Chapter 17

We met in Dillon’s office about six hours later. I was cutting it close. Going back was going to suck royally. I was going to need every minute of the day I had left to me to get the job done and get the hell back here.

Dillon had pulled schematics for the castle. This would help a lot. Apparently the castle wasn’t leveled in the 18th century, thanks to whatever changes San Martin had made. So now I knew where I was going to get down to the dungeon where I assumed they were keeping Cayden. I also could see where the master suite was. I would guess that San Martin would be staying there. The place wasn’t small; there was no way I could cover all the exits and have enough men to fight my way through to both the upper floor and the dungeon.

Change of plans then. A strike team, not an army. I mapped it out in my head and figured out who I would take with me as I dressed in the clothes I had grabbed from costumes.

Dillon fired up the TALIS.

“You’re sure? This is going to fuck you up majorly.”

“I’ll see you in a little while.” Light, cold needles, and he was gone.

I was back by the field where I’d picked up the kids. It was very early dawn. I had a better idea of where I was going now, so I started off at a trot. Every cell in my body hated me at that moment. Each step made it feel like my insides were in a blender. I eventually had to slow down because of the nausea.

I hit the camp at sunrise and it was already a hot bed of activity. About six hours had passed since I’d been killed. Dillon is amazing to get me here so close to the time I’d left. Dillon is amazing in many ways.

The sentry was freaked, not surprisingly and started yelling for everyone to come look at the ghost. By the time O’Greer got there, I think the guys were pretty sure they needed to burn me at the stake. Fortunately, O’Greer was too concerned about Cayden to make that a top priority.

Apparently quite a few men had been killed in the raid. I didn’t say it, but I was surprised that anyone was left standing. The only thing I could guess was after Goldberg and I both died and disappeared, the bad guys freaked out. I ignored the sick feeling in my stomach that all those men died because of me. I’d deal with that a little later.

Cayden was the only one they’d taken prisoner and everyone was at a loss with the boss gone. I had the advantage of knowing that he was still alive. I still had two days before he was executed in . But I couldn’t tell these guys that without sounding even more like a witch.

O’Greer said it all with his summary. “We’ve got 46 men left. We took out maybe 20 of theirs. Their forces are still overwhelming.”

Turns out Not Shitface was in the crowd gathered around as O’Greer talked. “We’re going in to save Prince Cayden.” Lots of ‘ayes’ and ‘for the Prince’. These were good men. Now’s the part where I tell them they’re useless. “I’ve got a plan, but I only need two men.”

The tree trunk of a guy I’d taken on during the sparring match a couple of days ago spoke up. Bellowed up, actually. “The girl knows how to handle herself, granted, but that doesn’t make her a soldier, O’Greer. Are you planning on letting her take over the attack?”

O’Greer sort of ignored him, but he did counter with his own proposal. Basically, he wanted to storm the castle. With our force being about 50% of the size that would be protecting it. Apparently, he’d gone through with the plan to disable the cameras, so at least we had a gap to go through and maybe the element of surprise, but 46 men, 47 including me, versus more than a hundred…and I didn’t know how many more than a hundred there might be…even I’m not that nuts.

“That is one incredibly fucked up plan.”

“You speak strangely.”

“I’m aware of that. Look, I know you don’t really know me, but I need you to trust me. I know the layout of the castle now – “

“As do I. I’ve been there twice.”

“That’s good! You’re one of my guys. Ok, remember the dungeon we were in? Well, turns out there’s another way out. You can actually go up and down from the kitchen. It’ll be a lot easier to blend in going through that door than it was to come from the woods. Matter of fact, you could say I was built for this.” At which point I took great joy in pulling a lusty serving wench’s uniform out of my bag.

The dress was supposedly my size, but either I hadn’t lost those few pounds I put on during my mission in the 1980’s or chicks wore their clothes incredibly tight back in the middle ages. One thing’s for sure, I’ve never had cleavage like this before. I couldn’t see my feet.

The guys were impressed, too. Someone actually wolf whistled. For some reason I thought skyscrapers came first. I felt like shit, but apparently I looked good.

O’Greer had decided to bring Not Shitface, ok, about time I admitted his name was really Hughes. I had on my wenching outfit but had a big loose coat on overtop that came down to my ankles for camouflage. I think it was Tree Trunk’s. It was loose enough to let me move comfortably, but I was going to have to remember that it would be a hindrance if we got into a fight.

