He reached as if to grab for my arm, but I evaded him, jumping quickly to the left and chunking the nearest object I could reach at his head. It hit him square on the nose. With a ferocious growl, he leapt in my direction once more.
If Mary didn’t get up here soon, I was seriously screwed.
*
Dusk descended over the castle, slowly covering every inch of the grounds, creating the perfect shade from which the two servants could hide. They stopped their horses nearly a mile away from the stables, tying them securely to trees far enough away so that they wouldn’t hear the sounds of the horses dying. It wouldn’t do for them to spook their own. They needed them to get back quickly to Kinnaird Castle.
“I thought ye said there would be over a dozen here. There’s only nine. The three stables at the end are empty.”
“Aye. There should be, but we only take what’s here. We doona have much time to begin with. We must do it quick, do ye understand? They’ll no be without someone in the stables for long. We must come while they are all at dinner. The old stable master eats with his wife in the kitchens, while the laird, wife, and brother dine in the grand hall. We shall only have a few short moments to accomplish the task.”
The youngest servant, a lad of no more than sixteen, reached to wipe the sweat from his brow. It was a chilly evening, but he felt strangled by the heat rising from his own body and breathed in deeply to try and still the frantic thumping of his heart. It was the worst kind of crime for which he was about to be responsible. The animals would not be used for food. They were not killing them out of mercy. These horses were some of the finest he’d ever seen, healthy and strong. It broke his heart to know they would be ending the horses’ lives for no great purpose.
As he watched his older brother raise his blade high above the first horse’s head, he reached forward to stop the swing downward, latching onto his brother’s hand. “Swing true and hard. Doona let the blade stop halfway through. I know we must do this to save Mother, but I willna have them suffer more than they must.”
As his brother nodded, the younger released his grip and turned quickly to shield his eyes, choking down the bile that rose in his throat as a spray of warm blood splattered across his back.
With tears streaming down both their faces, the brothers moved quickly, trying to finish their horrid task as mercifully as they could.
When the last horse’s head had been severed, and the stable floors were covered with a sticky sickness, and the walls dripped with fresh blood, the two boys fled into the night with their souls and minds heavy and their hearts filled with hate for Ramsay Kinnaird.
Chapter 22
The trip to get the horses had been shorter than expected, but Eoin had been right. He needed to calm down, and getting away from the castle for a day or so with Kip helped tremendously. He had been drinking too much, and he was certain it had impacted his feelings about Blaire. She wasn’t someone else, someone trying to harm his brother. She was simply as lost as he was, trying to deal with her new marriage in the best way that she knew how.
It was time that he do the same, and with his mind set on doing just that, he smiled and pointed so that Kip would look out over the horizon where they could see Conall Castle off in the distance, bathed in moonlight.
He was feeling better than he had in ages, and he knew the last time he felt this good was before his father’s tragic death. Perhaps Blaire’s hold on him was not as strong as he thought. He only needed time to heal from the changes of the last few months.
The stables were only a short distance away, and it startled him that instead of picking up their pace in their anticipation of getting home, both horses reared up on their hind legs and tried to turn in the other direction. Both men steadied their horses, and Arran reached down to soothe Sheila as Kip did the same to Griffin.
Arran scanned the distance between themselves and the stables, looking for something that would have caused the horses to start. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw what could only be Angus, charging in their direction.
“Ach. Angus! I doona know how else to keep him in the stables. If he knows we’ve taken other horses out, he willna stay put. I expect he’s been loose since we left.”
“Kip, he looks frightened. I know he’s wild, but I’ve never seen him behave so.”
Angus didn’t slow his pace as he reached the two men, instead charging in wide circles around them, whining and making noise.
“It’s no too far to the stables from here. Let’s leave the horses here and take a look first. Aye?”
Kip was already dismounting Griffin and walking him over to the nearest tree to secure him as Arran nodded in agreement, easily swinging himself down from Sheila as he patted the side of her neck. “It’s alright, sweetheart. Ye stay here with Griffin and Angus, and I’ll come back for ye shortly.”