The cursed towers 238
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"When? How?" Iseult cried. "He was on the march with us for months! How could he have
communicated with her?"
"Spies always have their ways," Meghan said harshly. "Carrier pigeons, or a note slipped to a dispatch
rider. Who knows how deeply the rot o' betrayal has set in?" She paced the room, her brow deeply
furrowed, her hands clenching and unclenching. "Finlay must have told her where Jorge and Tomas
would be too. The attacks came simultaneously. I should have guessed when we found him missing from
the forest. To think I feared he had come to some harm at the hands o' the Bright Soldiers!"
Duncan buried his head in his hands. "So many good men dead," he said harshly. "How could he?"
"Ea d-d-damn him!" Iain said thickly.
The captain of the Blue Guards got to his feet abruptly. "I will send men out to hunt for him. We will
question him and find out exactly how and why he broke faith with us, and then we shall put him on trial
for treason. He shall suffer for this betrayal!"
Finlay James MacFinlay, the Marquess of Tullitay and Kirkcudbright, Viscount of Balmorran and
Strathraer, and the only son and heir of the Duke of Falkglen, was found hiding under a bush at the edge
of the forest, his blue jacket torn and muddied, his beard matted with thistles. He was dragged back to
the army camp behind the horse of the soldier who found him. As he was hauled into the center of the
camp, he was greeted with boos and catcalls and gobs of spit. He covered his face with his hand and
sobbed.
Iseult stood pale and stern-faced outside the royal pavilion, dressed in her battered armor, her hair
hidden beneath her long-tailed white cap. Duncan Ironfist and Iain of Arran stood to one side, Niall the
Bear and Dide the Juggler to the other. They were all that were left of Lachlan's officers. They stared at
Finlay with cold contempt in their eyes.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he sobbed. "Please forgive me. I did no' ken what it was I did. She asked me to
send her news o' our plans and movements ... I thought it was so we could arrange to meet ... I so
longed to lie with her again ... I did no' think. Och, please, in the name o' Ea's green blood, forgive me."
He raised piteous eyes but saw no pity in the eyes of those who condemned him. He cried for them to kill
him but the mercy of death was denied him. He was branded with a T for traitor and condemned to
wander as an outcast, begging for food and mercy, and having all know that he had betrayed his Righ
and fellow soldiers. Even his own father would not offer him succor, driving him away with kicks and
oaths. So Finlay Fear-Naught became Finlay the Cursed, a man without home or friends or honor, a man
with the shrieks of the dying forever resounding in his ears.
The Fairge
The dragon soared high over the snow-clad mountains, her scaled body shining a gilded green in the
sunshine. Isabeau clung on tightly, tears streaming down her face from the sharp wind, her face alight with
exultation. She gave a whoop of excitement as Asrohc plunged downward, her stomach lurching as the
horizon blurred. Then the dragon twisted her body into a graceful roll, so that Isabeau was upside down,
