Warrior's Wrath (The Pict Wars Book 3) Read online

  Shifting the torch to his left hand, Talor shook out a cramping muscle in his right bicep. There would be a full moon out tonight once the black curtain of night drew over the world, but with the snow he would not be able to take advantage of it. Hence, why he had brought a torch.

  Around him the gloaming settled, draining the last of the light from the sky. The snow continued to flutter and swirl, and Luath plowed on. They were not far from where rocky cliffs plunged down to stony beaches and a churning grey sea. However, due to the weather, Talor did not want to ride too close to the edge of them. He’d had to slow his pony, as there were moments when he could not see more than a yard or two ahead.

  A wind gusted in from the north, biting through Talor’s layers of clothing to the warm flesh beneath. He had deliberately dressed for the weather in thick leather breeches, three layers of tunics—one of which was woolen—a leather vest, and heavy fur-lined boots. Nonetheless, the chill drove through the fabric.

  Talor’s breath steamed before him, and he was glad of the pony’s warmth against his legs. Just his luck that tonight looked to be one of the coldest yet of the bitter season. Fortunately, Luath was built for such weather; the hardy pony barely seemed to notice the chill.

  The evening drew on, and a smothering darkness settled. Talor’s world shrank to the guttering glow of his pitch torch, which illuminated the steadily falling snow. Eventually though, Talor reached his destination, guiding Luath down a slope to a pebbly beach.

  Swinging down from the pony’s back, Talor stroked Luath’s neck, his fingers sliding into the stallion’s plush winter coat. “This is where we part ways, lad,” he murmured.

  Luath snorted and nudged Talor, looking for the treats he knew the warrior often carried on him.

  “No carrots, tonight,” Talor replied, his mouth curving into a grim smile. “You’re always thinking of your belly, aren’t you?” He stroked the pony’s ears, his throat constricting.

  The reality of what he was doing fully hit him then.

  He was leaving everything behind. Never again would he gallop Luath over the bare hills of his homeland, the wind stinging his cheeks. Never again would he race his cousin Muin in the summer games, or spar with him in the training ring. He would never hear his father’s low voice or hear his step-mother, Eithni, play the harp again. He would not see his surviving half-sister, Eara, grow up.

  The grip on Talor’s throat tightened.

  Aye, he was turning his back on it all, leaving behind everything he loved. But ever since Bonnie’s death, his world had been shrouded in grey. He had felt like a ghost, residing amongst the living, but not interacting with them.

  Muin and his love, Ailene, had wed just a few days earlier, but although he had been happy for them, he had been barely able to raise a smile. Ailene was also Talor’s cousin, although she was not related to Muin; rather, her and Talor’s mothers had been sisters. Tragically, both women had died young. Talor’s mother had died of ‘the birthing sickness’ just after giving birth to Talor, while Ailene had lost her mother in childhood to a wasting illness.

  Muin and Ailene’s handfasting had been a joyous affair. The whole population of Balintur—where his people had taken refuge over the past months—had celebrated the event with feasting, drinking, and dancing.

  But Talor had stood apart from it all.

  He had known that evening, as he watched Muin and Ailene dance around the fire, that something inside him was broken. The only thing that would fix it was avenging his sister’s death—killing the man who had slain her.

  Thoughts of Cathal mac Calum’s grinning face snapped Talor out of his reverie, chasing away the grief that thoughts of leaving his kin had brought forth.

  Removing Luath’s saddle and bridle, Talor slapped the pony on the rump. He carried no pack, no provisions. He needed none for this journey. Instead, he had brought an arsenal of weapons with him. He wore a quiver and longbow over his back, a sword at his waist, and he had a number of blades strapped to his body. “Time to return to Balintur, lad,” he said, watching the pony toss his head. Luath liked to be free, although the beast hesitated, its dark eyes fixing upon Talor.

  A lump rose in Talor’s throat. “Go now,” he said. “We’ll meet again.”

  Aye, most likely in the afterlife.

  Still, the pony did not move. Instead, it gave a soft whicker, almost as if it sensed his bleak mood.

