The Wolfe (111 page)

And that would put them on foot in
130 pounds of battle armor. Not exactly a delightful thought.

***

The door to Jordan and Caladora’s
prison flew open and slammed back against the wall. Instantly awake, the women startled
violently to see Malcolm rushing toward them.

Jordan was seized with fear. She
knew he had changed his mind and had come to rape or kill her. When he grabbed
her arm, she fought against him fiercely.

“Stop it, Jordan!” he ordered her. “Quit
fighting me.”

“Let me go!” she shrieked.

“Listen to me!” He yanked at her
arm, hard, and she slowed her struggle. Her eyes were wide with fear as she stared
back at him, leaning back against Caladora for support.

He took a deep breath. “We are under
attack,” he said quickly. “I have got to get ye out of here, both of ye.”

“What are ye saying?” Jordan was
confused and frightened.

“The English are attacking our walls
at this moment,” he hissed impatiently. “Dunbar will be coming for ye and ye
must hide. Caladora, ye come, too.”

Still disoriented, Jordan allowed
him to pull her off the bed and she, in turn, grabbed Caladora to pull her
along.

“English?” she repeated, dazed. “William
has come.”

“Aye, yer husband sent his troops
for ye,” Malcolm nodded. “We expected them, but not so damn soon. Dunbar will
be coming for ye to use ye as a bargaining chip or God knows what else. Come on
now.

He moved quickly to the open door
and, glancing down the corridor nervously to make sure it was clear, pulled the
women along with him.

The hallway was dank and dimly lit.
Jordan and Caladora followed obediently, wondering where he was taking them.
The man who had betrayed their kin yet they had no choice but to trust him;
Dunbar would surely vent his rage on them if they stayed in their room.

Against her better judgment, Jordan
had to trust him and hoped fervently that he was not leading them to slaughter.

The corridor dead-ended and Jordan
began to open her mouth when Malcolm suddenly drove his shoulder into the wall
and with a slight crack, an invisible panel opened up about an inch. Dust and
debris scattered as he gave the panel another couple of pushes to make it wide
enough for the ladies to past through.

“Go on, go in.” he ordered.

Jordan, clutching Caladora’s hand,
obeyed silently and stepped forward into pitch black.

Malcolm followed and shoved the
panel back into place. Taking the lead, he groped the wall of the passage for
there was no light whatsoever. The floor slanted downward dramatically and
Jordan nearly fell twice. Eventually the floor leveled out and they walked like
blind souls for several minutes before they felt the ground slant upward again.
Digging in their heels to get some traction, Malcolm half-pulled Jordan and
Caladora up the grade until it evened out.

“Now, stay here,” he told them. “I
shall be back.”

It was still black as tar and they could
not see their hands before their faces.

“Where are ye going?” Jordan
demanded with a bit of panic.

“To find a torch,” he told her as if
she were a five-year-old. “Just dunna move and ye’ll be fine. I shall be right
back.”

Clinging to one another, Jordan and
Caladora didn’t waver so much as an inch until Malcolm’s footsteps signaled his
return. Jordan caught a couple of sparks in the darkness as he struck the flint
and then, suddenly, there was the faint light of a torch.

As their eyes grew accustomed to the
darkness, Jordan could see that they were in a room of solid stone and mortar.
There were various sacks and bits of other debris strewn about, but for the
most part it looked as if it hadn’t been used in years.

“What is this place, Malcolm?” she
demanded softly.

He was adjusting the torch. “Abner
and I used to play here when we were lads, pretending it to be our hide-out,”
he said. “‘Tis a forgotten room in the wall of McKenna Keep.”

“We’re in the wall?” Jordan
repeated, awed.

“Aye,” Malcolm nodded. “The both of
ye should be safe in here.”

“But there is no way out, other than
the way we came.” Caladora insisted suddenly. “How do we get out of here?”

Malcolm pointed to a small square
hole in the wall that, upon closer inspection, looked to be an endless tunnel. “That
leads outside the wall to a secret exit in the gully,” he told them. “But the
exit is blocked from the outside. I am going to go and unblock it now.”

Before either woman could reply, he
was already moving pass them. Jordan reached out and grabbed his arm before he
could leave them entirely.

“Why, Malcolm?” she demanded softly.
“Why are ye doing this?”

He glared at her, but it was a
façade. “Just be grateful I am not leaving ye to the soldiers.”

She nodded her head. “I am. But I
want to know why ye’re doing this for me.
For us
.”

His mouth went into a flat line. How
could he explain it to her? He’d spent all of his time and energy hating his
family up until this moment. His urgency to save Caladora and Jordan was
greater than he had ever known. There was virtually nothing he could do for
Matthew, Cord, or Ian in the dungeons. But he could help his two helpless
female cousins.

“I dunna know,” he said truthfully,
his hard veneer peeling away. “Mayhap I…I have realized what I have done to my
mother’s family. Ye’ve never done me any harm, either one of ye.” He shrugged
in frustration. “I just dunna know. Dunna ask me anymore than that.”

He was gone, leaving them with the
torch and a good deal of confusion.

***

The drawbridge was charcoal.
Anything else that had been wood and had the misfortune to be close enough to
the flaming bridge was now aflame as well, and that included shelters atop the
wall that were now going up in smoke.

Pleased that the wall was beginning
to burn, William was also concerned that the fire would spread to the castle
before he could get Jordan out. Urged on by a new sense of gravity, he managed
to fight his way through the Scot lines and reach the moat. Paris and Jason
were close behind him.

“What now?” Paris demanded over the
noise of battle.

