29
Shaun pushed through the gathered crowd. He ran to the front of the castle and stared down the main drive. For a moment he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It looked like an army of people.
An army of people heading straight for the castle.
His bowels turned to ice as he saw the speed they were making. Gavin ran to his side.
“Who are they?” Gavin asked, panting.
“Everybody inside the castle!” Shaun screamed, waving his hands. He turned to Gavin. “They’ll be here in minutes. Get everyone inside, now!”
Shaun ran back to where Saoirse was sitting next to Donovan. He scanned the crowd for any sign of Ava or Beryl and was relieved to see them both in the crowd of people moving back across the drawbridge.
Just not fast enough.
“What’s the matter?” Sarah asked, still kneeling by Donovan. “Who is it?”
“I have no idea,” Shaun said, jerking Saoirse to her feet and pushing her toward the castle. “But they’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Sarah jumped up. The color was gone from her cheeks as she looked in the direction of the main road.
Gavin pulled his father to a sitting position. Donovan didn’t look good. His wife had staunched the blood in his wound, but he was close to being unconscious. Shaun grabbed Donovan’s arm and helped Gavin get him to his feet.
“Get everyone inside,” he said to Gavin as Sarah took Gavin’s place at Donovan’s side. “Stand by to raise the drawbridge fast. Get the other men, lad. Hurry!”
Shaun could hear the sounds of the oncoming army now. He staggered forward with Donovan leaning heavily on him, forcing Sarah to run beside them to catch up. He didn’t have enough breath to urge her to hurry. It was all he could do to prod Donovan into moving his legs. He was a big man and right now a very slow one.
“Mike, hurry!” Sarah said desperately. “You need to move your feet!”
The first few soldiers of the army came into view just as Shaun touched foot on the edge of the drawbridge. If he stumbled now, both he and Donovan would end up in the moat. He tried to blot out the sounds of men’s voices shouting behind him.
Come on ye, bastard, he mentally urged Donovan. Move yer fecking feet!
He could see Gavin and two other men were standing inside the gate tower on the other side of the portcullis, their hands on the pulley switches—waiting for the three of them to get inside before they attempted to raise the draw bridge.
“Stop ‘em!” a voice shouted from behind them. “Get ‘em before they get the drawbridge up!”
A bullet whistled by his ear and then another, both thudding into the stonewall of the castle gatehouse. Screams came from inside the castle. Shaun’s legs burned as the terror propelled him across the drawbridge, dragging Donovan and his wife with him. He felt the bridge go up while they were still on it. The three men inside the castle were straining to raise it even as the portcullis descended like a giant’s gaping mandible. The sickening sounds of bullets hitting the wooden drawbridge as it raised was like the soundtrack out of a horror movie.
He fell to his knees and watched Sarah crawl under the quickly closing portcullis. Hands reached out to grab Donovan and drag him inside. Shaun felt strong hands grabbing him, too, his legs finally useless, as they pulled him under the descending jaws of the portcullis. He lay trembling on the ground, his stomach roiling as he tried not to vomit. People were taking Donovan and Sarah away. He heard the groans of three men as they hauled the drawbridge up and cranked it solidly in place with the windlass—and with it the frustrated howls and gunfire of the men outside muted to a distant din.
A hand reached down to touch his shoulder and when he looked up, he saw that it was Ava. She patted his shoulder as if to say, spit-spat! On your feet, soldier!
If he hadn’t been so weak with the distinct possibility that he was about to lose bladder control he would have laughed.
Fifteen minutes after they’d gotten the drawbridge up, Shaun climbed to the top flight of the northern crenellated tower with Gavin, Tommy and Terry. From here they could look out without danger of presenting themselves as easy targets.
What he saw took his breath away. The castle parking lot and gardens and the main drive itself for at least a quarter of a mile in every direction was covered with men moving about and setting up camp. Already a large tent had been erected front and center to the castle entrance.
He’d never been more right when he called them an army. Almost all of the men below wore at least a part of the telltale colors of the Irish National Army. They were soldiers.
Tommy turned to his father, Terry. “Da! It’s them! It’s the same ones as before!”
Shaun was bewildered. “You know them?”
Terry pointed at the man in the tent. The one wearing his full uniform and watching them through binoculars.
“Aye. The bastard there in front. He’s the same one came for us last winter.”
“Came for you?”
“Took us to the Dublin work camp,” Terry said, licking his lips in agitation. “Took us to hell, he did. Took the women and children, too. Although their hell was at a different address.”
“Da, he’s the one shot Declan,” Tommy said. “And Kendra.”
“Jaysus God,” Shaun said in a voice low with awe and dread. “What are they doing here?”
Hurley gave orders for his men to set up his tent. Seeing the castle inhabitants scurry back into the castle like so many terrified cockroaches had been a much anticipated and delightful pleasure of what was to come.
What hadn’t been so delightful was the fact that his men hadn’t been able to kill even a single man before the buggers escaped inside.
He would have a word with Brady about that. It was his responsibility to ensure that the men were sufficiently trained. And motivated. An army needed its chain of command. After all, Hurley couldn’t do it all. But weak links in that chain made for disrespect among the ranks. Changes might need to be made.
Hurley stood in the late afternoon light and stared up at the castle. He imagined what terror the people inside must be feeling.
As well they should.
He had waited a long time for this and he wouldn’t be rushed. He’d have his revenge—in due time. And every person in that castle who thought they were safe right now…who thought they could escape Centurion Commander Padraig Hurley…every single man, woman and child would soon know the full measure of the terror that they could only imagine right now.