“Nay, lass,” he said softly. “My place is here.”
As he turned and walked away, the fear in Molly’s gut turned to desperate anger. She scrambled onto the quayside, ran after him, and grabbed his arm.
“What are you doing?” she cried, pulling him around to face her. “You can’t go back up there!”
Conall’s gaze was hard “I have to. I canna just leave the warriors to be slaughtered. Take the people to safety.” He nodded to the boat where Fiona was calling orders and trying to get everyone settled. “I will find you.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
He turned and ran off into the night. Molly watched until he was out of sight before turning back to the boat and clambering aboard. It felt like a piece of her heart went with him.
She turned her attention to her passengers. The deck of theMermaidwas crowded with people crammed cheek-by-jowl. The boat had not been built to carry this many and would have been hard pressed to accommodate fifteen people safely. There must be at least four times that many crammed onto theMermaid’s deck right now. As a result, the boat sat dangerously low in the water and it wouldn’t take much to capsize it.
Oh hell. How was she going to get everyone out of here safely?
She took hold of the tiller and turned the boat away from the dock and out into the bay. Fiona stood at the prow, gazing back at Lanwick, the din of fighting echoing across the dark water. She turned to look at Molly, her expression hard. “Can ye get us out of here?”
Molly’s gaze skipped over the terrified villagers huddled on the deck. She tightened her jaw and met Fiona’s stare. “I can.”
If there was one thing Molly knew how to do, it was piloting a boat full of passengers—although never this many and never with this level of overcrowding.
“Listen up!” she shouted at her passengers now. “We are getting out of here but it means we have to pass through the inlet. High tide is ebbing, so it’s going to be tricky in the dark. We won’t be able to carry any lanterns or the raiders will be able to see us. We are gonna have to go silent and dark. Once we reach the inlet, I’ll need a few of you to help me navigate. Any volunteers?”
A couple of oldsters raised their arms—old fishermen by the look of them—and Molly guessed they’d know their way around a boat.
“Good.” She pointed at them in turn. “You, take the port side, you, take the starboard. I’ll need you to call directions if we get too close to the rocks.”
The men scrambled to their positions. “Aye, captain.”
Fiona left her place at the rail and came over. The chief looked pale and worried. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes,” Molly replied. “You can keep them calm and quiet. We’re sitting low in the water so we have to go slow and steady. Try to keep everyone as still as possible. Once we are through the inlet and out on the open sea, it might get choppy. Do you know somewhere safe we can go?”
The other woman nodded. “A few miles down the coast is our nearest rendezvous point. A cove where we can put in. We have several pre-arranged points in case the worst should happen.” Her expression darkened. “I never thought it would though. Not like this.”
She gazed back at Lanwick. There were fires burning in places and the sound of fighting still carried over the water. It was Molly’s turn to squeeze the other woman’s arm.
“They will be all right,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as Fiona. “Conall will make sure of it.”
“Aye,” Fiona replied, giving Molly a weak smile. “He will. He’s a good man.”
I know,Molly thought. She turned to watch the dwindling village.Be safe,she thought.Please be safe.
The boat moved slowly across the bay. The tide was ebbing fast and Molly had to fight against it as she directed them towards the dark slash in the surrounding cliffs that indicated the inlet. With a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and took hold of the tiller. The boat slowly began to turn towards the inlet, the cliffs on either side looming up like giants ready to swallow them.
“Steady as she goes,” she muttered to herself.
The fishermen on either side started calling out directions.
“Hard port!”
“Rocks to starboard!”
Molly threw her weight into the tiller, moving it this way and that as she tried to keep the boat from getting too close to the rocks. The waves were choppy and dark, and the high cliffs cut out most of the moonlight, making the darkness almost absolute. Fiona and the villagers remained deathly silent, their tension filling the boat like a storm cloud.
Molly peered into the darkness, eyes straining for hazards, ears straining for any change in the sound of the waves that might indicate rocks or other hidden dangers. The boat crept forward, the only sound the creaking of the timbers and the slap of water against the hull. As they moved, Molly’s heart beat a staccato rhythm in her chest. One wrong move and they would all be dashed against the rocks. Drowning was not a nice way do die. She clenched her teeth and focused, yelling instructions to her helpers and moving the tiller a fraction whenever they got too close to the cliffs.
