The Diabhal's Dragon
an excerpt

“Just get him out of here,” Conall barked. “Leave the fighting to the rest of us.”

Except for the pins on their cloaks, they were both dressed similarly in warrior’s leathers. Blue tattoos, protective symbols traced down one half of her tanned face and continued down her neck disappearing under her dark shirt. Bronwen nodded even as she held the boy’s shoulders tightly, keeping him close to her.

Another two Laoch warriors, swords drawn and covered in blood, were approaching down the hall. Their expressions were serious.

“Go, now,” Conall said coldly not even looking at the woman who’s bed he shared as he raised his sword and headed toward the men he’d called brothers at the first meal this morning.

The ten-year-old boy had been wiggling and had been insisting she let him go or he was going to have horrible things done to her until he saw the other soldiers. Then he gasped and went still as the state of things dawned on him.

Bronwen led him in the opposite direction than Conall headed and drew here sword as they went. She wasn’t sure who to trust, who were the enemy and who were friends anymore; so she began to duck for cover no matter who approached, pulling Kilian tightly against her in every shadowed alcove, behind every stone column, inside every cracked doorway. She repeatedly threatened his well-being should he not be silent as they made their way to the courtyard.

Bronwen paused beside a tattered, hand-woven tapestry hanging below an overhang in the courtyard. One hand gripped the shoulder of the ten year old boy behind her and the other hand curled around the unadorned silver hilt of her sword. The night sky was alight with the blaze from the fires filling the courtyard of the old castle. Amidst it all, men and women were fighting and dying, and it was next to impossible to tell who was friend or foe.

Making certain no one was paying them any attention, Bronwen glanced around the courtyard, hoping to catch sight of Conall’s fierce red hair one last time, before pushing the terrified, though still stubborn child through the low arched doorway hidden beneath and into the darkened hallway.

“You don’t have to push!” said the boy, who had been difficult the whole way so far.

“Quiet!” she hissed, tightening her grip on his shoulder. If she could have picked any of the King’s heirs to be her charge, Kilian would not have been her first choice. Not even her second, third, or sixth choice. She often wondered in the last few years what she had done to fall out of her cousin’s favor that he had given her such a burden.

“Ow! That hurts!”

Glancing back as the tapestry fell into place she squeezed again, hoping that he would get the message at last. A few feet in the boy thudded to a stop, making another cry of pain. This time she didn’t bother to shush him. In fact, she sort of smiled, knowing full well he had walked into a wooden wall in the darkness that stood directly in their way. She supposed she might have warned him about that.

Her dark blue eyes were adjusting and she could see a dim outline of the boarded up entry they had encountered. This particular passage had been closed off during her childhood years after an accident had cost the lives of two children belonging to soldiers stationed in Ruairc Castle. Originally meant to be used as a shortcut from the stables to the courtyard, it had often been a playground for the castle children who had escaped their watchers. Laughter would echo as children raced each other through the dimly lit tunnel. However, during an earthquake, two such children had been tragically and fatally trapped in the passage and the King had ordered the passage bordered up for safety. Now she was counting that no one would remember and it would buy them safety and time.

She pulled Kilian back behind her. “Don’t move,” she said so firmly that he didn’t dare disobey. The most momentum she could get was one or two steps, but she put it all into one powerful sidekick. The old, rotting boards cracked, concaving away from them. Twice more, and she had to quickly back away, turning her back to the falling wood and shielding the boy from the debris.

The tunnel was filled with dust, dirt, and stale air in the darkness and neither could resist coughing as their lungs screamed for clean air. “All right, let’s go,” she said as she shook the debris from her cloak and brushed herself off.
She began leading him forward, holding her sword before her as if it could guide them. She held the boy’s hand and kept him behind her but she was listening too for sounds of pursuit all the while hoping that the sounds of the battle in the castle had masked the raucous she had caused.

