Fire in the Hole (The Plundered Chronicles Book 3) Page 11

  “It took courage and love to put Connor outta his pain. Ya got more’n enough of both fer the whole lot of us. I trust ya with my life as well as my death.”

  “Take yer necklace back.”

  “No. Get it to me ma. If I live, ya can give it back to me.”

  A long silence followed.

  Finally, Fitz said, “Ya keep the dagger, Callaghan, and use it only when ya know ya have a chance at a larger weapon. Don’t reveal it unless ya have to.”

  Nodding, Quinn put the necklace down her shirt. “Then that’s our plan? We all agree to go out swingin’ and take as many as we can with us?”

  “Aye. No one wants to die like Connor did. We’d much rather fight to the death than be tortured to death.”

  Nodding, Quinn whispered, “To the death, then.”

  * * *

  “They’ll come fer Kwame next,” Tavish said quietly. “They think him a Moor–a heretic fer sure. His torture will be the worst because of his skin color.”

  Kwame nodded. “They may come, Tavish, but they’ll not kill me. Sell me, yes. Torture me, oh yes. Kill me, no. I am considered of value. You need not worry about me.”

  Quinn stared at him through burning eyes. “Kwame–”

  “He’s right,” Fitz said. “He is probably the safest of us all. He is more of a product to sell than a heretic to kill.”

  “Then we don’t fight if they come fer him next.” Quinn said. “No use gettin’ him killed. We’ll wait.”

  Everyone nodded.

  Tavish reached into his boot and pulled out a dagger he handed to Fitz. “Doona use it until ya have to. Be sure that when it goes in, it comes out fer the next bloke. Never leave the knife inside the man.”

  Fitz hesitated. “What about ya?”

  Tavish held up his meaty fists. “I got these.”

  Quinn looked over at the crew. Her men. Her family. They had decided to go down drawing blood instead of dying on their backs as Connor had done.

  She couldn’t have been more proud.

  “We wait to see who they come fer,” Quinn reminded them. If it’s Kwame, we hold off. If it’s not, we kill as many as we can. Agreed?”

  They all nodded just as the cell door opened.

  There were six guards, all with swords drawn.

  “The Moor,” the soldier said, nodding toward Kwame.

  Kwame lowered his head and started for the door when he abruptly stepped in front of Quinn. “The northernmost point,” he said to her in perfect Gaelic. “Meet everyone there.”

  Watching them haul him off, Quinn inhaled deeply.

  Tavish had been right. One after another would be taken until, at last, they would all be tortured to death.

  Except for Quinn.

  She had no illusions she would get out of this without experiencing the sexual attacks men forced on female captives. If she was lucky enough to keep her gender a secret, she would escape that fate... but if they found out...

  Quinn shuddered. She’d seen what a group of bloodthirsty men could do to a woman they felt was disposable. They would use her until she had nothing more to give, and after that they would torture her or burn her at the stake.

  Pushing away the vise of fear clamped to her soul, Quinn watched Kwame be led away before the door closed once more.

  “I’d rather be dead than be enna man’s slave,” Fitz grumbled.

  “Don’t say that, Fitz. As long as one of us lives, we can find our way back to Grace and the Malendroke.”

  “And then what, Callaghan?”

  “And then this little shite bag of an island will rue the day they captured the crew from Grace O’Malley’s ship.”

  Fitz grinned a lopsided smile. “Rue the day. I like that, Callaghan. Don’t know what it means, but I like it nonetheless.”

  Tavish stood close to Quinn and motioned for Fitz to close the circle. “Six armed men. We canna rush at them. They are always ready to strike. We must appear like defeated men. That’ll get their guard down.”

  Quinn nodded. “Good. I like it.”

  Tavish and Fitz looked at each other intensely.

  “When I say Connor’s name, we attack. Fitz, take out the men on the left, Callaghan on the right. I’ll beat the life outta the main mouthpiece and see if I can push him back into his group. We just need swords, lads. Get us some better weapons, and we’re in business.”

  Quinn nodded and placed her arms around both of their shoulders. “We came onto this island together, boys, and we’ll leave this island together. Whether in body or in spirit, we go out together.”