  “Go!” Talor slapped the stallion on the rump once more, harder this time.

  With a squeal, Luath jumped back, turned, and plowed up the slope, disappearing into the swirling snow.

  Talor watched him go, his throat thickening once more. Luath was a canny pony—he would find his way back to Balintur.

  Enough of this, he chastised himself. It must be done.

  His pitch torch had almost burned out now so he cast it aside. He would brave the rest of the journey without it; he knew the path to the fort from this stretch of shore well. He would not need a torch to light his way.

  Moving blindly along the pebbly beach, finding his way by tracing his fingers along the edges of the boulders that studded the landward side, Talor moved steadily south. It had been difficult at first, without his torch, to see anything at all, but his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. He could see the emptiness to his right—where the sea lay—and sensed the bulk of the rising headland to his left.

  And soon after, he spied a glow of light to the south-east.

  Another grim smile stretched Talor’s mouth. Dun Ringill lay just a short distance ahead.

  Now that he traveled on foot, the cold had dug its claws deep. His toes inside his fur-lined boots were starting to tingle, and Talor buried his fingers under his armpits to keep them warm; he would need feeling in his hands for the next stage in his plan.

  Eventually, the glow up ahead became more defined: a row of fires burning atop the walls lining the fort. Climbing up, his hands and feet sliding over icy rocks, Talor craned his neck. He could just make out the shadow of the broch beyond the walls; its solid, squat shape rising up into the darkness.

  Home.

  Talor’s right hand clenched, moving instinctively to the knife he wore strapped to his right thigh. Those Serpents had taken his home; they had swept in like a plague of locusts, had forced his people out of their fort and claimed it as their own.

  Not for much longer.

  The day after Muin and Ailene’s handfasting, the four chieftains representing the tribes that inhabited The Winged Isle had met. Varar of The Boar had even traveled up from An Teanga to attend the meeting. They had decided that they would launch an attack on Dun Ringill later in the month, once the bitterest of the winter weather had abated.

  Talor had welcomed the news, although he had been torn. He wanted them to attack now, but he also needed to be the one to take Cathal mac Calum down. He did not want anyone else to end his life.

  He longed to hold that shit-weasel’s eye as he twisted the blade.

  That was why he had done this, had left Balintur without a word to anyone. They would have tried to stop him, but he would not be stopped.

  He would taste vengeance. For Bonnie.

  Heart hammering, Talor shifted his gaze from the broch’s dark shadow to the high stacked stone walls that surrounded the fort itself. They would be watched on all sides—all except the seaward wall.

  The fort perched on the edge of a cliff, facing west out to sea. On a fine day it commanded a clear view in all directions. The seaward wall was the fort’s only weakness, although only a reckless or highly skilled climber would attempt to enter Dun Ringill that way.

  Talor grinned. He was both.

  As bairns, he had incited his younger cousin, Muin, into many exploits. One of them had been to climb the seaward wall. It was perilous. One slip, one false move, and you risked tumbling down the cliff and dashing your brains out on the jagged rocks below.

  Still, the two lads had managed the climb a few times—until their fathers discovered thei
r antics. They had both received a sound beating afterward, and had not attempted the climb again.

  Talor’s gaze settled upon the high wall he intended to scale, and he began to edge his way toward the base of it. He moved slowly, deliberately, for the rocks around the base had iced over. This was going to be even more dangerous than he had thought.

  Reaching the wall, Talor peered up. No fire burned directly above him; this was the right spot to climb, for the warriors who were taking the night watch would not be likely to spy an intruder slowly making his way up the wall. Stacked stone was reasonably easy to climb, even with cold-numbed fingers, for there were plenty of finger and toe holds. Nonetheless, the wall was high and would be difficult to scale.

  Jaw set in determination, Talor began to climb.

  He took things slowly, inching up the wall with painstaking care. As a child, he had climbed the wall barefoot, but that was not possible tonight. Moving gradually upward, Talor caught the faint snatches of conversation from warriors atop the wall; there were at least two of them on this side—closer to him than he had first thought. He would have to move fast once he reached the top.

