He waved Madeleine over. She eyed Callum and Cian curiously, a slight wariness in her face, but no fear.
Deryn cleared his throat. “Madeleine, I would like to introduce you to Laird Callum Sutherland and Lord Cian Sutherland. My lords, this is Madeline Green.”
“An honor to meet ye,” Callum said. “Deryn has told us of yer plight and where ye came from.” At the expression of surprise and sudden fear that crossed Madeleine’s features, Callum held up a placating hand. “Ye have naught to fear from us, my lady. Nor aught to hide. We are both well acquainted with Irene MacAskill and with time travel.”
Madeleine opened her mouth and then closed it again. “You are?”
Cian looked around, his big hand resting on the hilt of the sword “We’re wasting time,” he growled. “We have to get moving.”
“Moving? What do ye mean?” Deryn asked. He didn’t like the tone of Cian’s voice. He looked between Callum and Cian. “What’s going on here? Why have the two of ye come yerselves? And brought so many armed men?”
“Where is the boy?” Cian asked Madeleine.
“The boy?”
“MacKay’s boy. Rory.”
Madeleine bridled at bit at this. “Myson is off playing with friends over at their croft.”
Cian cursed under his breath. “Then we need to go there. Now. Woman, ye will ride with me. Deryn, ride with Callum.”
Deryn moved to stand in front of Madeleine protectively. “We aren’t going anywhere until ye tell us what is going on.”
Callum and Cian shared a look. “When we received yer message,” Callum said, “we began looking into what ye’d told us about Rodric MacKay. It has been a long time since Irene MacAskill brought somebody back from the future and the fact that there is a child involved is highly unusual. Brayden sent spies into MacKay’s inner circle and what they reported back was very unsettling. It seems there is more to this man than any of us suspected.
There have been rumors for years, rumblings of something happening within the ranks of the Disinherited. Those rumors suggest the coming of a leader like no other, a leader that will lead them to the glory they’ve chased for so long. We now believe that leader is Rodric MacKay. The fact that he is able to open a portal through time suggests that not only is he a high-ranking member of the Disinherited, but that he has the power of theUnseelie Fae behind him. Brayden’s spies were able to discover that whatever Rodric MacKay is planning, it centers around his son. He has been tearing up the countryside searching for him.” Callum’s stern gaze fixed on Madeleine. “That is why we’ve brought so many warriors. We need to escort ye both to Dun Saith where we can protect ye.”
Madeleine went pale. “Oh my God. Does he know where we are?”
Her voice rang with panic. Deryn laid his hands on her shoulders. “Look at me,” he said. “I willnae let anything hurt Rory, do ye hear? I willnae let anything hurt either of ye.”
He’d lost his first love to the violence of other men. He would die before he would lose his second.
Maddy nodded although the fear didn’t leave her eyes.
“Good,” Deryn said. “Now let’s go get Rory.”
Cian scooped Madeleine up and settled her on the saddle behind him whilst Deryn rode with Callum. Mara trotted along beside them as they left the farm, taking the valley track towards Darla and Craig’s croft.
Unease settled deep into Deryn’s bones. He had known that there was more to this story, of course. He had known that Madeleine, Rory, and Rodric MacKay were somehow tangled together into a knot that involved the Fae and time travel and a plot that he had yet to understand, but he had hoped that by passing it on to the Order of the Osprey, himself, Madeleine and Rory would be left out of it.
That had been a fool’s hope, he realized now. The moment Irene MacAskill had appeared in his life, he should have known that he could not outrun whatever fate had in store for him.
“Someone’s coming,” Callum announced, pulling his horse to an abrupt halt.
Deryn craned his neck to see over the man’s shoulder. A figure was running through the trees towards them.
It was Darla.
She looked ragged and desperate, her face pale, her hair sticking to her face with sweat, twigs and leaves stuck to her clothes.
Swinging his leg over the horse’s back, Deryn jumped to the ground and strode towards his friend. She collapsed into his arms.
“Thank the Lord I found you,” she gasped. Her chest was heaving as though she had run all the way and her knuckles were white where her hands gripped Deryn’s fiercely.
“What happened, Darla?”
“Craig tried to stop them but there were too many even for him! We never saw them coming until they were right on us!”
