by Amanda Scott
Rage roared through Kirkhill when he saw the helmeted Englishman grab Fiona. Ridding himself of one foe with a deft swing of the axe, he knew Cerberus was doing his part, laying about the nearest horses with teeth and flashing hooves. When another adversary backed off, his mount screaming and plunging, Kirkhill urged Cerberus onward. Seeking Fiona in the mob of men and horses, he saw her lashing her whip at the wretch who had dared to lay his hand on her.
Forcing Cerberus through the crowd of panicky riders, hearing the Douglas war cry on every side of him, but with a murderous-looking fellow right in his path, he kneed Cerberus to the right and sent the Englishman flying from his saddle with a blow from the axe hard enough to make his own well-calloused palm sting.
Looking again for Fiona, he saw the villain dragging her from her saddle.
The man’s grip was bruising Fiona’s arm, his strength nearly jerking her from her horse, but she continued to fight him, clutching the reins and her horse’s mane in one hand while she flailed at him with the whip in the other.
At the same time, she tried frantically to keep an eye on Dickon as he fought his way toward her. One moment, he was almost near enough to touch her horse, the next too far away. He was fighting for his life against at least two adversaries.
Concentrating on the villain clearly determined to pull her from her horse, and noting a wide tear in his jack above his elbow that had bared skin, Fiona leaned perilously toward it and bit him there as hard as she could.
He jerked away from her with an oath that she heard over the melee around her. As he did, a great axe blade passed between them. She heard a scream, hardly human, saw a spray of blood, and wrenched her gaze hastily away.
“Don’t fail me now, lass!”
Dickon’s voice steadied her nerves but did little else to stem the sick feeling awash within her. The Englishman was an enemy, but he had been a man, too, and now he was dead or soon would be. She doubted that anyone falling amid so many fighting men and plunging horses would have any chance of surviving.
“Come, lass, this way,” Kirkhill ordered in an astonishingly calm voice, making her wonder if she heard him over the cacophony around them because his voice contrasted so to the panicky shouts and screams filling the night around her, or because her ear was especially attuned to it.
“Fiona, now!” he shouted with sudden urgency in his tone.
Gathering her wits, she nodded and spurred her horse after Cerberus, praying she would keep her seat. The Sands still teemed with men, horses, and wounded everywhere. Her gelding tossed its head and flared its nostrils as it tried to pick its way around and over the dead and wounded. The very sand ran with blood.
Nearby someone shouted in a voice that, but for its strong English accent, she’d have mistaken for Sir Hugh’s, that the Black Douglas had fifty thousand men on the way. As it was, she saw many of Dickon’s men, and others from Spedlins.
Some wore red hearts on their sleeves, denoting Douglas loyalty. Many had slowed and were turning back, satisfied that the English were in full flight.
Hearing a new note in the shouting beyond Dickon, Fiona realized that the going had become easier, as if the troops still riding toward them were thinning.
Dickon had waved men past, urging them on, but some of those were slowing, too, glancing back toward the shouts.
“What is it?” she cried. “Why are they stopping?”
Just then a lull fell in the noise closest to them, and she easily heard shouts from riders on the open sands between them and the Scottish shore.
“The tide! ’Ware the tide!” Men were wheeling horses, turning back.
But Dickon hesitated and glanced back with a frown. “We’re only a mile and a half, mayhap two miles, from the Scottish shore,” he yelled. “These Sands stretch from its head for at least twenty miles, and there’s no water in sight.”
“’Tis a full moon,” she shouted back. “The tide will be fierce.”
“But, as near as we are—”
“Not so near, sir, we—” She broke off. Above the ongoing clash of weapons and shouts of men still fighting, she heard a distant, still-familiar roar. “Dickon, it’s coming now! Warn the rest of our men, for they won’t hear it. Sound the horns!”
“How far away is the water if we can hear it?”
