Celtic Fire Read online

  She bit back a hysterical laugh. Even if she somehow managed to free Lucius, she could hardly expect he would risk his life to save hers. Not after she’d kept the truth of his brother’s fate from him. Most likely he would tie her to a tree and leave her for the carrion eaters.

  Brennus propelled her through the door of the fort commander’s residence and into a small room off the foyer. How could she delay his advances? When the door thudded shut, she stiffened her spine and summoned her most regal tone.

  “Unhand me.”

  To her surprise, Brennus complied.

  “I’m in sore need of rest,” she said, picking her words carefully. “You may leave me.”

  Brennus’s mouth curved. “I’ve no complaint if ye take to your bed. But if ye think to delay my presence there, you’re wasting precious time. I’m most eager to be wiping the memory of Aquila’s cock from your body.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Did … did he hurt you?”

  The painful throb in Owein’s head quickened as he waited for Rhiannon’s reply. He’d gained entrance to the chamber scant moments after Brennus’s departure by threatening the Gaulish guard with a Druid curse. The man had not been able to unbolt the door fast enough.

  “Nay,” Rhiannon said at last. “He was called away as soon as he brought me here.” She paced the room. It was crowded with dark shadows, the only illumination a shaft of dim light from the single high window. “When he returns, I’ll tell him the moon flux is upon me.”

  “That lie willna work for long.”

  “I know it, brother.”

  He took a step toward her, then halted. “Can ye not at least give Brennus a chance? The clans need his men.”

  She gave a bitter laugh. “I’m ever the whore chasing power. Truly, Owein, I grow weary of it.”

  He went to her then, and put his arms around her. “Ye are no whore. Ye are a treasure beyond price. A queen.”

  “A queen, locked away? I would sooner be a hag, and free of this place.”

  “Our people need ye.”

  She threw off his embrace. “Need me? For what? The men follow their war leaders. Madog prays only to Kernunnos—he’s forsaken Briga. Without the goddess to balance the god, our people will stumble and fall.” She turned to him with pleading eyes. “Ye must not kill him, Owein.”

  Pain pounded his temple. “The Roman.” The word left a foul taste in his mouth, as if he’d chewed on dung.

  “Ye’ve taken the fort. Let him go.”

  “How can ye plead for your defiler, Rhiannon?”

  “Lucius is no defiler.”

  “I saw ye crying after he took ye.”

  “ ’Twas not joining with Lucius that made me cry. I went to his bed willingly. I love him.”

  His gut heaved. “I canna believe that! He took ye captive. He used ye.”

  “He treated me like a queen. I know ye dinna understand. How can ye when I canna understand it myself?” Her voice broke. “I canna bear Lucius’s death, Owein. Free him for my sake. Let him go south to his own people. The clan has no need of his life. Not truly.”

  Owein gritted his teeth. “ ’Tis not possible.”

  “That is a lie.”

  A spike of agony pierced his skull and the vision burst on him, so vivid he could have reached out and touched it. The ancient stones. Blood. His hand on the Druid sword.

  His fingers tore at his scalp, nails rending the flesh. When the visions came upon him, he wanted nothing so much as to rip them from his mind.

  He gasped for breath until the scene faded. When it did, he felt Rhiannon’s hands cradling his face.

  “Owein? Has it passed?”

  He steadied himself with one hand on her shoulder while he blinked to clear his tears. “You bid me free the Roman. Even were I to attempt it, I wouldn’t succeed. I See him, Rhiannon. His blood is on the stones. My hand is on the killing sword. ’Twill happen. Kernunnos has willed it.”

  Her hands dropped from his face. “When will ye take him to Madog?”

  “In the hour before dawn,” he replied.

  “Father? Are you alive?”

  The flood of relief that Marcus’s trembling whisper brought to Lucius was so keen he was unable to answer for several seconds. His son had not been taken by the enemy. Thank the gods.

  Marcus stifled a sob and crept closer. His shaking hand touched Lucius’s chest. “Please be alive.”

