Chapter 22 #2
“They’re feeling us out,” Eamon shouted from the line.
Ronan nodded. “Hold!”
A minute later riders burst from another section of the woods. This time there were half a dozen. Muskets cracked. Smoke billowed. One of Ronan’s defenders stumbled backwards clutching his shoulder. But the Murdoch riders didn’t press the attack, they vanished once more into the trees.
“They’re trying to draw us out,” someone shouted.
“Stay where you are!” Ronan bellowed.
Elodie’s hands clenched into fists. This wasn’t how she’d imagined it, this horrible cat and mouse.
She glanced towards the bridge where she could see Campbell banners fluttering in the breeze.
Bryce and his mounted men waited on the far side.
They were watching, waiting. Doing nothing to help them. Fury flared through her.
“You stubborn idiot,” she muttered beneath her breath.
She’d poured everything she had into convincing him. And still he just stood there watching innocent people fight for their lives. She wanted to march over there and shake him.
“Bring him here!”
Elodie’s head snapped round to see two people helping the young man who’d been shot towards the wagons. Blood soaked one sleeve and Faye was already hurrying over. Elodie went to meet them.
“Lay him here.”
Together she and Faye eased the wounded man onto a blanket.
“The musket ball missed the bone,” Faye said after a quick examination.
“That’s fortunate,” Elodie said.
Fortunate. How strange her life had become that she would use that word to calmly describe a gunshot wound. She tore strips of clean linen while Faye worked. The young man gritted his teeth, refusing to cry out.
“You’re doing well,” Elodie told him.
More shouting. Footsteps approaching. A second casualty arrived. Then a third. And Elodie knew with a cold certainty settling in her chest that it was only just beginning.
RONAN URGED ANGUS ACROSS the uneven ground, Bran and Skye streaking ahead of him, white smoke drifting between the trees from discharged muskets. The acrid scent of powder hung heavy in the air.
“Left flank!” someone shouted.
He wheeled Angus, but by the time he reached the threatened position, the Murdoch riders had already melted back into the woodland. One of his men lay clutching a bleeding arm.
“They’re gone,” Eamon growled, striding up beside him. “They keep disappearing like damned ghosts! Why willnae they just stand and fight?”
Ronan scanned the trees. Nothing. Then a musket cracked somewhere behind them. He turned Angus again. “With me!”
He galloped across the front of the camp. But again, he was too late. The raiders had struck another isolated group of defenders before disappearing into cover.
“They’re bleeding us dry,” Eamon said grimly.
Ronan growled under his breath. They were doing exactly what Ronan himself would have done. Testing. Probing. Looking for the moment when fear or exhaustion made the defenders break.
Then suddenly a horn sounded from the ridge overlooking the camp.
Ronan turned in that direction to see Henry Murdoch sitting astride a magnificent bay horse, richly dressed as usual.
Beside him sat Lady Alana, her dark riding cloak stirring in the breeze.
They looked absurdly calm, like spectators watching a show.
Henry raised a hand. “Ronan Campbell!” he bellowed in a voice that carried across the valley. “Yer wee army of farmers fight well!”
Ronan guided Angus forward. “Why dinna ye commit yer men and we’ll see how well they can really fight!”
Henry laughed. “Where would be the honor in that? I’ve no wish to harm innocents. Look behind ye. Do ye really want to put them at risk?”
Ronan resisted the urge to look around. He already knew what lay behind him. The wagons. The children and old folk.
Henry swept an arm towards the bridge. “And look there.” He pointed to where Bryce’s banners flew on the opposite bank. The earl’s army watched, motionless.
“The Earl of Newborough has abandoned ye!” Henry called, spreading his arms wide to address all the people of the Steading. “He has refused ye sanctuary. He doesnae care whether ye live or die! So why are ye fighting us? Yer real enemy lies over that bridge!”
A murmur ran through some of Ronan’s followers. Henry’s smile widened. “We are not yer enemy.” He pointed towards the bridge. “Bryce Campbell is! He would see all of us destroyed. So join me! Stand with me! Together we will take Bryce Campbell’s lands and ye will finally be safe!”
Henry lowered his arm and spoke directly to Ronan this time. “Ye know I’m right.”
Ronan felt every eye upon him. He looked from Henry Murdoch to Bryce’s banners then back again. But when he spoke, his voice was calm.
“Ye still dinna understand, do ye?” he shouted.
