Page 81 of Fang & Fury

Niall took it and moved over to where a brazier burned in the center of the space.

Thick sheepskins had been laid out over the cold, damp ground. They felt soft underfoot, yet he barely noticed. His fingers flexed around his cup. Suddenly, he wanted to hurl it across the tent.

“Something wrong, sire?” Maol spoke up then. The others of his guard had taken their positions outside, yet Maol stood by the entrance, ready as ever to receive orders. “The army is making good progress, isn’t it?”

Niall grunted. “Aye … but where’s Darach?”

Maol didn’t answer, and he cut him a sharp look.

The warrior’s rawboned face gave little away, yet he saw it in his eyes. He too suspected those warriors had failed.

Fuck. Darach always managed to slip free. Gregor was right. He should have killed him while he had the chance; his hesitation had cost them all. His belly started to burn as he ruminated over his mistake, and he took a deep draft of wine.

“Did you see the way they looked at me out there?” he asked eventually, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Maol’s beat of silence let him know that he had before answering, “It doesn’t matter if they hate you, sire. They’ll do your bidding, all the same.”

Niall took another swallow of wine.

It shouldn’t matter, yet it vexed him.

He wanted them to smile as he walked by, to hail him, to call him ‘king’. He wanted adoration, but instead, the resentment they bore him went deeper than Loch Lethe.

“I took a binding sigil, too, sire,” Maol said softly. “But I’d have followed you anyway. Some of us have always been loyal.”

Niall cut him a look. Aye, some were, but they weren’t enough.

Maol and a group of selected warriors had taken ‘captain sigils’—smaller than the one he bore, yet powerful enough to make the Circines do their bidding—but Niall’s master tattoo controlled them all.

He was about to answer his bodyguard when the tent flap swished open and a big man with a bald head entered.

Gregor.

“Take your boots off,” Niall barked at him. It annoyed him that the druid had taken to entering his pavilion without announcing himself first. He didn’t want him tracking mud across the sheepskins.

Gregor pulled a face yet complied. Ignoring Maol as he usually did, he then made his way across to the ewer, elbowed the slave out of the way when he went to pour him some wine, and helped himself.

“The scout I sent ahead on horseback has just returned,” he announced then, slugging the wine back in one long draft before pouring himself another. “All the warriors you sent after your brother and the tattooists are dead.”

Maol hissed a curse. “All of them?”

“Aye … throats ripped out. Drained as dry as husks.”

Niall stilled. He’d heard about how Ailsa had attacked some of the guards during their escape, tearing open their throats with her fingernails. A witness at the gates had said she brought a warrior down and looked like she was about to start feeding upon him when Kayla had dragged her away.

“The lass couldn’t have managed to kill so many,” he managed finally, even as his wine soured in his gut.

Gregor turned to him. “Maybe not … but she wasn’t traveling alone, remember? She had a clag-doo with her.”

“All the same, they must have had help,” Maol replied.

Gregor cut him a scowl. “From whom?”

The warrior shrugged.

Silence fell in the tent. Meanwhile the brazier crackled and popped, and the slave watched warily from the shadows.

Eventually, Niall ground out a heartfelt curse.