Stormfire (11 page)

He was close enough to see
sparks spit from the black's
hooves and
dimly hear the sea crashing on the cliff rocks. Suddenly, inevitably, Mephisto neighed wildly and twisted
back on
his haunches. Rearing horse and rider silhouetted against the moon before the girl screamed and fell.

Catherine scrambled to her feet as the riders closed in. They halted, some twenty of them, just fifty feet away. As the spent, sweaty black nuzzled her shoulder, she soothed him, stroking his white-flecked neck and side. The men were too far away to see the tears brim in her eyes. Then she gave him a gentle push and murmured softly, "You must go, beauty. I don't want you hurt."

A whistle sounded from a tall, shadowed rider. "Mephisto." The horse obediently trotted to his master. Growing a shade paler as she recognized the voice, Catherine drew the ax from her belt and waited, hair whipping in the sea wind. The tall rider gave a nod to one of the others, who rode forward a few paces.

Liam's voice carried over the dull sound of the surf. "Miss Enderly, give yourself up. If you peacefully surrender your weapons, I give you my word of honor no one will hurt you."

His answer was a cool, derisive laugh. "You have no honor, none of you. And you've murdered peace. Now you'll have to murder me, because I'll never willingly return to Shelan." Her voice lowered. "Shall we get this over with?"

The mercenaries were openly amused. One let out a catcall; another, leaning mockingly from his saddle, gave an ululating Irish war cry.

"Never let it be said an Irishman kept a lady waiting," the tall horseman said, and dismounted. As he stepped forward, the moon gave his eyes the translucence of pale glass. "Well, Miss Enderly," Sean Culhane said amiably, "here we are again, toe to toe. Do you recall the conversation during our last tiff, when you attempted to make a point with a candlestick?"

Catherine said nothing, merely watched him warily as he slowly advanced.

"I see you do. Now, if you don't throw that thing, I'll take it away from you. If you throw it and miss, you're going to think the culmination of our last argument was idyllic. If you don't miss, my men are going to throw you off that cliff after giving vent to their irritation at losing the source of their income. So don't be nervous, and take your best shot, Miss Enderly; you sure as hell won't get another."

Despite his efforts to rattle her, Catherine still waited. And despite his easy words, Sean's midsection prickled as the distance between them closed and he realized she meant to let him get close enough to try to bury the ax in his gut. At a twitch of her elbow, he dropped and rolled, hearing an evil whistle where his belly had been. Uttering a yelp, a rider scuttled aside. His companions' amusement vanished. As Sean came quickly to a crouch, his opponent stared at him with the cold intensity of a cornered lynx, the bronze dagger in her fist. His heart began to resume its normal pace. The girl had managed the ax with startling expertise, but he was relieved to see she was unaccustomed to a knife. She held the blade haft up instead of horizontally, blade out. He slowly rose, and drew his own knife, and let it change from hand to hand to glint moonlight along its blade. Mercilessly he began to tease her, closing all the while, feinting easily, his blade a distracting blur. Watching closely, she quickly shifted her hold on her knife and imitated his movements, stalking him as stealthily as a small Indian.

Culhane's grin flashed briefly white in the dark. "Not bad for a beginner, but you've much to learn . . ." Inches from her, his blade suddenly cut upward in an arc from the shadow of his body. Startled, she backed, nearly dropping her guard.

"Lesson one. Killing at a distance is one thing, Disembowelment at close quarters is less aesthetic. Have you ever seen a pig butchered, Miss Enderly? Not pretty, is it? Death on a knife is nowhere as refined as that, I assure you." His knife flicked, flirted with her body, forced her back. "The final moments are" messy, usually because one slash isn't sufficient unless the fighter is experienced. Would you like to die in stages, girl. . . or all at once?" His knife snaked out and caught her blade guard in a deft twist, wrenching it from her fingers. Throwing an arm up to ward him off, she stumbled back the last, remaining inches to the cliff rim. Her feet slipped sickeningly from under her; then she rifled down into nothingness. Abruptly Culhane's powerful grip caught her wrist, dragged her upward. She tried to wrench free, and he swore as he caught her roughly under the armpits and jerked her to him. For a terrible moment they struggled on the crumbling edge of the rock face until the Irishman found his footing and fought them both to safety.

As if unaware of her near fall, Catherine pummeled his chest and kicked wildly at his shins and groin. With a growl, he reached for her scruff; she snapped at him with her teeth. He got a handful of hair, jerked her around so he could hold her by the arms, then pushed her to the edge of the precipice. "Look down, damn you! That dagger you dropped down there is irreplaceable. I ought to throw you after it!" Breath coming in sobs of frustration, she writhed, still fighting him. He shook her, deliberately letting her hang outward.

"For God's sake, Sean," Liam cried. "Stop it!"

Sean ignored him. "Look down, you little idiot! That's death, real and final. Look down!"

Unable to help herself, she looked. A dizzy void yawned at her feet, the jagged rocks a hundred-feet below reaching upward like deadly fangs, the glassy waves deceptively soft as they hurled moonlight-dappled walls of water against the sheer rock face. "When you invited my men to hack you to death, you didn't really know what death was, did you? Did you!"

