Trapped, out of options, and full of fear, she dove into the ferocious black waves.