Now, my plan wasn’t all that complicated. I sashay my way into the yard, I’m sure there were some cows that needed milking or some such excuse for a maid to be out there. I scout out a clear path and let O’Greer and Hughes in, we find Cayden, they escape, I go kill San Martin, after extracting the information I needed. Couldn’t be simpler, really.

And here’s the part where you think “shouldn’t she know better?”

I’m guessing it was about mid-morning when we reached the castle. Breakfast was over but there were smells, not terribly good ones, coming from the kitchen area that seemed to indicate lunch was cooking.

I wisely guessed that there would be more cameras around the estate, so I amped up a bit and listened. Spotted two of them and realized that taking them out would mean whoever was watching the surveillance would realize they had visitors. Made more sense to find alternate routes so that’s what we did.

There was a large barn on the edge of the property. As we approached it, I could understand why it was on the far edge. I was really hoping I didn’t have to use any sort of super sense to sniff out the enemy. Anyone who uses the phrase “fresh country air” hasn’t really smelled it.

But O’Greer and Hughes were content to get under cover, any cover. Now here’s where I proved my worth. Keep in mind, I was ready to vomit at any moment, but this was still sort of fun. I took off the coat I was wearing and made sure the girls were looking their best. I grabbed a bucket off a hook by the door and made my way outside the barn to look for a target.

I don’t mean to stereotype here, but Irish warriors, at least the ones I was hanging with, were a tad bit generic. Big, muscular, hairy. I found one that was just about O’Greer’s size and made with the wenching.

“Hey there! Someone left a...a…” (quick, what’s a movable farm thing???)”…bale of hay in my way. Could you help me?” I gave him a smile that said once the hay was moved, there might be some rolling involved. Works every time.

He enters the barn, leaving the door open. I see that there’s another guard watching him, questioningly. I make sure the new guy can see me give my guy’s butt a good squeeze. He laughs and moves on. Actually, this worked well for me. And my guy, well he’s pleasantly surprised by this fast paced turn of events. I’m not just a wench, I’m a lusty wench.

I’m pouring out the pheromones at this point, but my system is pretty taxed. Gotta move fast here, so I loose the first few buttons of my dress, boobies pouring out all over the place. Then I unbutton the overshirt he’s wearing and move behind him to take it off. And that’s how you unarm, literally, an opponent. The shirt was halfway down his arms, effectively binding them to his side when I reached around and put a choke hold on him. Problem was, the guy had a really thick neck and I was only operating on about 75% capacity, if that. Fortunately, O’Greer saw me struggle and rushed in to save the day. He smashed the guy in the head with the bucket I’d been carrying.

I needed to sit for a minute as O’Greer changed into the outer clothing the guard was wearing. Hughes bound and gagged the guy and stowed him in a far corner, covering him with hay. We didn’t need much time; we just had to hope the guy didn’t wake up and raise a ruckus while we were in the house.

“Ok, Hughes, I’m going to tie your hands – “

“No, you’re not.”

“It’ll be fine. You’ll be able to slip right out – “

“You’re not tying me up.”

“It’s part of the plan!”

“Not any part I knew about.”

’O’Greer…”

Han Solo didn’t have this much trouble.

O’Greer finally talked Hughes into letting me bind him with slip knots. I have no idea when slip knots were invented so I hope I didn’t screw anything up by showing them how they worked. I didn’t think a knot could change the course of human history, but I’ve been in the business long enough to know that you never know. Again, I’d deal with that later.

Time for the next phase.

A face wound bleeds a lot and doesn’t need to be particularly painful to raise a lot of drama. I cut a one inch surface scratch into my forehead and let the blood pour down my face. I matted my hair a little with blood and some mud to hide my face a bit. Look woozy, that’ll be easy, and stumble my way into the kitchen, shouting barely coherently.

“Watch out!! O’Greer’s got an intruder! Taking him down to the dungeon.” I collapsed against a sturdy looking cook for effect. “Clear out! Get out! He attacked me in the barn! God help us if he gets loose again! Run! Run!”

Push off the cook and stumble my way over to where I knew the door to the stairs was. Fortunately, there was a nervous looking maid in my way. I ran toward her, rather wildly, bloody hands stretched out. “He’s one of the Duer men! He’s coming! I think they’re all coming!”

