Hoping to turn this event to his advantage, Nigel swiftly moved away from the body. The other man’s yelling had told him where the man was, as did his noisy approach. What he wanted to do was try to meet him halfway, to catch the fool as he scrambled blindly over the rocks to try to reach his companion.
This one was not going to be as easy to cut down, Nigel decided when he finally saw the man. He was not moving over the hills with any grace, but he had his sword at the ready and was very watchful. Nigel waited until the man reached a particularly awkward spot, one where a defense would be difficult, and confronted him.
“Ah, the bastard Scot who now runs with that murdering she-wolf,” the man snarled in French as, sword held firmly, he tried to sidle along onto a better footing. “Where is the little bitch?”
“Where you shall never find her,” Nigel replied in French, carefully trying to judge the shorter, heavier man’s strengths.
“So, swine, you try to keep the bounty for yourself.”
“You would believe that. After all, what man would not covet such a heavy purse?”
Gisele clapped her hand over her mouth to smother her gasp. She crouched behind a nearby rock and heartily cursed herself for not staying where Nigel had left her. The moment she had heard a man scream she had been unable to just sit and wait to find out Nigel’s fate. Now, instead of waiting in fretful ignorance, she heard him speak of the bounty on her head in a way that left her wondering all over again if she could really trust him. She tried to ease her hurt by telling herself that it was nothing but an empty taunt tossed out by a man preparing to fight to the death, but that only helped a little. Betrayal after betrayal had finally taught her to be cautious, and although Nigel’s remark may have been no more than a sardonic reply to an enemy’s accusation, she knew it would be wise to remember it.
She peered over the rock just in time to see the DeVeau man lunge at Nigel. A part of her wanted desperately to close her eyes and just pray, but she forced herself to watch. Nigel might need her help, she thought as she held her dagger tightly in her small hand. He might have just shaken the trust she had begun to have in him in one careless statement, but she certainly did not want to see him hurt.
When Nigel cut the man down she felt little more than relief. As Nigel wiped his sword on the dead man’s jupon, Gisele wondered if she could sneak away without him hearing or seeing her. Then she saw movement at Nigel’s back and she forgot all need to hide, standing up and crying out a warning.
Nigel spun around just in time to stop the attacker from stabbing him in the back. “So, the coward returns,” he said, as he struggled to stand up and gain a more solid footing.
“No coward, fool, but a wise man.”
“It is wise to come back here to die?”
“Not to die, but to gain all of the bounty for myself. I had hoped that one of those fools would kill you or at least hobble you, but they were always poor fighters. Clumsy and inept. Where is the girl?”
“Somewhere where you will never find her,” Nigel replied, pleased that the man had not yet seen her and praying that Gisele would have the sense to run and hide. He knew she was near, that she had been the one who had warned him.
“I do not think it will be too hard to find the murdering whore. I heard her warn you, so she must be close at hand.”
Nigel slashed at the man with his sword, hoping to make the man retreat a little and allow him a chance to move into a better fighting position. This DeVeau hound proved much smarter than the others, however, simply avoiding the strike and keeping Nigel firmly trapped on an uneven ground with a dead body in his way. He was cornered, and he knew it. So did his enemy.
Swiftly reviewing all of the actions he could take, Nigel decided he really had only one, to abruptly attack. It might at least give him the advantage of surprise long enough for him to move out of the trap he was in. If he stayed where he was they would just thrust and parry until he finally lost his footing and was vulnerable to a death stroke. Yelling his clan’s battle cry he lunged at his foe, hoping to move the man out of the way by the sheer force of his charge.
It failed. Nigel cursed as the man met his charge squarely, holding him in place. For a moment they fought fiercely, the DeVeau man trying to keep him right where he was and Nigel trying to cut him out of his way. Then what Nigel had feared all along finally happened. Nigel stumbled as a hard lunge by the DeVeau man caused him to back up against the body of the man he had killed earlier. His foe took quick advantage, and Nigel swore in pain as the man’s sword cut a deep gash in his side. He blocked the man’s next strike, but that sharp move caused him to fall, his sword spinning out of his hand. He sprawled on top of the dead body and stared up at the DeVeau man, who grinned widely as he held the point of his sword against Nigel’s heart. Nigel’s only clear thought was a prayer that Gisele did not pay too dearly for his failure to protect her.
“You picked a poor cause to give your life for,” drawled the DeVeau man.
“No, you picked poorly,” Nigel replied in his heavily accented French, silently cursing when he realized he could never reach his dagger in time to deflect the death blow. “I may meet my death before you do, but at least I will not go with my soul stained by the crime of hunting down and killing a young, innocent girl simply to fatten my purse.”
The man snarled a curse and raised his sword, preparing to plunge it deep into Nigel’s heart. Nigel braced for the blow, but it never came. He stared up at his attacker in open-mouthed astonishment, barely shifting out of the way when the man’s sword slipped from his hand. Protruding from the man’s thick neck was the hilt of a dagger that Nigel easily recognized. The man frantically clawed at the knife in his throat even as he slowly collapsed onto the ground. DeVeau’s hound died quickly, his life’s blood pouring out of his body with a speed that even Nigel found unsettling. Clutching at the wound in his side, Nigel slowly sat up and stared at a white-faced Gisele standing stiffly by a nearby rock.
“A good throw, lass,” he said, and was relieved to see her shudder a little. Then she turned her too wide but clear gaze toward him.
“I was aiming for his sword arm,” she said in an unsteady, husky voice as she began to walk toward him.
“Poor lass. I had intended to scold you for nay staying where I had told ye to when I was finished with that rogue.” He smiled faintly. “I believe I may find it in my heart to forgive ye for that impertinence”
“Better a little forgiveness in your heart than cold, hard steel. Is it a bad wound?” she asked as she knelt by his side.
Nigel moved his bloodsoaked hand and frowned at the gash in his side. “I am nay sure, but I think it may be a wee bit more severe than I had first thought, and ’tis bleeding most freely.”
Gisele forced herself to pay attention to Nigel and only Nigel. She felt chilled by what she had done, her blood still running cold in her veins, but she could not allow herself the time to think about it now. Nigel was wounded, and he was right—his blood was flowing rather freely. Keeping him hale and alive was far more important than any soul-searching she might do to try to decide if she had been right or wrong to kill a man.
“Nay, lass,” Nigel said when she moved to tear a strip of cloth from her shirt so that she could bandage his wound. “If ye can stomach it, take what ye need from one of those men. We cannae be sure how long we will have to hide, and ye may have need of that shirt.”
He was right, but she felt the sting of bile in the back of her throat as she moved toward the man he had killed. To her deep dismay she had to look carefully to find a part of his shirt that was clean enough to temporarily bind Nigel’s wound. As soon as she had torn off the strip of cloth she needed, she hurried back to Nigel’s side.
“This wound needs to be cleaned and stitched closed,” she said, as she wound the cloth tightly around the wound to slow the bleeding.
