“Outside.”
“Let him in.”
The man glanced at Éibhear and back at Izzy. “Are you sure?”
She shrugged, headed back to her desk. “It’s his tent too.”
“Macsen,” the soldier called out. “Macsen!”
Izzy had a man? It couldn’t be a husband. That, he was sure, his kin would have told him. But a man she lived with? Another soldier? Well . . . good for her. She should have a mate. Someone she felt close to and could rely on. Aye. That was a very good thing indeed. Because he was sure that Izzy would pick someone loyal and worthy of her.
Éibhear again placed both hands behind his head and waited for this “worthy male” to enter, but he only had a moment to hear extreme, heavy panting before something large and furry charged through the tent flap and launched itself directly at Éibhear’s face.
Izzy watched the animal she’d found bloody and dying three years ago crash chest first onto Éibhear the Blue’s face.
Macsen was not a trained battle dog. He was definitely not one of Dagmar’s carefully bred canines. Instead, Izzy had found him after a battle. He’d been only a puppy, his battered body curled into the hollow of a tree trunk. Whimpering and shuddering, he’d been a pitiful-looking thing that Izzy simply couldn’t ignore. Covered in open wounds, he’d also been missing part of his left ear and his eye had been so damaged it was still nothing more than a milky white spot in his head. She’d picked his shaking body up and brought him back to her tent, tending to him herself. She’d cleaned and cared for his wounds, fed him by hand until he could eat on his own, and kept him warm at night by letting him sleep by her side. And, as each day passed, the puppy had grown stronger and, she soon realized, bigger. Very big. Big enough that she’d wondered if he was actually a dog or some other beast she was unaware of. Wolves weren’t as big as Macsen. His fangs were longer, his bite stronger, his fur shaggier, than any canine she’d ever seen. Yet he was blindingly loyal to her, fought with her in every battle, and protected her horse when she or Samuel could not.
And woe to any who dared enter her tent without permission.
But to Macsen, it must have seemed that Éibhear was there with permission because he didn’t bother to attack. Yet he was annoyed that someone other than Izzy was in his space, which meant he did what he always did to males that he felt didn’t belong.
“Gods!” Éibhear demanded, trying to push Macsen off. “What is that smell?”
“Oh . . .” Izzy smirked. “He must have gotten into the beans again.”
“He does like beans,” Samuel added, his hand under his nose to block out the smell. Considering all the hard years Samuel had done in the military, forced in by his father when he was barely nine, it always amazed Izzy that he couldn’t tolerate a few farts from a dog.
Then again . . . it seemed that Éibhear couldn’t either.
The dragon threw Macsen across the room and tried to sit up, but Macsen only scrambled back to his really big feet and launched himself again at Éibhear’s head.
By now, Izzy had her hand over her mouth, her body shaking as she hysterically laughed, Samuel leaning against her, his laughter ringing out.
“Don’t just stand there, woman! Get him off me!” He threw Macsen again, but, as was Macsen’s way, he merely bounced back and came at Éibhear once more. That was the thing about Macsen, the thing that many enemy soldiers had learned over the years . . . Macsen didn’t go down easy and once down, he didn’t stay down. It simply wasn’t in his nature.
The dog was just going for Éibhear again when Fionn stepped in, motioning to Izzy.
“What?” she asked once she stood next to the woman.
“We have a problem.”
When Éibhear finally had the dog pinned to the floor he realized that, except for the animal, he was alone.
Feeling something gnawing on his booted foot, Éibhear looked down at the dog. At least, he felt sure it was a dog of some kind. At the moment, it was trying to tear off the thick leather.
Éibhear pressed down harder and, instead of calming down, the beast only became more irritated, fought harder. Impressed, Éibhear lifted his foot and the dog scrambled away, before spinning around to face him and squaring off again.
Studying the thing’s size, Éibhear leaned down a bit and asked, “You’re not a god, are you?”
With a snarl, it launched its body at him and Éibhear swung his fist, knocking the dog across the tent and out the back.
Satisfied, Éibhear sniffed the air and followed Izzy’s scent. She hadn’t gone far. Only a few feet away from her tent, surrounded by her officers. A small contingent of soldiers stood at the ready, and another officer was on his knees, two soldiers guarding him.
Éibhear walked up to Aidan and the others.
“What’s going on?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“Your general thought she’d killed the ogre leader. She hasn’t.”
“A decoy?”
“Aye. The ogres were tipped off by him there.” He nodded at the soldier on his knees. “Then while the general and her troops were fighting the decoy, he went into a nearby human town, grabbed one of the local girls off the street, and—”
Éibhear held up his hand, not needing to hear any more, and turned to watch this play out.
But then he remembered this was Iseabail he was dealing with. Not Annwyl. For if it were, the bastard’s head would be rolling right by Éibhear’s feet at this moment.
