Fillan woke up in the middle of the night, his eyes widening. A hand covered his mouth. He panicked and struggled, but a body astride him held him still. All his being quivered, and his pulse quickened. In the dark, Kyle’s face came closer, putting a finger to his mouth.
He became aware of a clamor from the direction of the abbey, sounding like a mix of shouts and brutal orders.
“What’s happening?” he asked when Kyle withdrew her hand.
“The English, or worse,” she replied, helping him to his feet.
“Deorsa said they wouldn’t be here for several days!”
“That filthy eel has screwed up. It wouldn’t be the first time. Let’s go find the others!”
They ran through the woods. Fillan caught a glimpse of the flames that were starting to spread through the domain as he looked through tree trunks to his right.
The group was on high alert.
“What the hell were you doing?” Edan shouted.
“Mind your own business!” Kyle retorted.
The bald man looked them each up and down with a smirk. He was about to launch into a lewd comment, but Sören stopped him.
“You two,” he said to Kyle and Fillan, “flee through the woods and away from the fighting.”
“Without horses?!”
“No choice,” Moira replied. “Ours are in the stable at the abbey.”
“Fuck that!”
“Well said!” Edan called.
“Oh, you, shut up! What about the rest of you?”
“We’ll wait to see what happens,” Sören explained. “Once you get out of the woods, follow the road to the north. If we don’t catch up to you before the Tay, cross the river and wait for us at Luncarty.”
Kyle nodded.
“I want to fight!” interjected Fillan, who boiled with desire for revenge.
“No,” Sören cut in categorically. “We don’t even know what’s happening.”
“But if the Stone of Fal…”
“I said no! It’s not your job to take care of that yet, and the Brotherhood has surely already found a way to keep it safe. Have you already forgot the obedience an apprentice owes to his master?”
Fillan’s eyes flashed.
“Good. Watch out for each other, and no messing around!”
They grasped each other’s forearm before parting ways. Fillan felt something was changing between him and Sören. He hastily packed his things, girding one of the swords of Fal to his waist, wedging the other in the straps of his bag. The group had already disappeared into the tangle of trunks when they began to run.
The sound of their footsteps was muffled by the forest carpet. Fillan could barely see: a branch slashed his face, leaving a red welt on his cheek, but he ran faster still. If he slowed down for even a moment, he would lose sight of Kyle.
Torches suddenly appeared in front of them. They were swinging between the trunks, forming a flaming wall that was headed in their direction.
“Oh shit!” Kyle cursed. “They’re searching the whole forest.”
“Get up into the trees!”
“Eh?”
“The woods are dense and dark. They won’t see us up there. Do you think you can manage?”
“What do you take me for?” she retorted before grabbing onto the first branch within reach. “You’ll see if I can manage.”
She disappeared among the branches. He copied her, and a man brandished a torch right beneath their feet less than a minute later. It was definitely an English soldier.
“Do you see anything?” he barked in an authoritative voice.
“Nothing,” replied another. “Are we sure they’re here?”
“Yes, the orders were clear: they’re somewhere in this forest! So move your ass and find them!”
Fillan hugged Kyle a little closer.
“Are they looking for us?” he whispered.
“If so, that’s very bad.”
“It’d mean the Brotherhood has been betrayed again…” said Fillan in comprehension.
She nodded gravely.
Preceded by the sound of his regular and rapid footsteps, a scout came running to speak to the man standing under the tree.
“The fire from the abbey has reached the forest!” he announced in a shrill voice.
“Is this a joke? What a bunch of incompetents! You others, you inspect every inch of this forest before everything starts to burn! Move!”
The English resumed their mission, searching thickets meticulously.
“Follow me,” Kyle whispered in Fillan’s ear.
“What are you doing?!”
“You want to stay here and wait for the fire to cook us like bread? We need to move from tree to tree; the branches are solid enough.”
Just before leaping onto the adjoining oak tree, she suddenly kissed him. When she pulled back, Fillan thought he could see fear in her eyes, but he convinced himself that he was mistaken. Kyle was fearless.
They progressed just as slowly in one direction as the English did in the other, because they had to make sure that each new branch would not creak or break. Sometimes a torch loomed a few yards beneath their feet and they forced themselves to slow down, even to stop, clinging to the trunks like squirrels.
Around them the leaves were rustling, and an owl hooted every now and then, but they were mostly enveloped in an oppressive silence. The slightest noise in this quiet, however small, would sign their death warrant.
In her haste, however, Kyle slipped on a branch and a sinister creak resembling a doom chime rung out as she barely caught herself.
“Did you hear that?” yelled a soldier at the foot of the tree adjacent to theirs.
Kyle straightened up so as not to fall, but the wood cracked even more.
“Holy shit! They’re in the trees!”
“Shoot those bastards down!”
Fillan only understood what he meant once the arrows started flying. He helped Kyle find solid footing and they fled faster, no longer caring if the wood creaked. Hissing whooshed in their ears, interspersed with the dull sound of iron spikes digging into the trunks.
“You can’t see anything up there,” bellowed an Englishman. “I have an idea!”
A flaming arrow grazed Fillan’s arm.
