by Barbara Bard
Finlay dismounted his horse after him and saw that Riley had disposed of several of Sir Richard and Lord Torstein’s men. He saw the outline of Lord Henry fleeing toward the rear of the outpost off in the distance.
Striking down two men who approached him quickly, Finlay then proceeded to follow after Lord Henry. He shouted out his name as soon as he had significantly closed up the distance.
Lord Henry turned around, scooping a sword up from a fallen knight, and looked at Finlay with a murderous set of eyes.
“You again,” he said. “How is it that you just do not die?”
Finlay said nothing, raised his sword, and waited for Lord Henry to charge.
Isla, now on her feet, raised her sword as Stephen rushed toward her.
“You have caused enough problems, my lady. Perhaps I should dispose of you before you add any more turmoil to my lord’s plight.”
Isla shook her head. “Just quiet yourself and fight.”
“With pleasure,” Stephen said as he took a swipe at Isla, his blows quick and feverish and forcing Isla to duck and parry and dive out of the way as quickly as possible.
Stephen was vicious in his attack, relentless. Even though he was wearing himself out quickly, he was still overwhelming Isla with his significant size and skills with a sword.
Stephen stabbed at Isla, catching her twice on her arms and causing ribbons of red to flow through them. Isla, jabbing at Stephen, readied herself to take a stab at his stomach when he exposed his guard and turned out his body as he came in for a strike.
Isla readied herself by gripping her sword and pivoting her feet, waiting for the right moment, then drove the sword into his abdomen as deep as she could drive it, the tip of her sword sticking out of Stephen’s back as his eyes rolled back white and he fell dead onto his back.
Isla, smiling at her victory, turned around and prepared to engage the next man—but she fell, a sudden weakness overcoming her as she fell to her knees, dropped her sword and looked down at her waist to find that Stephen had impaled her with a dagger that protruded from her stomach.
Lord Henry had engaged Finlay with brute force, nearly knocking Finlay off his guard as the two fought to the death. One could say what they want about Lord Henry, but the man was skillful with a sword.
The two exchanged blow after blow, Lord Henry pushing Finlay backward toward the area of the armory where the spreading fire was currently engulfing more than half of armory, the flames slowly inching their way towards several barrels of highly flammable liquids meant for coating the tips of arrows.
Lord Henry screamed and hollered as he struck at Finlay, at one point exposing his chest as he came in for a blow and offered Finlay the moment he had always hoped for—and that’s when the barracks exploded and knocked both men clear off their feet.
Finlay, his senses taking their time to recoup, finally sat up and saw the outline of Lord Henry fleeing in the distance and cursed when he realized the man had shaken him loose of his grip.
“Finlay!” the voice of Riley called out as he engaged several men. “It’s Lady Isla!”
Finlay looked around frantically for signs of Isla and spotted her several yards away from the barracks—on her back with a dagger protruding from her stomach. Finlay rushed over, his world feeling like it was coming to an end as he came to Isla side and saw that, though she was pale, she was still holding on strong.
“Hold on, me love,” Finlay said. “Just rest.”
“L-lord Henry,” Isla stammered. “Is h-he…” she drew a breath, focused. “Is he dead?”
Finlay shook his head. “He got away.”
Isla grabbed his hand and squeezed. “End this,” she pleaded. “End him!”
Finlay nodded and then turned his head. “Riley! Here! Quick!”
Riley finished off another knight and coordinated several of his riders to attack from the left before rushing to Finlay’s side. “What is it?”
“Watch after Lady Isla,” Finlay said. “I am going after Lord Henry. He just fled tae the east. I am going to finish this.”
He leaned into Isla’s ear, lowering his voice to a whisper before he said: “I love you,” and then gently kissed her on the forehead.
“Find him,” Isla said. “Find him.”
“I will.” Finlay then grabbed the nearest mound, jumped on top, and followed after Lord Henry as he slipped out of the camp, mounted his own horse, and fled as fast as the horse could carry him off to the east.
Riley, carefully moving Isla with the help of one of his men, saw that most of Sir Richard’s forces had been killed or driven away. “We must gae. Rally our riders. We are leaving.”
Riley’s forces once again converged, counted that eight of their own had perished, and took off out of the outpost at such a high speed it felt as if they had vanished in the blink of an eye.
“My lord!” one of Lord Torstein’s knights called out as he slowly awakened.
Lord Torstein, his senses coming back to me, slowly stood up with the assistance of his knight and saw the decimation that had fallen the outpost, every inch of it consumed with flame and burning slowly to the ground. “Where is Lord Henry?”
The knight pointed to the east. “That way, my lord. He just fled in that direction. A Highlander followed after him. Most of our men have fallen, my lord. I have ordered them to retreat two hundred yards from here. They await your command.”
“And what of Sir Richard?”
The knight pointed to the burning jail quarters just as the burning roof caved in and toppled the entire structure.
