What the devil was she doing out of the hall? And where was Sorcha?
His eyes scanned the courtyard behind Aisla, but there was no sign of his wife. Swamped with a coldness that dug into his bones, he rushed to meet her, leaving bodies strewn in his wake. He was so focused on getting to his sister that he almost lifted his sword against his brother and halted just in time.
“Where are ye going?” Patrick asked, kicking a Scot in the stomach and plunging his sword into one of Malvern’s soldiers. He, Feagan, and Callan were single-handedly fending off the small portion of Malvern’s army that had managed to breach the pass and the men defending on the front fields. They were the last line of defense before the keep.
“It’s Aisla,” Brandt said, not breaking his stride. “She’s not in the keep, which means something has happened.”
“We’ll take care of the rest of these,” his brother said. “Ye go and make sure they’re safe.”
Nodding, Brandt sprinted up the hill behind his brothers, knocking Aisla to the ground just as a rogue arrow whizzed past where she’d been standing. Belatedly, Brandt noticed that Aisla’s clothing was damp, and it suddenly registered that the dark fabric was drenched in blood.
“What’s this? Are you hurt?” His heart shrunk, even as his eyes searched her for signs of injury. Sorcha would have protected Aisla and Catriona with her life, and the understanding made his breath hitch painfully in his lungs.
“’Tis no’ mine,” she gasped, fighting to catch her breath from the tumble they’d both taken to avoid the arrow. “’Tis the blood of a man named Coxley. Shoved my dagger between his ribs just like yer wife showed me.”
Brandt grabbed his sister by the arms and drew her upward. “Sorcha, is she alive?”
“Aye, I think so,” Aisla said, her eyes widening. “But she was fighting a tall man with pale blond hair and a cruel face when I ran to find you.”
Malvern. The very thought of his wife in that sadist’s clutches made every hair on his body vibrate in rage. This time, he vowed, when Brandt saw the man he would not hesitate to put him down like the dog he was—if his wife hadn’t already finished him off. He did not doubt Sorcha’s skill to defend herself, but she was on her own, and Malvern was a seasoned man of war.
“Is he alone? The marquess?” Brandt asked, belatedly grasping that Coxley was no longer a threat. Because of his sister. The small lass he was interrogating had taken down one of the most repugnant men Brandt had ever met. How the hell had he gotten so close to her?
“He’s with Rodric and some other soldiers,” Aisla said. “They came through the tunnels.”
“Tunnels?” Brandt asked with a frown, pulling her toward him before he decided to make a wild dash for the keep.
“The ones that lead to the loch. Usually, they’re filled with marsh water this time of year, but somehow, they managed to crawl through.”
Malvern and his men must have killed the men Brandt had ordered to be placed on watch and had found some way down the quarry to use the tunnels Aisla spoke of. No wonder they hadn’t been at the front leading the army—they’d been sneaking in from the rear. And with Rodric’s help, they had managed to brave the keep. If they held the women and children hostage there, the battle would be over. The men would not risk the lives of their families. Nor would he, for that matter. Sorcha and Catriona were still in there.
A part of him raged that he hadn’t been told of the bloody tunnels in the first place, but like Aisla had, Patrick and Feagan would have likely assumed them to be blocked and impenetrable. He dimly recalled Seamus saying as much. A scream from the keep had him bolting toward it. Aisla kept pace with him.
“Go to the stables,” he shouted over his shoulder. “You’ll be safe there.”
She shook her head. “I want to help.”
“Aisla,” he began, slowing to face her.
She cut him off with a resolute scowl. “I killed Coxley, ye ken.”
Brandt faltered. She did have a point. He couldn’t fathom that his slight baby sister had felled a man who was notoriously hard to kill. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time a man had underestimated a woman and paid the price for it. She’d done Sorcha’s marks proud.
Grudgingly, he nodded and handed her a dirk from his boot. “Stay behind me.”
Brandt crept up the stairs to the keep entrance with his sister on his heels. He glanced over his shoulder and was surprised to see his dirk held in her confident grip, a fierce look on her face. He almost smiled at the effect of what was certainly Sorcha’s influence. He hoped to God that she was still alive, or Malvern would pay with his last drop of blood. Quelling his roiling emotions, Brandt placed a finger to his lips and eased the door open.
