“I’d heard the rumors, but now I see your renowned handsomeness is indeed but a memory,” he taunted, his voice amazingly unaffected by the shroud of thick smoke he’d just pressed through. “I scarce recognize you.”
“You, son of a sow.” Sir Gowan rushed him, his great Highland sword raised for a smiting blow.
Sir Hugh sidestepped the vicious downswing with surprising agility. He blocked Gowan’s second slashing arc with equal skill, their blades meeting with an ear-splittingclank.
“Enough, MacKenzie!” Marmaduke stayed his friend, even as Sir Ross and Sir Alec pushed forward to strong-arm him back into the growing circle of onlookers.
“You’ve taken up with a wild pack, Strongbow,” de la Hogue sought to provoke him. “A heathenish lot.”
Ignoring the slur, Marmaduke raked the other’s steel-girt form with disdain. “Heathen?” He lifted a brow. “And what do you call a man who, under siege, dallies behind to array himself in metal while leaving his men to face their challengers in naught but naked skin?”
Grumbles came from the ranks of Sir Hugh’s soot-blackened men, some underscoring their agreement with nods and accusatory glares aimed not at Marmaduke, but at their red-faced liege.
“Do not heed him,” Sir Hugh spluttered, his heavily beringed fingers clenching and unclenching on the hilt of his sword. “The fool was ever blessed with a silver tongue and high looks.”
Raising his blade, he pointed its tip at Marmaduke. “A pity you’ve lost the latter,” he drawled. “Keep harassing me and you’ll lose your life as well.”
The Highlanders snorted at that and, at the sounds, Sir Hugh’s face purpled.
He waved his sword at the teeth-chattering group of bare-bottomed men huddled some distance away. “Think you they are my only guards?” he cried. “Sniveling women! They ran at the first sign of trouble. But I have other men, better-skilled ones.”
He threw a quick but significant glance at the smoke-clogged gatehouse. “They are yet inside, arming themselves as we speak. You are out-manned in more ways than one, Strongbow.”
“Think you?” Before the words were fully past his lips, Marmaduke arced his steel in a flashing, sideways sweep that knocked the earl’s blade from his hand.
The sword hit the cobbles with a loud clatter even as Marmaduke pressed the tip of his own into de la Hogue’s mail-covered paunch. “You, sir, could not out-man a lowly earthworm,” he said, jerking his head toward the Highlanders and Keith men-at-arms who’d been inside the keep. “Show him your steel, men.”
And they did.
Not a blade was raised that didn’t gleam red, and not from the licking flames raging all around them.
Marmaduke waited for comprehension to dawn on de la Hogue’s face before he continued. “Any men not yet amongst us perished in the fire, or forfeited their life for a mistaken cause when they rose against yon men as they poured over the castle walls.”
Sir Hugh wet his lips. “There are more…” He cast a nervous glance toward the cold, windy dark of the nearby lochshore. “Men on patrol. They will-”
“James,” Marmaduke called over his shoulder, “do you see any of de la Hogue’s guard moving about?”
“Nae,” James returned. “I see naught but the starry night and the flames of hell waiting for the craven.”
“We came across a patrol,” Ross’ deep voice came from the sidelines. “Those men are no more,” the Highlander finished, his words earning chortles of a dark sort from Marmaduke’s other men.
“Aye,” Alec spoke up, agreeing. “Those sorry souls met their end when they tried to keep us from taking a bit of thatch off the outbuildings.”
“All dead?” Marmaduke kept his gaze on Sir Hugh.
“Every last one.” That from young Sir Lachlan.
“Lies!” de la Hogue denied, hostility flashing across his face. “They were too many to be felled by a handful.”
Marmaduke only arched a brow. “That would depend on the handful, I’d say. It would seem, good sir, that you are out-manned and in more ways than the obvious.”
Withdrawing his sword-point from the earl’s belly, he used it to gesture to the other’s fallen blade. “You’d be wise to commend yourself to God’s care, for very shortly you shall face Him,” he advised. “Now retrieve your sword and fight nobly so you may leave this world with more honor than you peopled it.”
Sir Hugh slid an uneasy glance at the cluster of pathetic, freezing souls who’d made up his guard. It’s begun to snow, and their bared heads were dusted with white, making them appear more like a band of dottering graybeards than an assembly of England’s best.”
His jaw working in anger, Sir Hugh snatched up his sword and tossed one, last desperate look at his men. “Think you they will stand by and-”
“They will do what is wise and return to their homes,” Marmaduke finished for him, his tone deceptively mild. “They’d no doubt fetch a fine ransom, but I believe this land is better served if they take themselves from it this very hour, on their knightly honor never to return.”