She had narrowed the distance between them and, without slowing the gelding, could say without yelling, “No more than twenty minutes. But on these sands, it will take us all of that to reach a point where we can safely get ashore. In this bright moonlight, we’ll see the spray first, because it flies high. When we see water, we’ll have just minutes to save ourselves before the first huge wave strikes.”
“Then ride on, lass! I’ll be right behind you, but I must try to warn the others.”
“Rob will know! Mairi said he has often sailed from Galloway to Annan.”
“Rob is with Archie,” he said. “But Hugh will know, too.”
“Will he?”
“Aye, sure, for I doubt there is any way into or out of England hereabouts that our Hugh does not know. But go, lass, now! None will try to stop you, but when we blow the retreat, the English may follow us. Cut eastward, to shorten your ride, but keep clear of the marsh yonder and be wary of the Esk river outflow near shore. It may be deeper than you expect. Trust your horse!”
She nodded, knowing she had to obey him, that there was no time to argue, but feeling acutely uneasy to be riding on alone. She would be on her own until he could warn his men and catch up with her. But he would catch up. That she had to believe.
Urging her horse past Cerberus, she fixed her gaze on the Scottish shore, wishing there really were fifty thousand Scots awaiting her there.
She saw none but the men who had also heard the telltale roar of the incoming sea and were turning back toward the cleuch from whence they had come.
Wanting nothing to do with that cleuch, she did as Dickon had told her and cut sharply east, where the shore was nearer. Casting a glance to her right, she easily discerned the marshland he had warned of, because it was darker than the Sands and wore a shiny coating that reflected the moonlight.
Her imagination promptly provided her with an image of what would happen if the tidal wave struck then and swept her and her horse into the muddy swamp.
Kirkhill caught sight of Sir Hugh’s hornsman before he saw his own. In the tumult of the melee, his hornsman had apparently lost sight of him. He did not see Joshua either and hoped that both men would heed Hugh’s hornsman and retreat.
“Lucas,” he shouted when he saw Hugh’s man, “sound the retreat! The tide is coming, and we must be off these sands before it sweeps us all away!”
Lucas nodded and deftly maneuvered his mount around an English soldier, who quickly took on another Scot instead. Lucas raised the horn to his lips and blew the Douglas retreat. Then, to Kirkhill’s amusement and relief, he also blew the signal for Kirkhill’s men to retreat, and another for the Maxwells.
Disengagement was not easy in the midst of battle, but many of the English were already trying to make speed for England, and the Scots were quick to heed the Scottish horn. As they turned toward home, however, many English riders took courage again and, jeering, urged their mounts to follow.
Shouting again to Joshua, Kirkhill ordered a speedier retreat.
Then, seeing Hugh still safely in the saddle with his sword at the ready, and catching his eye, Kirkhill indicated that he was going on ahead, and pointed toward Fiona, whose dark hair streamed behind her, gleaming in the moonlight.
Barely waiting for Hugh’s nod, Kirkhill spurred Cerberus and followed her.
Chapter 20
Fiona slowed as she approached the river Esk, where it flowed through the sand near the Scottish shore. Her gaze swept the river channel’s southern bank for puddles that warned of quicksand. As she looked westward, her breath caught in her throat at the sight of spray glittering brightly as it soared high into the moonlit sky.
Most of the men seemed
to be heading toward the mouth of the cleuch.
Her gelding was splashing across the shallow river channel with yards yet to go when she heard thudding hoofbeats behind her on the sand and glanced back to see Kirkhill and Cerberus approaching the river’s edge.
“Look yonder,” she shouted. “You can see the spray!”
The tall, wide curtain of spray sparkled magically as it swept nearer, whirling in the steady breeze as if on an axis. She could smell the sea coming and fancied that she could feel its droplets caressing her face as she urged her mount onward.
The gelding was tired, but this was no time for it to rest.
“That spray’s nobbut a mile or so off,” Kirkhill shouted back.
“Then we’ve only minutes to get beyond its reach!”