Light as a wraith, Aisla followed. They inched through the shadows until they were near the rounded arches that led into the great hall. The push of voices reached them, wrapped in the soft sobs of children and louder jeers. Peering around the edge, he scanned the hall. There was no sign of Malvern. Or Sorcha.
Children and women sat against the walls, their faces wreathed in terror. But pride swept through him as he took in that they hadn’t gone down without a fight. A few soldiers lay prone on the floor, groaning and holding injured limbs. Brandt risked another quick look. Rodric stood upon the dais with Catriona. Brandt counted seven men with him. Two standing over the women and children, and the other five at his uncle’s back.
“How many?” Aisla asked in a low tone, handing him back his dirk. She had retrieved a fallen crossbow and now held that along with two bolts in her grip.
“Seven,” he whispered. “Eight counting your father.”
“He’s no kin of mine,” she hissed.
“And he has Catriona.”
Brandt grasped his sword and bent his head over the hilt. The odds were not terrible. He had taken on a dozen men and lived to tell the tale. But he’d never fought while someone he loved was so exposed, and Brandt had no doubt that Rodric would use Catriona, and the rest of the women and children, however he saw fit to gain the upper hand. He thought of the way Rodric had branded her and felt fury envelop him. It didn’t matter if he had to take down a hundred men, he would do what needed to be done. Exhaling slowly, he turned to where Aisla squatted beside him to tell her to go for help. But she wasn’t there.
All he saw was the back of her blue shirt and the flick of Montgomery plaid as she rounded the corner, into the hall.
Bloody hell.
“Father, happy to see me?” he heard her say in a loud clear voice, and then the unmistakable twang of the crossbow. That was his cue. He lurched to his feet and flung the dagger Aisla had returned to him, sending it straight into the neck of the man on the other side of the room. A second dirk from his belt lodged itself into the chest of the man on the right. The man Aisla had shot crumpled, and she’d loaded the extra bolt and taken out a second man before the other two at the dais rushed her.
Brandt leaped in front of her, his sword raised.
“Stop!” Rodric’s barked command echoed throughout the hall, and the two soldiers charging him and Aisla skidded to a halt. Rodric got to his feet, hefting Catriona up with him. The lazy, insouciant motion of it clawed down Brandt’s spine like a warning. A glint of something in the overthrown laird’s hand confirmed the premonition. Rodric gripped a wickedly curved knife, the blade of which was pressed into Catriona’s side. Brandt lowered his sword.
“If anyone is going to kill this interloper, ’tis going to be me,” Rodric said, to which Brandt’s mother protested with an attempt to pull away and kick at her husband. She whimpered and winced as the tip of the dirk pressed deeper into her flesh.
“Is this what you think a powerful duke and laird is, Rodric?” Brandt asked, his breathing coming short at the sight of that dirk and his mother’s pain. She was masking half of it, he knew. The stain of blood blooming through her dress proved it, and the sight made Brandt’s heart stutter. “A man who turns traitor on his own clan? Holds women and children hos
tage? Funny. I thought the word for those things was ‘coward.’”
Rodric gnashed his teeth and pushed on a false smile at the same time. The effect was blood-chilling, but Brandt wasn’t about to let him know that. He kept his eyes steady, his grip on his sword’s hilt firm.
“I’m simply flushing the vermin from my home and lands, Mr. Pierce,” he replied. “With the help of some like-minded men, ye ken. Lord Malvern is already seeing to yer widow.”
He had Sorcha, then. Where Malvern had taken her, and what he was currently doing to her, nearly rendered him blind with rage and fear.
“Release my mother,” Aisla grit out from where she stood just behind Brandt’s right arm. He prayed she didn’t do anything brash again, like raise her crossbow and shoot. He didn’t know how true her aim was, but Rodric would not hesitate to use Catriona as a human shield should he see a deadly bolt flying at his head.
“With pleasure,” Rodric said smoothly, another macabre grin splitting his mouth. “Though first, I’ll have this man surrender his title as duke and laird to me, or I’ll carve her open from hip to breast.”
