by me and hit Kiff.” He turned to MacIlroy. “We need to find Heckie and Godfrey and warn them that the bastard we’re hunting has a bow. They were helping us cover the south tunnels. Kiff caught the arrow in the passage closest to the kitchens.” He shook his head with a doubtful look. “I called out to them to come help me carry Kiff, but neither of them answered. I hope it isna too late. The fiend may a already got to them afore he attacked us.”
“There’s Heckie now,” Sutherland said. “And he’s covered in blood.”
The lad staggered out from the same direction as Raibie and Kiff had just come. A narrow crimson stain splattered up the front of his tunic from his belt to his throat, and one of his hands was bloody. “Godfrey’s dead,” he said, pinning a sorrowful look on his father. “I couldna save him, Da. Blood everywhere. They sliced him open like a felled deer.” He shook his head and stared down at the floor. “Died while I held him. Couldna even understand his last words. He was drowning so.”
“Did ye see who did it, son?” MacIlroy asked.
Heckie shook his head. “Just heard Godfrey call out. By the time I got there, was just him on the floor, nearly dead.”
“Come, Raibie.” MacIlroy waved the guard away from his friend. “We must fetch Godfrey.” He turned to his son. “Lead us to him, boy.”
“Wait!” Sutherland called out. Something about Heckie’s account didn’t ring true. He glanced over at Magnus, and his friend dipped his chin in the slightest of nods. Good. It wasn’t just him who doubted what they had just heard. They both had been in enough battles to know how things looked after the sort of incident Heckie had just described. The wounded. Those who tended them. Blood patterns and signs of struggle. Raibie and MacIlroy stopped, but Heckie kept easing back toward the archway.
Sutherland walked toward him, picking up his pace as the man continued edging away. Panic and something else flickered in Heckie’s eyes. Sutherland smelled fear. Nay, not fear. A dark air surrounded the odd fellow. Darker and colder than he had ever noticed before. “Dinna fear me, Heckie, I just want to ask a few more questions about Godfrey, ye ken? Might help us find the killer and Sorcha, too.”
“I am no’ afraid of ye,” Heckie snapped as though he had just been insulted. He opened and closed his hands, raising them as though about to fight. “I am no’ afraid of anyone. Never have been.” All the while, he backed away.
“Oh, I know ye’re fearless, lad,” Sutherland said. “Sorcha told me of yer bravery often.” He nodded at Heckie’s left shoulder. Time to see if the man changed his story. “Yer tunic’s torn right there. Did ye tussle with the rogue before he gutted Godfrey? There’s no shame in not being able to stop a raging beast intent on killing a man.”
Heckie came up short and yanked at his shirt with a nervous twitch, then shrugged. “I didna fight anyone. Godfrey must ha’ done it as he fell back to the floor.”
“As he fell?” Sutherland repeated, all the while moving closer. He knew there was more here. The tear on Heckie’s shirt. The bloody pattern that looked like a splatter that would cover ye when ye stabbed someone rather than the smear of holding a poor fellow as they died. A poorly told lie stank like an overfull chamber pot. “I thought ye said Godfrey was already on the floor by the time ye got to him?”
Heckie spun around and bolted, bounding down the hallway and heading for the open panel leading back into the tunnels.
Sutherland charged after him. He had to catch that lying bastard. Had to catch him and force him to show them where Sorcha was. Heckie wasn’t a little slow, as Sorcha had described. The man had planted that image of himself to use it to his own advantage. Unfortunately, the fool was also as fast as a deer in this godforsaken darkness. The deeper Sutherland went, the more he relied on the touch of the walls and the sound of Heckie’s footsteps up ahead. But then all went quiet except for the sound of walls shifting.
“Nay!” he shouted, moving forward in the darkness with his hands outstretched. A wall in front of him cut off his progress. “Heckie!” he roared, pounding on the stone blockade.
“Sutherland!” Magnus shouted behind him. The soft glow of