Chapter 19 #2
He flew at him with his sword again, drawing it back and landing another blow, but Malric deflected, throwing Tavish to the side. Tavish went stumbling but did not lose his footing, grasping a branch above him to pull himself back up and swing himself around to attack anew.
He used the momentum to land a blow on Malric’s side with the flat of his blade, knocking the wind from the man and sending him staggering. Then he ducked low when Malric threw his sword forward desperately to try to stab him through the belly.
“Tavish, look out!”
He heard Ailsa weeping behind him, clearly petrified, not just for herself but for him. But she did not know him well enough if she thought that he could not easily hold his own against MacCairn.
Malric had relied on the cover of darkness and espionage to get what he wanted before, but he had never been prepared for a man like Tavish—let alone in the midst of a rage that he could not begin to control.
Their swords clashed in the torchlight, flashing with red and orange like the fires of hell burned within them.
Malric fought dirty and underhanded, swinging his sword out in long arcs designed to throw Tavish from his center and distract him, and then landing a kick or a punch to try to push him to the ground.
But, with every blow that Malric threw at him, Tavish would pull one back, retorting with just as much venom as the sound of their blades filled the air.
Malric’s men were watching from afar, clearly too fearful of their Laird to dare defy him and intervene. But one of them was standing dangerously close to Ailsa, his blade aimed—
And then, all at once, Malric darted forward, and Ailsa let out a cry. “No!”
Without thinking, Tavish spun around to face her, worrying that she had been struck by an errant blow in the midst of the battle. But, instead, he felt a sudden shock of pain along his side as Malric’s sword tore through his tunic and cut into his flesh.
He staggered back just in time to keep the blow from digging deeper into his body, but he clutched at the wound as blood poured from between his fingers.
“Ye’re still bleeding fer yer clan, Tavish?” Malric mocked him, and Tavish narrowed his eyes, closing his blood-slicked fingers around his blade.
“Nay,” he replied. “I bleed for her.”
And then, before Tavish could say another word, he used Malric’s distraction to land the killing blow. He vaulted towards him, driving his sword deep into his belly, his eyes narrowing as they landed on Malric.
He watched as the shock crossed his enemy’s face, and then his gaze dropped, registering the sword thrust through his midsection. He staggered backwards, hands groping to pull the blade loose, but it was already too late.
He crashed to the ground with a heavy groan, the light blinking for his face. His men rushed towards Tavish, still shocked by the outcome, but with eyes that burned with fury and promised death. Tavish held his blade close, promising to keep fighting to his last breath to buy Ailsa time to run.
Right then Ewan arrived. The guards fell into battle with the MacCairn soldiers, keeping them at bay.
Finally, Tavish turned his attention back to Ailsa.
“Tavish!”
“Are ye alright?” he demanded, but, as he reached her, his knees gave way beneath him, the exhaustion of the ride and the fight suddenly swelling to consume him entirely.
She lunged towards him and caught him before he hit the ground, cradling him in her arms.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped out to her, reaching his hand to grip her face, smearing blood along her cheek. “I… I should have told ye.”
He winced, groping at his wound, trying to find the words even as the pain rose to consume him.
“I should have told ye the moment ye showed me that letter. Malric… he still holds some sickening grudge against my family. His father sold my clan spoiled grain. He caused an outbreak of disease that had taken the lives of a few of his people. Callum could have spread that news far and wide if he’d wanted to, but…
he just cut off their trade route quietly; made sure that others knew what to look out for in the bad batch that he had been trying to pass off. But Malric and his father…”
“They took this as a grand slight against their people,” Ailsa added for him.
“Aye. In the months since his father died, Malric picked up that grudge and ran with it, as though seeing it through would go some way to saving his father’s memory.
He lured Callum out to their Keep to meet with him about making amends.
When Callum came back in a casket, Malric’s smirking gaze over the coffin told me what had happened.
There was no doubt about it in my mind. This bastard had taken my brother from me, and God knows what else he would do given the chance… ”
He stroked her golden hair caringly, his eyes glinting as he tried to keep his tears in control. This was real. Ailsa was alive.
“I was afraid of losing ye,” he confessed. “Like I lost Callum.”
“No,” she murmured, her eyes filled with tears, smoothing her hands over his cheeks. “I should… I should have trusted ye. I thought I knew better. I thought I could make things right for ye. But then…”
She bit her lip.
“I thought he would kill ye, Tavish,” she confessed. “After all ye’d done for me, all ye’d done to protect me, I thought I had lost ye. And I could never have lived with myself if I had lost ye like that. If I had lost… the man I loved.”
He took a moment to make sense of her words. But then, it struck him.
She loved him. She truly loved him.
“I love ye, too,” he murmured, and he pressed his lips to hers, not caring for the blood on their skin, not caring for anything other than her.
“Come,” she breathed against his lips. “Ewan will handle them. We must get back to the Keep.”
And, as she drew him to his feet, despite the pain, he could not help but smile. Because the woman he loved was at his side. And that, he reasoned, was worth all the pain in the world.