Dawn of the Golden Promise (37 page)

Jan Martova looked at him, then drew his right leg up slightly to tap his boot.

Sandemon nodded. “Go now! We will follow as soon as we can.”

Driven by desperation, Finola searched and found deep within herself a semblance of self-control, a thread of sanity that still held. Forcing her voice above the cacophony in the stables—the horses' frantic pounding and whinnying, Gabriel's relentless weeping—she swallowed down her own fear and loathing in an attempt to reason with the man who held the knife to her throat.

“Please…please, don't do this,” she ventured, cringing at the trembling she could hear in her voice. “You'll be caught, don't you see? My husband and his man will be back any moment…and there are others…you can't possibly hope to get away with this!”

To her dismay, he laughed at her. Whipping her around to face him, he held her with one arm about her waist. He pressed close to her, unbearably close, bringing the knife so near she could smell the metal of the blade.

“Your husband the cripple will stop me, is that it? And what will he do, run me down with his wheelchair?” Again he laughed, an ugly explosion that split the torn mouth even more.

Behind her, Gabriel wailed louder.

“Shut up, I told you! Just shut up!”

In his rage, he suddenly threw Finola off, giving her a hard shove toward Aine and Gabriel. “You quiet him down! I mean it, or so help me, I'll cut his throat before I even start on you!”

Finola's shoulder slammed into the wall. Stunned, she sank down beside her weeping child, reaching for him and drawing him up against her heart as she tried to comfort him.

The warmth of Gabriel's small body gave Finola a strength she wouldn't have believed possible. She began to stroke his hair and croon to him in the Irish, pressing his face against her body. In no time her bodice was wet with his tears, though his muffled cries grew slightly less frenzied.

The man came to stand over them, legs spread, knife held blade up. He watched them for another moment.

Abruptly, he turned his attention to Aine. Without warning he grabbed her and hauled her up by one arm. She screamed, and he swore at her, raising the knife in warning.

Dismayed, Finola saw Aine's self-control snap.

The girl twisted and bucked like a wild mare, kicking frantically at the man's legs, shrieking and flailing her arms as she tried to fight him off.
“Leave me alone!”

“You little alley cat! You're not worth the trouble! I'll be done with you now!”

With the knife clutched in one hand, he seized Aine's throat with the other, shaking her as if she were nothing more than an empty sack of feed.

Finola stumbled to her feet, still holding Gabriel in her arms, pressing his face against her shoulder so he could not see what was happening.

Her mind froze. She felt weak, dazed, as if none of this were real. The stables seemed to recede from her view, dissolving into a mist. The sounds of the anxious horses faded, and even her son's heart-wrenching sobs waned. Shadows rose, darkening everything about her, until the only thing that seemed real was the madman and his victim.

It was almost as if she had stepped back through the years and stood watching herself. She had been scarcely older than Aine the first time a man had attacked her, still little more than a girl when the second assault came—from the monster who now held Aine captive.

Suddenly, reality came rushing back, with all its ugliness and clamor and mind-crushing terror. In front of her, Aine was pummeling her attacker with her fists in an attempt to free herself.

The man thrust the girl back and slapped her hard across the face. She screamed in pain. The assailant began to taunt her with the knife, pulling it back, then thrusting it closer.

Somewhere inside Finola, something snapped. The fear that only a moment before had been close to paralyzing her now vanished. In its place rose an anger she had never known, a rage so fierce, so intense, that the very force of it threatened to whip her into a frenzy.

Her ears drummed with the beat of her wildly racing pulse. She felt lightheaded, weightless, yet at the same time sensed a power welling up in her that had not been there before.

Her eyes swept her surroundings for a weapon and locked on a piece of harness with brass fittings carelessly looped over Pilgrim's stall.

She set Gabriel to the ground against the wall with his back toward Aine and her lunatic assailant. Immediately the boy looked around and reached for her, renewing his wailing.

Everything inside Finola longed to scoop him up and try to flee the stables with him, but she could no more leave Aine to face this horror alone than she could have abandoned her son. Resisting his pitiful cries, she told him firmly in the Irish that he must stay where he was, that he must not move from this spot, no matter what. The child cowered into the corner, still crying.

Yanking the piece of harness off the door of the stall, Finola rushed the madman from behind. She went after her nemesis like a fury, using the harness as a whip, flogging him across the back with as much force as she could muster, which was considerable. She screamed as she drove into him, turning years of suppressed rage and pain into a battle cry. Like one of the ancient warrior-queens, she brandished her weapon against her old enemy.

