Chapter Seventeen #3
Cries from the men on the walls as well as from the ones they were sending to the ground filled the air.
Harcourt could not afford to check on the men who fought with him, however, as Sir Adam was sending his men to the walls without pause.
Considering the number of them plummeting to the ground to die or who were dead before they got there, Harcourt had to wonder why the men did not just stop no matter how much Sir Adam yelled at them.
They were not MacQueens and he doubted Sir Adam paid that well.
Then he saw Clyde on a horse, riding back and forth behind the men, his sword out, and several equally armed, grim-faced men riding with him.
Clyde was driving the men forward like cattle to the slaughter.
Then he saw the arrow fly over their heads, the arrow’s tip a ball of flame, and cursed. “Geordie! Skewer those bastards!”
“Trying!”
Harcourt watched as the women and young boys, even some of the older girls, poured out of the keep to make sure no fire got a good start.
Although he had to admire how efficiently they worked together, his heart clenched with dread.
They were now in reach of the arrows. Refusing to let that prey on his mind, he turned back to the fight to keep the enemy from clearing the walls.
Annys tied off the bandage on the arm of the man who looked far too young to have been fighting on the walls, swinging a sword as he faced the enemy.
Since the wound was not in his sword arm, he was already talking about getting back into the fight causing the girl who so plainly adored him to weep. Annys felt like doing the same.
Actually, what she truly wanted to do was become some great warrior, grab a sword, march out to confront Sir Adam, and start slicing off pieces of him until he was dead.
Then she would put all of the pieces in a sack to send it to his father.
It would be a message that man would not scorn or ignore.
One he would fully understand, as would the other MacQueens who were helping Adam.
“Ye will rest until at least the morrow,” she told the young man. “Ye lost a lot of blood and need to replenish it. Agnes,” she said to the young girl, “ye will take young Auley here to the kitchens and feed him.”
“Aye, m’lady.” Agnes took Auley by the arm as he sat up straighter and began to cautiously stand up.
“But,” Auley began only to sway and need Agnes’s arm around his waist to steady him.
Annys nodded. “As I said, ye have bled a lot and need both rest and food. Off ye go and dinnae e’en think of climbing back on those walls until the morning.” As she watched the couple leave, she felt Joan move to stand beside her. “How many?”
“Two dead. Could be four soon although they are doing weel enough so there is hope. Bad wounds though and bled a lot. Five who are wounded badly enough that, unless this lasts a fortnight which I pray it will not, they will nay be fighting again. Six, including Auley, who will return after they rest and eat. Except for a few wee bruises and scrapes, none of the ones who went out to fight the fires got hurt. It helped that Geordie was lessening the numbers shooting those wretched things.”
“Anything burned badly?”
“Nay. Everything was too wet to catch quick and the ones who rushed out were quick to fair drown any of those arrows that landed. Big Mary quietly picks up every arrow and takes them up to Geordie, the only truly skilled archer we have, and, I am thinking, a mon our Big Mary has decided will be hers.”
“Let us pray he remains uninjured then.” She looked around. “I have ne’er actually hated anyone before. Disliked, disrespected, mayhap. Just wanted to avoid, aye. But, I hate Sir Adam MacQueen. Loathe him and want him dead. Something else I have ne’er wished for anyone.”
“And ’tis certain ye will ne’er feel wither way ever again so I wouldnae worry on it.” Joan shook her head. “If that mon fell into the hands of the people here right now, he would be torn apart. Do ye think they would e’er do that to anyone, ever?”
“Nay!”
“Exactly. But they would do it to him in a heartbeat, so dinnae fret o’er how ye feel. Right now all these people see is that that swine out there is killing and hurting their men, their husbands, sons, and lovers.” She patted Annys on the arm. “We all feel it now.”
“Strangely, kenning that I am nay the only one thinking of tearing the mon apart is oddly comforting. Of course, I meant to use a sword.”
“Weel, aye, of course ye did. Ye are a lady.”
Annys could barely believe it when she choked on a laugh. She clapped a hand over her mouth but made the mistake of looking at Joan. Then they both started giggling.
Their brief moment of laughter ended abruptly when a badly wounded man was carried in by Bear.
Annys waved him over even as she hastily worked to wash off the table.
When Bear put the man down on the table and she took a look at the wounds, she sighed.
He would have to fight hard and long to survive.
She began to wash away the blood as Joan readied a needle and thread. It was going to be a very long day.