Instead, Izzy, although clearly disgusted, turned to her officers and began discussing “laws” and “rules” and what this worthless bastard did or did not deserve based on his dishonoring his role as a soldier blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!
Gods! Was she joking? Why was she wasting her time and, most importantly, his own?
Unwilling to wait a second longer, Éibhear looked at Aidan and motioned to the soldier with a tilt of his head.
Aidan frowned; then his eyes grew wide. He immediately shook his head, never one to just take his damn orders. So Éibhear focused on Uther. The only problem with Uther was that he was a little slower to grasp things, mostly because he was easily bored and didn’t always pay attention. By the third, adamant tilt of his head, Uther blinked and said, “Oh!” He chuckled. “Sorry.”
Shaking his head, Éibhear stood back and waited.
Although two of her officers wanted a hearing, the rest just wanted the soldier’s head removed so they could focus on the ogres. Izzy didn’t mind bothering with the niceties—when they had the time—but they now had the ogre leader’s correct location, so at the moment, they really didn’t.
She nodded at Fionn to keep an eye out in case any of the soldier’s comrades might try to intervene, while Izzy began to pull her sword from its scabbard.
She almost had it clear, too, when she heard Brannie say, “Uh, Iz?” mere seconds before the betraying soldier’s head and part of his shoulder tumbled past her legs, landing a few feet away.
Everyone fell silent, her officers refusing to meet Izzy’s gaze. Because they knew. It might take much to piss her off, but once she was . . .
“What just happened?” she asked her cousin, unwilling to turn around.
“Uhhhh . . .”
She was about to demand that Brannie say something besides “Uh” when Éibhear appeared in front of her. “Now can we go?” he asked, grinning.
She almost had her sword out of its scabbard again, when Brannie stepped up, shoving Éibhear away with one hand and taking firm hold of Izzy’s arm with the other.
“To the caves,” she ordered the officers, steering Izzy toward her horse. “We track down the ogres and finish them off tonight. Now move!”
“What is going on?” Izzy demanded while mounting her horse, which Samuel was holding by the reins.
“I was going to ask you.” Brannie settled into her own saddle, her horse patiently waiting for her. “What did he say he wanted?”
“He said he has orders to bring me back to Garbhán Isle.”
“Is there a problem?”
“I haven’t heard a word, but that could just mean the orders are coming from someone other than my mother.”
“You’re not going to go?”
“If it was important, Annwyl would have sent a proper messenger, not that idiot. No. I’ll go in my own time, Bran. Not because Éibhear the Annoying tells me to.”
“So,” Éibhear said, suddenly appearing next to her, his hand resting on her boot. “How long will killing this ogre leader take? Can we leave then?”
Snarling, Izzy shook the dragon’s hand off and clicked her tongue against her teeth. She spurred Dai forward and headed toward the caves and away from Éibhear the Annoying!
“What are you doing?” Aidan asked.
Éibhear shrugged. “Annoying her until she does what I want.” He glanced at his friend. “It’s worked before.”
“With Izzy?”
“No. But it’s worked with others.”
Uther, wiping off his blood-covered blade and placing it in its sheath, stepped beside Aidan. “So what are we doing now?”
“I’m bored,” Caswyn complained. And when they all stared at him: “What? Was I supposed to lie about that?”
“Yes.” Éibhear watched Izzy’s troops ride out. She and several battalions were going straight into the caves, but in case it was a trap, she had the rest of the legions surrounding the caves and coming in from the forest.
A wise move since ogres were not to be trusted.
“Ogres aren’t easy to kill,” Aidan remarked. “And the real leader will be much more of a challenge. So this could take some time.”
Éibhear placed his hands on his hips. “Well, that’s not going to work for me.”
Chapter 7
The flint axe came down hard, smashing another human’s head. The Leader felt nothing as he did it. These humans were nothing to him other than more skin to make into his kilts, more teeth to give his favorite breeder, and more blood to make his ale.
He’d brought his troops to this human village looking for food, breeders, and slaves. They’d done well this hunting season, cutting through this swath of countryside, leaving a trail of blood, death, and misery behind. That’s what he did best. What he enjoyed doing every season.
But then those human troops had shown up and he’d moved inside this cave, sending out his fighters to engage the humans. When that grew boring, he’d sent out one of the stupider fighters to pretend to be him. That one would die and then, when the human soldiers thought the worst of it was over, he’d reemerge and finish them. A good plan, even had a human to help because they’d given him some gold. Gold only meant something to humans; it meant nothing to ogres. Only meat and blood and death meant anything to them. Only battle and war meant anything to the mighty ogres.
His plan had been working well, too, but then that traitor was found out and the human soldiers had tracked the rest of his troops to these caves.