Glancing westward, she saw a host of Scots now racing toward Riggshead Cleuch. “Should they not follow us?” she yelled. “You told me to cut to the east—”
“Aye, because your mount is tired! They’ll make it easily enough!” Cerberus drew alongside the bay, and Kirkhill said in a slightly more normal tone, “The water will be shallow at first, will it not?”
“Some, but not rolling in, as on a beach,” she said, spurring the gelding to keep up with the destrier. “It surges, as it does when you empty a pail into a corner! First, you see a long curve of white and flowing surf. Then, quite suddenly behind it, you’ll see the swelling tide in a fearsome wall. By sunlight, it looks dimpled, with rainbows dancing in it. Even by moonlight, we should see some color.”
“Faster, lass! Use your whip!”
She was riding as fast as she dared, but she glanced back and saw first the frothing surf and then the high wall of water, rushing inexorably toward them.
Kirkhill saw it, too, a glittering wall five or six feet high, a tumbling mass of dark sea surging and roiling beneath myriad white horses, awesome in its power.
“Ride, Fiona, and hang on tight! We’ll make it easily enough.”
She looked back at him, and to his delight, she grinned. It was a good thing, too, because after such a wild day and night, had she not felt the same exhilaration he felt whenever he pitted himself against Nature or any other force greater than his own, if she had seen glee in his expression, she might have thought ill of him.
But she was feeling just what he felt. He could see it.
“I’ll race you!” she cried, spurring the gelding on.
Her horse was no match for Cerberus, but Kirkhill wanted her ahead of him and noted that Cerberus was content to allow it for once. Had another destrier ridden ahead of him, he would have done his utmost to pass it. The weary but still determined gelding, offering no challenge, was beneath the destrier’s contempt.
Kirkhill kept a close eye on the approaching wall of water as it drew nearer, moving Cerberus up along the lass’s left side, between the gelding and the danger.
She was still grinning, but she gave him a look and yelled, “Being protective, sir? I warrant that wall will send us all tumbling if it hits us.”
“It won’t hit us,” he yelled back, hoping he sounded more confident about that than he felt. It was going to be close, and the gelding was nearly blown.
Eyeing the oncoming surge again, he estimated the distance to shore and decided he had time yet to decide if he should lift her off her horse. He doubted that the gelding could withstand the flood. He wasn’t sure that Cerberus could.
Better for them all if they made it to higher, firmer ground.
She leaned forward, urging the gelding on, talking to it now, encouraging it.
He saw that most of the other Scots were ashore a half mile to the west, but at that distance, he could not identify anyone he saw.
No one had followed him and Fiona, but English riders were still chasing the Scottish stragglers. As he watched, a number of the English wrenched their horses to a plunging halt, wheeled them, and spurred them hard toward England.
Knowing they must have recognized at last the threat of the oncoming tide, he saw that the wall of water was nearly upon them. He saw, too, that the bluffs above the prominent point forming the west side of the mouth of the cleuch were swarming with men and horses, far more than had come with them. Easily visible in the moonlight, the Douglas red-heart banners waved wildly.
Archie the Grim had arrived.
Fiona saw the crowded bluffs and shouted, “Is that Archie?”
“Aye, ’tis himself,” he replied. “He must have known the tide would come in, so he took his men upward, rather than brave the Sands with so many.”
“Does he really have fifty thousand men up there with him?”
“Nay, that was our Hugh, I expect, seeking to increase the English panic.”
Looking toward the fleeing English, she cried, “They’ll never make it!”
“Watch where you’re going, lass! Head up that hillside, where the trees are!”
The gelding was already going that way on its own, so she gave it its head but could not take her eyes from the sight of terrified riders caught in the flood of water sweeping them toward the marsh she had skirted. The screams of foundering horses and drowning men horrified her. All were in panic, terrified of dying.
Wrenching her gaze from the awful sight at last when the gelding splashed out of the water and gave a mighty surge to reach higher, flatter ground, she called to him, “Should we not head west now, to join the others?”
“Nay, we should not,” he yelled back. “Not yet.”
She glanced at him but said nothing, merely nodding and urging the gelding on up the hillside toward the woodland Dickon had indicated.
