Chapter 16 Nowhere To Go
Nowhere To Go
The Dickson army had been waiting for them.
In Noah’s experience, battles started very slowly, then suddenly there was a rush to the first skirmish.
It was as if the soldiers, having glimpsed each other, suddenly threw caution to the wind once they knew that a fight truly was inevitable and raced towards each other.
The lines of cavalry clashed first, with clashing pikes and the screams of horses. The infantry came next, faces hidden behind heavy helmets, tartan kilts whipping around their knees. The wind had gotten up, raking across the hills, blowing the coarse grass almost flat.
Brendan was somewhere in the cavalry, plunging through the melee on his rearing warhorse.
Noah was on the ground.
Gritting his teeth and clutching his broadsword, he raced down the steep slope towards the fighting.
From here, it was a knot of men, struggling and heaving against each other.
There were rows and rows of men crowded up behind the fighting, pale-faced and sweating.
He saw Dickson tartan hanging from a banner and strained his eyes for Murray tartan.
That was at the other side of the battlefield, at least.
The ground turned to mire, causing Noah’s feet to skid. Panic shot through him as he tried to regain his balance. Slipping now, in the mud, would be a death sentence. Even if he wasn’t stabbed or hacked by a stray blow, he could drown in the mud or be crushed by the weight of the other fighters.
A hulking man in Dickson tartan tore himself away from the battle, sword dripping red, and his eyes fell on Noah. Bloodlust lit up his face, and he came racing towards him.
So it begins, Noah thought grimly, bracing himself.
The larger man struck him with hammer force, sword swinging down with all of his weight behind it. Noah blocked the blow, the impact reverberating all the way up his arms and making his teeth chatter. His feet skidded in the mud, threatening to topple him, but he held his ground.
Their swords met, again and again, and Noah’s world narrowed to just that—the clash of their blades and the strength of his own arms.
Then the larger man overbalanced, just a little, enough for Noah to whip back his sword and drive it, point first, through his breastbone.
The man’s face sagged and slackened as he died, sliding forward onto the blade, limbs going limp.
Nausea swept over Noah, clenching his stomach and making his throat sting.
Battle had never sickened him quite so intensely, but now it was so overwhelming that for a moment he was afraid he would retch.
I want to stop this.
He backed up, letting the dead man slide off his blade. Glancing around, he sucked in a breath that tasted of blood and tried to take stock. There was no sign of Brendan, but he could see Struan and Una nearby, fighting back-to-back.
That means that the Kenneth soldiers are close.
Gritting his teeth and lifting his sword again, he began to cut his way laboriously through the soldiers separating him from the others.
The fight became mechanical. Lift, swing, stab, cut, step.
Lift, swing, slash, hack, step. Again and again, gaining land an inch at a time.
The ground beneath his feet was slick as ever, soaked with blood now, too.
The rain began falling. It was soft at first, a faint mizzling patter that was almost refreshing.
It wiped away the splatters of blood and dirt from his face, cooling his heated skin.
Rapidly, however, the drizzle changed to a real rain, soaking through his clothes and plastering his hair to his head.
If he stopped moving and fighting, Noah knew that the cold would sink in.
He fought through the last resistance of men and found himself in a small clearing, with Struan and Una in the middle.
They were gasping for breath and were already injured.
Noah noticed a trickle of blood running from Una’s hairline down her face and a hasty field bandage wrapped around Struan’s wrist.
“Where’s Thomas? And Kai?”
“Thomas, I haven’t seen,” Struan rasped. “Kai led the cavalry. What of Brendan?”
“Leading the cavalry,” Noah responded.
Already, exhaustion throbbed inside him.
That was the thing people often forgot about battles.
It was never about skill. Oh, you had to be ready to fight, of course, but it was all about stamina.
Men died because they were too tired to lift their blade up to defend themselves, not because they lacked skill.
And we aren’t even half finished, he thought grimly.
“Where is Senga?” Una chipped in, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. She left a red smudge across her white skin.
Noah swallowed thickly, resisting the urge to turn and stare around him at the hillsides above the battle.
Please, gods, let her be safe. Let her be safe!
“She’s overlooking the battle,” he whispered. “There are men with her. She’ll be safe.”
Una gave a tight nod. “I hope so. Can she see us?”
“I don’t know. I—”
“Well, well, well. Noah Gordon. I hoped I would run into ye.”
Noah stiffened, turning slowly. He already knew who’d be behind him.
Sure enough, there stood Tobey, the Murray Captain. His face was a mask of blood, his bald scalp glistening with sweat. His sword was caked in blood, glistening drops slowly plopping off the tip and into the saturated mud.
Tobey lifted a careless hand, and a group of Dickson soldiers rushed forward from behind him, engaging Struan and Una in fighting and effectively cutting Noah off from any help.
“I hoped I would find ye, and I had a feeling that I would,” Tobey repeated, grinning widely.
“Killing ye now will save us the work later. Although Laird Murray wanted the lass to see ye die, so perhaps I should just cut yer hamstrings and take off yer hands. Then I can drag her up so she can see ye. How about that?”
A cold sensation rushed through Noah. “Where is Senga?”
He chuckled tightly. “Ah, I’m not going to tell ye that, am I? Let’s just say that, if she insists on standing where she can see the men fighting, she must know that the men fighting can see her.”