  “Marcus.” Lucius slitted his eyes and scanned the headquarters yard as best he could from his awkward position. The crowd had cleared at dusk. The dwarf who had posed as a slave in Lucius’s house had taken the body of the Celt who had fought Brennus. The dwarf had departed, but not before he’d set a pair of Gauls as guard. Luckily the brutes had been far more interested in drinking themselves into oblivion than tending their charge. They lay snoring in the dirt.

  “Where is Demetrius?” Lucius asked.

  “Dead.”

  He fought a surge of grief. “Are you sure?”

  Marcus didn’t answer. Instead he produced a dagger and sawed at the rope binding Lucius’s left leg. His hand was remarkably steady.

  “Where did you get the blade?”

  “Stole it from a drunk.”

  Lucius’s admiration of his son rose several notches. The boy was more levelheaded than he’d given him credit for. “How did Demetrius die?” he asked softly.

  Marcus’s hand stilled, then began sawing again with renewed energy. “The soldiers broke down the door. Candidus and some of the other slaves fought them and were killed. The rest of the Celts joined the traitors.” The boy’s tone was cool, as if he recited a lesson.

  Lucius kept silent. He sensed his son was close to breaking. Any sympathy he showed would nudge him over the edge.

  Marcus moved to Lucius’s right ankle. “Magister Demetrius and I were above stairs when the traitors entered the courtyard. He bade me get up on the roof. He met the soldiers as they gained the upper passage. They ran him through but never saw me.”

  Lucius flexed his legs, testing them with his full weight as Marcus stretched to cut the bonds holding his hands. Tears stung his eyes at the thought of his old teacher and friend protecting Marcus with his life. “How did you get into the headquarters?”

  “I climbed back onto the roof. I saw the bastards bring you from the western gate tower. I climbed to the roof of the bathing room and jumped across the alley to the headquarters roof. I had to wait for the yard to clear before I could free you. I was so afraid that …” He swallowed and cut through the last of the rope. “The guards only just fell asleep,” he said as if anticipating a reprimand.

  Lucius rubbed the feeling back into his arms. “You’re a brave one, Marcus. I’m proud to call you my son.” He took the stolen dagger and crept toward the sleeping traitors who had been his guards. With ruthless efficiency, he slit the throats of the two men. He relieved the first of his war belt, sword, mail shirt, and helmet.

  He strung the dead soldier up on the post as best he could with the cut ropes. With luck, he and Marcus would be long gone before the deception was noted. He stripped the second man’s gear for Marcus, rejecting the sword as too heavy. The boy was tall for his age. With Fortuna’s favor, he would pass without question.

  He donned the first guard’s mail and tested his sword. It was not as finely wrought as Lucius’s own, but it would do. “Stay close,” he told Marcus. “But don’t crouch. Try to walk with a swagger.”

  He picked his way around the unconscious men sprawled in the yard, pausing at the gate to peer into the street. To the left, a rowdy cluster of soldiers played at dice near the west gate. “This way,” he whispered to Marcus, moving to his right.

  “But Rhiannon …”

  Lucius’s jaw clenched. “What of her?”

  “I saw the quartermaster take her to the residence. We have to get her out.”

  “We don’t. She knew of the attack. Helped plan it, most likely. She’s with Brennus of her own accord.”

>   “She’s not! He nearly had to drag her to the door. He’ll hurt her.”

  Lucius’s resolve wavered, then hardened anew. Rhiannon was not some barbarian peasant girl in need of rescue. By Pollux, she was the hidden queen Aulus had written of in his history. She had fled his protection, then rallied her people to the sword. It was clear where her loyalties lay.

  “We’ll not endanger our escape for a barbarian woman,” he told Marcus. “She’s chosen her path.”

  “But Father, we must rescue her! She’s my friend.”

  “No. It’s not our concern.”

  A drunken soldier chose that moment to stumble into the road from the alley between the headquarters and the residence. He shoved past Lucius, barely sparing him a glance as he lifted his tunic and relieved himself against the wall. His need taken care of, he stumbled toward the group at the west gate.

  Lucius shoved Marcus in the opposite direction. “Go.”

  The boy dug in his heels. “No.”

