So it begins,Noah thought grimly, bracing himself.
The larger man struck him with hammer force, sword swinging down with all of his weight behind it. Noah blocked the blow, the impact reverberating all the way up his arms and making his teeth chatter. His feet skidded in the mud, threatening to topple him, but he held his ground.
Their swords met, again and again, and Noah’s world narrowed to just that—the clash of their blades and the strength of his own arms.
Then the larger man overbalanced, just a little, enough for Noah to whip back his sword and drive it, point first, through his breastbone.
The man’s face sagged and slackened as he died, sliding forward onto the blade, limbs going limp. Nausea swept over Noah, clenching his stomach and making his throat sting. Battle had never sickened him quite so intensely, but now it was so overwhelming that for a moment he was afraid he would retch.
I want to stop this.
He backed up, letting the dead man slide off his blade. Glancing around, he sucked in a breath that tasted of blood and tried to take stock. There was no sign of Brendan, but he could see Struan and Una nearby, fighting back-to-back.
That means that the Kenneth soldiers are close.
Gritting his teeth and lifting his sword again, he began to cut his way laboriously through the soldiers separating him from theothers. The fight became mechanical. Lift, swing, stab, cut, step. Lift, swing, slash, hack, step. Again and again, gaining land an inch at a time. The ground beneath his feet was slick as ever, soaked with blood now, too.
The rain began falling. It was soft at first, a faint mizzling patter that was almost refreshing. It wiped away the splatters of blood and dirt from his face, cooling his heated skin. Rapidly, however, the drizzle changed to a real rain, soaking through his clothes and plastering his hair to his head. If he stopped moving and fighting, Noah knew that the cold would sink in.
He fought through the last resistance of men and found himself in a small clearing, with Struan and Una in the middle. They were gasping for breath and were already injured. Noah noticed a trickle of blood running from Una’s hairline down her face and a hasty field bandage wrapped around Struan’s wrist.
“Where’s Thomas? And Kai?”
“Thomas, I haven’t seen,” Struan rasped. “Kai led the cavalry. What of Brendan?”
“Leading the cavalry,” Noah responded.
Already, exhaustion throbbed inside him. That was the thing people often forgot about battles. It was never about skill. Oh, you had to be ready to fight, of course, but it was all aboutstamina. Men died because they were too tired to lift their blade up to defend themselves, not because they lacked skill.
And we aren’t even half finished, he thought grimly.
“Where is Senga?” Una chipped in, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. She left a red smudge across her white skin.
Noah swallowed thickly, resisting the urge to turn and stare around him at the hillsides above the battle.
Please, gods, let her be safe. Let her be safe!
“She’s overlooking the battle,” he whispered. “There are men with her. She’ll be safe.”
Una gave a tight nod. “I hope so. Can she see us?”
“I don’t know. I?—”
“Well, well, well. Noah Gordon. I hoped I would run into ye.”
Noah stiffened, turning slowly. He already knew who’d be behind him.
Sure enough, there stood Tobey, the Murray Captain. His face was a mask of blood, his bald scalp glistening with sweat. His sword was caked in blood, glistening drops slowly plopping off the tip and into the saturated mud.
Tobey lifted a careless hand, and a group of Dickson soldiers rushed forward from behind him, engaging Struan and Una in fighting and effectively cutting Noah off from any help.
“I hoped I would find ye, and I had a feeling that I would,” Tobey repeated, grinning widely. “Killing ye now will save us the work later. Although Laird Murray wanted the lass to see ye die, so perhaps I should just cut yer hamstrings and take off yer hands. Then I can drag her up so she can see ye. How about that?”
A cold sensation rushed through Noah. “Where is Senga?”
He chuckled tightly. “Ah, I’m not going to tell ye that, am I? Let’s just say that, if she insists on standing where she can see the men fighting, she must know that the men fighting can seeher.”
Tension tightened around Noah’s chest. He resisted the urge to lift his eyes and glance around the hills for Senga. The second he took his eyes off Tobey, the man would attack. In fact, he was pretty sure that the man was waiting for that.
