“Morning will be here soon enough,” Sonneta intervened. “We shall know what to do after a good sleep.” She handed Elene a blanket but looked at Liam. He knew Sonneta was no one’s fool. The grandmotherly figure warned him not to sleep too close to a woman who wasn’t his wife. Liam took Elene’s blanket and spread it before the hearth. The men had already made a semicircle near it, so Liam easily placed it in the center. No one would reach Elene without going through nine Highlanders. Liam laid his bedroll closest to the door. At Elene’s questioning look, he darted his gaze to Sonneta and Ninian, who were retiring to the curtain enclosed bed they shared at the back of the home.
Elene looked around as the men settled, their backs to her, and their swords held protectively under their arms like a lover. She turned to look where Ninian and Sonneta disappeared before looking back once more at Liam. There was nothing she could do to sleep next to Liam that night. She wrapped the blanket Sonneta gave her around her shoulders, then added the spare plaid Liam lent her. Between the two heavy layers of wool, she felt comforted by the cocoon she created. She settled on her side and stared into the flames, but when she heard Liam stir, she twisted to see him. He’d set up his bedroll, but he sat on a stool with his sword across his lap. He offered her a reassuring smile as she realized he would be on watch that night. It bothered her that she’d intruded into someone’s home and brought such danger that the men needed to sleep with their swords unsheathed and someone on guard.
As she turned back to stare into the fire, the undulating flames hypnotized her. Before her eyes drifted closed, she pondered her options. She could turn herself over to Gunter, which she refused to consider. She could return to Rousay, but that was the same as giving herself to the Norseman. She could go to Isbister and risk Gunter following. Or she could set out for Snusgar. She understood she couldn’t expect Liam to put his life on hold, detain his men and keep them from their families, and delay his report to his grandfather. At best, she hoped he might stop in Snusgar, where she could board his birlinn. She wouldn’t mind a life in the Highlands. She doubted it was that different from Orkney. Perhaps less pickled fish in winter.
Her heart ached knowing that regardless of where she went, her relationship with Liam would end. She knew her social status was far too low for Liam or his family to consider her acceptable. She knew without asking, Liam would never accept her—or any woman—as his leman. She couldn’t go to Varrich. She couldn’t watch him eventually marry someone else, even if she found a mate for herself. She was heartsore at the idea of seeing him visit Dunbeath with a wife and children, but that notion was far more palatable than living outside his front door, likely serving his family in the Great Hall.
Elene thought she’d just closed her eyes when Liam shook her shoulder. She looked around and realized the fire was banked. The Highlanders were scrambling to their feet, one of them gathering her blankets before she’d gotten to her feet. Dermot threw back the cowhide and yanked open the trap. Liam guided Elene to the hole, where she jumped down without hesitation. Liam took the blankets from his warrior and passed them to her.
“Cadence heard him during his watch. He peeked outside; Gunter’s coming.” Liam closed the hatch before Elene could respond. Trapped once more in the dark, she heard the thunk of first the door, then the hide, put back in place. She tried to imagine what was happening, but she heard nothing after her hiding place was once more disguised. She heard no movement. She heard no voices. She didn’t even hear her own breath it was so shallow. Like she had the first time, she creeped behind the barrels and burrowed under the blankets. Just when she thought they sounded the alarm for nothing, Elene heard the distinct sound of steel on steel.
CHAPTER10
Cadence’s alertness to a sound outside the croft had prepared Liam and his men. They were staggered throughout the one-room cottage, ready for the first Norseman to cross the threshold when the door burst open. Only a moment passed, a chance to ensure they slayed no one without cause, before they launched their counterattack. Sinclairs angled beside the door drove their swords into the first wave of Norse warriors. As their victims fell to the floor, another surge came from their enemy. Liam thrust his sword into a woman’s belly as she raised her arm to swing her blade at his head.
