by Lizzy Ford
Richard swiped at him.
Cade dropped to the ground and rolled then forced himself to his feet. Richard stood between him and his sword, and he had no shield to fend off the next strike.
“He sought to cause sedition among my men.” Richard snatched a purse from his waist and threw it at Cade’s feet. “Did I not tell you ‘twas deceit?” He shouted to the English knights clustered among the Highlanders. “As assured as I am Black Cade will die at my hands, I know ‘twas treachery that boy spread under the orders of Black Cade’s cousin!”
While Richard berated his men, Cade snatched the purse from the ground and dumped its contents onto the ground. He ran his thumb over one of the smooth medallions then the other. They were the same, and many of the English knights carried signets bearing the mark of their lord. Puzzlement gave way to disbelief and finally to the kind of joy he was unable to contain.
Isabel was safe and apparently, so was the English knight Cade abandoned in a Saracen prison.
He threw his head back and laughed loudly enough the warriors around them began to quiet. Clouds roiled above them in response to the intense emotion.
“’Tis no treachery!” he said when he was able to draw a breath. He held up the two medallions and faced Richard and the knights. “Lady Isabel is well and with her brother, Lord John of Saxony, the rightful baron.”
“’Tis not possible. Every English lord at court was told the news of his death in the Holy Lands by your hand!” Richard shot back.
“I left the Baron of Saxony in a Saracen dungeon,” Cade replied.
Richard appeared triumphant.
“When I last saw him, he wore this. He would ne’er part with it. ‘Twas all he valued.” Cade studied the two medallions dangling before his face. Warmth spread through him. He did not understand how Brian came by the medallion, but he knew John would have been buried with it before he would let anyone else claim it.
Isabel had hers, when they had last been together. They were together, the two of them, the Englishman whose madness condemned him to a life of darkness and his sister, whose touch saved Cade from it.
He closed one fist around the two medallions. If John and his cousins were alive, there was hope for his clan.
“Yer lord is alive and beside my wife, Lady Isabel de Clare of Clan MacLachlainn. If ye be not cowards, then ye shall leave Lord Richard t’face the fate of a traitor alone!” Cade shouted.
Laird Duncan appeared intrigued by the turn of events.
Richard’s knights were shifting and glancing at one another. None of them moved, but Cade did not expect them to. He suspected those with any honor would sneak out before morning. Their lord, however, was red faced and angry.
Richard lifted his sword and charged Cade.
Lightning slammed into the ground between them, sending both of them flying backwards. Cade landed hard enough to knock the air from him. His ears rang, and sunspots blinded him. He stared into the sky, blinking fast, until his senses began to clear and he was able to breathe again. He sat up with effort. A steaming hole in the ground was between him and Richard where the lightning had struck. Many of those gathered had scattered, and Richard was being helped to his feet by two others. Laird Duncan was on his knees, dazed.
Cade gripped his head. His strength was nearly gone for the night, and a storm howled overhead. He dropped onto his back and closed his eyes. If he had any strength at all, he would flee while the camp was in disarray.
He lay still, unable to help the smile tugging up the corners of his mouth. He clutched the medallions to his chest.
Laird Duncan’s men hauled him to his feet and dragged him back to the wagon, where the healer waited.
Cade collapsed against the wet wooden bed of the wagon. The healer pulled the canvas covering over them and knelt with a sigh.
“Yer headed fer another fever,” he complained.
Cade chuckled. “Nay, healer. I am far better than I have ever been.”
“Then yer mad.”
Knowing he would need his strength for the morning, Cade did not move as the healer tended him. He did not feel the symptoms of a fever. If anything, he was more energized after facing Richard than he had been before.
He had proof in his hands of a miracle beyond any he had hoped to imagine. His guilt at failing to heal Saxony’s madness, at leaving the wounded knight in a dungeon, vanished upon learning the Englishman lived.
