Bloodstone (42 page)

They were making it quick, I knew it, but it still felt like forever before silence fell with that particular dreadful quality. I glanced briefly at Carraig.

‘All right, Murlainn?’ he whispered.

He was letting me know it was coming. I gave him a very fleeting smile and closed my eyes.

I felt the evil breath of the lash before it even hit me.

‘The hell with this,’ said Finn. She took her hands from her face and ran round the passageway to the anteroom at the top end of the hall, Jed at
her heels.

‘Will we get in there?’

‘Nobody’s going to stop us.’ She glanced back at him, her eyes fierce and cold. ‘Because they’re all in there. All of them watching. The
bastards.’

She was right: the anteroom was empty. The hall was full, but no-one was taking any notice of two figures easing in through the gap in the darkness around the anteroom
door.

The crowd of watchers stood in absolute silence, and there was no screaming. There was only one sound: the light song and snap of a whip as it cracked into flesh. Finn froze,
incapable for a moment of breathing.

Facing them was Seth, bound to a stripped pine log, but his eyes were shut tight. With each lash his body jerked involuntarily against the log, but it was his only reaction,
so for seconds Finn didn’t understand. Then she made out the fine spray of red, the droplets spattering the wood, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. Seth’s jaw was rigid, his skin
white and stretched, and blood trickled from the corner of his lips.

Like a ghost behind the hideous image there was another one in Finn’s head: Seth stripping off his jumper, throwing it to Grian. He was taking this of his free will. She
clenched her fists till her nails drew blood in her palms, reopening the gash she’d made with her pendant. She still hated them all. Her body seethed with terror and pity and the godawful
hatred.

There was no pleasure in any of their faces, even in the face of the man who wielded the brutal whip. He was not enjoying his work, but neither was he holding back. The
flogging was thorough, professional, brutal. The clann were only enduring it, but she felt no shred of pity for them. Even Sionnach was looking on stony-faced and miserable. But his sister’s
eyes came alight with glee as she found Finn in the shadows, and there was fervid hope in her expression.

No
, Finn thought.
You can wait forever, you vicious vengeful bitch. I won’t scream.

Seth opened his jaws and sank his teeth into the pine trunk, blood from his bitten tongue spilling down the timber. Her own back jolted with every lash of the whip.
Oh,
please
, she thought each time:
make it stop. Not again. That’s enough. You’ll kill him. Stop now. Please
. But every time, the whip was drawn back, every time she heard the
crack of it, duller and wetter now.

The guards seemed to be holding Seth tighter, and the one she could see had tears in his eyes. As Jed closed his arms tightly around her chest, she felt something trickle hot
into her hair, and knew he too was crying. They couldn’t leave. She had not abandoned Seth at Brokentor and she wouldn’t abandon him now. But if the lash did not stop that relentless,
endless cracking, she thought she might throw up or pass out, and she didn’t want to do either.

And then, when she thought she could stand it no longer, it was over.

I lay face down on my own mattress, staring at the wall. So I’d got here by myself.

I had not fallen when they took the ropes off my wrists. I’d walked out of the hall by myself, in front of them all, the pain a stabbing demon with its flaming claws deep in my back and
its tentacles around my throat, threatening to cut off my air supply. Some of the clann were weeping. But I fecking wasn’t.

I climbed the stairs to my rooms alone, their watching eyes keeping me upright as far as the landing. But I don’t know how I made it up the second flight. I don’t know. I don’t
even remember the climb, though I vaguely remember throwing up at the top of the stairs, the pain flaying me in a vicious circle and making me vomit again.

Damn them, damn them, damn them all to hell. I let myself feel the hatred because after tonight I must not feel it again. When the pain subsided, in a couple of centuries, I wouldn’t. They
were my clann.

I hadn’t made a sound. Let’s be clear on that. I did not pass out. I got my dun back, got my clann back. I was the son of Griogair Dubh and I was their unchallenged Captain.
I’d atoned for the death of their leader, at least in the eyes of the clann if not in the merciless eyes of Eili.

Or, indeed, mine.

None of it helped at that moment. It had got me through the punishment but it couldn’t dull the pain. Blood still trickled down my sides, wetting the sheets, and my jeans were soaked with
it, but I hadn’t been capable of taking the damn things off. I’d only barely been capable of crawling to my own bed and hauling myself onto it. Silently I wept the tears I
couldn’t weep in the hall. Silently I reminded myself that nothing they could do to me could compare with the pain I’d brought on my own heart.

But it didn’t help. Not this instant. Because oh, gods, it hurt. A tiny whimper of agony choked in my throat, but I still couldn’t sob or scream, because they still might hear in the
unnaturally quiet dun.

Branndair lay against the bed, his tongue occasionally licking my fingers and my raw left wrist. They’d locked him up, of course, in this room, and there were deep gouges in the door and
the floorboards where Branndair had tried to get to me. I wouldn’t fix them, I decided savagely. They’d remind me.

Branndair stayed close now but he knew not to touch me – he’d felt my terror that he might – and I hated them most of all for that. But even the light fleeting glance of his
wolf-mind was comforting, because I had never felt so alone in my life. If it wasn’t for Branndair, my heart might have broken.