Liam recalled how aghast he was when he first heard the tale of Lorna Mackay and how her relatives had slain Norsewomen when the pillagers raided Varrich all those centuries ago. He learned that Lorna’s father trained her as a warrior, thinking to keep his only daughter occupied while he taught his sons to lead. When she left Varrich and went to Norway, she became a renowned shieldmaiden. She’d been no different from Freya Ivarsdóttir, Tyra Vigosdóttir, and Gressa Jorgensdóttir. But it was Freya’s mother, Lena Tormudsdóttir, who’d been a legend long before the Highland sword wielding woman arrived.
Now Liam swung his sword indiscriminately, aiming for anyone who intended to kill him and harm Elene. He heard someone collide with the table, then a crash as the table hit the floor. In between opponents, he glanced back and found Albert and Michail fighting men from across the table. It gave him an idea. As his comrades defeated their enemy, Liam leaped over the table.
“Lift it,” Liam commanded as he bent to grab the lip of the table. Albert and Michail obeyed, guessing Liam’s plan. The three men brought the table to chest height and surged forward. Dermot was the first to join them, followed by Cadence. Alfred, Colin, Benjamin, and Samuel continued to fight until their opponents succumbed to the Highlanders. With nine Highlanders charging forth with the table as a battering ram, they forced the Norse outside. Angling themselves, they passed through the door and continued to knock down their enemies.
As they trampled their fallen opponents, the Sinclairs released the table from the back forward as each man drove his sword into a Norseman sprawled on the ground. Liam and Michail were the last two to drop the table and swing their swords. Liam split his attention between the woman he fought, the man approaching him from his right, and his search for Gunter, who he hadn’t seen. Discharging the woman with his sword through her belly, he spun toward the man, swiping his blade across his ribs and nearly cleaving him in half.
Liam was about to wipe the sweat from his brow when he finally spied Gunter charging toward Ninian’s croft. Racing forward and leaping onto the edge of the table, Liam used it as a springboard to propel his body toward Gunter. With the roar of a lion, he grasped his claymore in both hands and brought it high over his shoulder, his arms extended for his full wingspan. But at the last moment, a Norseman ran between Liam and Gunter. The force with which Liam swung his sword took the man’s head from his body and slid through bone, muscle, and sinew, carving off a shoulder and ribs. It would have shocked Liam if he weren’t so determined to catch Gunter.
His shoulder barreled into the dead man’s body as it crumbled to the ground. He was nearly to Gunter when he watched in horror as a Norseman handed off a burning torch to the king’s brother. Liam knew what Gunter planned to do. Getting inside to save Elene, Ninian, and Sonneta before it burned them alive became more important. As the flaming log landed on the croft’s thatched roof, Liam burst into the building.
“Out!” He bellowed to Ninian and Sonneta, who were dashing to the trap door. “Go! I’ll get her.”
Ninian and Sonneta fled as Liam heard three more thuds on the roof, knowing more torches had landed to set the home ablaze. He dropped his sword as he unfurled the cowhide and yanked open the trapdoor. Fingers curled around the edge as Elene scrambled out. Liam grasped her under her arms and pulled her free. He grabbed his sword as the roof crumbled around them. Sparks filled the air, smoke blinding and choking them. Liam hoisted Elene over his shoulder as he bolted for the door. Leaping over the flames that were licking the floor in front of the door, he pitched forward. Rolling to protect Elene from his sword and from landing underneath him, the force knocked the wind from both of them.
Spluttering, Elene pulled herself on her elbows until she hovered over Liam, her ear next to his mouth. She felt no waft of air, so she nearly jumped out of her skin when lips pressed against her cheek. As she turned her head, steely arms wrapped around her and drew her onto a chiseled body. Their lips brushed together as Liam stroked hair back from her face. She cupped Liam’s jaw as she pulled away, needing to see with her eyes what her body felt. He was hale. He hadn’t succumbed to the battle or the fire.
“Are you all right?” Her parched throat rasped each word.
