“Here we are!” Magret appeared back through the doorway with tea in her hands for the two of them.
Laura looked between the two of them as they began to chatter at leisure, unsure what to think. Before her, she now seemed to have two friends. Two people who knew something of her plight and were keen to help her. Whilst she was thankful for their kindness, she couldn’t help shifting in her seat and constantly looking out of the window.
Her best friend was riding far away into battle.
Please live through this, Erskine.
* * *
“In the name of all that is high and mighty,” Erskine cursed as the sight of the first village came into view. The houses were on fire. Even at this distance, he could see the villagers running, some trying to escape the flames, others fleeing actual people: the brigands.
“My god,” Tam said from beside him on his own horse. “We should have been here sooner.”
“Aye,” Camden’s voice came from on Erskine’s other side. “There will be many dead by now.”
“This is nae good,” Aiden’s voice came last, from behind them where the rest of the soldiers stood waiting for orders.
“Then we save as many as we can now,” Erskine said to his friends around him before drawing his horse forward, standing in front of the soldiers so he could face them all. “Save those ye can! Ye find a brigand, ye arrest him. They will be taken back to Fort Contin for trial. If it comes to it, their life or yer own, ye take it. Aye?”
“Aye!” The soldiers roared in time.
“Now!” At Erskine’s bellow, the soldiers pulled forward, directing their horses at the village. Erskine went too, pulling hard on the reins of his horse, determined to do what he could.
This is me faither’s clan, me faither’s people. I willnae let them be harmed by bloodthirsty and greedy men.
* * *
What was clear as the night went on and the early hours of the morning light began to bleed the sky through the thick smoke was that this was not a lone attack. Erskine could spot the signs. It was too coordinated, far from just a one-off raid, and the brigands had mostly left, leaving just a few behind.
There will be more attacks than just these two villages.
The fires that ripped through the village and the thatched cottages could not be put out. Instead, Camden and Aiden concentrated their efforts on stopping the fire before it could spread any further, cutting down the roofs of two houses to prevent them from spreading the flames to the next streets.
Erskine and Tam had battled with two of the brigands themselves, escaping with just cuts and bruises. It had not taken long to get the upper hand in their fights. Soon, Tam was tying the hands of both beaten brigands to a long rope attached to the back of a saddle. The brigands would be forced to walk the way back to the town before their trials.
The hardest thing had been trying to save people from the fire that lasted for hours.
At one point, Erskine stood by a burning house, watching as the shadows of a woman beyond the window moved about, arms flailing with fear. Beside Erskine was a young man, screaming at the house, calling the woman’s name.
“She cannae be in there, she cannae be!” the man was calling in desperation. He leaped toward the door, clearly determined to go in, but Erskine pulled him back. “Nay! Let me go! I must get to her!”
“I’ll go!” Erskine pushed him back. These simple words caught the man’s attention. “Ye are injured,” Erskine pointed out the blood on the man’s shoulder. “Ye must stay here. I will find her. I give ye me word.”
The man nodded, agreeing to stay there, just before Erskine took off his jacket. He dumped it into one of the nearby pales of water and then threw it over his head and arms, using it as a shield before heading to the door. The wood was too hot to be opened by a bare hand, so Erskine kicked it open.
Inside, the heat was unlike anything Erskine had known before. He took a deep breath and hurried in, trying his best not to inhale the smoke. The flames were licking at the wooden walls as though they were fingers from demons released from hell, clawing at the house and trying to drag it back down with them to the fiery pits.
Erskine held the coat closer over his head and arms, darting his head back and forth as he moved to the room where he had seen the shadow moving about. In the room, for a minute, he could see no one, just the flames trying to reach him across the room. He was about to give up, to try another room, when he caught sight of movement.
His gaze flicked toward someone on the floor. It was a young woman, half-fallen, coughing. Her hands were on the windowsill above her, as though she had been trying to use it to make her escape.
Seeing the small woman so crumpled, Erskine had a horrible vision: a fear of seeing Laura in exactly the same position, her blue eyes wide, her full lips parted as she coughed, her skin stained black from the soot of the fire.
Nay! Nay more die here today.
He jumped toward her and wrapped the wet coat around her. She looked startled, turning to him, still coughing. She couldn’t stand. Her body was clearly too weak. Erskine picked her up easily enough, carrying her with one arm under her back and another under her knees, then he ran from the building, feeling as though the flames were chasing him with each fast step.
He could see the alternative in his mind’s eye, where he was trying to carry Laura out of this fate.