  “Aye. Until then, we wait to press our attack.”

  So they waited.

  And waited.

  And day turned to night, and Fitz’s chin fell on his chest as he fell asleep.

  Quinn struggled to keep her eyes open, so when they closed and she dreamed of being in Fiona’s arms, she felt happy at last. Death, it seemed, gave her mind full reign to wish and dream for a reality that would never happen.

  “We’ve come for your small captain.” A voice cut through the darkness.

  When Quinn opened her eyes, she started for her dagger, but Fitz grabbed her wrist.

  “Too late,” he whispered in Gaelic. “They snuck up on us.”

  When her eyes adjusted to the lantern’s light, Quinn saw eight men, all with their swords drawn. As she rose, Tavish stood in front of her.

  “Ya daft? Ya really think that bag o’ skin and bones is the captain of us? Look at me. Do I look like a man who would take orders from a skinny little whelp like him?”

  The soldier looked at Quinn before glancing back at Tavish. “No. But they’re Irish and you’re Scots. You are not–”

  Tavish crushed his face in with one blow.

  Quinn started toward the left, but Fitz threw his arms around her and held her back while the other men hit and kicked at Tavish.

  “Let go... of me!” Quinn growled.

  Fitz did not.

  As Tavish knocked down a few more men, their leader rose from the ground, minus some teeth and with a nose split in half.

  “Enough! If this brute wishes to go next, let him. It matters not to me.”

  Tavish rose off his hands and knees, blood running from multiple cuts on his face.

  As they turned him around to secure his hands, he sent a small grin to Quinn. “Do ya ken what they’d do to ya, Callaghan, if they knew the truth of ya?” he said to her in Scottish. “That I canna let happen. Not because her ladyship pays me to watch over ya but because we’re kin. We’re kin. I willna stand by and watch that.”

  Fitz released his hold on Quinn, and she ran toward Tavish.

  Six points of swords touched her chest. “No. No. No, Tavish.”

  “Just remember this, lad. Doona believe a word they say I said. Not a word. It’ll take more’n a rack to make me say the words they wanna hear. Swear to me!”

  “I swear!”

  The men roughly turned him back around.

  “Remember that, Callaghan! Trust me!”

  And then he was gone, leaving Fitz and Quinn alone in the cell.

  Slowly turning around, she glared at him.

  “It was his idea, Callaghan, and he would not be talked outta it.”

  “Ya knew?”

  Fitz frowned. “Knew what? Who ya really are? I had my suspicions. So did Connor, but only in here did Tavish confirm what we thought.”

  “Why?” Quinn didn’t know whether to hug him or punch him.

  “Why?

  “Why did Tavish tell ya?”

  “Oh. I’d think that was obvious, Callaghan. He cares about ya. He pulled us together while ya slept and said we had to protect ya at all costs. While our torture would be painful, it would eventually come to an end. Yers? Perhaps not at all. We... we can’t let that happen to ya, Callaghan.”

  Quinn started to say something when her eyes traveled down to the dagger he held. “My god. He gave ya the dagger to kill me with.”

  Fitz bowed
his head and nodded. “That man... that bloody Scotsman loves ya, Callaghan. Oh, not like a lover, but like kin... a sister. He said when they came fer me, I was to kill ya before they take me away.” Only a sniff told Quinn that Fitz was crying.

  Stepping closer, Quinn gently took the hand holding the dagger and put the tip to her heart. “Ya kill me, Fitz, right here. Ya look in my face and ya drive it in deeply, and I will do the same. We die together. We do not give them the satisfaction of pract–”

  Suddenly, they heard Tavish cry out in anguish.

  Fitz looked up.

  Quinn released his hand, her mind changing in a flash.

  “Callaghan–”

  “No, Fitz. We will not go down without takin’ as many of these bastards as we can with us. Ya hear me? They come next, we gut as many as we can. We’ll not take the coward’s way out by killin’ each other first.”

  “But Callaghan–”

  “I said no, Fitz. If they get the upper hand, then kill me and get yerself killed, but I’ll not go down without a fight, and neither will ya. Understood?”

