Page 107 of The Queen and the Half-blood
A short while later, they met Roth and his warriors coming back in the opposite direction. They were riding hard and had to haul their horses up sharply to avoid colliding with Cailean and the other enforcers who rode up front.
Cailean reined in his stallion, Skaal skidding to a smooth halt at his side. “Did you catch up with the wulvers?” he demanded without preamble.
Roth shook his head. His face was flushed, his gaze burning. “They must have run north as if The Reaper were chasing them,” he panted. “We followed on their heels to Dulross … but no farther.”
“No farther?” Cailean’s dark brows crashed together.
Still breathing hard, Roth cut his gaze from the chief-enforcer, instead seeking out Lara a few yards behind.
The world started to spin then, and she grabbed the pommel of the saddle. The look in his eyes was an executioner’s axe.
“The gates were barred to us. They’ve taken Dulross too.”
Climbing the wooden steps to the walls, Alar sheathed the blade he’d just cleaned. He then headed toward the heavily muscled figure clad in leather and fur standing by the guard tower. The warrior’s long peat-colored hair whipped around him in the wind. Intricate knots of tattoos and bronze, silver, and gold arm rings covered his brawny arms.
“Og mac Alpin is dead,” Alar announced. “’The Brooch of Albia’ is ours.” His pulse jolted then. Finally, the jewel he and his wulvers had coveted for years—the fort that joined The Wolds and The Uplands—was theirs.
Nonetheless, the victory was bittersweet.
They’d initially planned to take more than Dulross and Doure. The wulvers had coveted Duncrag too. Alar was supposed to have laid the groundwork for a takeover. Instead, he’d kept his word to Lara. He’d signed that cursed document, as he’d promised, agreeing that he’d step aside when she died. And then shortly after he’d wed Lara, he’d informed Lyall and Dolph that taking the capital was off the table. He wouldn’t be overthrowing the High Queen.
As a result, his relationship with his brothers had been strained ever since.
Lyall and Dolph had lost trust, but Alar hoped their victory now would restore it.
Beathan mac Glen turned to face him. Streaks of woad decorated his smooth-shaven face, emphasizing the sharp blue of his eyes. The chieftain of the Circines flashed him a hard smile before gesturing to below them, to where both hill-tribe warriorsand wulvers were nailing up heavy wooden planks to reinforce the massive iron gates. “The gates are almost secured.”
“The High Queen’s army has our battering ram though,” Alar reminded him. Aye, they’d broughtFire Wyrmnorth. It was being hauled by oxen in the baggage train, although there wouldn’t be any wulvers with the High Queen’s army left to wield it. The Marav could do so, but even if they breached Dulross’s gates, they wouldn’t best the combined strength of the huge wulver and hill-tribe force within.
Beathan shrugged, nodding to where warriors were hauling iron pots up onto the top of the guardhouse. “Just as well we’re preparing the boiling pitch. We’ll have some fun with the shit-eaters.” He paused then. “I must admit, I’m tempted to throw open the gates and engage them … however, this fort is too precious to me to risk it.”
Alar nodded, even as relief washed over him. He’d just betrayed Lara, but he was reluctant to engage her in battle. He didn’t want her to be harmed. Instead, he needed her to turn her army around and retreat to safety.
His stomach twisted then. His wife would be reeling right now. She’d be struggling to accept that he’d double-crossed her.
But he had. He’d waited decades to take territory for the wulvers, had thought about little else as the years slid by.
And yet, the past turns of the moon had caused something to shift inside him. Lara had been a distraction. From the first moment he’d seen her, fighting for her life as powries swarmed around her, she’d fascinated him. Worse than that—she’d roused a protective instinct that was difficult to quash.
He’d told himself he could handle her, and himself. He’d been determined to let nothing get between him and his goals. But she’d blunted his hunger for anything but her.
It was over now though. He’d unmasked himself.
Earlier, as they’d emerged from the broch after killing the chieftain and taking his family prisoners, both Lyall and Dolph had been jubilant. Today changed everything for the wulvers. For centuries, they’d been persecuted, hunted. But now Doure and Dulross—two key forts—belonged to them. The borderlands were theirs.Finally, they had their own slice of Albia, and allies to help them hold it.
They’d taken the fort fast, dealing easily with the garrison and any residents foolish enough to fight. Those surviving had wisely barricaded themselves inside their homes. The wulvers and hill-tribe warriors who now swarmed the narrow wynds that climbed to the broch had full control.
Dulross had been expecting the High Queen, of course, for Lara had sent a rider ahead. The gates had been left wide open as they marched in. Unfortunately for the fort’s residents, the Marav accompanying the wulvers weren’t the High Queen’s warriors but Circines. The hill-tribe warriors had shifted allegiance, turning their backs on the Raven Queen—but it wasn’t the High Queen of Albia they now sided with.
“Will the bitch queen lay siege to the fort?”
Alar’s heart kicked hard as Beathan spoke once more. Hate edged the man’s voice. The chieftain of the Circines carried a grudge as deep as an Upland loch toward the rulers of Albia. His people hadn’t been treated much better than the wulvers over the centuries.
Nonetheless, Alar didn’t appreciate hearing Lara insulted. Clenching his jaw, he checked the impulse to say anything. This time.
“She’ll want to,” he answered, his gaze shifting from the chieftain to the rolling green meadows that stretched south. The wind had chased away the mist, making visibility clearer. Soon, the High Queen’s banner would appear on the horizon. “But since our force outnumbers theirs, she’ll hesitate.”
He glanced back at Beathan to see that the man’s lip had curled. He likely thought Lara was weak. He was wrong.
