Chapter 23 #2
Steel screamed across the beach as he drove forward, giving Kerr no room to breathe, no chance to settle, no mercy.
Kerr met him with skill and malice, turning aside one blow and answering with a low strike meant for Lachlan.
Lachlan pivoted and struck again. The pain came harder this time, white-hot and deep.
Let the pain feed the rage he thought. Let it burn away everything except killing the man before him.
Kerr retreated across the stones, drawing him nearer to the passage along the wall. At first Lachlan followed, intent on forcing him back, intent on ending him. Then Kerr’s eyes cut upward.
“Lachlan!” Isabel’s voice tore across the beach in warning from where she stood on the battlements.
He turned instantly and an arrow shattered against stone inches from his back where it would have struck had she not called out. For half a heartbeat, all sound vanished beneath the violence of his own pulse. Isabel.
Angus seized the bowman crouching near the wall and cut him down, Caelan at Angus’s back striking down another. Kerr’s face twisted with fury, with the knowledge his cowardly plan had been undermined.
“Ye aimed a hidden bow at my back,” Lachlan said. “And still ye failed.”
Kerr growled, whipped around, and flung his blade at Caelan, where it caught in the side of his neck.
Lachlan’s eyes locked on Caelan, the man’s face growing pale as blood dripped from the fatal wound. Lachlan let out a bellow as Caelan dropped, and Angus with him, holding his fingers to the wound.
There was no saving his loyal warrior.
His friend.
But there was revenge.
Lachlan barreled toward Kerr, knocking him from his feet to the ground.
They tangled on the ground, fists flying.
Kerr was surprisingly stronger than Lachlan realized, but not strong enough.
Lachlan pinned him to the ground. His knees on Kerr’s shoulders as he wrapped his fingers around the man’s neck.
He was going to squeeze the life out of him.
Make him watch the reflection of his own death in Lachlan’s eyes.
A sharp pain at the back of Lachlan’s head, momentarily stunned him enough that Kerr knocked him off. What had hit him? Lachlan touched the back of his head while Kerr gasped and scrambled to his feet. His fingers came away wet with blood.
Isabel stood on the battlements, hopeless as a bairn just born, while Lachlan was hit on the back of the head with a rock. She watched him collapse. Kerr stand. Imagined all the ways in which the love of her life was about to be cut down.
“Lachlan,” she shouted, but his name bounced and echoed, flying back to herself as if she’d not shouted it at all.
“My lady.” By her side was one of Lachlan’s men. A lesser warrior, not one of the eleven who’d accompanied them on the road. What was his name? Gregory? But before she could recall completely, there was a painful jab at her ribs. “Come with me, or I will push this blade between your ribs.”
Isabel stiffened. “Come with ye where?” she asked, stalling for time.
Gregory-if-that-was-his-name growled in her ear. “I said come with me. If ye want our chief to live, ye’ll trade yourself for him.”
Now that, Isabel understood. Below the castle walls, Lachlan was about to die, and if she could save him, even if it meant giving herself over to Kerr and whatever horrible fate awaited her, she would. She had enough wit left in her to negotiate whatever was to come next.
With that in mind, she blew out a breath, forcing the fear with it.
She had to be strong if she was going to keep her own head.
Besides, if she was able to save Lachlan, and he regrouped, the man better bloody well come after her, if he loved her.
If he didn’t come after her, well then at least she knew the truth of his feelings.
The lower gate buckled beneath a fresh wave of English soldiers.
Men shouted as the line bent, shields grinding together beneath the pressure.
Lachlan’s head hurt like hell, but neither of those things gutted him the way it did to see Isabel being dragged through the throngs of warriors who parted for her to pass—with Gregory, his second cousin.
“What the devil?” Lachlan growled.
All pain gone, he stood, as Kerr bolted forward, and grabbed hold of Isabel’s arm, his blade at her throat. Rage, red hot, filled Lachlan’s blood. His eyes met Isabel’s, but she didn’t look afraid, she looked…defiant. Her hands were fisted at her sides, her cheeks were flushed red with anger.
“Let her go,” Lachlan shouted.
“Get down on your knees, and say goodbye,” Kerr demanded.
Lachlan stayed where he was. “Ye’re going to have to make me. I’m no’ letting ye take her anywhere, and I’ll kill ye where ye stand.”
Kerr laughed, long and hard, nodding to someone who stood near Lachlan. Several of Kerr’s men swarmed him, but Angus, Mungo, Finley, pounced. As they fought, he kept one eye on Isabel, whom Kerr was dragging toward the shore. Panic rose in his chest, and he fought harder.
Then the Highland horn sounded in singsong from the ridge above the castle. Lachlan knew that call. Relief cut through him so hard his knees nearly gave.
Arrows lit with fire flew toward the rowboats, lighting their escape in flames.
Kerr shouted, tightening his grip on Isabel.
But the change of course in the battle distracted him long enough that Lachlan watched her yank her dagger from her sleeve and stab the man in the leg, at the same time, Freckles climbed from her bodice and bit Kerr on the face.
The man’s bellow of pain echoed, and Lachlan shouted, “Run!”
As warriors thundered down the ridge path in a wave of tartan and steel, battle cries rolling over the cliffs like a storm breaking open, Isabel took off. The guardians had come, answering the missive Lachlan had sent days ago.
Callum, the Red Blade, hit the English flank first, sword flashing as he cut down the nearest soldier, and directing his men toward Isabel. Kerr took off at a limping run.
Ewan, the Black Stag, followed with a laugh bright enough to carry through smoke and blood, driving through a cluster of Englishmen with reckless delight.
The battle turned in a single violent rush.
“Ye begin wars without us now, MacLeod?” Callum shouted from his side.
“Ye took too long.”
A soldier tried to take advantage of Lachlan’s distraction, lunging at him with everything he had. But Lachlan parried, taking the full brunt of the strike with his sword.
“We had English to slaughter on the road,” Ewan called back.