  Looking up at her, Fitz threw his shoulders back. “Understood. He said ya’d never agree to it... that I was to insist.”

  “Then why aren’t ya?”

  Fitz carried a soft smile on his face. “Because at the end of the day, right here, right now, ya are our captain, and I’ll not go against ya even if the big lug is right.”

  Another painful cry echoed through the air. Fitz glanced down at Connor’s corpse. “Connor went pretty quickly, but not that stubborn Scot. He’s strong, that one. It’ll take a helluva lot more to break him than it did Connor. It’s gonna be a long night.

  * * *

  The unending night had been filled with Tavish’s cries, his cursing, his incredible torment and pain. For her part, Quinn refused to cover her ears or block them out. Instead, she used each moment, each scream to bolster her own courage.

  Then she heard it.

  Sitting up, she cocked her head. “Fitz, wake up. Did ya hear that?”

  Fitz moved in the abject darkness. “What?”

  “Listen.”

  A half hour or an hour dragged by before they heard Tavish yell again: “Say it, Da!”

  Fitz whispered, “Say it, Da? Is he prayin’ to his father?”

  “I don’t know. He said it twice.”

  Fitz lifted his head, the dawn light breaking through the open window. “They want him to say somethin’, right? Say it, Da could just be an unfinished sentence. Like he wanted to say ‘Say it, damn ya!’”

  Quinn nodded, her heart heavy at the torturous images of Tavish in her head. “Regardless, we have to get him outta there. Ya ready, Fitz?”

  “Aye. That I am. Let’s kill these motherfuckers.”

  Both pulled out their daggers and held them in front of them.

  “Ya’ve been a good mate, Callaghan. Ya took a chance on me when ya could’ve easily walked away.”

  “No goodbyes, Fitz. I won’t have another one.”

  He nodded. The small dungeon began filling with light. “Aye then. When the door opens, I’ll take his legs out, and ya go fer his throat and sword. If one of us can get a sword, we can do far more damage.”

  “If we succeed in killin’ them all, Fitz, we’re gettin’ Tavish.”

  “Of course we are. Not leavin’ until we do.”

  “Agreed.”

  They waited in silence. Tavish’s screams had ceased, and only the shifting rays of the sun told them what hour he’d died.

  When the dungeon door was flung open, Fitz brought his dagger across the thighs of the first guard. As the guard yelled out, his scream was cut off by Quinn’s dagger that sliced through his neck. Fitz had his sword before the guard hit the dirt floor. He parried a blow from the next man— a blow that had been meant for Quinn.

  Knowing the quarters were too small to fight within, Fitz pressed his advantage and rushed the group of six men, all of whom had their swords drawn.

  Fitz managed to run the first man through before taking a blade bite to his upper shoulder.

  Quinn leapt into the fray with only her dagger and jammed it in the neck of a guard who managed to pierce her upper arm before dying beneath her blade.

  But it wouldn’t be enough, and they both knew it.

  Three men disarmed a wounded Fitz and immediately tied his hands behind his back. Quinn took a hilt to the head and fell to her knees, dropping her dagger as she did.

  Then they bound her hands behind her as well.

  When they were both taken to a room with a long table with twelve men sitting around it, Quinn knew the game was over.

  “I’m sorry, Callaghan. I should have–”

  “Silence that ugly Gaelic tongue,” Esteban said. Rising, he strode in front of his captives. “Your Scottish friend fell apart and admitted you both are heretics.”

  Fitz cut a look to Quinn, who shook her head.

  “As heretics who have murdered one of my men, you are hereby sentenced by the Council of the Supreme Inquisition to be hanged until dead, your bodies remaining exposed for no less than four days, so all can witness the fate of heretics.”

  Quinn let out her breath. A hanging was certainly preferable to torture... or worse.

  “Is he... dead?”

  Esteban stood within inches of Quinn’s face. “It will take a great deal more to kill a bull like that Scot. No, I believe he will require the use of other means.”

  “To what end? Ya’ve won. Ya’ve killed us all.”

  “It matters not. You are going to hang in mere moments, and yet your concern is for the Scot? How very interesting.”

  “We are family,” Quinn said, straightening up. “And I want ya to know, whether it is in this life or the next, I am comin’ fer ya. Ya and this whole fucked-up island.”