Chapter Twenty Three
Dawn sent his seillie magic dancing within him, and Cade lifted his weary gaze to the horizon. Too tired to shiver, he ensured his black clouds had blocked any ray of light from the direction of the rising sun in another attempt to delay Laird Duncan’s attack. After the single combat bout the previous evening, he had begun to fall into fever once more and was fighting it with the aid of the surly healer.
Seated atop a horse with his wrists tied to the saddle, he was surrounded by armed men from Laird Duncan’s clan. They feared him, even when he was barely strong enough to keep himself upright on the horse.
He was in no state to fight, and cold despair slithered through him, provoking his unseillie magic. He reminded himself over and over he had a weapon of sudden tempests, and it was not only a sword he required to combat the men hunting his clan.
The betrayal of his fevered body, however, angered him. He struggled to contain the mad unseillie sorcery, wasting his energy to control the madness when he needed it to protect his kin.
Cade assessed the war party. They were waiting for the first light of dawn to crest the hill before them. Camp had broken up earlier and the men positioned themselves behind a long hill running parallel to the ocean. Logic told him there was likely a valley beyond it, however shallow, and he had seen the second ridge of hills and bluffs edging the ocean. This part of the country was sparse in terms of forest, though his seillie magic imparted that there was one near.
Too weak to sense his kind or know what they planned, he twisted the ropes binding his hands in frustration. He was not accustomed to feeling helpless. He had faith in his cousins, in John, in Laird Macdonald and the clans. But faith was rarely a match for a sword.
One hand slipped free of its bonds, aided by the blood from wrists rubbed raw. The new pain helped push away the addled thoughts stemming from his fever.
One of the warriors near him muttered about the never-ending tempest, and Cade smiled. He was saving the thunder and lightning, but the steady rain had ruined the morning meal of Laird Duncan’s men and soaked them through before they left the camp.
It was a small victory, along with the desertion of over half of Richard’s knights the night before. The proud English noble was at the head of his men, resolution on his features despite it being common knowledge his men had abandoned him.
A cry rang out from one end of the narrow dirt road running alongside the hill.
Cade’s stomach jolted as he realized the moment for attack had come. He whispered to the clouds and touched the two medallions he wore at his neck, beside the black crystal meant to drive away evil.
He discreetly hastened freeing his second wrist from the bonds. His hands were unsteady and his skin hot despite the cold rain. Delirium had not yet claimed him – though his senses were dulled.
It was soon light enough for Laird Duncan to give the final command for attack. The first lines of warriors began racing up the hill, most on foot, some on horses, swords raised and shouting. The bearded chieftain trotted towards Cade and the loose ring of his guards.
“Doona let him free,” he command. “Take ‘im t’the hilltop.”
The warrior with his reins was the first to move. Cade gripped the horse with his thighs, twisting his hand free of the rope. They loped up the hill at an angle, apart from the brunt of Laird Duncan’s forces and safe from arrows and swords. Laird Duncan soon joined him. Lord Richard was close behind, accompanied by a seasoned man Cade took to be the knight’s master-at-arms and a young squire. Several other men, each in a different tartan, clim
bed the hill to stand beside Laird Duncan.
In the shallow valley, smoke rose from bonfires outside a thatch of forest and campfires inside the forest. The trees had created shelter for his people, and meat roasted on one of the spits near the woods. Blankets were strewn up as walls, horses gathered in a makeshift corral, and the belongings of his clan covered by oiled canvas. The valley was surrounded on three sides by hills.
On the surface, his people appeared to be hiding in the forest. His cousins would never leave them in a valley to be crushed, and he studied the sight before him once more.
His destrier was not among those in the corral. Those of his cousins, and the handful of other warriors in the clan, were also missing.
The seillie magic of dawn was strong despite his physical weakness. He closed his eyes and waited, searching the area with his instincts. A spark of seillie magic lit inside him and connected with the gentle magic of nature. The thrum of sorcery was heavy in the air over the valley, and the forest and earth whispered their secrets to the seillie leader.