That did it! The half dozen or so kitchen staff backed out of the room like I had cooties. It wouldn’t be much time, but it gave me a second to get the guys in.

O’Greer manhandled Hughes across the yard for effect. I opened the kitchen door and O’Greer shoved Hughes in. I caught him, barely, and pushed them both toward the stairs. They ran down quickly. If you don’t know the Chewbacca move they were going to pull to get Cayden out, shame on you. You lack culture.

I grabbed a towel and quickly cleaned my face and ran my fingers through to straighten my hair. I had just picked up the milk bucket and managed to straighten up when a guard came rushing in to the kitchen.

“What’s going on?”

“Sorry?”

“Something about Duer’s men here?”

The guy started skulking around the kitchen, like maybe I was hiding the enemy. I just looked at him like he was daft. I was the enemy. Heh.

“I just brought milk in, no one was here. What’s the trouble? Is something going on?”

The guard looked completely confused. I like ’em like that. He stormed back out to have a little chat with the kitchen staff. We didn’t have long. I grabbed a huge butcher knife off a counter and made my way downstairs.

Cayden was looking bad. O’Greer was half carrying/half dragging Cayden from the cell. The mace had done a job on the side of his head and there was no TALIS to take care of his wound like there was for me. It didn’t look life threatening, but head injuries are incredibly unpredictable. It also looked like they’d done a little battering while he’d been their guest. My heart sank a little. Even if we got him out of here, he needed some medical attention. He managed to raise his head, though and look at me. Those beautiful blue eyes were both sporting shiners. Took him a second to focus.

“God in heaven.”

“Had nothing to do with it. Told ya, I’d be ok if I died.” I kissed him, carefully.

Unbelievably, he managed to stand on his own two feet and put his hand up to touch my face. “It was all true.”

I refuse to believe it was an emotional response, but a wave of physical weakness and nausea picked just then to hit hard. It must have shown on my face. Both Cayden and O’Greer reached out to support me. I blew out a breath to try to steady myself.

“Most of it. We’ve got to get out of here. Can you walk?” I gained a whole new level of respect and admiration for the man when he not only stood on his own, but leaned down and grabbed a sword from one of the unconscious guards now lying in the hallway.

“Yes. Can you?”

I ripped the skirt off the dress I was wearing (oh how I love a good reveal), stripping down to the rolled up pants I had on underneath. Rolled those down as we walked and pulled a shirt out of my bag to pull over my now heaving bosom. I snatched a helmet and a sword from the other unconscious man and I looked like one of the boys again.

“Then let’s roll.”

I sure hope that came out a hell of a lot more confident than I felt.

We had climbed about halfway up the steps and were ready for the last part of the show. Swords ready, we all starting clinking and clanking, yelling incoherently and making our way up to the kitchen. I ran up ahead and started yelling ‘get out’ in a few different languages, just to add to the panic and confusion. These poor folks were going to need therapy.

Hughes and O’Greer were making an excellent show as they entered the kitchen; Hughes making huge sweeping gestures with his sword and O’Greer taking pains to send pots, pans and dishes flying off shelves and counters. Cayden followed and came after me. I wanted to be sure not to show that either of us was weak, so I circled around a huge table in the middle of the room.

“Get help!!!” I screamed.

That sent the last few gawkers fleeing out of the room for their lives.

We took off out the door, O’Greer staying close to Cayden. I stopped a few paces out.

“Get him to safety, I’ll create the diversion.” I headed back in.

“NO!” For someone severely beaten and sporting a head injury, Cayden’s voice still rang with an awful lot of authority. “You’re just as weak as I – “

“I haven’t got time for this, Cayden. I told you, I’m on a time table and it’s even shorter now. I’ve got to get San Martin out of here. I’ll come to the camp if it’s humanly possible before I leave.” I gave him what I knew would be our last kiss. I made it count as best I could. I turned to O’Greer. “Keep him safe.”

O’Greer looked more sincere than I’d ever seen. “God go with you.”

“You know, I’m pretty sure he does.” I gave them my best rakish grin and headed back inside, cutting myself with the butcher knife on the way in order to bloody up again.

San Martin and I were going on a little trip.