Despite his chilling words, Brandt was the one to let out a mirthless laugh this time. “Too afraid to challenge me for it, Rodric?” The man’s ice-flecked eyes snapped, and Brandt realized he’d touched a nerve. He pushed on. “You haven’t had enough time to recover from the wounds I left you with, I wager. Maybe you should have one of your men here champion you. I’d suggest Malvern’s best soldier, Coxley, but it seems your daughter already killed him.”
Rodric’s lips were tight with rage, his knuckles white from his savage grip on Catriona’s arm and the dirk with which he’d already drawn her blood. The suggestion that he required another man to fight in his stead, and that his own daughter was more effective in a fight than he, had caused him to shake off his smooth, foreboding exterior and wear his true one: callous and cruel and utterly incensed that his dead brother’s son had stolen his title from him.
“I willnae just kill ye,” Rodric said, flinging Catriona to the side so harshly that she landed on the dais, knocking over a chair as she fell. He sheathed his dirk and drew out his broadsword. “I’m going to gut ye and hang yer innards over the ramparts. Then I’m going to do the same to my conniving wife. I should have killed her while she still had ye in her womb.”
“You like to talk,” Brandt said, only pretending that the man’s crazed words hadn’t made him sick. “I wonder if that’s because talking is the only thing you’re good at.”
Rodric charged at him, his sword raised and a guttural cry ripping from his throat. His two soldiers had scattered, and Brandt spared only one moment to be sure Aisla had backed away before meeting Rodric’s sword with his own. The initial blow shivered through his arms and bones, straight to his spine, but he kept his grip, thrusting Rodric’s sword away and slicing into his leather breastplate with the same stroke.
Brandt parried Rodric’s sword as he attempted to flay Brandt’s thigh, then warded off a second blow as his enemy’s broadsword jabbed at his gut. Rodric clenched his teeth, lunging and slicing at Brandt as if he were possessed by the devil himself. Unhinged. That was the word to describe him, and as their swords clashed, again and again, their circle of battle widening out, Brandt began to wonder if he’d misjudged Rodric this time. If perhaps he was crazed enough not to tire as he had during their earlier battle in the courtyard. Madness sometimes gave men impossible strength.
They spun toward the alcove where the children and women were huddled, Brandt’s shoulders and back beginning to burn from the stalwart bite of Rodric’s blade. The children and women screamed and fled in all directions, the commotion distracting Brandt, especially as one young child ran within striking distance of Brandt’s swinging sword. He eased the momentum just enough to let the boy pass, unharmed—but as he did, a searing pressure in his calf sent his leg collapsing beneath him.
“No!” He recognized his mother’s anguished scream as he reached for his calf and felt the long shaft of an arrow.
Someone had shot him from behind. One of Rodric’s men, no doubt, though Brandt didn’t have time to see who. He’d expected Rodric to fight dishonorably, though he had not expected to be shot from the back. He raised his sword to fend off a downward blow from Rodric and tried to stand up, when a second glaring pain tore into the back of his shoulder. This time, the shooter was knocked down in a barrage of pots, pans, and garden tools as the women in the hall fought back, but it was too late. The damage had been done—Brandt crumpled to his knees. His weapon clattered to the stone floor and, though he managed to duck and swerve out of the path of Rodric’s sword, in that moment, he knew the turning point in their battle had come.
And he was not on the winning side.
“I dunnae ken what I’ll like more,” Rodric said, as Brandt pushed up onto one knee, gripping his calf and unable to reach the shaft of the arrow lodged in his shoulder. “To hear ye beg for yer worthless hide, or to watch ye bleed out when my sword sinks into yer gut.”
“I’d sooner die than beg you for anything.” Brandt spat at his uncle’s boots before breaking off the feathered end of the arrow lodged in his leg. He fought through the agony as he pulled the arrow from his flesh. “But if I’m going to die, I’d rather take you with me like my father should have done.”
With a burst of inhuman strength, he rose and lunged toward his uncle with the bloody arrow in hand. Rodric didn’t have time to leap back as Brandt raised one arm to deflect his sword and stabbed his right fist forward. He’d meant to bury the arrow into Rodric’s side, but his injured leg buckled, limiting the force of his strike. Slippery with blood, the arrow slipped and lodged into his uncle’s thigh instead.
