A Battle Lord’s Heart Read online

  “They...they tortured him.” Her voice wavered as the tears slipped down the side of her face. She closed her eyes again and gasped softly as her whole body lifted off the ground.

  As a protective measure, MaGrath lifted the edges of the blanket that had been covering her before she’d kicked it off, and draped it back over her, hoping to shield her from any prying eyes in case someone should come into the cave. Patiently, he waited for her to continue.

  “Liam.”

  “I’m here, Atty. What’s wrong?”

  Her eyes were unfocused, her sight straining over the distance separating her from Yulen. “He nearly went insane from the pain,” she gasped. “He’s...he’s crying. Oh, God, Yuuulll!” Somehow she managed to keep her cries silent, afraid to awaken anyone else to this private moment.

  “Liam?”

  “Yes, Atty.” To his surprise, warm tears coursed down his face. He wiped them away with a swipe of his arm.

  “You have to help us.”

  MaGrath started to assure her he would do everything in his power to help, when her face went slack. Her vision and her sight turned suddenly inward. “Come to me, my love,” she whispered. “Come. Take me. Lose yourself in me.”

  She inhaled slowly, languidly, and her arms tenderly wrapped around an imaginary body.

  No, not imaginary, MaGrath realized. She was embracing Yulen’s spirit. His essence. The man was seeking solace from his living nightmare in the only way he could. He was reaching for Atty, pleading for her warmth and love and strength, and she was bringing him into her. Giving herself to him through that connection that bound them through their deep love.

  Atty writhed again. She spread her legs, lifting her knees for her husband. Her hands moved independently of each other. MaGrath watched in fascination as one hand trailed down an invisible back, over a narrow waist, to hips and the curve of the man’s buttocks where her fingers came to rest just above her pelvis. As there was no real weight to press against their son in her belly, Atty felt no discomfort.

  Her other hand trailed upward, across his wide shoulders, along his neck and throat, until she reached his amber-red hair. Fingers clutched the air just as her fingers would have entangled themselves in the real thing. She turned her head, exposing the moist column of her throat, and she bit down on her lips to stifle the deep groan coming from within her.

  However, it wasn’t enough, and a head poked into the cave. “Doc? Is she okay?”

  Holding out his hand behind him, palm outward, toward the man, MaGrath reassured him. “She was having a nightmare,” he told Renken. “I just gave her something to calm her down. Go back to sleep.”

  Not waiting to hear the man’s answer, the physician turned his attention back to the woman before him who was clearly in the throes of a bout of slow, sensuous lovemaking. He listened in silence as she continued to talk to her husband through their connection, reassuring him. Comforting him.

  “It’s all right, my love. My deepest love. Lose yourself in me. Yes. Yes, beloved. Let me fill you with my love when you fill me with you. Touch me. Sense me. Can you sense me, Yul? It’s going to be all right. Trust me, beloved. Shhhhhh.”

  She continued to stroke the unseen figure who covered her, taking her sexually as she soothed his broken mind. With her hands she outlined his shape, his contours, his very skin, as if he were actually lying in her embrace. Her hips moved with a rhythm as old as creation, and MaGrath could see her slowly ascending her peak of ecstasy as the rhythm steadily increased.

  Now her hands were crossed above her head, as if they were being pinned by a strong hand. Sweat freely poured over her face from her exertions. Her skin was flushed. She radiated heat from her inner fires.

  Before he was aware of it, her body convulsed. Atty threw back her head and started to cry out, but MaGrath managed to clap a hand over her mouth, muffling the sound of her climactic release.

  Slowly, gradually, Atty lowered her arms back to her stomach before she rolled onto her side, drawing up her knees until she was a small ball. Within moments she was sound asleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Rescue

  They rose before dawn to resume their tracking of the Blood army and its prisoners. MaGrath opted to drive the little wagon. Atty sat next to him, lost within herself but not sensing anything since the incident last night. By tacit, mutual agreement, neither one brought up the details, except for the one time when the physician leaned over and asked, “How is Yulen doing?” She answered him with a silent shake of her head.

