Cutthroat Crusades (The Plundered Chronicles Book 4) Page 18

  “They’re fighting over me! Help!”

  Several of the men looked helplessly at each other before two jumped up and ran toward the tent.

  Putting the dagger back, she reached down for the captain’s sword and brought it up just in time to kill the first man through the door.

  The second wasn’t so easy.

  Seeing the dead men already on the ground, he stopped just short of her sword tip, his own sword already out and at the ready.

  “What . . . have you done?”

  “Killed these men. Yes. And I shall kill you as well, but I’ll give you one chance to stay alive.”

  He raised his sword and laughed. “You think a mere woman can beat me?”

  “Oh, I’m no mere woman, I assure you, and if you touch your sword to mine, you’re going to find out just what I am with your life.”

  He raised his sword to within inches of Quinn’s. “Then prepare to show me.”

  In one smooth, continuous motion, Quinn batted his sword away with hers while pulling the dagger out from between her breasts.

  She jammed it in the soft part of the under chin and through the roof of his mouth. “I gave you fair warning.”

  Gurgling blood, he dropped to his knees, kneeling over on his side, blood running from his mouth.

  Quinn could hear the mayhem outside and briefly wondered what Seanie and Laing were up to.

  Whipping back the flap, Quinn watched as the two laoch cuidich came out from the shadows, bloody swords making quick work of the remaining men still defending their camp.

  The Reivers were all dead in under a minute.

  “The six they sent out will be back shortly.” Seanie said.

  “Aye. Let’s pile those around camp in the captain’s tent. Find two whose size is close to your own, and wear their clothes.”

  Seanie and Laing did as they were told while Quinn made her way to a cage that appeared empty at first. When she came up on it, she found a young boy in his teens lying on his stomach on the ground.

  “Are you all right?” Quinn asked.

  “They . . . dead?”

  Quinn looked over her shoulder before locking eyes with him. “Very. You are safe––”

  “Dermott.”

  “Well, Dermott, you’re clearly not glaigh, nor are you a cuidich.”

  The boy sat up. The cage was too short for him to stand. “No, missus. I’m just a farmhand from the lowlands. One of the men has . . . ” he glanced down. “an unnatural taste for young flesh.”

  Quinn felt her heart skip. She understood the horrors he’d been put through. “Who has the key?”

  “A bald man who was run through over there.”

  Quickly grabbing the key off the dead, bald man, she unlocked the cage and helped the boy out.

  “My father will wish to thank you for aiding his only son, missus.”

  “There is but one payment I need from you, Dermott.”

  “Aye? We do not have much.”

  “It is not what you have, lad. It is what you can do for me.”

  And then Quinn filled him in with a request for his services before sending him on his way.

  “How do we look?” Seanie asked when Dermott ran off.

  Quinn smiled as she studied the two Scotts who now looked like Reivers. “Like I wish to kill you both.”

  All three of them laughed, and when the six Reivers returned to camp to find only two Reivers sitting at the fire with English woman, they never even had a chance to pull their weapons, the three struck so quickly.

  When all was said and done, nearly thirty Reivers lost their lives that night at camp.

  “Well, Callaghan,” Seanie said, “ya’ve set the next move in play. I only hope it doesn’t blow up in our faces.”

  The next two nights were nearly exact replicas of the first night, with the exception of Laing taking a knife to the hip and Seanie losing a tooth to an errant sword handle. Quinn had thought the cuidich fought well—these two men were killing machines who were as silent as they were efficient.

  Trouble was, she had grown very fond of them both and she knew she would eventually have to cut them loose to return to their galloglaigh.

  “I’ve a good feelin’ in me bones about this next camp, Callaghan,” Laing said, not looking up from the examination of his wound. All of the cuidich Quinn had ever met were well versed in the healing application of simple ingredients and potions. The light-green paste he was applying now was one such ingredient.

  “Do you now? By my count, we’ve killed upwards of fifty Reivers. Surely by now the camps have doubled up on security.”

