Though his blood was high and the desire to run at full speed was on him, Cormac forced them to walk, once they were in the deep-cut corridor that led through solid rock to the beach. Two reasons he had for slowing, both good.
There was no way the narrow and twisty defile could be traversed at any gait above a speedy walk without running into or scraping the stone walls again and again, with the danger of injuring leg or arm, or falling. Too, as Cormac told his tiny company, they were far better to arrive on the strand unwinded.
Brian could not understand that Ros could have gone with the others, and said so repeatedly.
“Aye, I thought Laig and I were friends,” Wulfhere said as they walked in the gloom, hurriedly, quivering the while like eager hounds held on taut leashes.
“It’s none of them I understand,” Samaire said. “Leaving, perhaps… but taking all ale and water-evil!”
“Worse than evil,” Wulfhere growled from behind her.
“Findbar perhaps, the constant complainer. And Osbrit I suppose-though it’s not as a captive we’ve treated that Briton we found so prostrate in fear. But Ros, and Laig…” Samaire gave her leather-helmeted head a jerk. “Yet no more can I understand Ruadan’s leaving us, taking all food and drink, or big Cet either… and Duach, and Laegair…”
“It is the wizard’s dark work,” Bas muttered. “I’m after seeing to the protection of ship and spoils, day after day, aye, and all of ye as well, whilst ye’ve been at fruitless toil with the ships. But while we slept… somehow, he struck.”
“That ever-snarling Findbar may have struck a bargain even with him,” Wulfhere snarled.
“But the others?” Brian’s voice was plaintive, disbelieving. “Even Ros? Why?”
“How,” Lugh said, and the others were silent; that question seemed more to the point.
“Cormac,” Bas said quietly. “I’m thinking that it’s his creatures they may well all be.”
Cormac made no reply. The thought was already in his mind. But if that were true, then-
“We may have to fight them,” Wulfhere said, as if for his longtime sword-companion. Nor did the rumbly Dane sound overmuch perturbed at the possibility of such ghastly civil war among the members of a company already passing small.
Brian’s tone was fraught with worry: “Might they be lying in wait? Even one Cet, mayhap. One man could hold us at bay in this narrow passageway with no room to pass him, and Cet be the biggest among us.” And sadly he corrected: “Among them.”
Cormac mac Art led the way. His voice came back to the others hoarse, and far from pleasant. “An such be the case, it’s not long Cet mac Fergus will bar my way, for all our being comrades and his good fighting against those Picts!” Sword held ready, he went on as if there were absolutely no danger.
That proved to be the case; reaching the point at which the shadowed defile debouched onto the sunlit beach, Cormac paused.
“I will talk,” he said. “Follow my lead. And make no hostile move on your own. Now-sheathe our swords.” And he did, silently.
From Wulfhere, a low chuckle: “Ye’ll not be minding that the druid and I keep our axes naked in hand, will you, Wolf?”
“Be not overweening anxious to bear arms against our own comrades,” Cormac reminded. “But, as we move toward them, stay not too close together to… hamper one another.”
“An we cease not this chatter and move,” Wulfhere grumbled, “it’s naught we’ll see but Quester’s stern and that well out to sea!”
But Cormac had already stepped forward and out into the sunlight.
They were a hundred paces away on the beach, not asea, but the eight men were well about the business of taking leave of the island. Already the foremost reach of Quester’s keel lay in the water, though the grunting men had not yet got it far enough out to float. Cormac could see five of them, straining the long boat down to the water’s edge.
Pausing at the entrance to the sharply sliced defile so that his companions were blocked within, Cormac shouted.
“Ho, comrades-had ye but waited a little I’d have helped ye-since there’s more strength in me than any of ye!”
At that affable shout all activity ceased. Five men stared at him, and then eight, for Osbrit and Duach and burly Cet Fergus’s son came around from the far side Quester. They stared, with their faces showing them surprised and far from happy at the appearance of their leader.
“Let there be no discussion of strength,” Findbar said, and he gestured at Cet mac Fergus.
Cet strutted a chest like a barrel split lengthwise from its center. But he said nothing. Indeed, confusion appeared on his jowly face, and he glanced at Findbar, for Cormac’s eyes had never left that less burly Meathman.
“It’s yourself had bade us leave, again and again,” Findbar said. He paused, but Cormac said nothing, holding his cold blue eyes on the man who’d made so many disgruntled noises in the past few days of their adversity.
Then Cormac moved, and Findbar’s eyes flickered. From behind the Gael came the others, one by one; Brian and Lugh and Samaire and then Bas, his robe girt and an ax in his hand. Wulfhere appeared last, great ax on one broad shoulder in the manner of a woodsman.
“We want no help,” Findbar said.
“And none offered,” Cormac said as he strolled down the strand toward Findbar’s company. “It’s fit enough ye all look this morning. Nay, we but followed to call to your forgetful minds two matters ye doubtless forgot in your haste.”
“We’ve forgot nothing, Cormac mac Art!”
Cormac’s eyes swerved to the speaker. “At least ye’ve not forgot the name of the man who spoke softly to ye when ye had the fear of a nightmarish child on ye, Osbrit of Britain, and treated ye not as an enemy!”
“Slow your steps, Wolf,” Wulfhere muttered, so low of voice as not to be heard by the men about the ship. “See them squint; the sun’s behind us. I’d be keeping it there.”
Cormac was only ambling; aware of the warrior’s wisdom of the Dane’s words, he paused. “Two matters, as I said, want more than discussion ere ye sail, Findbar. The first is that it’s all the food and drink ye’ve brought away.” He made a boyishly reproachful face. “For shame. A serious oversight, that; we’d be dead in three or so days, and ye’d have the blood of both a druid and a royal princess on your hands.”
“And a Dane not yet ready to dine in Odin’s hall!” Wulfhere added, from just behind Cormac and to his left.
“And too, if ye be of no mind to sail with Lady Samaire and the Splitter of Skulls, ye must leave a goodly portion of Quester’s cargo for them.”
Cormac noted that all the men with Findbar looked both confused and stiff-save Findbar himself. And all watched Findbar. He spoke.
“The dead have no use for water or spoils,” he said. “And those who remain with you, accursed mac Art, are dead.”
“Murdered by comrades who abandon us to die of thirst?” Samaire demanded; she was between Cormac and Wulfhere, at a distance of four or more paces from each.
Ros looked stricken by her words.
“Ros!” Brian called from Cormac’s right. “Sword Companion!”
Young Ros of Dun Dalgan shook his fair head in its gleaming helm and knitted his brows, as though torn by painful thought. This Findbar saw, and he spoke three words.
“Ros mac Dairb!”
The youth stiffened; trembled. Then his face lost all expression. It was as if his mind left his body.
“Behl protect,” Samaire murmured.
“And Crom defend,” Lugh added, with fervor.
“You will leave half the castle’s trove,” Cormac told Findbar, less equably now. Though he looked not at Ros, he felt his skin a-crawl from that one brief glance. “And a like amount of ale and water. Ye be but two days from an isle with a fine spring, and fresh waterfall tumbling into the sea.”