Chapter Eleven
Torin ripped hissword from its sheath and turned to look at the men’s wives, Millie, the musicians, everyone who didn’t know how to fight. Torin and the men were going to have to protect them all.
Hell. The castle was under attack.
The first thing he had to do was make certain it was, in fact, the Armstrongs and not the Scots.
“Braya,” he said, turning to her and handing her the hilt of his sword. “Protect your mother. Your brother has already left the great hall and I do not see your father.”
“Where are you going?” she said, grasping his arms. “You have no weapon.” She wasn’t about to let him go outside without a sword.
“I will get one. I must go have a look and see what we are up against. Stay here. I will come back for you.”
He wanted to kiss her but the bastard Bennett was still here, barking out orders.
“Go, Braya,” he urged. “Keep Millie with you as well. Aye?”
She nodded and he broke away, then ran out of the great hall. Had they breached the outer wall? How many were there? He hoped they weren’t Scots. Not yet. He wasn’t ready. Ready for what? To face her with the truth? To leave her? To die or…he saw Rob Adams on the way out of the keep. “What do you know?”
“Same as you,” Adams called out. Then, “You need a sword.” He pulled one away from where several were leaning against the wall by the door and tossed it to him.
Torin thanked him and pushed open the heavy wooden door. The first thing to hit him was the refreshingly cool air. The second was the sound of the guards shouting questions and commands. Too many voices, not enough direction. He didn’t concern himself with it. Not yet. Not if it was his men out there.
Sheathing his borrowed blade, he began running for the battlement stairs.
When he reached them, he took them two and three at a time and pulled a bow and a quiver full of arrows from where they hung on the wall. He knelt along the crenelated wall and realized there were six guards behind him, following him. He motioned them forward and to get ready to shoot. If the Scots were here early, he would kill the six and go on to kill as many more guards as he could. If they were Armstrongs, he would let them fight for a bit and take out some guards. Less for him to worry about later. He nocked his arrow and looked over the side. Armstrongs, dressed in breeches, jacks, and steel bonnets lined the hill just outside the outer wall.
He fired his arrow and hit an Armstrong on the other side. He fired two more and brought down two more men before he heard Bennett shouting in a clear voice below.
“To the walls! To the walls! They surround the castle!”
Torin’s heart sank. The east wall! No one ever watched it! He didn’t want to fight them yet, but if they were allowed to breach the wall, they could get to the keep…and Braya was in the keep. He raced down the stairs and almost ran Bennett down in an effort to get to Avalon. “Get your horse!” he told him. “Gather some of the men and meet me at the east wall!”
He didn’t wait for a reply or for the warden to catch up but ran to the stable. Avalon rose up on her hind legs and pawed the air when she saw him. He released her and without bothering with a saddle, leaped upon her back and thundered out of the stable, clutching her snowy mane.
When he reached the east outer wall, he found Rob Adams alone and holding off at least fifteen men. Four were dead or close to it on the ground around him. Torin didn’t dismount since some of the reivers were mounted, arriving inside the curtain wall by way of the unguarded gate.
It was as if the reivers knew about the east wall and the gate. Torin hadn’t been here long enough to know if the Armstrongs were aware of the unmanned wall. But he was certain they could know nothing about the celebration tonight that would surely see almost all the castle guards in the keep and not on the walls. There was a traitor somewhere in the castle.
He didn’t trouble himself about it now but ripped his sword free and rushed Avalon into the oncoming swarm of reivers. She moved with him, a warhorse made of pure muscle and fire, guided by the power of his thighs.
He swiped his blade across the throat of one man and blood splattered across his face like war paint. He hacked at the chest of another while keeping Avalon at a charging pace. He didn’t slow or hesitate but cut down two more, felling them from their horses with one deadly swipe. A large, hairy brute bore down on him, lifting his axe, ready to remove Torin’s left arm. But Torin moved with the skill of an efficient killer, slipping slightly to the right with Avalon beneath him. At the same time, he brought his right arm up and around and swung his sword, removing the brute’s head from his shoulders.
He took down three more Armstrongs with masterful ease and morose satisfaction. He wasn’t here to kill reivers and protect the English, but every rider who approached met either flying, feathered arrows, deadly hooves, or huge chomping teeth before they got close to Torin, and when they did get close, they died.
But Avalon could not keep away five horses at once, in every direction…and Torin was having a hard time fighting off their riders. One stabbed at him from his left rear flank while another rider galloped in from the right and swiped his blade across Torin’s throat. He leaned back almost flat on Avalon’s back, avoiding them both.
But there was another sword coming from the right. It came down but was stopped inches from Torin’s shoulder with a clang from a blocking blade that sent sparks scattering.
Rob Adams brought his sword around and killed the man in his saddle.
Torin smiled at him. Adams nodded and then they both continued fighting.
One of the Armstrongs could have killed him and it fired up Torin’s anger well enough to hack the limbs from two more men before noticing a figure standing high upon the keep battlements. Braya. Her hair waved like a pennant behind her. She was watching him. Something leaped in his heart…or his belly. He couldn’t tell which.
She turned suddenly to look behind her, as if someone had called her name. He watched in horror as she lifted his sword and disappeared beyond the wall.
The Armstrongs had breached the keep! How many were in? All at once, it felt as if he were falling back in time…when he found Florie, when he watched his father die and his house burn down with his family in it.