He sat up and snarled, and I gazed in a stupor at the door. I didn’t have a thing left. If it was anyone come to gloat, let them try. Branndair must be hungry by now. I let myself smile a
little. Gods, even that hurt.

Then Branndair was on his feet, hackles high, teeth bared. The door opened hesitantly, but he made no move to attack. Reaching out with my exhausted mind, I saw who it was.

‘Branndair,’ I murmured. ‘No.’

He lay down, sulking, as they came in. They shouldn’t be here; but I couldn’t bear to send them away. I made another aborted attempt at that smile.

‘Hey, Finn. Jed.’

My voice seemed croakier than it should have been. Ignoring Branndair’s warning rumble, Finn reached out a hand to my face, clenching it at the last moment. After a little hesitation, she
bit her lip and touched my hair.

‘Yeah, that’s okay,’ I mumbled. ‘That bit of me doesn’t hurt.’

Her face was wet with tears, I realised with an odd surge of affection. And Jed didn’t look much happier, funnily enough. Finn held a bottle to my lips and I felt water against my burning
throat.

‘Thanks,’ I said, wishing she’d give me more.

‘They’re bastards,’ said Jed, wiping his nose with his sleeve. ‘Bastards.’

‘I hate them,’ added Finn quietly.

‘Thanks for that. I love you both.’ I laughed very quietly, wincing at the pain that surged through my back and threatened to make me vomit or faint again. ‘But please
don’t. They had to.’

‘They’re all walking round like zombies, if it helps.’ Finn’s eyes were brilliant with rage. ‘Half of them in tears, the hypocrites. Sionnach too.’

‘Oh, Finn.’ I was too tired to argue. ‘This or kill me.’

‘They pretend it’s for Conal,’ she said softly. ‘Liars.’

She stroked my hair and I closed my eyes briefly. There was a point when I thought I’d felt Conal with me, down there in the hall: the touch of his mind, his fathomless pity and grief.
I’d thought I could feel Conal’s touch, Conal’s hand against my face. I’d thought I heard him whisper, telling me
stay on your feet little brother, stay quiet,
it’ll be over soon
; but hey, that was pain and humiliation for you. Made you hallucinate. I certainly couldn’t feel him now.

Jed ducked back out through the door and returned with a bowl of faintly steaming water and a pile of white cloths. This time Branndair did growl.

‘Branndair,’ I growled back, and he lay down again, teeth still bared.

‘Grian gave us these. He wanted to come himself but Jed and I wouldn’t let him.’

‘Good.’ My lips twitched. ‘Good for you. Listen. I can’t face a healer at all, but the one you mustn’t let near me is Eili. All right?’

Jed frowned. ‘She wouldn’t try, would she?’

‘You’d be amazed. I’ll explain. Later.’ I made a pathetic shot at a laugh.

‘Can you bear it?’ Finn nipped her lip hard. ‘I think I have to clean it. Even though...’

‘Even though.’ My voice shook, and I was pissed off at myself. ‘Yeah, there’ll be muck. Won’t do me any good. Go ahead.’

It stung like nothing had ever stung me before: like a byke of angry wasps loose on my back, even after Jed found my hip flask and emptied the whisky carefully down my throat, but I managed not
to scream. I just buried my face in the pillow, ripping the linen with my fingernails, wanting to die, while Finn peeled off the blood-crusted jeans. At least then Jed could get at my belt, and
slide it between my teeth.

Finn cried the whole time, but silently, trying not to get salt tears on my flayed flesh. She was so businesslike, so brisk, and underneath it all was a terrifying cold anger.

‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled.

‘Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare apologise again.’

‘I mean for this. You shouldn’t see. You’re angry.’

‘If it’s all right for them to do it, it’s all right for me to see it.’

Fine. I had no energy left. Everything I had was fighting pain.
~ You’re too young
, was all I managed.

I thought she’d throw a temper. Instead she was silent for a long time.

She touched the very top of my shoulder, somewhere there wasn’t an open wound. Her touch was very gentle; so light it could have been the touch of her mind, and suddenly she seemed far
less certain.

~
Not forever
, was all she said.

‘You okay?’ Finn chewed her lip.

‘I’m okay, Finn.’ At least I was no longer afraid to move or breathe. I stood watching Rory play on the rug with the wolves. Liath was crouched in front of Branndair, playfully
nibbling his throat fur, no longer the alpha wolf. ‘I need to go down to my clann now.’

She flushed with anger. ‘No, you don’t. Not if you don’t want to. They can wait.’

‘She’s told them so,’ said Jed. ‘And she’s just slapped Grian.’

‘Dorsal, you did what?’ I did my damnedest not to laugh, and nearly succeeded.

‘He’s got nail marks on his cheeks, wait’ll you see. She’s drawn blood. And when he told her you were lucky not to be dead, she told him
he
was bloody lucky you
weren’t.’

Oh gods, I mustn’t go on finding this funny. It had to stop. ‘Finn, you’re not helping. What did I tell you, you disobedient—’