Strangely silent, she hung from his hands. He gritted his teeth. She expected him to drop her, the ninny. He dragged her from the rim until the plummeting view was behind them. Passively, she allowed him to snap her about, then stood like a sleepwalker, staring at his chest. Thinking she was still in the thrall of the height, he tightened his grip on her arms to shake her when he realized she was rigid, her eyes glazed blanks. "Catherine," he said carefully. Her eyes flickered, then slowly registered. He knew she was aware of him when they flooded with despair.

"Bring me the roan's bridle." When one of the outriders handed it over, Sean pulled Catherine's wrists forward and lashed them in front of her. She made no resistance as he led her to the black; but when, instead of putting her in the saddle, he tied her to Mephisto's tail, she struggled like a wild animal, then stood with feet braced, eyes ablaze with humiliation and hate.

"Sean, this is intolerable," Liam protested angrily. "I gave Miss Enderly my word—"

"Which she didn't accept." Sean handed the reins of the mount he had ridden to one of the men and swung into Mephisto's saddle. "Flannery, head for the smithy and heat up the forge. The rest of you get back to your posts. Liam, I suggest you go with them. Your temper could use a cooling out. I'll escort the lady home."

Liam gave his brother a look of fury, sawed his horse around, and dug in his spurs.

Culhane nudged Mephisto into a steady walk. Catherine balked, then was jerked forward into an unwilling trot. The Irishman did not look back. She quickly found she could only walk for a few paces, but then had to take several running steps to keep up as they followed a path worn in the furze along the cliff. Before they had gone far, the sun bloomed like a burning rose over the moors. Wretched as she was, Catherine was relieved to be alive to see the glowing dawn. White gulls wheeled and screamed along the sheer cliffs, then spiraled downward into the sea to emerge with fish.

Free. They're free! Catherine thought desolately. Suddenly blinded by tears, she stumbled and fell, scraping her knees on sharp pebbles. But her captor kept moving. Dragged by the straps at her wrists, she scrambled up with tear-streaked cheeks and began to swear steadily at him under her breath. Feeling better, she began to swear at him out loud, warily, then at the top of her lungs. She finally got the hiccups and had to stop.

Without looking back, Sean said dryly, "Good. Your limited vocabulary was growing tedious. If you're going to swear, do it properly. You haven't the feel of it a'tall, a'tall. Listen . . ." The air resounded with profanity, musical and grand.

Catherine's cheeks flamed scarlet. If her vocabulary was limited, Sean Culhane's definitely was not. The oaths had roll and thunder. When he finished, he had not repeated himself once. Of course, the lilt added a certain elan.

She frowned at Mephisto's tail in consideration, then repeated his last phrase. She had no idea what it meant, but she liked the rhythm of it. A low chuckle came back to her over the Irishman's shoulder. "Better. But don't mince up to it. Belly up."

She took a deep breath and let fly a volley at his head.

"Again better. Now let one flow gently, follow with power, lull, then build to a peak, and so forth. That's why a good string of oaths sounds like music."

Catherine could not believe she was having this conversation. Apparently the brute had a perverse sense of humor. Still, swearing relieved her anguish. She had thought to die, yet here she was tied to a horse's tail, admiring the scenery and trading profanity with a villain who had abducted her, raped her, then dangled her off a cliff. I must be hysterical, she thought. Aloud she began noisily to sing "The Tart of Whitemarsh," then wound up with an unrequested encore of choice selections from her newly learned repertoire.

Culhane clapped obligingly and she dropped a mocking curtsy to Mephisto's rump. An amused drawl floated back. "That Whitemarsh drab should have been walled up with the pharaohs, but I've heard worse renditions in music halls. No doubt you learned it discreetly at Ye Dreary Gentlewoman's Academy."

"As a matter of fact, I didn't," she retorted. "I was sitting in a schoolmate's brother's clothes in the fifth row of a Drury Lane theater"—she squinted at the bright light glancing off the sea—"but I concede the academy was exceedingly dreary."

"Then why go? I find it difficult to imagine anyone convincing a female as mule-brained as you to do anything you didn't think of yourself."

"Other people don't always employ your blunt methods of persuasion."

"You believe your father's techniques to be less crude?" His tone was light enough, but she feit a prick of unease.

"He's as different from you as heaven from hell," she replied curtly.

Culhane gave a short, ominous laugh. "Somewhere, heaven and hell meet: at that point even you, Miss Enderly, might have trouble telling the difference."

"The same thing is said about love and hate, but there, sir, you'd be at a loss. I cannot imagine your loving anyone, being gentle, even kind. You're a piece of stone, unfeeling—"

"Particularly about sentimental rot."

"You speak of rot!" Her temper heated. "You're a swamp of hatred . . . you . . ." She stopped, realizing she was going too far. Picking a quarrel with a lunatic on an isolated clifftop was the height of stupidity.

"You were saying? That is, before you considered your death might add a fillip to my stench?" His voice was taut, dangerous.

"I want to live, yes. But not without freedom. Not starved and beaten and threatened with death at every turn. Not surrounded by those who hate me. I'll fight to escape to my last breath. Your treating me like a slave doesn't make me one." She was tired now, the surge of energy that had carried her from Shelan seeped away. Her feet were sore; her wrists chafed. The brief, enforced trots were becoming uncertain and more frequent.