  Breathing slowly, despite the sweat that now poured off him, Talor continued to climb. His fingers and toes where completely numb, his hands and feet aching, and the muscles in his legs, upper arms, and shoulders burned. Yet he did not falter.

  Eventually, Talor scaled the final feet, his fingers grasping around the top edge of the wall. Heaving in a deep breath, he hauled himself up and over, onto the narrow walkway that led around the edge.

  After such a climb, all he wanted to do was collapse and suck in deep breaths of air, while thanking the Gods for watching over him.

  However, there was no time for that—he would have only moments before the guards just a few yards away spotted him.

  Talor dropped into a crouch, unslinging his bow from his back and notching an arrow.

  An instant later a shout split the night air. One of the guards had seen him. A huge figure wrapped in fur barreled along the wall toward Talor. The scrape of iron followed as the warrior unsheathed his sword.

  Talor had only moments until the man would be too close.

  Hissing a curse, Talor drew back his bowstring before loosing an arrow directly at the Cruthini warrior’s exposed neck.

  Chapter Two

  Mor’s Slight

  HE HAD BEEN watching her all evening, and it was starting to grate on Mor’s nerves. The way she was feeling these days, she had little patience for unwanted admirers.

  She knew Tormud wanted her; he had made no secret of it over the past moons. Yet he had grown bold in his attentions of late. Too bold.

  Picking up her cup of ale, Mor took a measured sip. She could feel the heat of the warrior’s stare as she did so, the predatory way he tracked her every movement.

  Heat stirred in Mor’s belly—yet it was not the heat of lust, but of anger.

  Enough.

  Mor shifted her gaze down the table to where the heavy-set warrior lounged, cup of ale in hand. Tormud was at least two decades her elder, yet he was fit and strong, and carried himself with the unconscious arrogance of a man who knew he was still in his prime. His dark hair, cut brutishly short, was peppered with grey, as was the stubble that covered his bullish jaw.

  Tormud’s dark blue gaze was hooded this evening, his expression intense. Despite the chill weather—even the great hearth that burned in the center of the feasting hall could not keep it wholly at bay—the warrior wore a sleeveless leather vest that showed off his muscular arms. Upon his right bicep, he bore a faded blue inked mark of The Boar.

  Tormud mac Alec was not one of the Cruthini. Her people were tall and loose-limbed with ruddy or brown hair, whereas Tormud—like many men of this isle—was shorter and dark-haired.

  “What is it?” Mor growled out the question. She could not stand his staring any longer. Cooped up inside this broch, surrounded by restless and embittered men and women, Mor’s tolerance was on a short leash this evening.

  Tormud had taken to staring at her whenever their paths crossed of late, which was often as they both resided inside the broch. A confrontation between them was long overdue.

  The warrior’s mouth curved into a rare smile. “Isn’t a man allowed to look at a comely lass?”

  “Looking is one thing,” Mor replied. “But staring as if you have just received a new pair of eyes and are trying them out for the first time, is another.”

  Tormud snorted a laugh, before he reached for a jug in the center of the table and refilled his cup. “It is not my fault if your beauty entrances me.”

  Mor went still. She had not expected such frankness. For a few brief moments, she did not know how to respond.

  They sat alone at one of the long tables that lined the feasting hall, close to where glowing lumps of peat burned in the great hearth. A few men and women occupied the hall, although many had already retired to their alcoves for the night. Of late, the mood inside the broch was somber in the evenings, a reminder that things were looking grim indeed for their people.

  Up on the platform behind them, her father and uncle sat together at the chieftain’s table. Her father, Cathal, reclined upon a magnificent oaken chair. The back and armrests had been carved into the likeness of eagles, one of the many reminders that this fort had once belonged to another tribe: The Eagle.

  Cathal was glowering tonight, as he often did these days, while her uncle, Artair, was shaking his head at something his brother had just said. Artair’s once handsome face looked haggard this evening, deep grooves etched into it from the pain that plagued him. He had taken serious wounds to his abdomen and hip during the siege of Balintur, and two moons on was still recovering. His healing had been a slow, tortuous path, and Mor sometimes wondered if her uncle would ever return to his former self.