  “Double, triple, it’s all the same to me, Captain,” Seanie replied as he sharpened his broad sword with a stone. “Doesn’t seem to matter none whether they ken we’re comin’. Ill-prepared they are, and they’re payin’ a pretty price fer it.”

  On that score, Quinn could not disagree. The Reivers were sloppy drunks, below-average fighters, and desperately out of wind. These men were no soldiers, and it showed. Killing them had been like shooting fish in a barrel.

  “Aye, there are,” Laing replied. “I could almost feel bad fer killin’ them bastards until I remember who they are and what they want.”

  Or what they took, Quinn thought. These criminals and lowlives had taken Evan’s pride from her, and as a result, they’d made it nearly impossible for Evan to return to Quinn until she had finished with her retribution.

  “We keep going at these bloody bastards until we find Evan,” Quinn said, staring into the crackling fire. “And we’re close. Believe me. We’re very close.”

  Sean rose and sheathed his sword. “I’m ready, Callaghan.”

  Laing pulled his shirt down and his drawers up and rose as well. “Aye. Same plan, then?”

  “No. Let’s shift it to Plan B in the event the Reivers’s camps have communicated. We’ll not fall into any traps.”

  The two men nodded simultaneously.

  “Good. Then stay safe, lads, and come out swinging.”

  Half an hour later, Quinn was on the opposite side of camp wearing her pirate clothes. Last night, she’d played the helpless English lady. That night before that, she was the lord of an Irish manor in Northern Ireland.

  Tonight, she was Plan B: an Irish pirate trying to make it back to her ship.

  If they entered the camp at the nighttime, most of the men were either too drunk to fight well or tired from whoring to fight at all. Lambs to the slaughter they were, and Quinn realized very quickly that the Scottish people along the border believed the Reivers to all be as bad as those who had taken her and Evan.

  They were, of course, vile human beings, but they were as easy to kill as any man . . . especially at night.

  She’d felt no remorse for it, either. No remorse, no guilt, nothing but a deep, dark void within her begging to be filled with the blood of these vermin.

  Her disdain for them frightened even herself. If Quinn Gallagher was anywhere within her, she was buried deep beneath a hatred that branded her soul.

  And she was just fine with that.

  When the two Scots left her to make their way to the other side of camp, Quinn knelt behind a small patch of bushes and kept her eyes trained on the sentry.

  She would slit his throat and move closer to the camp until there were just a few dozen paces for her to walk on in.

  It was always a gamble, entering a camp alone, but the English were so arrogant, so cocksure of themselves, that they never saw a lone man as a threat.

  And that had cost the Reivers dozens of lives.

  As Quinn started for her sword, a strong hand clamped around her mouth; the other grabbed her wrist.

  Before she could even struggle, something hit the back of her head, knocking her completely unconscious.

  When she came to, her head was throbbing, and she could barely focus on the torch hanging on the wall.

  Torch?

  Groaning, Quinn reached for the back of her head to find a large knot.
<
br />   “I got yer message, Cap, and ya shouldna be here.”

  Fully awake now, Quinn quickly sat up. “Evan?”

  From the shadows came the woman she’d been seeking. “I didna want ya to find me. Surely the men told ya as much.”

  “Then you shouldn’t leave such a bloody path.” Quinn rose unsteadily. “You were easy to find.”

  Evan did not move.

  She was thinner than when Quinn had last seen her, and her eyes were sunken, hollow, lifeless but for the rage burning in them.

  “Blood is all these bastards ken.” Her voice was bone-chilling cold. “Don’t come enna closer.”

  Quinn stopped, crestfallen. This was not the reunion she had envisioned. “Evan . . . ”

  “Evan is dead. To me. To ya. To Lake. To ennabody.”

  Quinn took another step closer. A sword tip rose inches from her chest. She did not even glance at it. “I know what happened to you feels like the end of the world, but it doesn’t have to be.”

  Evan tilted her head, but kept her sword up. “End of the world? No. No such melodrama, Cap. The end of Evan’s world, aye. I canna go back to being someone who canna even defend himself. I canna go back until I have bathed in their blood.”

  Quinn’s eyes welled up. “Evan . . . please. Let me help you through this.”

