He and Kell were in deep. Half Dacha’s army lay ahead and before them. He could see the man himself just ahead, fighting on foot, with a crashed cart at his back, face twisted in a rictus of fury and strain.
Dacha knew as well as Ardahl how deadly earnest was this fight. The achievement of all his ambitions, or the end.
“There he is!” he bellowed at Kell. “Take me in farther. Farther!”
Kell looked at him with half-crazed eyes. “We go in farther, we will be cut off.”
Aye, so they would. Beyond reach, quite likely, of their men.
Which meant they would most certainly die here.
For the briefest instant, grief touched him, a wild, raw longing for Liadan and the life they would never have together.
Aye, Kell and he would die. Just so long as they killed Dacha first.
He made a savage slash in the air with his blade, and Kell took them in. The surging, seething bodies closed behind them.
I love ye, lass,Ardahl thought.I love ye forevermore.
Then he thought of naught save life and death.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Their chariot rockedviolently as Dacha’s men mobbed it. Deep in among the enemy, their only allies now were Brihan’s men, who fought here in a desperate knot, making a last stand.
Get down and fight!cried a voice close beside Ardahl.Out o’ the cart now!
Conall. He once more stood at Ardahl’s side, clad for war with a sword in his hand and his fair hair flying.
“Why?”
Conall turned his head and looked into Ardahl’s eyes.If ye do no’, ye will die.
He was going to die anyway, Ardahl thought even as he leaped clear of the chariot, which went over, swarmed by Dacha’s warriors. Their ponies screamed. Ardahl did not see what happened to Kell.
Just ahead, Dacha fought amid a group of his warriors, facing Brihan and his desperate defenders.The head of the spear,Ardahl thought even as, slashing at attackers to the right and left, he ran straight for the man.
Conall had gone. Ardahl was alone deep in enemy territory. But Brihan, his face running with sweat and blood, looked up and recognized Ardahl as he came in, swinging his sword around his head.
No excuses now. No doubt. No fear. As a warrior, Ardahl existed for this moment. He must take out Dacha before he died.
Brihan cried out and made room for him there in that knot of struggling men, facing Dacha’s best warriors. Two of Brihan’s men, both badly wounded, fell back leaving Ardahl as—
The point of the spear.
For several moments then he knew nothing but the whirl of swords, blow upon blow from all sides, swearing and hollering, and the sight of Dacha’s face, toward which he must fight. Dacha’s defenders were fierce, and Ardahl took wounds, though he neither heeded nor felt them.
A man fell before his blade. Another.Another. Dacha stood directly in front of him.
The man appeared half maddened, eyes far too wide, face still fixed in that terrible rictus.
He too bled. On his feet. It would be up to Ardahl to take him down.
Then—only then—could he let himself think again.
Conall’s sword felt good in his hand, a part of him even as his own sword might. He imagined he could hear Conall again, speaking in his ear.
Right. To the right! Left. Turn! Turn! In upon him there. There!
