Chapter Twenty-One #2
Arrows tore suddenly through the branches from somewhere unseen ahead and right. One horse shrieked and crashed sideways into the undergrowth while riders shouted sharply in the dark. The Scottish lines fractured, the mac Ruaidhri and the Thains attempting to wheel about while in tight formation.
Lucas wheeled his horse sharply. “Shields!”
English mounted outriders burst between the trees scarcely fifty yards distant. They were on the move. He realized with cold certainty they must have planned the very same midnight attack, that they’d finally stopped waiting for the attackers to come to them.
The first English riders slammed into the Scottish forward line, and for a moment all Morggán could distinguish was the shriek of a horse and the crack of wood giving way beneath iron-shod hooves.
Torches flared somewhere deeper through the woods, throwing violent orange light across branches and blades alike, creating disturbing silhouettes.
Morggán met the first mounted Englishman nearly head-on.
Steel rang hard through the dark. He knocked aside the downward slash and drove his own blade across the man’s shoulder, knocking him clean from the saddle.
Another rider appeared immediately behind him while horses shoved and collided dangerously amongst trees and narrow ground.
The fighting was brutally compressed by the forest itself—no ordered lines or formations, and no banners clearly visible through the trees. Men simply struck at shapes appearing suddenly through darkness while horses fought for footing beneath them.
“Left side!” someone shouted.
More riders emerged there almost instantly, not too many—the vanguard only, but enough to keep the Scots occupied.
An arrow hissed past Morggán’s shoulder close enough that he heard the shaft cut air beside his head before vanishing into darkness behind him. Nearby, Donnchadh dragged a wounded rider bodily across his saddle while Alasdair cursed viciously at a horse refusing to turn cleanly between the trees.
Morggán blocked another strike and drove his opponent backward hard enough to open space around him briefly. In that instant he looked deeper into the woods beyond the fighting and saw more movement still. More torches and more helmed and armored English riders pressed toward them through the dark.
This was not a skirmish. It could be the entire English force, here to quash them all at once. If so, they were outnumbered, and the forest would not be enough to save them.
“Fall back!” Morggán shouted.
At almost the exact same time, Lucas had arrived at the same decision. “Break away!” he roared above the chaos. “Break away!”
“Divert! Divert!” Morggán commanded, ordering his men to scatter into the trees.
Several Scots were already disengaging before the orders fully carried. They had not survived this long by standing stubbornly in poor ground against superior numbers. The purpose tonight had been simply more of the same harassment, not martyrdom.
Morggán wheeled his horse sharply through the chaos just as another English rider lunged from the dark at his flank.
Their blades struck once and then again in rapid succession before Morggán drove the man backward.
He tore his sword from the man’s neck and kicked the body away to clear his path for retreat.
Around them the Scottish raiders began pulling southward through the trees in disciplined bursts, fighting only long enough to keep the English advance from swallowing them outright.
Behind the first wave of fighting, more torchlight continued appearing deeper inside the woods, which at least cast enough light inside the midnight forest that escape was made easier.
Lucas rode hard across the withdrawing line shouting orders above the noise. “To camp! Keep moving! Dinna let them pin ye!”
Morggán clenched his teeth as he leaned low over his horse's neck. They were riding hard for the camp and Avery’s home with an English force somewhere behind them in the darkness. They had miles to go to shake the pursuit, and not nearly enough time.
Only hours before, he had finally understood how deeply he had failed Avery when she had needed him most. Now another dreadful certainty settled over him. If they couldn’t escape the enemy, he would fail her again by bringing war to her very door.
He dug his heels harder into his horse's flanks.
***
Avery wasn't sure how she was expected to sleep while Morggán and his army were out making another strike against the English—she simply could not.
The riders had left countless times now over the past week and returned bloodied, exhausted, triumphant, furious, laughing, silent. She had grown accustomed to it. The bulk of the army rode out at dawn and returned by dusk, and however much she worried, she had learned to wait.
But tonight felt wrong from the beginning.
Perhaps it was only because darkness altered everything beyond the walls once midnight passed.
The forest she knew so intimately by daylight became something larger and less familiar at night, its silence heavier, its shadows deeper.
During the day she could still imagine the riders disappearing into woods she herself had walked a thousand times.
Tonight it felt as though they had vanished into something altogether unknown.
Even the camp beyond her house seemed subdued after their departure, the remaining fires kept low beneath the trees while the dozen men left behind spoke in quiet voices that carried little beyond the clearing.
The entire forest seemed to be listening.
Oh, stop it, she scolded herself. You're frightening yourself.
She rolled onto her back and stared toward the faint orange glow still lingering beneath the hearth ash.
She had spent the last several days trying very hard not to think about Morggán.
It hadn't worked, of course.
The hurt remained as sharp as it had been the morning she'd trusted him with the one truth she'd never dared speak aloud. She had thought making love had changed something between them, had believed with all the certainty of her foolish heart that whatever impossible burden she carried, he would help her bear it. Instead, he had looked upon her with bewilderment and anger, and afterward with a careful distance that had hollowed out something she hadn’t realized she needed to protect.
And yet every time he rode beyond the trees, she caught herself listening for hoofbeats long after the sound had gone. It made no sense. She disliked that feeling almost as much as she disliked herself for still caring what became of him.
Outside, the wind moved softly through the trees. Charlie lifted his head once near the bed, ears twitching toward the forest before settling again.
Avery must have drifted eventually despite herself, because the next thing she knew, shouts erupted beyond the door.
She sat upright immediately.
Charlie was already on his feet, growling low toward the entrance while more noise exploded around the house. Horses thundered through the clearing. Men shouted over one another.
Avery threw aside the blankets and scrambled from the bed as the commotion came closer.
“Move!”
“Wake the rest!”
“Hurry!”
Her stomach lurched.
She dragged on her boots without bothering with the laces before snatching up the first cloak within reach, which happened to be Morggán's plaid. Her hand closed on the familiar wool, and she flung it around her shoulders as she lifted the bar from the door.
The clearing beyond had descended into chaos.
Riders poured through the trees hard and fast, horses lathered dark with sweat beneath the pale wash of moonlight overhead.
Men dismounted before their mounts had fully stopped moving while others shouted toward the smaller campfires farther west. One horse stumbled badly and nearly went to its knees before recovering again.
Lucas Thain rode directly through the center of the clearing barking orders as he went.
“Every tent down!”
“Leave what slows ye!” His captain, Airril, called out as they continued on, likely heading toward their own tents.
She heard Tormod’s voice next, but she couldn’t see him. “South trail first—move! Alasdair! Get yer lads movin’!”
She scanned the crowd for Morggán and couldn’t find him. Her stomach dropped, and before she could stop it, her mind had already filled in every reason why he wasn’t there—none of them good.