The bandit’s mouth stretched into a grin. He liked the pain he inflicted. “We found him when our sister was about to give birth to her second child.”
Neil turned his head to see Kristen’s lips part. Her eyes widened with a shock that looked like truth meeting memory. “Anna…”
“Aye,” the bandit said, pleased with himself. “We watched him too closely and lost her. Now, we still need a lass in the family.”
The promise in his voice was foul, and the threat sat in it like rot.
Neil could hear his heartbeat in his ears. The square narrowed to edges and intent. The ring of steel at his side felt like breath.
A third bandit shouldered close, his eyes roaming over Kristen. He moved faster than most men would have dared with Neil standing there, and his hand closed round her wrist.
“Perhaps,” he said, his breath rank, “we can have ye instead. A sweet, bonny lass like ye could give us the children we?—”
The world narrowed to a point, and what happened next was too fast for anyone to register until the aftermath.
The flash of drawn steel.
One clean draw.
One step.
One hard stroke.
Thwap!
The scream tore the music from the night as the third bandit’s arm hit the dirt with a wet thud. Blood spurted out and caught the firelight, and the man dropped to his knees, howling. “Ye sick bastard!”
Neil did not raise his voice. He did not need to.
He breathed steadily, trying to ignore the look of utter shock on Kristen’s face. “Ye touched what is mine.”He took one step forward in the frenzied silence, his hand gripping his sword hard. “Nay one touches what is mine.”
The next second was filled with nothing but pure, dreadful silence.
And then chaos erupted.
Kristen stumbled backward, clutching her freed wrist with wide eyes. Mothers herded children away. Men grabbed their wives and pushed them back. The torches hissed and spat.
The remaining bandits lunged, but Neil was already moving. Five years had pared his fighting down to bone. No wasted steps. No mercy.
The first came in high. Neil ducked and drove the pommel of his sword into the man’s throat. The man folded with a choked gasp. Neil finished him with a cut that sucked the life out of him.
The second tried for Neil’s ribs. Neil swung his blade and blocked the blow. He shoved the man’s steel aside, stepped forward, and drove his sword under the man’s arm where the leather gapped. The man sagged down the metal, soft as a sack.
Two bodies hit the ground. The square went very quiet except for the bandit with one arm and the crackle of the torches.
The last of them turned on his heel and ran, shoulders slamming villagers aside, arms flailing. Neil did not let him go two strides. He caught the back of the man’s collar and slammed him into the nearest wall so hard that a torch rattled in its sconce.
The man’s teeth clicked shut on his tongue. Blood slicked his chin.
“’Tis quite funny, is it nae? When ye get tortured for five years, ye remember the face of every single man who made life hell for ye.”
The man couldn’t respond; the blood in his mouth would not let him.
“There were ten of ye in that cabin,” Neil continued, close enough that the torch warmed his cheek. “I killed six before I escaped. Where is the last one?”
The man wheezed.
“I would be very careful as to what I say next, lad. Yer life depends on it. Where is the last one?”