  Around noontime Mastin came to see if the men should stop to eat. “The horses need watering,” he told her.

  “There’s a small creek running parallel to us,” Fortune volunteered. “About twenty or so yards in that direction,” he added, pointing.

  “Make it brief,” Atty said in a low voice.

  The men quickly dismounted. MaGrath climbed down from the seat with the excuse “I need to get the kinks out of my back.”

  The wind was blowing colder. Already tiny flakes of snow sifted through the bare limbs of the trees. By the evening they would be in the middle of a full-fledged storm.

  “You’ve been staring at me all morning,” Atty said loudly, never lifting her face from her hands lying in her lap.

  Renken started. He hadn’t spoken to her, nor drawn any kind of attention to himself the entire time they had been traveling that morning. “Forgive me,” he offered, wondering why he was apologizing. It wasn’t as if he’d done anything wrong.

  “Aren’t you going to water your horse?”

  “I’ll fill my bag after the men return. Someone has to remain with you until then.”

  “So you appointed yourself to be my guardian?”

  Dark brows lowered over darker eyes. “Why are you mad at me, Atty? What did I do?”

  “You were watching.”

  Almost immediately a deep red heat reached his face, covering it with a crimson stain. Renken had no idea when was the last time he’d blushed. Heaven knew it hadn’t been because of a remark a woman had made to him. “I was concerned,” he defended himself.

  She sniffed loudly. He could see her nose was turning pink from the cold. A miniature snowflake landed on a wing of morning glory hair beside her cheek, and he had the irresistible urge to reach over and brush it away. So intent was he on the flake, he didn’t expect her to turn around and lock gazes with him. Something inside himself told him not to flinch, not to break away, nor to challenge her steady blue-gray investigation.

  “Who are you, Garet Renken?” she calmly asked.

  “I’m an ex-missionary. I’m a bastard in every sense of the word. I’m considered by many to be the scum of the earth because of my ex-profession.”

  “Then why do I see a man burning with ambition and the desire to acquire greatness? Why do I see a man who’s yearning for adventure, yet tired of the journey?”

  God, she’s magnificent, he realized to himself. And discovered too late that he was in love with the woman. Would he willingly give his life for this fierce, passionate person? Was there any reason on this earth why he wouldn’t?

  He had pressed himself against the wall of the cave, watching in disbelief as she tried to assuage her husband’s grief and agony through their tenuous connection. Giving him life and love with her own. Keeping his sanity intact as she helped him fight his demons.

  Afraid to breathe for fear of being heard, unable to move for fear of being seen, he had remained like a shadow against the freezing rock and hard-packed earth, and he’d known without any further doubt that no story or tale about these two people would ever match what he had witnessed in the tiny cave that night. His only regret was that he hadn’t been present at the very beginning, when D’Jacques had first raided her compound and taken her prisoner less than a year ago, so he could watch the wondrous unfolding of their love over time. He knew so much about them, but there was tenfold he would never discover.

  Atty saw the range of emotions pass throug
h his eyes. Smiling softly, she fluffed her pillow in her arms and laid her cheek on it.

  The men returned, and Renken quickly broke away to fill his waterskin and give his horse a drink. By the time he was ready to rejoin them, the caravan was almost passed.

  The snowstorm that had threatened them all day turned the sky prematurely dark in the late afternoon. Mastin halted the caravan and rode back to the small wagon to consult with the Battle Lady. “Wind’s picking up something fierce. We’ll need to look for shelter for the night.”

  Atty shook her head. “Keep going,” she ordered.

  “Atty, we didn’t bring enough clothing for this kind of weather,” the Second argued.

  A flash of lightning brightened her eyes, until they turned a cold gray that equaled the roiling clouds. “The Bloods are doing exactly as you suggest, Cole,” she told him. “We’re almost upon them. Tonight we strike. Tonight. Keep going!”

  Giving her a nod, he ordered them to continue, but the soldiers had overheard their exchange, and the air suddenly began to crackle with anticipation.

