Page 87 of Promised to the Cursed Laird

Fearchar nodded, already sealing the first letter, and Marcas turned to the third map of the keep itself, every gate and wall marked with the garrison's current strength.

"We'll need every able man on these walls within the week," he said. "I want the eastern wall reinforced first; it's the weakest, and the most direct approach from MacRath land. Lachlan's already begun the work, but I'll want yer own men added tae it, if ye're willing tae lend them."

"They're yers tae command," Fearchar said, not looking up from his second letter. "We agreed on that much already, MacKinnon. I'll nae make ye ask twice."

"Good." Marcas rolled the keep's map, grim satisfaction grim settling into his chest at the sight of the two of them working the same table, the same problem, toward the same end. "Then we'd best see this done quickly, Fearchar. Every day we spend preparing is a day Cailleach spends marching closer, and I'll nae hand him a single hour more than I must."

Fearchar sealed his second letter, and looked up, something hard and certain settling into his own face to match it.

"Nae a single hour," he agreed, and reached for a third sheet of parchment, already composing the next appeal in his head, and the two of them worked on, side by side, long into the night, while beyond the walls the first distant fires of Cailleach's approaching army began, faintly, to smudge the dark horizon.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Cailleach drove the point of his sword into the earth. The blade sank into the soft ground with a dull, heavy thud, and for a moment the four hundred men gathered before him went utterly still.

Beyond them, the MacKinnon lands stretched beneath the darkening sky, the castle barely visible in the distance through the mist that had begun to settle over the lower hills. Fires burned along the outer grounds, their orange glow catching on spearheads and sword hilts, on the metal buckles of leather harnesses, on the faces of men who had come expecting blood.

Cailleach turned slowly to face them.

"Men of MacRath," he called, his voice carrying through the ranks. "And allies who stand beside us."

His hand closed around the hilt of his sword. "For generations, our family has watched what was ours pass into another man's hands. Land. Honour. Power. And today, we take it back."

A murmur moved through the ranks.

"Tonight, ye will see the MacKinnon banner brought down."

The men answered with a roar. It rolled across the valley so loudly that birds burst from the trees beyond the camp, black shapes scattering against the evening sky.

Cailleach waited until the noise had begun to settle. Then he smiled.

"We will not waste our strength battering at their walls." He turned towards the commander beside him. "We take the hidden passage."

The commander nodded and began signaling to the men behind him. "Then today," Cailleach said, pulling his sword free of the earth, "we walk into their castle as ghosts."

The men moved not with the noise of an army preparing to storm a fortress, but in disciplined silence. All the torches were extinguished. Shields were strapped more tightly across backs. Men spoke only in whispers as Cailleach led the first ranks away from the main road and towards the rocky rise behind the castle.

The MacKinnon walls stood ahead of them. Tall, guarded and impenetrable but Cailleach did not even look at the gates, he led them past.

At the base of the hill, hidden beneath a tangle of thorn and bracken, his commander stopped beside what looked like nothing more than a wall of exposed stone.

He crouched and his fingers found a narrow gap between two rocks. For a moment, nothing happened. Then he pressed and a stone shifted.

Cailleach's mouth curved. "After all these years."

The hidden door opened inward and cold air breathed from the darkness beyond.

The passage was narrow enough that the men had to move through it in single file at first. The walls were wet beneath their hands, the ceiling low overhead, roots pushing through the old stone in places. It smelled of earth and water and ancient air that had not seen daylight in years.

Cailleach went first. He knew the way, his grandfather had taught his father and his father had taught him. Long before the MacKinnons had claimed the land, the passage had belonged to MacRath and tonight, it would belong to them again.

They emerged beneath the castle. The first MacKinnon guard barely had time to turn. The warrior beside Cailleach drew his blade and the MacKinnon guard dropped without a cry.

The second guard reached for his horn.

A MacRath warrior seized him from behind and drove him against the wall before the sound could leave his throat. Another guard came running at the sound of the struggle. He saw the men spilling from the darkness.

His mouth opened. "Raise the⁠—"