  “Marcus …”

  “She doesn’t want him! She wants you. You have to get her out.” He darted toward the residence door. Lucius cursed and ran after him, setting his jaw against the pain that shouted from his ribs.

  He caught Marcus by the scruff of the neck. “We are not going in there.”

  “We have to! You told me yourself that a Roman fights with honor. What honor is there in crawling out of the fort gates and leaving a helpless woman behind?”

  Lucius snorted. “Rhiannon is hardly helpless. She—”

  A woman’s angry voice cut into the night from the high window directly above Lucius’s head.

  Rhiannon.

  Gaius Brennus answered with a snarl. “Ye’ll not deny me, woman. Remove your tunic.”

  Lucius’s fury exploded. He looked down at Marcus. The boy’s eyes had gone wide with fear. “All right,” he said. “We’ll save her. Keep your dagger close and follow me.”

  “Ye’ll not deny me, woman.”

  Brennus had returned just as Owein was leaving. Rhiannon cursed her luck soundly. Somehow she had to get out and free Lucius. She had little time to waste before her brother located a pony on which to carry his captive to the Druid circle.

  “Remove your tunic.”

  “I told ye, I canna lie with ye this night. ’Twill be several days at least.” She dropped her chin a bit, feigning embarrassment. “The moon flux …”

  Brennus gave her a scowl and half turned away. He unsheathed his dagger and Lucius’s sword and flung the weapons onto a long stone table. His war belt clattered to the floor. Rhiannon watched with growing unease as his mail shirt followed it.

  He faced her, wearing only a dirty shirt and torn braccas, the laces straining with his arousal. “Unclothe yourself.”

  “Nay,” Rhiannon said, fighting the urge to step back. “I would not dishonor ye so.”

  He laughed. “Your concern is touching but misplaced. I’ve wanted ye since I saw ye in the fort hospital, and I’ll have ye tonight. If your woman’s flow is truly on ye, ye may service me with your mouth.” His hands curled into fists.

  Rhiannon didn’t doubt he would use them on her. Her gaze strayed to his dagger, lying unprotected such a short distance away. She took a step toward it, her hands lifting as she did so to the pin that fastened her cloak. The mantle fell away. Brennus’s gaze raked her, leaving her feeling soiled.

  She took another step, positioning herself between Brennus and the table as she twisted her fingers into her skirt and pulled the hem up over her knees, then her thighs. Swallowing her revulsion, she swept the fabric over her head.

  He was on her in a heartbeat, pressing her bare buttocks against the cold granite. His arousal prodded her legs. Her fingers groped the table behind her and closed on the hilt of the dagger. When Brennus’s hands moved to untie the laces on his braccas, she struck.

  Her blade slashed across his throat, loosing a river of blood. Brennus stared at her with disbelieving eyes as his knees crumpled. Rhiannon kicked free of him and scrambled out of the path of his body. Lurching for the corner of the room, she doubled over and retched. Brennus’s soul burst from his flesh in waves of pulsing rage.

  When it was over, Rhiannon sprawled on the floor, gasping. A rivulet of blood made its way toward her across the tiles. She heaved herself to her feet, snatched up her tunic, and dressed swiftly. Dagger raised, she crept toward the door, praying Brennus had dismissed the guard before entering.

  Her prayer went unanswered. The door opened, revealing two men in Gaulish helmets and mail. She made a desperate stab at the closer one’s neck only to have her wrist caught in his unrelenting grip.

  “Rhiannon. Be still. It’s Lucius.”

  “Lucius?” She blinked up at him. “But … I was coming to save you!”

  Lucius’s gaze swept past her, taking in Brennus and the pool of blood in which he lay. “I thought to rescue you,” he said. His mouth lifted, first one side, then the other, in a genuine smile. “I might have known you would need no help.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Lucius watched Rhiannon greet Marcus with a glad cry. “You’re safe! Thank Briga.” She enfolded him in a fierce embrace.

  “But Magister Demetrius …” He buried his face in her tunic.

  Rhiannon’s questioning gaze met Lucius’s eyes. “Dead,” he said. “But we have precious little time to mourn him. We must flee before my absence from the yard is noted.”