  Barely another two hours further into the wood, Atty laid a hand on MaGrath’s arm and squeezed. A quick look askance told him all he needed to know. He lifted his arm in the signal to halt.

  She was lost in that glazed, half-here-half-elsewhere netherworld they had come to recognize. Gently, the physician helped her off the wagon and sat her against a large, sheltering spruce where she could at least be somewhat out of the direct force of the wind. As soon as he released her, she clutched his arm again, and he leaned forward.

  “I must speak with the men.”

  They gathered quickly as they finished putting on the last of their battle gear. Once Mastin was aware of what they were facing, he would give them their orders. Their recovery mission would take on a double meaning that evening.

  Getting to her feet, Atty drew her coat tightly about her and crossed her arms over her chest. “The Bloods are readying for the snow. They’ve gathered our men in a small area in the center of their circle, which is going to prove much to our advantage not having them spread out. Yulen is being kept apart from them, but where they can see him. I...I don’t know exactly where yet. All I can sense is what I’m seeing through his eyes, but there’s a large bonfire nearby.”

  “Atty.” Mastin moved closer. “Does he know it’s coming down tonight?”

  She paused, unmoving. “He’s...he’s drifting in and out, but I’ve let him know.” She gave a violent shake of her head, and an errant lock of hair flew into her eyes. She brushed it back with one hand. “It has to be tonight, men. Each day that passes, my connection with my husband grows weaker, and for shorter and shorter periods of time.”

  Atty blinked, and suddenly they knew she was totally with them. Her nostrils flared, and a dark, violent side of her they had rarely, if ever, seen came rising from the depths of anger she had nursed these past few days.

  “There is one Blood,” she told them. She held one hand tightly fisted in front of her, the knuckles starkly white against the redness of her face. “He has the muzzle of snake. It’s wide and flat, and perpetually smiling. He’s tall. Thin. Whip-like. And he’s wearing a vest of human skin. When you see him, leave him be.” Her face literally turned crimson with hate. “He’s mine!”

  The soldiers nodded, understanding. Many of them had personally witnessed Atty’s revenge on Tosh Karv when he had attempted to overtake Alta Novis on MaGrath’s wedding day. The man had also attacked and further threatened the Battle Lord. He had even tried to shove a sword intoYulen’s neck before Atty punctured him three times with her arrows. The woman had ice water in her veins when she took her revenge.

  First she had told them about the Battle Lord being tortured on a nightly basis. Today she gave the description of the creature responsible. They were looking forward to being first-hand witnesses when Atty confronted the creature. Her brand of justice would be neither swift nor merciful.

  Atty stepped away from the bole of the spruce and stopped a few feet beyond. Renken left the group of men who were getting directions and orders from the Second, and walked over to her.

  “I would’ve thought you would be chomping at the bit by this time,” he tried to make light of the seriousness of the situation. By all accounts they were still vastly outnumbered, but too many odds were in their favor. Yet, the chance remained they could lose. Lose lives. Lose D’Jacques.

  Atty glanced up at him and frowned. “Twenty-twenty hindsight,” she admitted. From the corner of her eye she could see MaGrath checking his supplies and readying the back of the wagon. Earlier she had confided to him that the rest of the soldiers taken prisoner were probably able to follow along on foot. They were suffering from hunger and the cold, not to mention what injuries they’d sustained in battle, but she had a plan once the rest of the Bloods had been conquered. The men would make it, and they would be able to return to Alta Novis, hopefully without any further casualty.

  But Yulen’s wounds were too severe. He would have to be transported by wagon. In spite of their attempts to keep him alive, the Bloods’ treatment and torturing of him had been worse than they’d thought.

  Atty closed her eyes and prayed he would make it. When she opened them, she saw Renken giving her a questioning look. “I only have my quiver of arrows. I didn’t think to pack more. I wasn’t expected an all-out war with Bloods.”

  “Hey!”

