Chapter 21
The room was filled with smoke and flames; the air so heated, it seared Reid’s skin. He covered his mouth and nose with the crook of his elbow and pressed inward, his steps hesitant lest he stumbled over one of their bodies.
All at once, he was that boy again, scared and alone, walking through the remains of his home. Dread tightened in the pit of his stomach.
Mum.
Ewan.
Clara.
Those wee bairns.
So much death.
The ache at the back of his throat was unbearable, but still, nothing compared to the suffering of his broken heart.
Something at the rear of the cottage caught his attention.
He strained in the smoke to see what it was.
The rafters overhead groaned in warning of a roof about to collapse, and embers rained down on him in a glowing shower.
Still, he strode forward until he was at the rear of the cottage where the bottom of the whitewashed wall had been kicked out, leaving the structure's waddle and daub makeup crumbling inward.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
They had escaped.
The roof overhead issued a long, loud creak. He glanced up instinctually as it cracked and roared, disintegrating into a massive fireball heading straight for him.
Reid dove toward the small hole, wrenching it wide with the breadth of his shoulders as he escaped the burning cottage.
The multitude of fires outside that had left him overly warm earlier now seemed cold in comparison to the inferno he had just escaped.
He remained on his hands and knees for a moment, gulping in lungfuls of clean air.
Something to the right caught his attention. There, between two burning cottages, was a clear path to the woods.
In that instant, he knew exactly where Clara had gone.
By some miracle, she had survived the burning cottage. He would not see such a wondrous gift squandered. He would not let her down again.
He pushed up to his feet, dredging up whatever energy he could find, and sprinted toward the woods. No matter what it took, he would ensure Clara and the bairns made it to safety.
Tension knotted his throat as he ran with wild joy.
Clara was alive.
Clara pressed herself lower to the ground behind the brush, her arms spread over the three children. All were quiet, even wee Mairi who cowered into Clara, the little carved fox squeezed in her small hands. A man passed in front of the bushes they hid behind, the footfalls intentionally heavy.
"We saw you come out this way," the English guard taunted.
There were five. She knew that now. Few enough that she could take them on herself, but also enough to become complicated. The slightest misstep and one of the children could end up injured. Or taken.
Or worse.
She suppressed the shiver threatening to run its way up her spine. They had to remain perfectly motionless, perfectly silent.
Mayhap then their pursuers would presume they had escaped and leave them in search of worthier opponents. Not a woman and three bairns, but an armed man. Someone who had the means to defend themselves.
The way these men stalked them was sickening as if they were nothing more than blood sport and entertainment.
Clara held her breath as the man passed by once more.
That she and the children had survived the burning building had been a lucky recollection of a humorous accident occurring some years prior at a rickety cottage Clara and her family had lived in for a spell.
Drake had spent the better part of the week reinforcing the door to ensure it would hold when pushed against. The day after it was properly completed, he'd tripped inside the home, fell and went straight through the wall. The waddle and daub of the house’s construction was little more than straw and mud with a bit of whitewash over it.
They all had a great laugh at the time, and the repair had been easily done.
Thankfully, that pleasant memory had saved the lives of the three children in Clara's care, as well as her own. She'd made her way to the back wall and kicked. As she’d hoped, her foot had gone straight through. Smoke immediately streamed out as the four of them wriggled to safety.
Mayhap that was what had alerted the guards to their escape. Or perhaps the cries that had stopped suddenly.
Either way, they were now hunkered down among the flora of the forest, praying to God to keep them from being discovered. And all the while, fears nipped at the back of Clara’s mind for Reid.
What had become of him?
He wouldn't have left her. She knew that.
Her stomach clenched with dread at what could have pulled him away.
Nay, she wouldn't think of it. She couldn't.
The English soldier strode in the opposite direction, and Clara let out her breath. The leaves in front of her face quivered with the force of her released exhale.
"Clara!" A man's voice shouted from somewhere in the forest, desperate and so familiar that tears sprang to her eyes.
Reid.
His name rose in her throat, but she pressed her lips together to fight the urge to call out to him. She wanted to warn him that the English were here, that they would be coming for him.
Would he be in any condition to fight? Had he been wounded further? Her heart flinched.
She wanted to stand and throw her daggers. But not yet. The English were still too close to the children.
The man’s footsteps—slowly, steadily marching from the area of the forest where Clara and the children were hidden—stopped and moved to where Reid’s voice had called out. She carefully eased her hands away from the bairns as the footsteps grew more distant.
“Die, you Scottish cur,” an Englishman cried out.
That was when Clara leapt up from the brush as quietly as she possibly could and darted away from the children. In case she failed, she wanted to ensure the English would not find them.
Reid was streaked with soot and blood, but he still lifted his blade against the men rushing at him and fought with valor.
Clara would do the same.
She pulled her arm back and loosed her first dagger, sending it into the sword arm of one of the men. Then to the shoulder of another man. And then the hand of yet another.
With four daggers still on her belt, Reid removed the threat of the last two English guards.
The wounded Englishmen staggered from the woods, cursing under their breath while thanking God for Clara’s bad aim. Little did they know how true she had aimed—that she hadn’t meant to kill.
She had taken enough lives, said enough prayers for men she never knew.
Now she stood a stone’s throw away from one man she knew better than any other.
“Clara,” he cried out and they ran toward one another.
Clara all but fell into his arms, clutching him to her while mindful of his back. It did not escape her notice that the padded gambeson was wet under her fingers. Blood, no doubt.
What had he been through in the time they’d been separated?
“Clara,” he said again, his voice choked.
When she leaned her head back to look up at him, she found his hazel eyes bright with tears. He shook his head. “I thought…” A tear spilled down his cheek, leaving a line through the soot smeared over his face. “When I found the cottage burning, I thought…”
“Nay.” She embraced him again, understanding what he meant exactly. What he’d thought.
That she had been burned alive in the cottage with her charges, the same way his mother had with his brother.
"Come," he ushered her deeper into the forest. "Where are the bairns? We canna stay here."
Clara nodded and went to the brush where the children were still curled up on the ground together. She pulled Mairi into her arms, while Reid took the hands of the other two. Together, the five of them made their way deeper into the woods.
By the sliver of moonlight, they managed to find a cave where they could take shelter. Clara went swiftly inside with the wee ones, leaned her head back against the rough stone wall and exhaled a long sigh of relief. They were alive and safe and together.
She only hoped they remained thus until after the fighting came to an end.