William looked at the smoking,
gaping hole where the drawbridge had once been and then looked at the moat.
With a cock of his eyebrow, he spurred his horse forward.

“‘Tis only one way to find out how
deep this pit is.” he shouted.

His destrier made it up to his belly
before he could not or would not go any further. William, covered up to his
knees with slimy muck, finally edged the animal out of the water.

“Damn!” he spat. “Where are those
ladders? ‘Tis the only way we will make it across.”

The ladders were not far off. Ranulf
had fifty men working on chopping down saplings and lashing them together with
rope. The first one was nearly finished when Jason came racing back into the
brush bearing William’s demands. With a wave of his arm, Ranulf beckoned twenty
men to carry the ladder to the moat.

‘Twas not an easy task, for they had
to carry the first ladder through several hundred feet of fighting, dying men
before they had a clear enough field to carry it the rest of the way unassaulted.
Paris directed the laying of the ladder, making sure it was secure on both ends
before allowing the first soldier to mount it.

“I will go in first,” William
announced.

Paris cocked his brow. “Not without
me.”

Both men bailed from their
destriers, moving toward the ladders while William yelled out orders for Kieran
to take the field command. Under the cover of the archers firing into the open bailey
to keep the enemy at bay, William and Paris led their men across the makeshift
bridge.

Even with the archer cover, Scot
soldiers awaited them. William had to balance himself and cut down two of them
before he was able to jump from the ladder onto the ground. He felt as if he
were fighting off the entire country of Scotland as Paris and eventually the
other soldiers were able to cross the ladder and support his efforts.

“I am going for the castle!” William
shouted to Paris, who nodded briefly before slicing a Scot soldier in two.

“I shall follow!” he yelled back.

“Nay!” William ordered. “You hold
the bailey. And I do not want prisoners. Kill them all.”

Paris gave him a mildly surprised
glance before nodding to the unusual command. If William wanted everyone dead,
then so be it. But he was damn hesitant to let William go at the castle alone.

“William!” he began over the
shouting.

“Nay, Paris!” William shot back. “You
must stay here.”

Angered but obedient, Paris nodded
again and returned to his battle.

William was fighting his way toward
the structure when a familiar figure caught his eye. Even in the moonlight, he
recognized Malcolm Scott rushing from the castle toward the fight, unaware that
William was stalking his movements. He thought it strange the man had no
weapon, nor any battle armor, but no matter. William was so intent on killing
that he didn’t give a second thought to the fact he was to strike down an
unarmed man.

William’s chest tightened with
hatred and glee, the man was walking right into his own death. He would do now
what he should have done a year ago, and do it with great relish. This kind of
treason deserved nothing less.

Malcolm never saw it coming.
William’s sword cut through the night air at him, slicing into his soft belly
slickly. Malcolm cried out, clutching at his mortal wound even as William
twisted his sword before withdrawing it, a move to insure that Malcolm’s death
would be as painful as possible.

William stood over Malcolm as the
man lay upon the dirt of the bailey, his life’s blood spilling out onto the
cold ground. Malcolm’s eyes bulged with shock and his veins were popping on his
neck as the throes of death swept over him. But even as his vision was fading,
he recognized The Wolf.

“Jo…Jordan….” Malcolm managed to
sputter.

William dropped to his knees beside
the man, grabbing his tunic. “What about Jordan? What have you done to her, you
bastard?”

Malcolm coughed up blood and
innards, the pain unbelievable. “In the gully to the north,” he breathed. “Between
two bushes…there is a boulder…find her….”

The man was dead but William shook him
hard enough to snap his neck. “Goddamn you!” he yelled, his voice cracking. “Goddamn
you, you bastard!”

He thought Malcolm had just
described his wife’s grave. He threw Malcolm to the ground, pounding him with
his fists as blood splattered all over his armor. He was blind with his grief,
aching with hysteria that was claiming him. Behind him, he heard swords clash a
few times and them a cry of pain.

“William!” Paris had fought off a
soldier about to attack William from behind. “William, what is it?”

William grabbed Malcolm’s hair and
slammed the dead man’s head into the earth a couple of times before Paris
grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Damnation, William, what’s wrong?” he
bellowed.

William stumbled to his feet like a
drunkard. “They killed her, Paris. He just told me where to find her body.”

Paris went white as chalk. “God have
mercy,” he breathed. “We’ll go find her right now.”

William was nearly unable to
function without help, but somehow they fought their way back across the
chaotic bailey and climbed back across the ladder.

“Where now?” Paris demanded.

William swung about woodenly, facing
north. “He said in the gully to the north,” he mumbled. “Between two bushes and
a rock.”

Not bothering to find their
destriers, they alternately walked and fought their way north. William was in a
daze, fighting because he had to, every move from automatic and unthinking. He
was so sick in his heart that he would have liked nothing better than to crawl
into a hole somewhere and die. But as soon as that thought crossed his mind, he
remembered Scott and Troy.

He had sons to live for, sons from
Jordan’s womb. God, he could not live without her, but his boys needed him. As
much as he wanted to be selfish and take his own life, he knew he could not
leave his beautiful sons alone in this world. They needed their father.

To the north of the keep was indeed
a wide, secluded gully. William and Paris, followed now by Jason and Michael,
ran headlong into the trees and down the incline, sliding and tripping as they
descended to the bottom. There were trees aplenty surrounding them and William
kept his dulled senses alert for two bushes and a boulder.

God, he had to find her and hold
her. He wasn’t sure if he could deal with seeing her ravaged corpse, but he had
to find her. Anguish and agony threatened to explode in his chest. Pain such as
he had never known meant to cripple him, but he fought against it as he
searched for his wife’s grave.