Tension tightened around Noah’s chest. He resisted the urge to lift his eyes and glance around the hills for Senga. The second he took his eyes off Tobey, the man would attack. In fact, he was pretty sure that the man was waiting for that.
“Come on, then,” Noah hissed. “It’s ye or me, man. Ye or me. Who will it be?”
Tobey clenched his teeth, lifted his sword, and charged.
Senga stood up in her stirrups, craning her neck.
“I can’t see him,” she whispered.
She had chosen a good spot, high on a hill beside the north corner of the convent, with the trees behind her and the battlefield laid out below.
At the moment, however, all she could see was a melee of men, mingled tartans all splattered with blood. She’d caught a glimpse of Brendan, his blood-soaked warhorse plunging through the mess of men, but now even he was gone.
“How can ye tell who is winning and who is losing?” she asked aloud.
The men behind her shifted.
“It depends, lady,” the leader responded. “Hard to tell until the end.”
The men Noah had appointed to guard her were clearly upset at being assigned to stay away from the battle. They shifted miserably on their horses, restless, and answered her questions with dull bluntness.
She sat on Bluebell, of course, whose ears were pressed down from the noise and fear of the battlefield. Sitting back down on her saddle and leaning forward, Senga smoothed the side of the mare’s neck, murmuring under her breath.
“It’s alright, lass. We’re safe. We’re safe, for now.”
If the battle starts to turn, how long should I wait before I flee? What if I run too soon? What if I don’t run soon enough?
Biting her lip, she twisted to look up at the convent. It loomed behind her, a blocky silhouette against the sky.
In a high window, she saw a shape moving, and a familiar face peered down at her. It was the Abbess, of course, her face pale against the blackness of her robes. She was watching the battle, and Senga wondered if she looked down at it as if it were one of her chessboards.
She turned back to the battle herself, straining her eyes for a glimpse of Noah.
He must be there. He must. He can’t be dead already. He can’t…
A strange whizzing sound zipped past her ear, followed by a muffled thunk and a gasp.
Spinning around, Senga saw the soldier behind her staring down in horror at his chest. A feathered arrow shaft stuck out of it, still shivering from its flight. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped bonelessly out of his saddle.
“Attack! We’re under attack!” the lead man bellowed, drawing his sword with a scrape of steel.
It was too late.
A volley of arrows came shooting through the air, and this time Senga traced them as coming from behind a huge boulder on the lip of the hill. None of the arrows struck her, although Bluebell squealed and pranced, stretching her neck, desperate to gallop.
At least half of the soldiers assigned to guard her came slipping down from their saddles, collapsing in still heaps. Dead.
More soldiers, all bearing Murray tartan, came clambering out of the woods behind them, swords glinting.
There were perhaps three or four men on horseback left to protect Senga.
“Stay behind us!” one yelled, only to be pulled down from his saddle a moment later. There wasn't room for the horses to properly charge or break into a gallop. Plunging down the rocky hillside towards the battle was a mistake, and the Murray soldiers were between her and the trees.
The last two Grahame men fought hard, stabbing downwards and making their warhorses rear up, but there were just too many enemies. They were pulled down, one by one, and that left Senga alone.
She turned her horse towards the steep slope. It was a dangerous plunge, and she would find herself going through the battlefield, but anything was better than this. Anything.
Then a hand closed around Bluebell’s bridle, yanking sideways. Bluebell’s ears flattened backwards, and she snapped, rearing. The hand disappeared, but there were more and more, more hands grabbing at the bridle, the saddle, her legs, her skirt, her hair, until she was torn bodily from the saddle.
Senga thumped gracelessly onto the ground, the ice-cold mud soaking through her clothes.
Bluebell screamed, going up on her hind legs, forefeet windmilling. It was clear that she was panicking at the sudden loss of weight from her back, and her eyes rolled in her head, trying to see where her rider had gone.
“Enough!” boomed an authoritative voice. “If the horse won’t settle, kill it.”
The voice rang through Senga’s whole frame as if she’d been struck by something. She shivered, pushing herself up onto her hands and knees.
He strode towards her, stepping into her line of sight.
“Well, hello there, daughter,” Laird Murray murmured, his round face breaking into a smile. “We meet again. And so soon! I am blessed.”
“If ye are going to kill me,” Senga hissed, glaring at him, “then get it over with. I’m not afraid of ye.”
“I have no concerns about being able to inspire fear from ye,” Laird Murray snorted, scratching his patchy beard.
He took another step forward, crouching down in front of her.
He tilted his head, smiling at her. “I’m glad we could be reunited properly.
Search her—I don’t want her getting any ideas about taking my vengeance from me. ”
Senga was hauled unceremoniously upwards by her arms, and impassive men with rough hands and stinking cloaks patted her down, searching for hidden weapons and anything else that they felt she shouldn’t have.
Her belt was pulled away, with its pouches for herbs and little rings to store vials.
One of the men pulled her herb knife out of its sheath and held it up wordlessly for Laird Murray to see.
He tutted, shaking his head. “I never taught ye how to use weapons, did I, lass? There was a reason for that. Women ought to stay in their place, and yers is not behind a blade. Now, I suppose I went wrong with yer upbringing somewhere, eh? What do ye think?”
He reached out, grasping her hair, and yanked back her head, forcing her to look him in the eye.
Senga clenched her jaw, refusing to answer.
He chuckled, releasing her hair. “Fine, stay silent. Ye’ll talk fast enough when yer wee stableboy gets here.”