“They are burning the settlement. Can ye no’ hear?”
“By all the gods! What about you?”
“I will stay and fight.”
But when they tried to wake her mam, she would not rouse. And without being on her feet, she could not flee.
Liadan could hear the fighting now, sword on sword and sword on shield. Cries from hoarse throats, women’s shrieks, the wails of children.
Ardahl scooped Mam up in his arms and said to her and Flanna, “Come.”
As soon as they stepped outside, Liadan could see the flames. They came from the west side of the settlement, as did most the screams, and leaped garishly into the quiet night. Thatch aflame. Was that the chief’s hall?
Other people moved through the half-lit dark around them. A woman, their neighbor Mistress MacCade, asked, “What is happening?”
“Attack.”
Ardahl led them, a small band of would-be refugees, in absolute silence through the edge of the settlement. So terrified was Liadan, she could barely breathe.
Flanna clutched her hand and Ardahl carried Mam, and not till they were well away from the hut did she realize she’d brought nothing else away with her. Just those she loved.
They headed for the midden, backed by a stand of trees that led away up the hill. Ardahl cradled Mam like a child, his sword—Conall’s sword—in one hand. Every time another shadowy form joined them, he turned until he determined it was one of their own. Ready to fight for them.
“What is happening?” asked everyone who joined them. Several old men. A knot of women.
“Hush,” Ardahl told them all. “On your life!”
They slipped like so many shadows through the dark. Behind them, a nightmare raged. Fire. Blood. Terror.
The terror accompanied Liadan. Had she ever been more frightened?
When the ground began to slant upward beneath their feet, Ardahl paused. He passed Mam to two of the older men and told them, “Go on up the hill. Hide yourselves there, understand?”
“Aye.”
One of them asked, “Wha’ happened to the guard?”
“Dead, no doubt.”
“Our defenses?”
“Broken.”
Och, by all the gods, what had this night wrought?
Liadan stepped forward and seized both Ardahl’s forearms, one heavily bandaged. “Ye mean to go back?”
“Aye.”
“To fetch your own mam?”
He hesitated. She could not see his eyes in the dark, but by all that was holy, she could feel him.
“To fight.”
“But your mam—”
She was back there. Amid the death and the burning.