Rodric howled and lifted his sword, his face contorted with rage, and Brandt braced himself for the oncoming stroke. His body was on fire with agony, but he wasn’t dead yet. If he could time it just right, he could roll his body into Rodric’s legs and throw him off-balance. It was a long shot, but he would fight to his last gasping breath.
Time slowed as he counted down the seconds. He’d been close to death before, many times. But no other time had he seen his life and those who had filled it with such stunning clarity—Sorcha, Monty, Archer, Catriona, Aisla, Patrick, Callan—his family. His world. And his wife, his beautiful fearless wife. God, it had taken him so long to find her, but it had been worth it. She had saved him in so many ways. If there were anything he wished for, it would be to see her face…to know she was safe.
And then he felt it. Nothing more than a whisper of sensation across the back of his neck, but every bone in his body knew her presence. Sorcha. Out of the corner of his eye, he sensed motion, heard something hiss through the air, and then a shaft caught Rodric squarely in the chest. Brandt didn’t care if his uncle’s falling sword sheared his arm from his body. Greedily, he turned to see a mud-covered apparition at the entrance of a corridor holding a bow.
He blinked. Perhaps he’d lost far too much blood. It felt like her. His wife. But perhaps he’d only imagined it.
“Brandt,” a voice said. It sounded like her, too.
He blinked again as the voice’s owner knelt over him. “Diah, he’s bleeding heavily.” Gentle hands cradled his head. “Mo gràidh,” she whispered.
It was his wife, Brandt realized dully. She was covered in muck and sludge, but he could never not know those deep blue eyes that filled him with so much hope and love and joy. “You’re alive,” he murmured, touching her dirt-caked cheek.
Sorcha smiled through her tears as she bent her lips close to his ear. “Of course I am. I believe you mentioned something about thoroughly seducing your Gaelic teacher. Wild horses could not have dragged me to Hades.”
“You’re insatiable,” he whispered.
“For you, always.”
A loud groan broke the moment between them, and Brandt looked up to see Rodric lying on his side. His glance also took in the forms of his sister and his mother standing close by before it f
ell back to his uncle. The wound Sorcha had inflicted had not been fatal. It would be, if left untended. His wife was an exceptional shot, which meant she had done it on purpose. Her eyes held his and she nodded. “His life is yours to take.”
But before Brandt could move, his mother sank to her knees beside her blubbering husband. She grasped the arrow, and for a moment, Brandt thought she was going to break it and pull it out as he’d done with his leg. Rodric deserved to die, but if she wanted him to live, he would leave it to her. She was the one who had suffered at his hands for so many years. Rodric’s life wasn’t his; it was hers.
Hazel eyes—twin to his own—met his. And then Brandt knew.
Rodric would not live.
With an anguished cry, ripped from the depths of her soul, his mother twisted the arrow and shoved it toward her husband’s heart. “’Tis for Robert,” she said. Blood gurgled from Rodric’s mouth as he fought the press of her hands, but she held steadfast, leaning over him with all her strength. “And for yer children. And for me.”
A commotion arose from the end of the hall as Rodric’s head dropped back onto the stone floor and his gurgles ceased. Catriona released the arrow, her hands bloodied, and Brandt reached for her. The rising clamor seemed to envelope them as his mother took his hand and let him pull her into an embrace. She was breathing heavily, but her sobs had stopped.
“It’s over,” Brandt said to her. He felt a hand on his shoulder—the one with the arrow in it—and sucked back a groan of pain as the arrow was ripped from his flesh.
“Didnae think yer expecting the pain would make it any better,” Callan said. Brandt opened his eyes, practically seeing stars, and twisted to see his brother crouched behind him, the arrow in his hand. More men wearing Montgomery plaid, including Patrick, had filled the great hall, as well. Most were bloodied and dirty, and as they gathered around Rodric’s body, Brandt saw somber looks on every last weary face.
“Malvern’s men are scattering,” Callan said, rising to his feet and tossing the arrow down as he looked upon his father’s corpse. Aisla inched her way forward, gripping the back of Callan’s arm. Brandt wanted to flop back onto the stone floor in relief. They’d done it. They had won.
My Scot, My Surrender (Lords of Essex) Page 32