Sir Torstein ordered the man to give him a horse, mounted it, and ordered him and one another knight to follow after him. “We ride to the east,” he said. “This all ends. Now.”
Chapter 34
Lord Henry did not care that Stephen had been slain. He did not care that so many of his men had perished and the wrath of the kingdom would soon reign down upon him with a swift and mighty hand. He did not care—he merely wanted to survive.
As the outpost burned bright behind him, Lord Henry bucked his horse and rode as fast as he could through the Highlands, laughing at knowing that he was a man who would soon meet his demise. However, he made certain that he wouldn’t go down without a fight.
He approached a dip in the terrain that opened into an expansive valley shaped like a bowl, his breath hot and heavy as he searched around for the direction that would provide him a suitable escape.
Not far behind him, just shy of six hundred yards, Finlay rode with full force and followed the single path of hoof prints in the terrain. He pushed with all his might, angrier than he ever was before at Lord Henry as he closed the distance and prepared to end things once and for all.
Right as Finlay came to the dip in the terrain, he felt himself knocked from his horse as a hatchet buried itself in the neck of the beast and killed it mid-gallop. Finlay, rolling over in time so that he was not crushed by the horse, quickly drew his sword and stood at the ready as three Sassenach men, one of them clearly a lord, closed in on him with swords at the ready.
“Stop right there!” The lord shouted out as he dismounted his horse.
Finlay wasted no time and charged, the lord engaging him quickly as the two exchanged blow after blow. At one point, one of the two knights escorting the lord moved to intercede, but he was quickly cut down by Finlay right before Finlay reengaged with the lord.
The other knight, circling his horse around the pair of fighting men, attempted to draw a bow and arrow but was cut down when Finlay, in a feat of spectacular strength, threw his sword like a staff into the man’s chest and knocked him from his mound.
The Sassenach lord swung over Finlay’s head, hoping to kill him now that the man was unarmed. But his attempts were cut short when Finlay tackled him to the ground and buried all of his weight into the man’s chest.
“Ye will pay,” Finlay said. “All of ye who fight for Lord Henry.”
The Sassenach lord gritted his teeth and pushed with
all his might to get Finlay off of him as Finlay’s fingers slowly coiled around his neck.
“That filth,” the lord spat, “is a traitor that will die right alongside you!”
Finlay immediately recognized from the man’s words that this was the Lord Torstein that had been spoken of before—the man set to strike down Lord Henry.
“Your name is Torstein,” Finlay said, his grip slackened but still pinning the lord down. “Are ye nae?”
The lord nodded. “I seek to kill Lord Henry,” he said. “And anyone who stands in my way!”
Finlay thought through his options. He didn’t seek to further add to the violence, his wish to distance himself as far as he could from the wrath of the Sassenach now of the highest priority being that he now had the love of a woman he did not want to lose.
“Ye are me enemy,” he said to Lord Torstein. “But nae today.”
“What are you going to do?” Lord Torstein stammered.
“I will end Lord Henry.”
“No! I will do it!”
“As I said,” Finlay said as he took a grip on Lord Torstein’s wrist. “Ye are nae me enemy today.”
With a quick twist he broke Lord Torstein’s wrist, took his sword, and stood back.
“I will nae add to the bloodshed,” he said. “Tell your Sassenach overlords I said so.” Finlay then mounted the fallen knight’s horse and pursued Lord Henry as Lord Torstein got to his feet and watched the Highlander ride off into the distance.
Lord Henry had ridden for thirty minutes by the time his horse became too fatigued from the strain, the horse wheezing and slowing down as Lord Henry repeatedly kicked at its sides to get it moving again.
“Ride, damn you!” he cursed. “Now!”
The horse buckled, its legs weakening before slowly tilting to the side and falling. Lord Henry jumped off of his steed and kicked at its ribs, cursing every word he could conjure as he drew his sword and looked around frantically for signs of an attacker.
Lord Henry stood out in the open, turning in a circle as he held his weapon out and waited for the inevitable. After a minute—the sounds of approaching hoof beats became audible, slowly increasing before the rider, Finlay, appeared over a hill and hopped off of his horse and stood several feet shy of Lord Henry.
The two men stared each other down. Both of them were panting, exhausted, ready to call it as they sweated profusely and looked each other square in the eyes.
Time passed. The two didn’t know how much. Eventually the silence was broken when Finlay jutted his chin and said: “The time has come fer ye tae pay fer yer sins, ye bastard.”
Lord Henry laughed, “You cannot stop the inevitable, you fool! Do you really think that if you strike me down that you and your people will ever be free? It is the destiny of the English to take these lands. My king and my people will not stop until each and every one of you savages are slaughtered like the animals you are. You think you free? You think you will live a day marked with peace? You dirty savage. You cannot stop it. You and your people will be wiped from the face of the earth, whether I’m here or not.”
