His breath rasping, Marmaduke stared across the chaos, his heart plummeting when the ax sailed past James’ reaching fingers.
James himself let out a cry of savage rage at the miss and, his face a dark mask, he raised up and brought down the hard edge of his shield onto the sworder’s extended forearm, striking with such smashing fury the man’s arm-bone snapped with a sickeningcrack.
Letting loose of his blade, James’ opponent toppled from his horse, his shrieks of pain swallowed by the unholy din of clashing and clanging steel.
But he’d no sooner hit the ground before a second assailant hurtled toward James, his blade already drawn back for a killing blow.
“Mother of God!” Marmaduke dug in his spurs, but Sir Ross, much closer to James, tore through the slashing steel at a thunderous speed, his huge Highland sword extended before him like a lance.
“Cuidich’ N’ Righ!” he cried, reaching James first and skewering his attacker before the man could finish his deadly sweep.
Without pausing, Ross heaved the body off his crimson sword and pressed on the join Marmaduke and Alec at the center of the fray, James hot on his tail.
Drawing together in a tight phalanx, they fought on, the ear-splitting screech of blade sliding along blade, a deafening accompaniment. The stench of blood fouled the air, filling their lungs with its metallic sweetness with each drawn breath.
A bit apart, Gowan stood tall in his stirrups, windmilling his Highland two-hander in such a wicked manner, hardly a challenger dared near him.
And when one did, the burly MacKenzie felled each such fool with a single, viciously arcing swipe – and a smile on his broad, thick-bearded face.
Then a shrill cry rent the red-hazed air, louder and more agonized than all before. Marmaduke whipped around to see Sir John, far from the center of the fighting, crash to the ground, the whole left side of him, a sea of crimson.
As was the dripping blade of the English knight who’d slain him.
Too stunned to even blink, Marmaduke stared across the chaos, wholly transfixed. He swiped the back of his arm across his brow and watched as Sir John’s riderless horse bolted into the night.
Sir John’s bloodied body, having gained momentum from the violence of its fall, rolled down the hillside, leaving a red-stained path in its wake.
“If that isn’t beyond all,” Ross panted beside Marmaduke, his own heaving chest well splattered with blood.
But not his own. “So we erred-”
“God’s mercy, don’t speak it,” Marmaduke cut him off, instinctively lifting his sword to repulse yet another attacker, hot bile rising so thick in his throat he could scarce breathe.
His suspicions about the older Scotsman lashed at him as furiously as the man-at-arms closing in on him. Swerving in his saddle, he avoided the man’s swinging blade, but not the biting sting of his own shame.
All the rage of the night, and the greater swell of his guilt, flooding him with renewed strength, he swung back to face the sworder.
As if the man had glimpsed the very devil in Marmaduke’s own face, he tried to wheel away, but, with a roar of outrage, his cool broken at last, Marmaduke drew back his sword arm and slew the knight with one great, downward stroke.
You are a dead man.
If my suspicions are true…
A dead man.
For the rest of the long night, through all the bloodletting and cries, Marmaduke’s own words rode his back.
A constant companion, a leaden weight on his honor.
And a greater foe than all de la Hogue’s metal-bound henchmen combined.
* * *
Above and allaround the hillside, a cold wind blew, its own wail echoing the moans of the dying - souls it’d soon carry from the relentless fray.
And though Marmaduke himself would’ve sworn the saints had deserted him at last, they’d simply sent an angel to watch over him in their stead.
He couldn’t see her, but a lone woman stood beside a hawthorn tree at the edge of the fracas. Tall and dark as the moonless night, she made no sound.
