She should not follow. She wore too few garments and, as the sky had clouded over, could barely see her way. But the hound’s behavior worried her, and a bad feeling rose from the ground upward.
“Wen? Wait for me.”
A dark gray hound was not easy to follow on a dim night. He’d stopped growling, so she could not track him by the sound. She caught mere glimpses. A hint of fur, the plume of his great tail.
They went down the path to the shore and bore right along where the men worked to repair their watercraft and sometimes gathered to drink. It grew cooler as she met the air off the water, and she shivered.
With both cold and foreboding.
Wen stopped so suddenly, she almost fell over him. He began to whine and nose about the supplies stacked along the shore above the waterline. Piles of skins and bent hazel for making curraghs. Spars and sails.
“Foolish hound, what is it? Come awa’ back to bed.”
Wen ran back to her before darting forward, his message clear. Dread flooded through her and pooled in her gut. She stood and listened but could hear nothing besides the hiss of the waves and the tumbling of the pebbles.
We are like two o’ these pebbles cast up on the shore.
She moved behind the stacks of broken wood, trying to spare her bare feet as much as she could. Wen whined and snuffled around a dark shape lying there.
Bradana swore, invoking the gods, for perhaps it was a prayer.
He lay in a heap, huddled on his side, but she knew him. Even before she touched him, she did. In an instant, she was on her knees and sweeping the hair out of his face.
Blood. The first thing she saw. A sob rose to her throat even as she sought to turn him over onto his back so she might get a better look.
“Help me.” A definite prayer now. “Help me help him.”
Wen heard and came to her assistance. Between them, they nudged Adair over onto his back. Bradana caught her breath.
Blood on his forehead and in his hair. His face had been battered. She could see little more but did not doubt his body had suffered similar treatment.
Two of them against one—or more of them, if Toren and Kerr had enlisted the help of their friends. Drunk, no doubt.
“Adair? Can ye hear me?”
No response. She clasped one of his hands and lifted it. The fingers were also battered and bloody. He’d given as good as he got. Mayhap, she hoped, the connection between them would recall him from wherever he’d gone.
But nay. No response yet. Was he breathing? Dead?
She leaned close. A hint of breath fanned her cheek. “Adair, please.”
What to do? She certainly could not lift him or drag him up the slope. To try might cause further injuries. She needed to go for help, even though everything within her protested leaving him.
“Wen, guard.”
She scrambled up, her intention to run back up to the dun. She thought better of it, though. Adair’s own men were closer.
She ran along the shore, no longer noticing the bite of the cold air or the pebbles against her feet. Adair’s men were camped along by their boat. She found them sleeping soundly.
“Come,” she called, and they sat up, groggy. “Your master is hurt. He needs ye.”
They followed her back along the shore, with her explaining breathlessly as they went.
“He’s been waylaid and beaten. Did ye hear naught?” Such a struggle would not have been silent.
“Nay, mistress.”
Wen stood over Adair, who now lay sprawled on his back like a man slain. Indeed, Bradana had to bend down and once more assure herself he still breathed.
