squeezed his way back out of the gap almost immediately. He dragged a thin, wide-eyed boy behind him. His meaty hand wrapped soundly around the lad's spindly arm, the giant fixed the boy with a stern glare. "How many times must I warn you to stay out of this pile o' rubble?" he scolded, his voice full of reproach.
"That devil's den contains an oubliette." He jerked his head toward the dark crevice they'd just exited. "Do you ken what that is, Lugh?"
The dark-haired lad nodded, his gaze downcast, his hands clutching a grimed sack of ... something.
Small, writhing some things with wings, from the look of it.
Niels snatched the pouch and peered inside. Donall caught a quick glimpse of the sack's contents.
Bats.
The child had been gathering bats and his bag was stuffed full of the winged creatures. Displaying none of Donall's surprise, the giant closed the pouch and returned it to the boy with nary a raised brow. "Does old Devorgilla ken where you are?"
Lugh shrugged.
"'Tis a hellish place, an oubliette," Niels elaborated when the child began shuffling his feet instead of answering. "A jug-shaped hollow deep in the bowels of the earth. Evildoers are dropped through a long, narrow shaft into a place so small they can neither sit nor stand."
His nerves now recovered, Rory tousled Lugh's dark head. "You don't want to be a-poking around in there," he said with a sideways glance at Donall.
Lugh glanced at him, too. The boy's expression held curiosity. Rory's betold how fervently he'd enjoy plunging Donall into the dread chamber of little ease. A muscle in Donall's jaw twitched at the thought while outrage curled icy claws around his innards and squeezed.
Squeezed hard.
Hunched in such cramped confines, waiting for the release of a priest-less and un-absolved death, was not how he cared to end his days.
The giant patted the boy's shoulder. "Off with you now, ere you land in more mischief."
Lugh took his lower lip between his teeth and cast one last wide-eyed glance at Donall, then bolted away.
"Ho, lad!" Rory called after him when he tore off in the opposite direction from the stairs. "Where do you thi ---"
"Leave him be," Niels said, watching the boy disappear around the bend in the tunnel. "He'll be after a frog from the sacred well to go along with his bag o' bats. He'll hie his self out of here once he gets what he's after."
Rory shook his head. Mumbling to himself about stagnant wells, and frogs being more useful in one's belly than in a witch-wife's cauldron, he tightened his hold on Donall's chain and began slogging forward through the muck, Donall and the giant following hard in his wake.
The moment they rounded the curve, Donall's breath caught in his throat, for the vaulted tunnel vanished as if it'd never been and they stood upon a narrow skirt of rock jutting precariously above a choppy sea, its tossing surface gilt silver by a near full moon.
A wild wet wind blew, bracing and untamed, its ceaseless howl giving stiff competition to the thundering crash of the waves breaking against a mass of black, barnacle-encrusted boulders and a jumble of fallen masonry that could only be the tumbled walls of Dunmuir's ancient sea tower.
Stinging salt spray bit into Donall's wrists and ankles, cruelly searing skin rubbed raw from days of wearing manacles, but he scarce noticed.
Nor did he puzzle overlong about where young Lugh had taken himself off to. Though he'd come this way, the lad was nowhere to be seen.
Another matter plagued Donall far more.
An issue fraught with ramifications for his entire clan and weighing much heavier on his heart than the odd disappearance of one strange boy.
A chilling notion ghastlier than the bother of abraded flesh.
The bastards meant to drown him.
The laird's solar at the MacLean stronghold, Baldoon Castle, gave itself as dark and gloomy as the drizzle-plagued night pressing hard against the chamber's arch-topped windows. Other than the muted glimmer cast by the last
"That devil's den contains an oubliette." He jerked his head toward the dark crevice they'd just exited. "Do you ken what that is, Lugh?"
The dark-haired lad nodded, his gaze downcast, his hands clutching a grimed sack of ... something.
Small, writhing some things with wings, from the look of it.
Niels snatched the pouch and peered inside. Donall caught a quick glimpse of the sack's contents.
Bats.
The child had been gathering bats and his bag was stuffed full of the winged creatures. Displaying none of Donall's surprise, the giant closed the pouch and returned it to the boy with nary a raised brow. "Does old Devorgilla ken where you are?"
Lugh shrugged.
"'Tis a hellish place, an oubliette," Niels elaborated when the child began shuffling his feet instead of answering. "A jug-shaped hollow deep in the bowels of the earth. Evildoers are dropped through a long, narrow shaft into a place so small they can neither sit nor stand."
His nerves now recovered, Rory tousled Lugh's dark head. "You don't want to be a-poking around in there," he said with a sideways glance at Donall.
Lugh glanced at him, too. The boy's expression held curiosity. Rory's betold how fervently he'd enjoy plunging Donall into the dread chamber of little ease. A muscle in Donall's jaw twitched at the thought while outrage curled icy claws around his innards and squeezed.
Squeezed hard.
Hunched in such cramped confines, waiting for the release of a priest-less and un-absolved death, was not how he cared to end his days.
The giant patted the boy's shoulder. "Off with you now, ere you land in more mischief."
Lugh took his lower lip between his teeth and cast one last wide-eyed glance at Donall, then bolted away.
"Ho, lad!" Rory called after him when he tore off in the opposite direction from the stairs. "Where do you thi ---"
"Leave him be," Niels said, watching the boy disappear around the bend in the tunnel. "He'll be after a frog from the sacred well to go along with his bag o' bats. He'll hie his self out of here once he gets what he's after."
Rory shook his head. Mumbling to himself about stagnant wells, and frogs being more useful in one's belly than in a witch-wife's cauldron, he tightened his hold on Donall's chain and began slogging forward through the muck, Donall and the giant following hard in his wake.
The moment they rounded the curve, Donall's breath caught in his throat, for the vaulted tunnel vanished as if it'd never been and they stood upon a narrow skirt of rock jutting precariously above a choppy sea, its tossing surface gilt silver by a near full moon.
A wild wet wind blew, bracing and untamed, its ceaseless howl giving stiff competition to the thundering crash of the waves breaking against a mass of black, barnacle-encrusted boulders and a jumble of fallen masonry that could only be the tumbled walls of Dunmuir's ancient sea tower.
Stinging salt spray bit into Donall's wrists and ankles, cruelly searing skin rubbed raw from days of wearing manacles, but he scarce noticed.
Nor did he puzzle overlong about where young Lugh had taken himself off to. Though he'd come this way, the lad was nowhere to be seen.
Another matter plagued Donall far more.
An issue fraught with ramifications for his entire clan and weighing much heavier on his heart than the odd disappearance of one strange boy.
A chilling notion ghastlier than the bother of abraded flesh.
The bastards meant to drown him.
The laird's solar at the MacLean stronghold, Baldoon Castle, gave itself as dark and gloomy as the drizzle-plagued night pressing hard against the chamber's arch-topped windows. Other than the muted glimmer cast by the last
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