  MaGrath’s yell of surprise caught her attention. Atty hurried over to the wagon to find him pulling away a stack of blankets they’d initially brought to wrap and transport the bodies in. Underneath lay several piles of arrows—all lengths, all sizes, bearing all types of barbs and colored fletchings. Atty picked up one to examine it. The arrowhead tip was dark with congealed green blood. She turned and held it out toward Renken. “You?”

  The man shrugged. “Call it twenty-twenty foresight. You were unconscious in the back of the wagon. The men were inside the compound searching for bodies. I was supposed to be watching you, but there were all those bodies scattered everywhere. And lots of arrows. I had time on my hands. I figured you could probably use them sooner or later.”

  For his confession, he got a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek. It was more than he could have asked for.

  Mastin pushed through the crowd to stop before her. “We’re ready. How far, Atty?”

  She pointed in the direction they’d been heading. “Three, maybe four hundred yards. Past a grove of wild apple trees. Cole, how can we keep the horses from giving us away?”

  “We can’t,” he answered. “That’s why we have to be in position and wait for my signal to charge in all at once.”

  “What signal?”

  For a moment he appeared irritated that she hadn’t witnessed his speech to the men. “Two shrill whistles,” he repeated for her.

  Atty shook her head. “Won’t work, Cole. Wind’s picking up. It’ll drown you out to the other side.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” the Second questioned her.

  Smiling faintly, she bit her lower lip and nodded.

  * * * *

  The Blood army was spread out in a rough circle around an enormous bonfire. The ground in front of the small inferno had been scoured to prevent the fire from spreading during the night and engulfing the creatures while they slept.

  Inside their circle, the last of the defending force of Bearinger lay or sat huddled against each other for warmth. Another one of their own had died on the trek through the dense winter refuse. Thankfully they didn’t have to witness his body roasting on the spit on the other side of the fire, as they’d been forced to do in nights past. Or watch the creatures tearing chunks from the carcass as they ate.

  The prisoners had been given water twice that day. It was one of the rare times cold weather did them in good stead. Had the weather been hot and muggy, more of them would have fallen from dehydration.

  Paxton painfully lifted his head, only to have his gaze fall on the lone figure on
the extreme edge of the circle. Tonight the Battle Lord was hanging by his wrists from one of the old apple trees. From the limpness in his figure, the lieutenant could tell the man was unconscious.

  Thank God.

  But once their meal was over, the torturing would begin again, and he wondered how much longer D’Jacques could take their abuse.

  Paxton ran a filthy hand over his face and hoped he could get some sleep tonight, snowfall or no snowfall. A movement from the corner of his eye gave him pause. He turned to see one of their captors, a Blood that wore a human skull like a cap on its head, approaching. It had a waterskin it would let the men share. One skin for eighty-one men. It would barely make the rounds, even if they each took a sip.

  “Better drink fast,” the creature taunted, “before the cold turns it to ice.” It dropped the skin at Paxton’s feet and walked away.

  Or started to walk away.

  Slack-jawed, Paxton watched as a flaming arrow arched out of the forest like a shooting star. More golden than a beam of light, it gracefully danced out of the treetops, toward their little group, moving faster and angrier as it approached. Until it sought out the Blood with the skull cap and drilled directly into the back of the thing’s head with a screaming eeeeeeee-fump!

  The Blood was lifted off its feet by the impact, flying forwards to land less than a yard away from their enclave. For precious seconds Paxton stared at the Ballock dagger lashed to the arrow’s shaft, and the pennant dangling with it. A pennant that was half-red and half-blue.

  Energy from some reservoir of power he never knew he had saturated every fiber in him, and he lunged for the arrow, pulling it wetly out of the thing’s body. At the same time the men who had witnessed the attack were ready for the lieutenant when he untied the dagger and began to hack away at the ropes binding them together. Unfortunately for the Bloods, the men had been kept tied together by two half-hitches around their necks. The creatures were so self-assured in the knowledge that none of their prisoners could escape without being caught, they hadn’t individually bound each man before tying him along with the rest of the prisoners. Their lack of preparation proved to be their undoing.