  “Help me? No one can help me, Cap. They broke me . . . broke Evan. Now I am nothin’ but a ghost—a ghost of retaliation, of vengeance. I care not if I live or die as long as I can take more of these bastards with me.”

  Quinn looked down at the sword now. This was not how she saw this playing out. She would just have to throw the gauntlet down. “I love you.”

  Evan’s eyes narrowed. “The person ya loved is dead, Cap. I am dead. I live fer one thing and one thing only: to spill Reiver blood on the dirt of my home until I have healed. Only by death can I live.”

  “Do you even hear yourself? That’s ridiculous.”

  “It is our way. I do not expect ya to understand.”

  “I know you love me, Evan. I know that . . . that what happened to you was a result of your love for me. You . . . you saved me. Please . . . let me return the favor.”

  Evan shook her head. “There is nothin’ left to save, Cap. I can never go back to who I once was. All I can do is fill the dark holes they made with their blood. I am alive only because of the drive for killin’ them. Otherwise, I’d be dead by now.”

  “But if they catch you––”

  “What more can they take from me, Cap? They tore away my dignity. My honor. My self-respect. They destroyed my confidence and belief in myself. What they did to my body was nothing compared to what they stole from my soul. So, let them catch me if they can. There’s little more they can do to me, but plenty I can do to them.”

  “But Lake and the others––”

  “Lake will understand.”

  “I think you’re wrong, Evan. I think he misses you very much.”

  “He misses a person who is no longer who he once kenned.” Evan lowered the tip of the sword slightly. “I did love ya, Cap, but I do so no longer.”

  Tears fell from Quinn’s lower lashes. “You don’t mean that.”

  “But I do. Love is not a feelin’ I have. Nor will I again. Like a wolf that spends its days and nights huntin’, I do not feel ennathin’ but the hunger fer their deaths.”

  Quinn stepped back away from the sword tip. Evan’s eyes may have been cold, but her words were even colder.

  “So this is it, then? The sum total of your life will be in the single-minded pursuit of shedding Reiver blood?”

  Evan stared at her a long, long time before slowly nodding. “Aye. Like I said. Ya canna understand. Yer Irish and ya have no idea about our codes and our honor.”

  Quinn thought of a hundred pleas, a thousand promises, a dozen arguments to offer her lover, but she knew the woman standing before her wasn’t her lover.

  Evan was not being dramatic or poetic when she said she was dead. Quinn could see it on her. She could practically taste it. She was just the shell of the woman she loved.

  Bowing her head, Quinn dropped to her knees and held her face as she wept.

  She cried for the loss of her best friend, for the torture of Tavish. She cried for Innis, for Grace’s anger and hatred of her. She wept for Becca’s patience and Fiona’s impatience.

  But mostly, she cried for the dark stamp of loneliness she felt at this moment.

  She was an unloved woman, her lovers, one by one, choosing something not her. Even Evan chose revenge over loving her.

  “I’m . . . so sorry, Evan.”

  “Dorch Spiorad,” Evan said softly.

  Quinn looked up at her. “I’ll never call you Dark Spirit.”

  “No worries. It is what the Reivers are calling me. It fits me better now.”

  Quinn slowly rose. The lump on the back of her head throbbed. “Maybe one day, when you realize there is someone who loves you in spite of what those animals did to you, in spite of the blood you have shed, you’ll come find me.”

  “We both ken that day will never come, Cap. I release ya.”

  Quinn squeezed her shoulders. “I do not accept your release, Evan. Someday, you will have exacted your retribution enough to want to live again. When you do, I’ll be aboard the Emerald. Send word. I’ll come in an instant.”

  For a tense moment, neither woman said a word. Then, ever so slowly, Evan lowered her sword. “Go home, Cap. Yer people are gonna need ya more than mine. Go back to Ireland, find someone worthy of yer love.”

  Shaking her head, Quinn started for the mouth of the cave, angry tears in her eyes now. “I thought you’d fight for me. For us. You’ve broken my heart, Evan. More than you could ever know.”