“I’ve no interest in yer ambitions. Ye speak of alliance but what ye truly want is obedience.
Ye want the Steading so ye can turn it into a military camp.
Ye want my people so they will fight yer war for ye.
” Ronan shook his head. “And I say no to all of it! I willnae give ye the Steading. I willnae hand over the people who’ve trusted me and make them pawns in another man’s revenge. ”
Ronan glanced towards Bryce then back at Henry Murdoch. “And I’ll not betray my family for my own petty revenge either!” he bellowed.
That produced a bark of laughter. “Yer family?” Henry gestured towards Bryce’s army. “The brother who hates ye? That’s the family ye would defend?”
Ronan’s jaw tightened. “My quarrel with my brother is mine. It belongs to no one else.”
Henry’s patience finally snapped and his expression turned cold.
“So be it. If ye willnae give me the location of the Steading willingly, there are other ways to find it. He pointed at the ring of wagons. “When yer people are my prisoners, they’ll tell me where it is. When my warriors have swept yers away, we’ll march across that bridge and I will have my vengeance on the cursed Earl of Newborough. ”
Ronan felt a cold smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Then ye’ll have to get through me first.”
Henry smiled equally coldly. “Oh, I intend to.” He drew his sword and held it over his head. “Forward!”
Murdoch fighters burst out of cover and came thundering towards them. Some were mounted, most were not, but there were so many that they looked like a tide rushing closer, ready to sweep Ronan’s people away. Fortunately, not many had muskets. This would all have been over very quickly if they had.
Ronan raised his arm and bellowed at the top of his voice. “Hold!”
Murdoch’s fighters slammed into their line with a crack like gunshots. Staffs thumped. Steel rang. Someone screamed. Angus reared beneath him as a rider lunged with a sword. Ronan parried automatically then turned and swung, toppling a man from his saddle.
Years of training flooded back. His body remembered every lesson, every drill. He hated how natural it felt as he guided Angus with one hand whilst fighting with the other. He stabbed and parried, swung and cut, jabbed and slashed.
Ahead of him Bran suddenly launched himself between a horse’s forelegs and the horse stumbled. Its rider crashed heavily to the ground where Eamon and two others overwhelmed him.
“Left!” someone yelled.
Ronan twisted just in time to catch another blade and the impact jarred through his arm. He leaned over in the saddle and thumped the pommel of his sword into the man’s face. He fell without a sound.
Smoke obscured everything and the battle dissolved into fragments. There was a pistol shot here, a flash of steel there, but the closeness of the two forces meant that muskets and pistols had become next to useless. Instead, it had descended into a melee of close quarter fighting.
His people were losing ground. Step by step they were being forced backwards as the Murdochs’ numbers began to tell.
Eamon came alongside him. “We canna hold them off much longer!”
The defenders’ line had bent almost into a horseshoe and even as Ronan watched, he saw his people take another step back.
“Fall back!” he shouted. “Defend the wagons!”
The defenders peeled away and closed around the wagons. Women stood behind the makeshift barricade with stones, axes and boiling water. Even the older children gripped staffs.
Ronan spotted Elodie within the ring of wagons.
She stood beside Faye, helping bind a wounded man’s arm.
As if sensing his regard, she looked up and their eyes met across the chaos.
Everything around him seemed to fade until he saw only her.
The woman who had fallen out of another century into his life.
The woman who had challenged him. Argued with him.
Loved him. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, that this was all his fault.
He wanted to hold her in his arms and kiss her.
Instead, he gave her a tiny smile. An apology. A farewell.
Then he turned back towards the enemy and straightened in the saddle. If this was to be where it ended, he would take Henry Murdoch down with him.
He raised his sword—
Then a sound reached his ears. The heavy drum of hoofbeats. And it was coming from behind them. Ronan yanked Angus around and stared at the bridge. Campbell horsemen were streaming over it like a gathering storm.
Bryce rode at their head with his sword raised high. “For the Campbells!”
His voice rolled across the valley. The charge smashed into the exposed flank of the Murdoch forces and the impact shattered their formation. Horsemen tumbled. Infantry scattered.
From his place at the rear of his forces, Henry Murdoch stared in disbelief. “What—?”
Ronan hardly dared to believe the evidence of his own eyes. His brother, the man he’d almost killed, the man who he’d thought would never forgive him, was riding to his aid.