Finley turned around, staggering on her feet for just a moment as her vision cleared, then took her dagger in her bloody hand once more before shuffling toward a flickering torch lying in the road. She felt so strange, she nearly toppled over when she bent to pick it up, but managed to stand aright and face the cart once more. They were lined up, side by side, like dead bugs, or women, she thought. Women with their legs up in the air and their skirts over their heads, waiting patiently.
She laughed aloud, thinking Kirsten would appreciate the joke. Finley’s right hand felt cold and she looked down and saw her fingers dripping red. But rather than scare her, it cleared her mind of the fear- and pain-induced hysteria that had seized her.
Fire in one hand, her blade in the other, already coated in her own blood, she was a Carson tonight. As brave as any man—any son—of her town’s fine, as fierce as any clan chief’s wife. And she was fighting.
Finley hurled the torch with an enraged cry into the bed of the closest cart as if it were a javelin. At first, she thought the flame had gone out, but then it bloomed like a hazy sun on the surface of the canvas and began to creep like a wave beneath sand. Finley backed away, slowly at first, and then some instinct warned her to run.Run.
She stumbled back, turned, ran toward the green. The air pushed around her suddenly, heavy and hot, and then an explosion that shook the ground beneath her feet. Then another. And another. And another.
She ducked behind the side of the closest house and the wall opposite her was lit up as brightly as if it were midday.
Finley smelled noxious smoke. A burning piece of cart fell into the street with an explosion of fat droplets of fire. She dashed to the right, into the thickness of Carsons and Blairs, her dagger still clutched in her hand.
Lachlan. She must find him and warn him. Murdoch—
* * * *
“I ken it’s the only reason ye didna kill me,” Geordie said when Murdoch’s weeping had quieted. “Why ye gave me leave to the old house, and kept my secret.” He paused. “Ye couldna squall about it to nae one else, could ye? Ye knew I’d never tell that it werenae the Blairs’ fault at all, what happened to Carson Town. Any Carson’d seen me would have cut me throat at first sight.”
“I doona know that they would have done,” Murdoch said quietly, his words almost a whisper.
“Aye,” Geordie agreed with a hearty nod. “But that’s what ye wanted me to believe, innit?”
Murdoch’s reply was a whisper now. “Aye.”
“An’ I did believe it. I know I’m nae clever.” He pulled out his small dagger from his pouch, its point already broken off when his father had given it to him years ago. Then he chose a stick near his side and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, scraping off the flaky, dried moss. “Tommy saved me and Edna the day the men came up the ben. He held ’em off while we ran. If it werenae for him, we’d a’ been killed. There’d been no bairn. No Lachlan Blair.”
“If Sal would have stayed up the beach,” Murdoch muttered. “If Andrew would have just let the goddam ships go…”
“None of this is nae one’s fault but yer own, Murdoch,” Geordie spat. “Yours an’ that English bastard down there now.” He stood and tossed the stick back to the ground as the ring of Carsons surrounding the Blair green in the darkness grew still in anticipation.. “Why do ye nae go down and say hallo to yer mate, Murdoch? May be he’ll take you with him this time.”
Geordie started down the hill.
“Geordie, wait!” Murdoch called out. “Doona go down there—you’re dead if ye do. Doona leave me!” When Geordie only kept walking, Murdoch demanded, “Do ye even know which side ye’ll fight for?”
The battle cry rose up then, causing Geordie to flinch, but he did not hesitate in his advance. He swiped at his nose with the back of his hand, still holding his knife.
“I’m nae on a side,” he muttered.
Chapter 17
“You’ll hang for this, Hargrave,” Lachlan said, circling the pair of men pinned together, Marcas on the far side. “For what you’ve done. You as well, Harrell.”
Marcas’s harsh chuckle was clear. “They’ll nae last for a hanging, lad, have I any say for it.”
Hargrave appeared wary but not quite flustered by his current predicament. “What crime have I committed for which you think I should hang, pray tell, Master Blair?”
“The slaughter of Carson Town. The murder of the two men yonder,” Lachlan clarified.
“Ah, no,” Hargrave replied. “You have absolutely no witnesses against me for the unfortunate incident thirty years ago. I arrived—as I have yet again—seeking nothing more than to locate the man who murdered my daughter. I had reliable intelligence that Carson Town was harboring that very fugitive. And as for those two men, why, I certainly didn’t kill them. Ask anyone here.”
Lachlan refused to let Hargrave draw him into debate. “Your hired men are either dead or fleeing. Coin will only buy you so much loyalty. But just look around you, Hargrave; what do you see? Blairs and Carsons fighting together. Fighting you.”
“Only temporarily, I’m sure,” Hargrave said with a sly smile. “Your kind can’t keep from resorting to barbarism for long.”
“Da!” The voice came from behind Lachlan, but he wouldn’t take his eyes from the Englishman. “Da!”
Searrach ran past Lachlan and threw herself on Harrell. Her gown was torn and filthy, her long, dark hair snarled with dirt and leaves. “Da! Finley Carson tried to kill me!”