“What are you doing?!” came a shocked voice. “A fiery arrow in the middle of the forest? You’re crazy!”
“It’s burning down anyway!”
Most of the arrows turned into streaks of fire. They flew at full speed, illuminating the night with ephemeral lightning. Arrows that didn’t hit the trees fell into the undergrowth where they sparked new blazes.
Amid the shouts of the laughing soldiers, a clanking of metal burst through. Then another.
“They’re attacking us!” shouted a soldier. “At arms! At arms!”
Sören’s voice boomed above the hubbub. “Kyle, Fillan, get the hell out of here!”
They obeyed without thinking and jumped from branch to branch. They were scratched and almost twisted an ankle several times. Despite the confrontation that was taking place not far away, the arrows kept whistling by.
Several trees had turned into gigantic candles and the fire began to pursue them.
“This damn forest goes on forever!” yelled Kyle.
Fillan was about to answer her, but pain slammed into his shoulder and he howled in spite of himself.
“Fillan!” she cried after turning around.
A deep terror seized her at the sight of the body falling out of the tree, slowed by a few branches that it hit on the way down. She distinctly heard the tail of the arrow that broke when it hit the ground, and the gasp of pain that accompanied it.
“I got one!” shouted an Englishman. “Get over here!”
Fillan got up, stunned, and instinctively drew his sword despite the pain that tore through his shoulder. Luckily, it wasn’t his dominant arm that had been hit. He blocked the soldier’s first attack, but the pain that spread through his whole body brought him to his knees. The soldier raised his blade to deliver a killing blow, but a glittering spike shot through his chest.
Kyle had tumbled down the tree at top speed to rescue him. She tore her blade from the twitching body and turned to face another soldier.
Throughout the forest, the flames spread more and more quickly, illuminating the night and revealing many silhouettes.
“Come and get me!” screamed Kyle with all her might, dodging an attack while two other English soldiers rushed at her.
“Sören!”
She twirled nimbly, her weapon whistling through the air, and slaughtered two of her assailants with a controlled sweep. Fillan was terrified to see her get killed and tried to get up, but he had lost too much blood.
The nearest oaks were ablaze, and tongues of fire flickered all around. Then he saw him, moving through the embers.
Cornavii.
Soon the metallic antlers of his helmet loomed over him, and Fillan felt a hand grab his throat. Kyle, who was struggling with three infantrymen, could do nothing more than scream, her face bleeding.
“I figured it was you in Cranshaws,” the tracker said in his ghostly voice. “That awful wound nearly fooled me, but not now that I’ve seen this.”
He grabbed the boy’s wrist and lifted it into the flamelight. Fillan tried to struggle, but the Lann Fala slapped him brutally with a gloved hand.
“I’ve been looking for you for eight years. Eight long years after letting a mere child escape. I can’t wait to see if you’ll squeal just like your mother.”
Hooves pounded the ground.
“Cornavii!” thundered the voice of Sören, who jumped from his horse.
The rest of the gang following him rushed to help Kyle face the English.
“You were in Cranshaws, too,” recalled the Lann Fala, straightening to face the Norwegian. “Your face is vaguely familiar to me. But then, there are so many dirty faces north of the Tweed.”
“Shut up and come face me instead!”
“In such a hurry to die!” sneered the red warrior.
Through his blurred vision, Fillan saw Cornavii attack with rapidity, brandishing his huge sword in a vertical attack. Sören sidestepped it and the blade stuck into the ground with a muffled sound. Sören returned his attack, but Cornavii’s great sword vibrated again in the air, forcing him to slip away.
“You are nimble, Assassin!”
Sören squinted and braced himself, the blade leaning over his face in a posture of power. He tried two high attacks before approaching the Lann Fala in a twirl to strike his helm with the pommel.
Far from being destabilized, his adversary gave him a gash on the back of his thigh as he retreated.
They circled each other for a few moments, attacking and blocking, both failing to hit. Sören blocked an attack with both hands diagonally. As Moira pulled Fillan up onto her horse, he saw the mercenary free himself by turning fully around and activating the blade under his wrist. He used it to attack the back of one of Cornavii’s leg straps.
The Lann Fala grunted as he staggered and pushed away Sören, who returned to attack but failed to block a thrust that sent a shoulder guard flying and slashed his shoulder.
Cornavii looked around. He saw that some of his men were dead and the others had fled. He considered the blaze at his back before attacking with a devastating blow, screaming, and nearly breaking Sören’s blade.
Destabilized, Sören watched Cornavii disappear among the flames without having the time to react. Foaming with rage, he took a first step, wanting to pursue him.
Moira’s voice brought him back to reality.
“Sören!”
Fergus brought him his horse and they rode off, hounded by the raging fire. At their backs, the flames had reached unimaginable heights. Trees were creaking and collapsing with a crunch, blowing unbearable heat into their path.
Stuck against the body of the druid, Fillan felt himself slipping into darkness with every jolt. Cornavii’s words about his mother rung in his ears.
In the sky, less than a mile above the flames, he could have sworn that a crow was following them, flying in wide circles.
He closed his eyes and sank into the abyss.