“Come.” Someone touched her arm. Finlay. “We canna tarry here.”
The screams behind them grew louder. Nay, they could not tarry.
After that, they walked. The rain had mostly stopped, but the world was a sodden place without refuge. Night came on, which, as Finlay said, speaking softly and steadily into her ear, was a good thing. It would lend them cover.
They needed it indeed, for the English army, the knights for the main part, were in hard pursuit. Katrin had heard—and seen—them riding down any number of her countrymen. So far, her little group had escaped notice, but she knew it could only be a matter of chance, and not a good chance. They walked a narrow blade of danger.
Please,she beseeched every power she knew, in her mind. Though she did not know precisely what she requested. Justplease.
Her two stout bearers tired and often had to lower Da to the ground. Whenever they heard the sound of horses coming behind they all dropped and cowered flat in the bronze heather, Katrin throwing herself over Da’s body.
He did not regain consciousness, not once, and blood soaked her makeshift bandage. They dared not stop to care for him.
She did not know what she would have done without Finlay’s voice in her ear, soft and steady, lending reassurance. Without his hand at her elbow when she faltered. Without the sheer strength of his presence as they moved off into the unknown darkness of the night.
And then—
And then.
She should have known they could not escape notice forever. They moved so slowly with their burden that many had outstripped them. Most of the English knights had fallen away, but now, just at nightfall, squads of soldiers came hunting, their orders no doubt to find and kill any Scots stragglers. Screams behind them increased in number. Always distant enough.
Then not distant.
A hoot, a cry like a hound sighting its prey.
They had been seen.
The English soldiers howled after them, and somehow Katrin’s stunned mind managed to count them. Five. Aye, so, they themselves were four strong if Rabbie and Davey laid their burden on the ground. All exhausted. Spent.
They would not leave this patch of ground, this piece of English moor, alive.
She drew her sword and turned with the litter and its two bearers at her back. Instinct made her do so, and determination. She would die here, aye. Far, far from her home. Perhaps that had always been meant—she, the warrior.
With a hard shove, Finlay bumped her aside. He too drew his sword, moving not at all like a harper but like a man who set himself to fight.
For her.
“Nay!” she cried.
It came from the heart, that cry. From the soul. From a place so ancient she could no longer remember it.
“I will hold them,” Finlay told her. “Go.Go.”
“Nay.” She could not. She would not.
“Yer da needs ye. Yer clan needs ye. Go.”
“I needye!” she wailed. The soldiers already bore down on them, rushing in. She swiped at one, and he leaped back. Finlay engaged another, a man with an already-bloodied head and a terrible smile on his face. Finlay, not like a harper at all but a—
“Katrin!”
Her da’s voice calling to her. He’d come awake and reached for her through the falling gloom, reached with one hand and with his eyes.
“Go!” Finlay shouted at her again, and threw himself into the fray.
Threw himself to the wolves.
Weeping, she went.