The valley was littered with magical traps – and not one seillie was present.
“Give the command,” Laird Duncan ordered.
The sound of hoof beats pounding away drew Cade from his inner world. He dwelt over Father Adam’s confidence that unleashing the Black Cade side of him would not endanger his own people. He did not feel this confidence, not when he recalled too clearly what he had done in the Crusades. He had slaughtered villages of women and children whose men were away at battle, and he had done so without control or mercy.
But if his cousins and their magic were unable to stop Laird Duncan, Cade did not have to question what he would do. It would not be a choice, for he could never allow anyone to harm his own. Relieved to know his cousins had reached the clans seeking refuge here, he tested his strength and brought the storm closer without unleashing its power quite yet. He had some sense of how far he could push himself without snapping. He only prayed he was strong enough to control the grey area between doing what he had to in order to protect his clan – and not toppling into madness.
Laird Duncan’s warriors began to spill down the hill into the valley. Mud made the journey slow and treacherous, with several horses going down before they reached the valley and quite a few more foot soldiers being overrun by men or thrown by mounts.
When the first warrior reached the valley, seillie magic shot through Cade.
The ground opened up beneath the feet of dozens of men, sucking them down to their waists and trapping them in the mud. Trees crashed in the forest and began rolling, stripping their branches as the thick logs hurled towards the invaders. Several dozen more men and horses were knocked off their feet, injured or startled, without being killed.
Cade snorted, fleetingly amused by his clan’s creativity. For a non-warrior seillie to kill was to travel to the Dark Court. None of the traps set would slay any of Laird Duncan’s men, but this was not the purpose. By blatantly displaying the seillie magic, his cousins hoped to play upon the fear and reverence mere men held for sorcery and omens of misfortune. The less sure Laird Duncan’s warriors were, the greater the chances for Cade’s clan of not perishing.
Another group of warriors were swallowed by the earth up to their waists, and large boulders propelled themselves out of the woods and began to travel up the hill from whence the invaders had come. They avoided running into anyone but formed a line to help block the movement of horses belonging to Laird Duncan’s mounted warriors.
Upon reaching the forest and campfires, Laird Duncan’s men were grabbed by brush and saplings. They fought off the shrubbery, some running away from the forest while others plunged farther into its depths to fight anyone they found.
“What is this?” Lord Richard’s pale features were frowning as he watched two of his knights hacking bushes that hugged their legs and tripped them.
“Sorcery,” whispered Laird Duncan.
General chaos broke out among his warriors, and the chieftain’s face blazed red with fury.
“Remain here!” he barked at them and wheeled his horse. He thundered towards the small cluster of seasoned commanders and masters-at-arms observing the valley and began screaming orders before reaching them. The bulk of his army waited behind the hill to see how the first wave faired.
“Seillie magic,” whispered one of the chieftain’s allies. “’Tis no tale.”
“I believe in swords, not magic,” Lord Richard snapped and turned to the squire with him. “Go! Tell the men to avoid the valley. We know they hide beyond the hill. We will attack from another direction!”
The squire raced off. Cade followed him with his gaze. His path blocked by boulders, the youth did not journey down the hill into the valley but shouted and waved to those serving Richard until they heeded him. They maneuvered through the boulders and joined him, before the small group of knights tore off down the hill on the other side and began circling the valley.
Laird Duncan was vainly trying to reorganize the befuddled warriors in the valley, and Cade shifted in his saddle.
“There!” Lord Richard cried and pointed.
On the ridge opposite them, observing the valley, was a line of three dozen men on horseback – and one woman in a scarlet cloak with her hood pulled up against the rain. She carried a makeshift banner with the coat of arms reflected on the medallions he wore.
“Isabel,” Cade breathed. Heat lit his blood, and he was momentarily stuck staring at her figure, uncertain whether it was affection or fever that set him afire. Ready to protect a people she barely knew from danger, she rode between a man in black hood and Brian.