When she looked again at him, he was watching the last of the Scots gallop their horses through rising surf. One horse stumbled, but its rider held it together, and she drew a breath of relief as the last Scottish horse scrambled from the river channel’s eddying water—rising quickly now with the incoming tide—and found safe purchase on the steep shore.
She knew that Dickon had urged her into the trees because he had seen that the water was going to claim many lives and wanted to spare her the sight if he could, and she was grateful. She had seen enough already to keep her awake nights.
Not that Border women were unaccustomed to blood and gore, for they were well acquainted with such. But no one wanted to watch men and horses swept under by the tide. Still hearing their screams, and sure the memory would live in her mind for years, if not forever, she sent a prayer aloft that Hugh, Rob, Sir James, Tony, and the rest of their men who had survived the battle had survived the tide as well.
Drawing rein at the edge of the woodland, she said, “Will not Archie and the others look for you to join them?”
“Hugh saw us leave,” he told her. “As for Archie, he has small claim on me now that we’ve sent the English home again. He has my men and Tony, and I’ll wager that he has already sent word to Douglas and March. Neither will refuse to join forces with him whilst Northumberland has an army amassed at the border.”
She did not care about Douglas, March, or Northumberland just then. She was just glad that he would stay with her. “Shall we stop here?” she asked.
“This tide will rise much higher, will it not?” he said, gesturing toward the tree line, still some twenty feet above them.
“Not for hours yet. Surely, you don’t mean for us to spend the night here.”
“Nay, but we’ll be more comfortable if we need not think about a rising tide.”
She grimaced. “Are you angry with me for following Nan, Dickon?”
“Nay,” he said. “But we must rest the horses some, lass, and I’d liefer do it before we rejoin the others. Hugh and Rob will wait for us unless Archie orders them to ride with him. Even then, Hugh will wait until he knows we’re safe.”
“Will he?”
“Aye, sure,” Dickon said, gesturing for her to ride ahead of him through the trees. Moonbeams shot down through the canopy, which was thin there, the trees not nearly as dense as the forests near Spedlins. “Ride ju
st over that rise, lass. I recall a wooded hollow there with a burn. I’m thirsty, and the horses must be, too.”
Now that he mentioned thirst, she recognized her own and was glad to see, as they topped the rise, that he was right about the burn. Except for its murmuring, the little glen was quiet. She could no longer hear any screams.
Drawing rein at the burn, she patted the gelding’s neck but did not dismount. Sudden tension filled her, making her heart pound. She no longer thought about horror but only about the fact that she was still alive and that Dickon was, too.
Kirkhill watched her pat her horse’s neck as the beast stretched to drink from the burn. Fiona nibbled her lower lip, and he felt himself stir in response.
Dismounting, he dropped the reins and quickly unsaddled Cerberus. The destrier moved gratefully to drink from the burn, and would not wander. Moving to the gelding’s side, he reached for Fiona and lifted her down to stand before him.
For a long moment, she stood, staring straight ahead at his chest. When she looked up at last, the moonlight caressed her face and gleamed in her eyes. Her gaze met his, serious now and wondering, and emotion surged through him as powerfully as the wall of water that had threatened them both just minutes before.
“Ah, sweetheart,” he murmured, resting his hands gently on her shoulders. “I might have lost you before I even…” His throat tightened, and he dared not go on.
“But you did not lose me,” she said. “Nor I, you. Could you just hold me, Dickon? I want to feel your arms around me, tight.”
He looked upward, seeking guidance, but God did not deign to advise him. Swallowing, he said, “Lass, if I hold you… Sakes, I cannot just hold you. I want to wrap my arms around you and never let you go.”
Her smile then was soft, warm, and filled with promise. “Hold me, Dickon.”
He heard a moan from his own throat, but he did not hesitate, nor want to.
Embracing her, he pulled her so close that when she made no sound and seemed hardly to breathe, he wondered if he were holding her too tightly. But when he eased his hold, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him closer to her.