“Yes. You?” Liam coughed after choking out the two words. They looked around when waterskins were thrust in front of both of them. Dermot stood beside them, his face bloodied, but his body in one piece. Liam eased Elene to sit beside him before he rose to sit and accepted the waterskin Dermot offered him. They both guzzled, the cool liquid quenching their thirst and easing the stinging ash from the back of their throats.
“Yes,” Elene whispered as she looked around. Liam belatedly realized it was likely the first battlefield Elene ever saw. He tried to pull her face toward her chest, shielding her from the death that spread around Ninian and Sonneta’s home. But she wouldn’t budge. She looked at each person lying dead in the wake of the Norse attack. She closed her eyes and said a prayer of thanksgiving that there were no plaids among the slain. She scanned the surrounding area, finding Ninian and Sonneta encircled by three Orcadian men and a woman.
“That’s Bernard, Hugh, and Mans. The woman is Mans’s wife, Meg,” Liam explained. “They’re chieftains from other villages on this island.”
Elene nodded, her throat still too sore to strain with words. A howl forewarned the roof caving in, and a boom that rattled their bones sounded as the walls exploded, leaving nothing of the croft where they’d all slept only a short while ago. The sun was only just starting to rise when the attack happened, the dawn sky lightening from the night’s blue canvas. Now, at sunrise, the sun inched above the horizon, and Elene could see the oars cut through the air before dipping back into the sea as their attackers fled.
At least Elene wanted to think it was fleeing. She wanted to think Gunter was a coward and unwilling to accept the consequences of his failed attack. But she looked at the smoldering ruins of the home where she’d hidden twice. Then she looked at the couple who’d opened their door to her and lost everything in exchange. Gunter wasn’t a coward. He was conniving and one step ahead of them. She knew where he was headed.
“He’s going for my mother and my brother and sister. He’s going to take them away.” Elene looked out to sea once more, certain to her marrow that Johan and Katryne were no longer as safe as she’d tried to convince herself they were. Gunter had no need of stepchildren, not with his own bastards. She doubted he intended to keep a concubine, whose children others would expect him to house, feed, and clothe. He would sell or murder Johan and Katryne. “Then he will kill them. I doubt they will make it to land. If they do, it’s only so he can do to them what he threatened to do to me.”
Elene turned her attention to Liam. Her heart raced when she curled into the cellar the second time. She’d nearly screamed when the table overturned. The smoke that immediately filled the croft convinced her she would die. She was certain she would never see Liam again, that he was already dead. Hearing his voice through the trapdoor as he ordered Ninian and Sonneta out made her heart feel as though it stopped. Now it pounded in her ears and behind her ribs with conviction to reach her siblings first.
“I’m going home.” She turned a challenging mien to Liam, daring him to stop her.
“We’ll get them, I swear.” Liam turned to the Orcadians, who approached.
“I’m sending my fastest rider to Tankerness,” Mans announced. “He can be there in half an hour, which is faster than Gunter can reach there, even with all the oars in the water. The tide and wind are against him. All of my fishing boats can be in the water before Gunter reaches there. They’ll form a blockade he will struggle to navigate around. It won’t stop him, but it will slow him.”
“If you ride hard, you can be in Kirkwall in just over two hours. Get your curraghs and get back to Skaill,” Ninian stated. Liam didn’t know what to say. He’d brought a fugitive to his friend’s home, and he’d endangered everyone under Ninian’s roof. Now Ninian and his family lost everything, when all they’d ever offered the Mackays and Sinclairs was hospitality. “If it were Sonneta, or any of our wives, your family would have risked the same. We will rebuild. We can do that far easier than you can find another woman you love.”
Liam was aware that Elene could hear Ninian. He didn’t know what to call his feelings toward her, but he knew he wouldn’t stop until she and her siblings were safe at Dunbeath or Varrich. It didn’t lessen his guilt, but he appreciated everyone’s understanding.
