CHAPTER ONE #3
He advanced, ready for the battle, fury and fire filling his veins once again. He dared not think often of what had happened, horrible things beyond the subjugation of a country, a people. Crimes of man against man, crimes he could not believe that God could sit in heaven and allow.
Crimes that haunted him, day and night, that filled his dreams with the screams of the dying …
Alesandra!
Nay, he would win here. His enemy would surrender, or perish.
With vicious, furious movements, he strode forward, his sword battering every thrust and swing of his opponent’s weapon.
But the fellow was brave. He flew atop a pew, fought from the rim of the altar itself. All the while, the Lady Kyra babbled and blubbered, crying out strange warnings, gasps, screams of panic.
He ignored her.
This was a fight he could fight.
His enemy leapt from the altar to a pew, swinging his sword deftly. Arryn ducked the blow with a split second to spare, as the fellow was giving rise to leap around again with a solid, bone-shattering swing of his sword; once again, Arryn spun to give his weapon impetus.
A smaller man, lean, trim, agile.
But this was a fighter.
Still, strength would win out in the end, Arryn had determined. Strength, and his will to see everything that was Kinsey Darrow’s destroyed.
Step after step, Arryn battered his enemy with a rain of blows that sent the fellow falling backward again, again—step by step his enemy parried his blows.
But he knew his own strength and his fury.
His opponent was skilled, but he knew that he was beating the power from the fellow’s arms with every blow.
Eventually, as he moved without faltering, he had his enemy against the wall.
His enemy’s sword fell to his side.
“So you do surrender!” Arryn whispered huskily, advancing.
The fellow swiftly lifted his blade, nearly slicing Arryn’s chin. Arryn ducked backward in the nick of time.
Surrender, no …
The fellow sped past him, tearing toward the entry.
Toward escape.
“Nay, my good fellow, nay, I think not!” Arryn cried, and leaping forward, he caught hold of the cloak, giving such a tug upon it that the fellow, a light man, was spun furiously in a circle.
As he turned, Arryn stepped forward, tripping him so that the man’s spin finished in a heavy sprawl upon the cold stone floor of the chapel.
Oddly enough, they were directly beneath a beautifully carved statue of the Virgin Mary.
“Now do you surrender?”
The cloaked figure shook its head.
The fellow had protected his face and head, but wore no body armor. Arryn raised his sword in a certain threat, lightly placing the tip just above his opponent’s heart.
“Now, my good fellow, speak quickly, for though you’ve been an able combatant, my patience is at a low ebb. Dark deeds have brought me here, and vengeance will be found with the blood of some poor beings!”
“Bastard Scotsman, do it!” the fellow said in a hiss.
Startled, Arryn moved his weapon. “Ah … a sword through the heart would be preferable to a hangman’s noose? Or disembowelment. Castration … a few of the tortures Darrow so enjoys inflicting upon his captured enemies.”
“Do it!”
“No!”
The shriek came from Lady Kyra. Arryn kept his sword against the man’s chest as he turned with surprise toward Darrow’s lady.
His broad lady.
“I should spare this fellow? Is he your lover, by chance, milady? A man far more concerned with your welfare than the lord who left you here?”
The lady went suddenly still, in grave discomfort, so it seemed.
Curious, Arryn raised his sword again, as if he would thrust it through the fallen man’s heart.
“No!” the blue-eyed, broad, and timid Lady Kyra managed to cry again.
“Who is he? Let me see.”
He knelt, wrenching the chain and plate helmet from his fallen enemy.
And there he froze.
For no man gazed up at him, but a woman. Eyes of emerald green fire challenged his in a blaze of hate and fury. A wealth of reddish gold hair tangled around her beautifully formed features. She made a man give pause, forced him to catch his breath.
“Ah!” he muttered, angrily reminding himself to remember his place. “The only man among these English proves to be a woman.” He leaned toward her. “So who are you?”
She didn’t reply. She had lost her sword, but he realized that she carried a knife still, and was ready to spring for him, attack him. Cut his throat.
He caught her wrist and wrenched the weapon from her. “I am Sir Arryn Graham. Do you know me, madam?”
She didn’t reply, but stared stonily at him. He smiled, having no intention of speaking in anything other than Gaelic at the moment. “You will tell me who you are, or I will slice your ears from your head, then your nose from your face. A little trick learned from Lord Darrow.”
The woman didn’t reply. He started to twist the knife in his hands.
“She is the Lady Kyra!” the very broad blond woman suddenly cried out.
Ahh …
Was it true? Yes. He could see it in the flashing emerald eyes of the beauty sprawled before him.
Despite himself, despite hatred, anguish, and revenge, he felt his limbs burn, his blood find fire, his body quicken.
“Lady Kyra!” he said softly. Well, she was not broad, and she certainly appeared intelligent, and with a temper—and courage surpassing that of those who would defend her.
This … this was Darrow’s woman.
No man of flesh and blood could find the need to place a sack over this damsel’s head.
“Aye, indeed!” she spat out, thrusting the knife aside, sitting up, and trying to slide back from him. She smoothed a strand of tangled gold hair from her face. “I am the Lady Kyra. But trust me, sir, I do not know you.”
For a moment, her complete pride and reckless defiance amused him.
He rose, reaching for her hand, wrenching her to her feet.
“But you will know me, my lady. You will come to know me very well. Indeed, from this moment onward, you will know no one but me.” All humor and amusement left his eyes.
“Indeed, lady, in payment for those so woefully misused and abused in your name, you will know me very, very well.”