Just beside him, one of Duncan’s men screamed and fell to the floor. Duncan’s body shook as he gripped his hilt with both hands. He’d managed to swing his blade, but it whooshed across empty air. Something whistled just in front of him an instant later and another guard crumbled to his knees, clutching the fatal gash across his belly.
Ten breaths had passed while Duncan stood alone in the paralyzing silence of his father’s dungeon. Someone whimpered. A lass’s voice. Duncan’s eyes darted to the eastern wall, knowing who it had to be. Still, he staggered backward when he saw that MacGregor was gone, and with him the chains that had held him. Young Margaret MacGregor’s confines lay crushed on the ground in a heap of twisted steel.
Impossible—Duncan remembered thinking—until the murderer stood before him.
“Fer now, ye will live to tell yer faither I will return fer him.”
Duncan took another swing at him, determined not to die cowering at a prisoner’s feet. His blade was met in midair by a crushing blow that sent fire up his arm. MacGregor’s sword ground against his until the tip was only inches from his eye.
Strewn over her brother’s shoulder, Margaret MacGregor cried out, halting the blade’s deadly course.
“Dinna force yer death. It will come soon enough,” MacGregor had promised him before he fled, taking his sister with him and vanishing into the mists.
Duncan wished the bastard had killed him instead of leaving him to face his father. It was the first time Liam Campbell had ever struck his son. Would that he had never stopped. It would have been more merciful than the contempt hardening his father’s eyes from that day hence.
Duncan surveyed the gruesome scene around him now. The Devil had finally returned to Inverary, and with the same fury. A sound from beyond the western curtain wall startled him. He spun on his heel, his sword at the ready to send the MacGregor straight back to hell this time.
He waited, hearing naught again but the wind. He inched forward toward the heavy portcullis that led to the inner bailey, drawing up his nerves to face his most formidable enemy once again.
Instead, he came upon his nephew, tied securely with rope, to the half-raised thick iron gate.
Robert Campbell stared down at his uncle and felt a tight knot rise in his throat. His great relief at being rescued vanished from his eyes as he noted the absence of any man at mount beside his returning uncle. The knot thickened, threatening to suffocate him if the strip of plaid tied over his mouth was not removed posthaste!
It took far too long for the earl to lower the gate and cut the cloth away from his face. “Where’s Kate?” Robert erupted.
Duncan did not answer him right away but looked around the deserted grounds, then continued cutting the rest of him loose. “Did he kill everyone, then?”
“Nae, anyone who did not lift a weapon was put in the dungeon,” Robert told him quickly. “They need be released. But first, Uncle, where is my sister? Why does she not ride with you?” Panic and nausea vied for his attention. Robert refused them both. The moment one hand was free, he used it to grip his uncle’s doublet. “Give me your reply!”
Eyes of forged steel finally fastened on his, narrowing slightly and stilling any further movement from Robert, despite his freedom. “Why do you fear for her so, Robert? You do not even consider that I might have left her unharmed in the care of my guardsmen in Glen Orchy?”
Robert had spent days helplessly secured to a wrought-iron gate, praying for an act of God to free him so he could save his sister. He prayed now again that it was not too late.
“Because the men you took with you to Glen Orchy are all dead, as these men are. I beg you tell me my sister is not among them.”
Now Duncan gripped his nephew’s tunic and yanked him closer. “How do you know the others are dead? It was the MacGregor, was it not? And you told him where to find me.” His eyes seared into Robert’s. “You chose to give them my life in exchange for yours,” he accused, then pushed his nephew away. “Here you are alive and well while your sister is their captive. You are a coward, Robert.” He nodded at his own words while Robert went pale. “Your grandfather would toss you from Kildun.”
“I did not tell them where to find you,” Robert flung at him before turning for the stable. “You did.”
“I?” Duncan stormed after him and stopped him by closing his fingers around Robert’s wrist. “I told no one but you where I was going!”
“And Graham Campbell,” his nephew informed him. “Or rather, Graham Grant, commander of the Devil MacGregor’s men. Aye, they made certain I knew whose eyes I was staring into ten breaths after we were led past the gates by the traitor that you took in as your kin after I arrived here.”
“Nae.” Duncan reeled back, stunned. He shook his head, refusing to believe he had been so easily fooled. “Graham Campbell drank with me, sat at my table.”
“And with me,” Robert agreed, his voice trembling with fury at the man he had come to think of as his friend. “He deceived us all. He led us outside the protection of the castle on the pretense that a band of MacGregors, led by the Devil himself, had captured you and were holding you just beyond Loch Awe. He led us directly into the swords of our enemies, at least two hundred strong.” Robert’s gaze swept over the bodies around him. Bodies he had been left to stare at for days. “We did not stand a chance against the wave of destruction which came upon us. Quickly our men were slain. Without mercy or pause were their bodies torn asunder and trampled.” He returned his gaze to his uncle, checking back the emotion in his voice. “The Devil and his men came here to kill you, but you were gone. Grant told him you were in Glen Orchy. They were on their way there when they left.”
“And they left you alive.” Duncan’s tone dripped with the accusation of betrayal.
“The fighting was over. My sword had been wrested from my hands. After the MacGregor instructed the bulk of his men to take your cattle to his holding, he ordered Grant to hang me, charging you with doing the same to his kinsmen.”
“And hang you he did.” Duncan smiled dryly. “But MacGregor let you live. You were fortunate. When the Devil strikes, he leaves no Campbell alive.”
Robert’s eyes narrowed on his uncle. “How then did you escape him?”
Duncan lifted his shoulders in a hesitant shrug, but he looked away from his nephew when he spoke. “I had gone for a morning ride after helping your sister with her swordplay. When I returned, your father’s land looked much like this. Katherine was gone.”
“And Amish and John?” Robert asked, drawing both hands down his face in an effort to calm his frantic heart. “Were they killed, as well?”
