“Take him outside,” Hurley said.
“Yes, Commander!” The four soldiers grabbed Mike by the upper arms and dragged him to the tent door. He fought to walk even if it meant he was walking to his own execution. The agony from the men yanking on his shoulder worked to clear his head.
Was there a chance? A ghost of a chance? Mike didn’t look at the castle. He found himself praying Gavin wasn’t watching.
Once outside, the two soldiers on either side of him hesitated.
“Tell your people if anyone fires down on us,” Hurley said, “we’ll kill everyone inside starting with the children.”
“I have no control over what they do,” Mike said, his jaws clenched tight.
“Bring him over here,” Hurley said stifling another cough as he walked closely behind one of his soldiers, clearly using him as a shield against a direct shot from the castle.
The group walked twenty yards away from the front of the castle and behind a large yew tree.
Mike saw Hurley’s problem and likely his soldiers did too. The bastard couldn’t torture him in full view of the castle without risking being shot. But torturing him behind a bush took all the fun out of it.
Fighting to ignore the shooting pain in his shoulder and his throat, Mike pulled himself to his full height.
“Need a fecking battalion to hold me, do ye?” Mike said, his voice acidic with disdain.
“I don’t need to prove meself to my men,” Hurley said hotly. But he coughed again.
“Are you sure?” Mike looked at the soldier holding him. “Because from where I’m standing—”
“Shirrup, you!” the soldier—a young man in his early twenties—said to Mike, but he stole a look at Hurley.
And Hurley saw it.
“Go! All of ye!” Hurley yelled. “I’ll deal with him. Anderson, you and McKinney get ready to enter the castle through the tunnel. Everyone else group at the tower gate and prepare to enter. Tell them we’ll dig Donovan’s heart out with a rusty spoon if they don’t raise the drawbridge.” He looked at Mike as he spoke and his eyes were flat.
“Yes, Commander. And once we’re inside?”
Mike held Hurley’s eyes and steeled himself. It didn’t matter what the bastard said, he told himself. They’re just words. They’re just words.
“Kill everyone.”
Mike swallowed down the bile of his fury and his fear. He pulled against his bonds behind his back but they were solid. He felt them cut into his wrists as he twisted against them.
Because he knew he couldn’t wait for Hurley to make the first move, Mike was on the balls of his feet when the ground suddenly vibrated and pushed him skyward. The roar of the explosion was delayed by seconds and then obliterated by screams by the time Mike found himself splayed across a hawthorn bush ten feet from where he’d been standing. With his hands still behind him, he’d had nothing to protect his face and the sharp and jagged branches jabbed into his neck and chest.
Mike pushed himself onto his feet. The bush was coated in globs of red gore. He looked down to see where the wound was and instead saw the decapitated head of the young soldier who’d just told him to shut up.
Smoke and fire erupted in tall columns where Hurley’s tent had been. A bomb? It was definitely an explosion. But coming from where? Mike saw Hurley sitting on the ground and shaking his head as if in a stupor. But unhurt.
The knife was on the ground.
Mike knew he had only a split-second where Hurley was dazed and unarmed. A moment that wouldn’t come again.
He lowered his head and aimed for Hurley as the man attempted to stand. He hit him solidly smashing into the lower half of Hurley’s jaw. Hurley went down with a loud thud spitting teeth. Before Mike could kick away the knife, Hurley lunged for him and wrapped his fingers around his neck.
Mike felt the thundering pain in his wounded shoulder like a hundredweight around his neck, pulling him down and smothering him against the iron necklace of Hurley’s hands. He twisted his hips to flip the bastard on his back but Hurley unclenched from his neck just long enough to smash his fist into Mike’s face.
Fireworks went off inside Mike’s head as he absorbed the blow. His hands were trapped under him and behind his back. Hurley hit him again but Mike turned his jaw and the blow slid off his face, catching his nose instead and breaking it.
Hurley straddled him and punched him one fist over the other. The knife had to be under them or next to them. Hurley was too determined to kill him with his bare hands to worry about the knife. Not with a helpless victim under him with hands tied. Mike took two more punishing blows. He tried to move away from the punches but his thinking was getting foggy. The darkness was trying to claim him. He wanted the darkness to claim him. He felt the ground with his fingers, his head rocketing sidewise with the viciousness of Hurley’s attack.
Mike’s fingers found the blade.
Not giving himself time to react to the agony exploding in his face, Mike tightened his grip on the handle of the knife. He slashed at his bonds, feeling his wrists tearing too.
Hurley punched him again, once, twice before Mike raised his chest up and slammed him hard with his head. When Hurley recoiled, jerking backward, Mike whipped his arm out from behind him and stabbed blindly at Hurley’s side. He felt the knife go in and then stop as it banged into the resistance of a rib. The man howled and scrambled away from Mike. The cut was bloody but not life-threatening. Hurley held his side and glared at Mike like a wild animal—his eyes darting from left to right as he tried to gauge Mike’s movements.
“Brady!” Hurley screamed. “First Prefect! To me, now!”
“Everybody’s too busy dying, arsehole,” Mike said, his mouth full of blood. He let it drip from his lips, afraid to take his eyes off the man in front of him. The fingers holding the knife felt slick. He clutched the knife and got to his feet.
“Brady!” Hurley yelled again. Now his eyes went from Mike’s face to the knife.
Somewhere on the other side of the tree at the castle, Mike heard rapid gunfire.
Were the soldiers already inside killing people?
He saw movement over Hurley’s head, but forced himself not to take his eyes off him even for a second. More screams pierced the air that was punctuated with gunshots but he didn’t dare turn to see what was happening at the castle.
And then he heard Sarah’s voice. He knew it wasn’t real but in that moment when she came to him inside his head, every fiber and electrical pulse in his body reacted.
He hesitated.
And that was all it took.
Hurley lashed out with a hard kick to his kidneys. The pain ignited in Mike’s lower back. He saw the satisfaction in Hurley’s eyes as Hurley threw himself at him, hitting Mike full in the chest and knocking the knife out of his hands.
Pinned beneath Hurley, Mike writhed to free himself, groping for the knife on the ground.
Hurley gave a grunt of triumph and held the knife aloft in his fist over Mike’s head. His eyes were feverish with intent.
“I execute you in the name of the Imperial Irish Army and the Irish Empire!”
Mike struggled to bring his arms up to protect his throat as Hurley slammed the knife downward.