Robert frowned his way. “Are they huntin’ more than one woman, then?”
Flanders immediate thought of Thomas and Torquil, but neither of those screams had come from a man. The question was, had they come from a woman?
He replayed the sound in his head. There was something odd about it. Like unto a woman’s scream, aye, but there was something familiar about it.
A trait akin to a sound he’d heard before…in those very woods. The cry of wee plants as they grew at an unnatural pace.
“The scream,” he breathed. “It’s magic. Muir magic. Bella must still live.”
Robert’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “How can ye be sure?”
Flanders smiled grimly. “I’ve heard that sound before, when the sisters made the plants grow. She’s using her magic and the forest, to confuse them. If I had to guess, I would say that was the sound a tree makes when forced to grow very fast.”
Robert nodded slowly, clearly trying to believe him. “Clever lass.”
Flanders moved to a spot where he could watch the hunters moving. The men further up the mountain were closing in. The trap was closing in. There couldn’t be much ground left uncovered.
How had they not found her?
“She’s sent them north,” he said quietly. “Now west. And none believes she’s gone south. So…”
“The lass is east?”
“And what is east?”
Robert’s expression cleared. “Gallabrae.”
“Aye. She’s still inside the palisades. They’re looking in the wrong place.”
* * *
Without another word,they moved swiftly toward the fortress, keeping to the shadows of the trees. The closer they came, the greater the activity. Twice they changed direction to avoid meeting another hunting party head on. At one point, they dared not take another step until they took stock of the danger.
Not twenty feet away, three men spoke clearly, one of them recounting the missing witch’s mad dash across the stream the night before. Another man claimed he’d seen her leap straight from the ground to the top of a tree. The third said he wouldn’t sleep until he’d watched her burn and the danger was gone.
If Bella was inside the fort, the first two were lying. She’d never left. And if the third wished for a peaceful sleep, Flanders would be happy to oblige him and every other coward in Stephan’s ranks.
One of the three caught sight of them. “Oy! Ye there, show yer faces!”
Flanders lowered his chin slightly, as did Robert. Their hoods shadowed their features, but they watched the enemy carefully and stepped forward as if complying, their every muscle coiled and ready to strike. For a heartbeat, Flanders thought the soldier was looking straight at him and a fight was inevitable—but no, the man’s focus jumped to someone moving up from behind.
A smaller man shouldered past him. It was Mael.
After a moment’s hesitation, the soldier relaxed. Their spy kept walking as if he’d hardly noticed the trio. Flanders and Robert fell into step behind.
Without pause, Mael led them to the palisade wall, then south to the corner, and around to the front gate. Flanders thought it best to keep his head down and trust the man—then he was suddenly incapable of coherent thought when his attention caught on the massive black muddle just east of the gate.
No sign of a wooden stake, but clearly, this was where they’d murdered Brigid. Acrid smoke still lingered in the air along with the trace of sulfur and something more bitter that he couldn’t identify. And though he braced himself for the smell of burnt flesh, there was none of that left. He didn’t want to look, but how could he not?
His eyes jumped to the center of the charred debris, but there was nothing left but a smoldering stump. The rest had been burned flat, leaving a shallow circle of blackened rubble. He could only imagine how hot it must have burned and prayed Brigid had been aware of none of it. Perhaps that blackness from her vision had been some sort of witch’s blessing—to lose consciousness before the worst befell her…
He was fooling himself, of course. He’d witnessed such death sentences before. Even those who fainted were revived again…by pain…until the smoke took them.
He turned his head away lest tears fill his eyes and cause trouble.
The gates stood open, but as the three of them neared, they closed again.
Mael stepped forward with impatience and pounded the hilt of his dagger on a metal brace. “Oi! Open the gate!”