Finlay shook his head. “I may nae be able to prevent the Sassenach rule,” he said. “But killing ye will surely help me sleep better at night.”
Lord Henry spit on the ground. “Fight me, savage. Show me what a Highlander knows!”
Finlay raised his sword, steadied his feet, and charged. Lord Henry followed suit as both men screamed and began to engage.
Lord Henry took the first swing, wide and over the top of Finlay’s head. Finlay ducked under the blow, parried another, and struck Lord Henry with a backhanded blow that split that man’s lip open.
Lord Henry laughed, spitting the blood on the ground as it coated his yellow teeth. He charged again, swiping from left-to-right as Finlay successfully parried each blow. Upon Lord Henry’s fifth strike, however, he caught Finlay in the shoulder and saw a trail of ruby flowing from a neat gash that would require a significant amount of time to heal.
“There we go!” Lord Henry said, satisfied. “You should not pick a fight with a more skillful swordsman!”
Finlay, shaking off the pain, charged once more, his blows vicious and wild but still not shaking Lord Henry in the slightest. The two continued to dance for several turns, each of them evenly matched but becoming worn down as the fight continued.
“Come!” Lord Henry taunted. “Is that all you can give?!”
Finlay was through with the curse that was Lord Henry, increasingly angrier with each blow the man took and word that he spat out. Wanting to end it once and for all, Finlay screamed at the top of his lungs and charged, his brute strength at its peak and overpowering Lord Henry.
He struck aside two of Lord Henry’s blow, knocked him in the face with the hilt of his sword, and then shoved the blade deep into Lord Henry’s belly in the final blow that caused Lord Henry to finally drop his sword.
“This is fer me people,” Finlay said, Lord Henry’s eyes saturated with fear as he was struck once more in the stomach by Finlay and knocked on his rear with a boot to the chest.
Once he hit the ground, Finlay raised the sword, swung, and lobbed off Lord Henry’s head before collapsing to the ground, thanking God that the man’s reign of terror had finally come to an end.
Lord Torstein heard Finlay approaching and stood tall, ready to receive whatever the man planned on giving him. Finlay, still clutching Lord Torstein’s now-bloodied sword in his hand, dismounted the horse and tossed the weapon at Lord Torstein’s feet. Lord Torstein stood in silence and merely stared at the crimson soaking the blade.
“It is done,” Finlay said, clearly exhausted and on the verge of collapsing. “Ye can check not fae from here if ye want to collect his head.”
The silence held sway for another moment as Lord Torstein, clutching his broken wrist, said: “You just did all of us a service.”
“Aye,” Finlay said with a nod, not sure of where to proceed next.
“What is your name, good man?”
Finlay hesitated before answering: “Finlay Baird.”
Lord Torstein nodded. “Perhaps,” he said, searching for his words carefully, “we should speak, Finlay Baird.”
“Why? So ye can kill me?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I slaughtered a good number of yer men.”
Lord Torstein huffed his confirmation. “That is true,” he said. “But the circumstances were sparked by the rage of Lord Henry. I’d like to speak with you about…peace.”
Finlay shook his head. “I cannae trust a Sassenach lord.”
“Then don’t. I do not wish to seek your friendship. I only ask, in peace, to speak with you about how we proceed forth in a manner that will suit us all.”
Finlay thought about it for a long beat. “I am nae the one ye should speak with. I am not the leader of this clan”
“Then who?”
Finlay smiled. “Her name is Isla. Lady Isla.”
Chapter 35
An entire day had passed since the battle at the outpost, and Isla could have sworn, as she lay on her back with her wounds being tended to by Riley’s wife, that things never felt more peaceful.
Finlay had returned to her side a half-day after he finally put down Lord Henry, much to the ecstatic reception of Isla.
“Me love!” she said, Finlay gentling embracing her for sake of her wounds. “I feared ye might never return!”
“I hae, me love,” he said, kissing her gently. “And I will never leave yer side again.”
They embraced for a long moment before Isla said: “Tell me what the fate of Lord Henry was.”
Finlay smiled, “It is finished, me lady. He is nae longer our burden to bear.”
Isla felt as if she was on the verge of tears. “I hae awaited this day fer so long. I thought it might never come.”
“It has come, me love. We can now live in peace.”
“I want tae leave here. I want tae gae tae our new home.”
> “Soon enough. But ye must rest. Ye wounds are quite significant.”
Riley’s wife stepped in. “She will heal,” she said. “The blade that pierced her appears tae only have torn the flesh, though the cut is deep and will require tending tae fer the next several days.”
Isla sighed. “I dinnae wish tae spend that long here. Me people need me.”
“And they are safe, me lady. They are here in our village with full stomachs and full hearts. Ye can sleep soundly tonight with the knowledge that ye hae brought peace tae yer people.”