The victim had become the attacker.

The house was now in sight, but they were still far enough away that Louisa was again tempted to sit down beside the road to have a rest. Only the thought that she could soon remove her shoes and soak her feet in a nice warm bucket of water kept her going without complaint.

Beside her, Lucy was huffing as if they'd been walking the entire day without respite.

The wolfhound had pulled ahead a bit, though every so often he would slow his gait and come back, prancing and circling them as if to urge them on.
“Can't you go any faster?”
he seemed to be saying.

He was clearly agitated, unusually fidgety. During the past few minutes Louisa had accelerated her own pace—not to humor the wolfhound, though his anxiety
did
unnerve her, but more because her own apprehension had continued to heighten. Her growing uneasiness was out of proportion, given the fact that it seemed to have no basis, but that did nothing to alleviate the dread. Now
she
was falling prey to Lucy Hoy's infamous superstitions.

She glanced over at Lucy, and saw that the woman had her face set straight ahead, toward Nelson Hall, and was taking the road at as fast a stride as her short legs would allow. If Lucy sensed Louisa's look, she didn't return it.

“We will be home soon,” Louisa said somewhat breathlessly.

Lucy gave a nod. With her eyes still set on the house, she began to walk even faster. “I think we must hurry, Sister,” she said. “See, even the wolfhound knows we must hurry.”

Louisa looked at her, then at Fergus, who indeed had pulled ahead and was taking the road at a much faster gait. Abruptly, he stopped and turned, the uncannily intelligent eyes watching them. He barked once, then again, with an air of impatience and frustration.

After studying them for another second or two, Fergus seemed to make a decision. He barked once more, turned, and broke into a furious run toward the house.

Louisa had never panicked easily, indeed seldom panicked at all. But she panicked now. Seized by an icy shudder, she ignored her sore, burning feet, gathered her skirts, and began to run. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lucy falter for only an instant before following her lead.

28

What brings death to one
Brings life to another.

IRISH PROVERB

T
aken completely off guard by the unexpected attack, the man tossed Aine from him and spun around to face Finola. The knife fell when he pushed Aine away.

Finola's eyes went to the blade, but her courage faltered when she saw his expression. A look of utter amazement exploded into a spasm of murderous rage. He crouched, hunching his shoulders and thrusting his head forward like a mad bull about to charge.

Finola gave him no time. She swung the harness as hard as she could at his head.

He threw up his hands to protect his face, lost his balance, and went down on one knee. It took him a moment to recover, and in that time Finola rushed him again with the harness.

The brass buckle at the end of the leather smacked his cheekbone, cracking the skin. Blood spurted, adding a crimson trail to his skin's furious red flush.

He shrieked with pain. Down on both knees now, he roared an oath at her. He scrambled to his feet, covering his wounded cheek with one hand.

Finola saw his furtive gaze sweep the ground nearby. He was looking for the knife.

She slanted a look at Aine. Conscious but obviously dazed, the girl lay on her side, knees drawn up to her chin like a babe, rubbing her throat with one hand.

The blade lay within an arm's length of her.

“Aine—the knife!”
Finola screamed.
“Get the knife!”

The girl stared at her with a disoriented look, her eyes dull and blank.

Finola shouted again, and this time the warning seemed to register. But it was too late. Even as Aine uncoiled herself and scooted sideways to retrieve the knife, the man lunged for it and grabbed it up.

He turned back toward Finola, his face contorted, his eyes flaming.

Within a fraction of a second, her mind clicked through three decisions: she would not, could not, run and leave the children. She would kill the madman if she could, rather than endure for the second time his hideous abuse. But if she failed, she would not resign herself to death and make it easy for him. She would fight him to the end.

He came at her then, his face cut and bleeding, his lips pulled back over his teeth, his eyes blazing. He was sweating, panting, cursing with every breath. He was no longer even partially sane, but had degenerated to something savage, a primal beast driven entirely by blind, mindless rage.

He had recovered from her attack and was fast and surefooted again, with the quick, instinctive movements of a wild animal in deadly combat. Finola had lost all the advantage of surprise, and she was tiring. Her throat burned, and her chest hammered with pain from exertion and terror.

But something had also been released in her, some instinct so ancient, so fundamental, that it fueled and energized her, equipping her for the conflict. At this moment in time, she was no longer a victim, but simply a woman, a woman fighting with every part of her being, with her very life, to save her loved ones.