No sounds of pursuit came. There were only the muffled echoes of their footsteps in the tunnel. They had to move slowly to remain surefooted because of the loose rocks and bricks on the floor. Occasionally, she would whisper warnings as her foot would find an unsafe foothold. Finally their near-blind journey came to an end as they reached another wooden barrier. Less sure of what might be on the other side of this obstacle and yet unable to turn back, Bronwen could only keep going forward. She had Kilian stand further back this time simply because they had the room; she was less concerned about someone sneaking up from behind at this point in the venture. These boards had been more recently reinforced and required more effort, more kicks and what she suspected might be a slightly sprained ankle. She would worry about the ankle later. For now, her knee-high leather boots would give enough support to mask the injury.

Once they were free of the wood barrier, she crept forward to the opening of the tunnel, sword at ready. She signaled the boy to hang back and to his credit, the head-strong brat did what he was told for once. Bronwen peeked into the first ring of the castle where the stables were located. It was also the ring where the servants and the castle guards made their homes. The outer walls were meant to be the first defense against the enemy, meant to withstand any assault from the outside and the distance between the outer wall and the first of the inner walls was expansive enough to give safe haven to the nearby village during an attack and siege.

Of course, all of this was useless if the enemy came from within.

The battle she had witnessed in the chambers of the royal family, in the center ring, in the courtyard, appeared to be just as engaged here. Here too the sky was alight by fires signaling to the world that something had gone horribly wrong in the castle. Bodies laid were they had fallen by sword, dagger or arrow. Bronwen signaled Kilian to join her and when he was close enough she grabbed his hand. She tried to ignore the fact that friends of hers were dead or dying or fighting as she ran along the wall with boy, keeping to the shadows.

“Wen!” a burly voice boomed as she began to cross the open doorway to one of the store rooms. She paused, letting go of the boy, but keeping a light touch on his clock.

“Flynn,” she said calmly, looking at the bloody man in the store room. Teirnan lay on the floor, still alive but only momentarily.

“What say you?” he demanded. “Are you with the Mac Cochláin?”

She made a scoffing sound. “What do you think, Flynn?” Her face betrayed nothing, but her heart was pounding in her chest.

He hesitated, “I think you’ve been baby sitting those royal bastards too long. Your loyalties lie with them and not with the Laoch.”

“I was born Laoch,” she said trying to sound offended and raised her sword as if to make a point. She could hear Kilian breathing behind her as he pressed himself against the wall.

Flynn stomped toward her, “Well, hell, then what are we waiting for, Wen? We got a castle to conquer!” He was almost to the doorway before he realized that rather than taking a step back into the outer ring, out of his way, she had gripped the sword with both hands and lowered it slightly as she also took a step forward. They came together as her sword slid through the gap between his vest leathers and his pants leathers. The momentum and precision of her movement was perfect, but that might have been why she’d been chosen for bodyguard duty. She forced the sword all the way through jerking the hilt as it met his body.

“The thing is, Flynn, that I swore an oath to serve King and Country when I took up the sword. I don’t toss promises about, only to forget their importance when it suits me.” He gasped in surprise as he clutched at her with one hand. The other hand tried to hold on to his bloody broadsword, but he fumbled at both actions. Blood was already gurgling up in his throat. She put her foot up on his thigh, holding up his weight with her sword and the sheer will of her forearm strength. He was a full two heads taller than her and probably weighed twice what she did, but she didn’t make any sounds of strain, though she would certainly be sore tomorrow. She began to push him back off the sword as she straightened her leg, letting him slide to the ground with the aid of gravity as blood spilled from between his lips.

She glanced at Teirnan but her fellow soldier was already dead. There was nothing she could do for her now. She would mourn for her later. Wiping Flynn’s blood on his vest, she turned and looked for her charge. The boy stood where she had let go of him, staring into the doorway, eyes wide. That was the problem with children, they played war games in the fields and thought they were great warriors but none of them really knew the real horror of it all, the nightmare that haunted them all. The honor of serving also meant you would always have the blood of another on your hands and no matter what, it never really washed away.

She grabbed his arm. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. No more dawdling.”
Kilian stumbled behind her as she dragged him toward the stables.