  They left the house by the front entrance, avoiding the boisterous soldiers in the courtyard. Though dawn was a few hours off, some of the men sprawled in the avenue connecting the east and west gates were already starting to stir. Since the barracks flanked the north gate, that route promised to be even more trafficked.

  Lucius led them down a side alley toward the south gate, sword at the ready. His fingers gripped the wolf’s head. He’d counted Aulus’s gift as lost until Rhiannon had lifted it from the Egyptian table in the receiving room. She’d taken Brennus’s dagger for herself, belting it in a sheath at her waist.

  Lucius hadn’t seen Aulus since before the Celt attack began and now, with Rhiannon nearby, he would not appear. It might be that his brother had found rest at last, but Lucius doubted it. A dread intuition whispered that when Aulus materialized again, he would be in worse agony than before.

  He led his small band at a snail’s pace between the granaries, only in part because of a need to avoid discovery. The bruises from Brennus’s fists ached and one rib was certainly cracked. Vivid agony tore through his side with every step he took.

  Marcus and Rhiannon trod softly at his back. Lucius knew that his son’s store of strength, sapped by his illness and his flight over the rooftops, was nearly depleted. The boy leaned heavily on Rhiannon, but when he ventured a whisper, it was not fatigue, danger, or even Demetrius’s death of which he spoke. His main concern was that Hercules had been lost. Lucius suspected the boy’s numbed and grieving mind had seized upon this topic to avoid replaying the horror of the last few hours.

  “He will find you,” Rhiannon soothed. “He’s a clever beast.”

  If Lucius entertained some doubts on that score, he kept them to himself. No use distressing the boy further, when they all might be dead by morning, like the two Gauls sprawled face down in the alley. The unfortunate pair had been stripped of their armor, leaving them with only torn shirts and braccas to cover their tangled limbs. Lucius kicked them aside to unblock the path, then paused to let the stabbing pain in his side pass.

  Rhiannon shot him a glance, and though the night was dark, he did not miss the questions in her eyes. She wondered about the extent of his injuries. He steeled himself against her concern. She’d told him too many lies and owed him too many answers.

  He paused at the corner of the fort workshop. The wide expanse of open air between it and the perimeter wall was useful for preventing flaming enemy arrows from firing the fort buildings, but proved a daunting barrier to a wounded man, a woman, and a boy who wished to reach the
gate unnoticed. The tall doors between the south towers were ajar, affording a tantalizing glimpse of the fort village beyond. A knot of dicing soldiers hunkered nearby.

  “A dog to my Venus,” one of them announced in a self-satisfied tone. “The prize is mine.” His opponents grumbled as they shoved their coin in his direction. Less than ten paces from the gamblers, a man was on the ground, pumping his seed into a plump woman. As Lucius watched, the soldier grunted and rolled to the side. The woman then lifted her arms to a second man. The newcomer threw down a coin and took his comrade’s place between her thighs.

  Marcus tugged Lucius’s tunic. “How will we get past?”

  “Can you walk unaided? Just until we pass the gate?”

  He nodded.

  Lucius cast a glance over Rhiannon. Most of the men had seen her enter the fort with the rutting bastard who had been her husband. She would be recognized when they tried to pass the gate. After a moment’s thought, he paced back to the dead men and cut their shirts from their bodies.

  He returned to his companions. “When the show starts, slip out the gate behind us,” he told Marcus.

  Rhiannon’s eyes showed her confusion. “Show?”

  Lucius plucked Brennus’s dagger from her hand and shoved it back into the sheath at her waist. Then he threw one stolen shirt over Rhiannon’s head and the other around her torso. “I hope this is disguise enough,” he muttered. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder, one palm firmly fixed on her buttocks.

  She went deathly still, whether from shock or desire he couldn’t tell.

  “Struggle,” he told her.

  The dead man’s shirt muffled her voice. “Nay. You’re hurt.”

  “We’ll all be dead soon enough if you don’t start screaming.”

  She must have guessed his plan then, because she began to twist in his arms and shriek loudly enough to wake the dead in the fort cemetery. He made a motion to Marcus and staggered toward the gate.