  Esteban threw his head back and laughed. “You Irish never do know when the game is over, do you? Take them to the scaffold. Sound the invitation. I want everyone to witness the power of the council!”

  Yanking Quinn’s arm, the guards pushed her outside and toward a platform slightly to the left of the village center.

  “Could be worse, eh, Callaghan?”

  Quinn nodded, her eyes scanning the area for any small sign of hope or way out. “Ya’ve been a great friend, Fitz. Thank ya fer bein’ willin’ to kill me.”

  Fitz grinned. “I couldn’t have done it, Callaghan. I like to think that maybe I could have, but I don’t think I could.”

  Quinn said nothing, her thoughts going back to Connor’s death. Yes, she could have and would have plunged her dagger through Fitz’s chest.

  After mounting the stairs of the scaffold platform, their guards placed nooses around each of their necks. Esteban stood in front of the gallows and addressed the crowd.

  Quinn turned to look at Fitz. “She’ll never stop searchin’ fer us, ya know?”

  He nodded. “Not knowin’ will eat her innards up.”

  Quinn knew that to be true. The guilt Grace would feel might never truly go away. “If she ever discovers it is this filthy little island, she’ll burn it to the ground.”

  Fitz turned to Quinn. “See ya on the other side, Callaghan?”

  Quinn forced a grin she did not feel. For the briefest of moments, she thought of telling Fitz her real name.

  And that was when she realized that her transformation was complete. She was no longer Quinn Gallagher. Shea and Kennedy would believe she drowned, Patrick might even tell their father what had truly become of his daughter, and the women in her life would grieve the loss of Quinn, even though the noblewoman she once was had died long ago. There was nothing left to expose. She was a pirate through and through, and she would die like one.

  Quinn Gallagher would never have been able to stab a friend in the heart. Quinn Gallagher would never have done a fraction of the things Kieran Callaghan had done.

  No. She was, for better or worse, Kieran Callaghan, and the neck that would stretch on this rope would be
that of Kieran Callaghan—because Quinn Gallagher died a long time ago.

  When Esteban turned back to them, his face looked victorious. “Your bodies will hang here, infested by maggots, so all will see and know what happens to heretics. Is there anything you wish to say?”

  “Go fuck yerself,” Fitz growled. “And may ya and yer family burn alive.”

  Esteban spat in Fitz’s face. “You cannot curse me, heretic. You do not have God’s power behind you.”

  “Ya can go fuck yer god,” Fitz said. “Fuck him right in the arse.”

  Esteban turned to his henchman and nodded.

  He didn’t move.

  No one moved. Time seemingly stood still. The air suddenly shifted, and Quinn slowly turned her head to see a new group of people joining the viewing.

  Suddenly, arrows rained upon the gallows, landing in the henchmen, in the wood, even slicing through Quinn’s rope.

  One arrow pierced Quinn’s side, but she didn’t feel it. Leaping over her hands so they were now in front, Quinn threw the noose off her and reached for a sword lying on the deck of the gallows.

  Just as her hand grabbed the hilt, one of the wounded henchmen rose and grabbed the handle to open the gate beneath Fitz’s feet. As the gate sprung open, Quinn wheeled around in one swift motion and cut his rope just before it became taut. Fitz fell to the ground unharmed, rolled once, and kicked a man in the chest before running back up to the gallows and taking his noose off.

  Quinn dispatched three guards before slicing Fitz’s hands free.

  As a sword came down at Quinn, she caught it with her own and kicked the man off the gallows.

  Fitz grabbed a sword and backed up so he was back to back with her, as if they were on a ship. “Gotcher back, Callaghan.”

  “What did I tell ya? No goodbyes, Fitz.”

  Quinn and Fitz didn’t have to fight many guards as more fell to the arrows coming from multiple positions.

  “Get off the gallows!” Quinn yelled. “To yer right!”

  She moved left. Fitz moved right. They landed in unison on the ground in a fighting stance.

  The crowd had dispersed, running in fear from the unknown attackers who kept showering arrows upon the stage. Esteban took one in the arm before running to ground for cover.