A solid punch knocked him off the horse. Cade landed with a grunt on the ground in the mud and glared up at Richard.
“Do not ever say her name again!” Richard snapped and swung down off his horse. “We will finish this now!”
“M’lord! ” one of the guards objected. “Laird Duncan –”
“Turn your backs or I will have your heads!”
The four Highlanders assigned to Cade glanced at one another before obeying.
Cade struggled up. Richard planted a foot against his shoulder and shoved him onto his back, a boot to the chest pinning Cade in place. Richard drew his sword and lifted it.
Lightning rippled overhead, and Cade calculated his chances of living through a direct strike, if he used the power to smash Richard. Unseillie magic bristled and tumbled within him, begging to be free, and black clouds formed directly overhead in response.
Sneering, Richard raised it and prepared to lop off Cade’s head. “When I have destroyed your clan and claimed my lands, I will –”
Before he could finish, he slumped and dropped onto his side, unconscious, beside Cade.
His seasoned master-at-arms, a man with bright blue eyes and a beard, lowered the sword in his hand. The hilt was bloodied from where he hit Richard, and his eyes were on Cade.
Cade scrambled off his back, into a kneeling position, waiting warily to see what the English knight would do.
“Did you speak the truth?” the knight demanded. “Does Lord John live?”
“I doona ken for certain. I left him alive in the dungeon.” Cade tugged the medallions free of his tunic with slow movements so as not to spook the edgy knight. “But I ken he would ne’er give this up willingly.”
The master-at-arms’ gaze was riveted to the medallions. “He and Richard served under me in the Crusades,” he said gruffly. “Lord John was the bravest, most honorable man I commanded, until he was lost in a Saracen battle our first months fighting. Lord Richard was sound with a sword but did not care for battle and was of little use. But, he appointed me master-at-arms upon my return and showed me great favor. It pains me to betray him, but it pains me more to betray a man as honorable as Lord John.”
“Ye betray him and his father by fighting his sister,” Cade replied.
The knight’s sword lowered. His gaze was troubled, distrusting of Cade yet torn by his sense
of duty. “I stood by once when Lady Isabel was in danger,” he said finally. “I cannot do it again.” He offered Cade a hand and pulled him up.
Cade steadied himself and nodded. “I willna forget this.”
“I would hope not. I may have no home to return to after this.” A flicker of mirth was in the older man’s gaze.
One of the guards glanced back then whirled with a shout.
The master-at-arms shoved a sheathed short sword at Cade and whirled, slashing one challenger down before locking swords with the other. Battle lust flooded him, and Cade pushed his fatigued body to fight. He and the knight hacked through the guards and those allies who chose to remain rather than flee.
Breathless, Cade leaned heavily against the horse he had been riding.
The knight stood beside him, observing those in the valley.
All but Isabel and another warrior had left the ridge opposite them and barreled down into the valley, striking while the first line of Laird Duncan’s army was in disarray. Trees, rocks and mud continued to assist the seillie and MacDonald warriors. A low fog bloomed into existence suddenly and spread until it covered the entirety of the valley, blinding Cade’s enemies.
“This is not natural,” the knight muttered.
“’Tis not,” Cade agreed. He straightened, keen mind acknowledging the seillie tactics would work well for a quick battle, but they would need more than mud to drive Laird Duncan from their lands. “Ye ‘ave a name?”
“Geoffrey.”
“Cade.”
“Can you ride, Cade?”
He nodded and mounted his horse. Settling with the short sword in one hand, his gaze locked on Richard’s knights, headed up the opposite ridgeline towards Isabel and her single guardian. Fear tore through him, driving back his weariness.
“Ride, Geoffrey!” he said and kicked his heels into the horse’s sides.
Cade raced down the hill, whispering for the seillie magic of his clan not to impede his path. Boulders rolled away, and mud solidified into dirt beneath his horse’s hooves. The tree trunks had not made it this far down the valley, but the fog parted for him to pass through it.