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irwinwe

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In the shadowed corner of the hallway, Atalanta sat crouching with John, in awe of the anger tremors that emanated from his physiognomy.  Some people were clear headed and even-tempered.  John was not, and had never been, one of them.  Harnessing his temper was much like caging a bellicose beast of the wild.  It was a good thing, then, that he was planning his schemes in the elusive shadows of the hallway, instead of with Alexander amidst the augmenting firelight.  Alexander could hide his anger, whereas John could not.  To each man his own, thought Atalanta. 

Just as she concluded her thoughts, John disappeared from her side in a blurry movement to hide some other place in the blackness, planning his attack.  She was by herself.  For a moment she was frightened.  But then she willed herself fearless, lifting her chin and narrowing her eyes.  She had Cameron blood, and she would not hide behind it. 

She had never seen MacMartin, her maternal grandfather, nor had she ever wished to, as she knew he had caused the separation of her mother and John years before she was born.  His motives had come from what her mother suspected was a secret loyalty to King William and Breadalbane.  According to her mother, MacMartin had supposedly encouraged Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel to let him sell his daughter as a bride to Campbell of Glenlyon, as chattel, hiding the abominable reasoning behind the marriage by calling it a "truce" between the Campbell and Cameron clans.  Of course, there had been no truce.  It had all been a lie.  And none of the Camerons had investigated this man's intention, knowing him to be harsh by nature and still believing him to be trustworthy.  Evidently, thought Atlanta, they were wrong about 'im.  He was an evil man.  He always had been.  But that fact was just now becomming very manifest.  

Atalanta watched as the shadow of MacMartin's body blocked the firelight from the doorway and stretched out into the hallway where she crouched in silence.  She involuntarily backed away from it as it threatened to reach her.   

Atalanta's blood raced on a vibration of hatred.  Here he stood, his back to her, MacMartin himself in his traitorous infamy, preparing to finish now the job he had started many years before.  She wouldn't let him do that.  She refused to watch this man, this man whose blood she supposedly carried, take away the men whose blood her heart and soul carried.  She wouldn't watch her grandfather kill her brothers, and she wouldn't watch her mother's people kill her father's.  But most of all, she wouldn't let a traitor kill patriots.  

She felt the dirk inside her chemise, and reached for it with silent dexterity in the dark.  As she held it she remebered her mother's words, words that John had taught her mother, and that her mother had passed to her, "throw wi' your eyes an' your weapon will follow".  She hesitated for just a moment, dagger and fist suspended above her head, a sudden guilt running quickly through her.  

Then she heard the unmistakable whisper of Sir Ewen Cameron from behind her in the darkness.  The Ulysses himself had been here all along, protecting her from the shadows, blending into the blackness with his dark features and wild animal stealth.  He had been with her since he had known her, whereas MacMartin had never wished to know her at all.  "Do it, granddaughter" he encouraged in his steely voice, bloodlust and admiration, if it can be possible, combined into one tone.  

Atalanta's eyes suddenly lost their glaze and steadied on MacMartin's back.  She didn't know until that very instant whose blood really claimned her the deepest, but there was no question now, when it came to matters of the heart.  And then, as she stood between her two grandfathers, Sir Ewen her impetus, MacMartin her aim, the Cameron blood inside her sung loudest, and she let the dirk fly.  

She watched in dissociation as the man's body jerked, paralyzed, and a circle of red began to spread like a target on his back.  

"Perfect shot" she heard someone whisper, not knowing if they had been whispering in her ear or from a far-away place.  It had taken the will out of her to choose, and she fell to the ground, soul somewhere else, as if she was outside of herself, seeking someone who could tell her she had done nothing wrong.  She was floating, and all she saw were the shadowy flame dances on the ground outside the door.  Hellfire was chasing her down.  

Then she felt strong arms embrace her, turning her head away from the hellfire and into a warm body.  "Ah, my Atalanta" said Sir Ewen, voice a most unual combination of silk-covered steel, "so ye 'ave chosen.  Ye make us proud lass."

She was strangled and searching for air in the midst of her panic, and she sought the eerie comfort of Ewen's green eyes.  She found it.  Then her world went black.