  Turning her attention from the chieftain’s table, reassured that no one had overheard Tormud’s bold words, Mor frowned at The Boar warrior.

  “This has to stop,” she said, her voice low and firm. “Isn’t it clear that I’m not interested?”

  Tormud shrugged, not remotely chagrined. “No. You’re proud and independent, just how I like my women.”

  His women.

  Tormud had joined her tribe over twenty years earlier, around the time of Mor’s birth. He had taken part in the attack on the Great Wall to the south, which had broken the Caesars’ last seat of power in the lands of the Cruthini. After that he had wed one of her tribe—her aunt. Mor’s aunt Nessa had been a warrior, a fierce woman who had fought in many battles, but who had died in childbirth, taking the bairn with her.

  Tormud had never re-wed, although Mor knew that he had taken plenty of lovers over the years.

  “I repeat, I’m not interested,” Mor said coldly, her fingers tightening around her cup. She thought then of her brother Tamhas. He had never liked Tormud. Unlike Dunchadh, who had been of a more trusting disposition, Tamhas had possessed a watchful, suspicious temperament. Perhaps because of this, he had noted that Tormud was also a man who observed much and said little. Mor shared Tamhas’s view of The Boar.

  Where did Tormud’s allegiances truly lie? Her father trusted the warrior blindly, but she had always wondered if he was right to do so.

  Still watching her with a predatory intensity that was starting to make Mor’s skin crawl, Tormud leaned forward. “Why? Do you think I’m too old for you?”

  Mor took another sip from her cup. “Aye, among other things.”

  “And what are they?”

  Mor tensed. She did not have to explain herself to the warrior, and yet she sensed that unless she spoke plainly, laid it all out before him, Tormud would not cease his attentions.

  Leaning forward and placing her elbows upon the table, Mor met his gaze squarely. “Your looks and character do not move me in the slightest, Tormud. I have no wish to spend time with you, or to be touched by you.”

  Tormud held her gaze, his expression hardening. As she h
ad hoped, her words had angered him. They were rude, although if she had so wished, she could have been ruder. There had been times over the years when she had been forced to rebuff men with her fists or a blade if the need be. She would not hesitate in this case either, if Tormud refused to heed her.

  “You think you’re too good for me, lass,” he said finally, his voice a dangerous rumble. “But you aren’t.”

  Mor shrugged, deliberately goading. “You’ve got that wrong. I simply don’t want you. Is that so difficult to grasp?”

  “A union between you and I could be advantageous to all,” Tormud replied. A muscle bunched in his jaw, yet he was doing an admirable job of keeping his ire in check. “The Boar and The Serpent joined in marriage.”

  Mor’s lip curled. “That mark on your arm is the only thing you have left of the people you forsook,” she pointed out. “You are one of us now … you have been for years. The Boar chieftain would slit your throat, before he would ever welcome you back into his tribe.”

  Tormud snorted. “Varar mac Urcal isn’t so different to his father … he could be persuaded to welcome me back, if it meant an alliance between our peoples.”

  Silence fell between them. Mor frowned, pondering Tormud’s words. They all knew things were not going well for The Serpent. Initially, when they had arrived upon these shores, the campaign had been a success. They had used the element of surprise, and their sheer numbers had crushed any resistance. The Boar stronghold of An Teanga was the first to fall to the invading Cruthini, but Varar mac Urcal had managed to take it back.

  They now stood alone at Dun Ringill.

  “The Boar chieftain isn’t the loner you take him for,” Mor said finally. “He stands with the other chieftains of this isle. He rode to their aid at Balintur, remember?”

  The reminder caused Tormud’s full lips to pucker up, as if he had tasted sour milk. Mor had just reminded him of the advice he had given Cathal earlier in the year: that The Boar would never willingly side with the other tribes of this isle. Her father had taken his word, and then shortly after An Teanga had fallen.