  Evan nodded. “Trust me, Cap. I ken, and I’m so verra, verra sorry fer it.”

  “Goodbye then, my dear, sweet one. I hope all this killing and bloodletting brings you peace.” With that, Quinn walked out of the cave, not surprised to find her horse tethered to a tree.

  With a single glance back at the cave, Quinn spurred her horse on, not caring that her tears clouded her vision or that her already cracked heart was now broken.

  Heading south, away from the border, away from the Reivers, Quinn made haste to the meeting place for Seanie and Laing.

  A small cottage, which looked like it had been abandoned long ago, had a black curl of smoke coming out of the chimney.

  Before she could dismount, the door flew open and both men rushed out.

  “Callaghan! We were getting worried! What happened?”

  Sliding off the horse she replied, “I found someone who did not want to be found. It is time, lads, to head back to the lady’s residence and await Tavish and Lake.”

  The two Scotsmen quickly glanced at each other. “Ya . . . ya found young Evan?”

  Quinn nodded. “Aye. And I’ll kindly ask you not to discuss it further. Evan has no desire to return to the galloglaigh.”

  “Then that’s it then?”

  Quinn strode over to the fire and warmed her hands. “Aye. There is nothing more we can do except get our arses back to the coast.”

  Once she’d warmed up, Quinn ate some stolen bread and salted fish before mounting up and waiting for the two cuidich to climb on their horses. “We ride until the horses can’t go another step. Understood?”

  They both nodded before turning their horses around to lead Quinn back to the coast.

  “Ready, Callaghan?”

  “Aye. Hard and fast, boys. We don’t need anybody thinking they can stop us. We stop for nothing.”

  And no one did.

  They rode hard for half a day. At times, the knot on the back of Quinn’s head throbbed so hard, her eyes watered at the pain from it.

  Or maybe they watered because of how she got it.

  It didn’t really matter. Quinn needed to hear Evan’s words and pay them heed.

  She released her.

  When a Scot released someone, it was for now
and forever. Her Evan would never be back. She probably would not live to the end of the year if she insisted on bloodying the land with English blood.

  The rapists hadn’t just abused her—they had, in fact, changed her, transforming her into a killing machine Quinn could not reach.

  Just one of many failures in her love life. It seemed not to matter how much she loved Evan; love could not fix this.

  She had never anticipated that loving women would be so hard—that she could have so little understanding of her own kind. Had she completely misread Evan’s love for her? She was hurt, yes, broken, yes, but defeated? Quinn never expected to see Evan appear so empty, so beaten.

  So there it was. Add one more name to the list of losses Quinn had suffered recently.

  “Looks like they’re back,” Seanie said, pointing to the large group of horses just outside Lady Killigrew’s house.

  Quinn’s mood suddenly brightened.

  Her men were back.

  Spurring her horse harder, Quinn rode by the group of horses still shining from the sweat of their ride, and rode on up to the front gate.

  “How long have they been here?” she asked the guard as she dismounted.

  “Not long, Captain. Less than an hour. Give or take.”

  When Quinn handed him the reins, she didn’t wait for Seanie and Laing but quickly strode through the large iron gate, where she was met by Lady Killigrew.

  “Oh my goodness,” the lady started. “You’ve all come at once. How fortunate. Or not. I cannot yet tell.”

  “What happened?” Quinn asked. “Did everyone make it back all right?”

  “Oh. Yes. I believe so, though I’d be hard pressed to know for sure. I just know . . . ” her voice trailed off.

  “What? Is it Tavish?”

  “Oh. No. No, my dear I’m surprised you haven’t heard. Elizabeth’s proceedings could not be stopped. They beheaded Mary yesterday. The men rode all day to get back. They are quite shaken by the events, but I’ll let them tell you the story. It is . . . well, not for the faint of heart.” Lady Killigrew leaned in and peered into Quinn’s eyes. “Did you find the one you went looking for?”

  Quinn started to nod, then stopped. “I’m . . . I’m not really sure.” Then she shook off her feelings and inhaled deeply. “Yes, I did, and it’s over. There are no repairs to be made on that front.”