Yet she screamed when the battering ram exploded through what was left of the gates, which startled her steed into a gallop, the reins tugged from her hands.
A gallop straight for the charred opening where Irishmen, roaring battle cries and brandishing their swords, pushed aside the battering ram and clambered inside.
“Aislinn!” Cameron could see she had lost all control of her mount, and he spurred his horse after her, his heart hammering.
He had never known fear in the face of danger, but Cameron felt it now.
Not for himself but for the woman he loved, as her horse jumped over smoldering debris and disappeared into the bailey, the hem of her cloak catching fire.
Catching fire!
Chapter 14
Aislinn clutched the stallion’s dark mane and held on for dear life, dense smoke stinging her eyes—ah, God, was that her cloak on fire?
Neighing wildly, the stallion dug in his hooves and stopped so suddenly in the bailey filled with men fighting, men shouting, men dying, that Aislinn was pitched onto the ground.
She lay there for a moment, stunned, but then began to roll in the dirt to put out the flames even as an English soldier collapsed beside her—almost nose to nose.
Dead. His conical helmet split open and his lifeless hand still clutching a sword that had been meant for her, Cameron pulling her to her feet.
“Stay behind me!”
She did, so startled—and grateful—he’d caught up with her and saved her life again, that her hand shook as she reached for her own sword, the wild melee of battle surging around them.
Yet no sooner was the gleaming weapon in her hand, but Cameron fended off another death blow as three English soldiers came at them all at once.
She would have died right there if not for the deadly sweep of his sword that cut down their attackers like a scythe through harvest wheat.
Why had she ever thought she could fight like a warrior?
Aye, sparring with Finnegan had been one thing—but this terrible cacophony of death screams and the sickening sight of severed flesh and bone made her swear to herself that she would never entertain such foolhardy illusions again.
“Move over there behind those barrels, Aislinn!”
She scurried to obey Cameron’s command, but then stopped as more English soldiers spilled from the entrance to the keep as if terrified rats trying to escape a burning ship.
Flames had sped up the walls from shutter to shutter to alight the wooden roof, which glowed against the night sky like a great flickering torch.
The Irishmen met their disoriented and outnumbered enemy head on, swords clashing upon shields as wounded and dying men fell to the ground in a heap.
Cameron grabbed her arm and tried to run with her to the barrels where they might have some cover—only for Aislinn to resist him as Clive MacGodfrey stumbled out of the keep, coughing from the dense smoke.
“Cameron, that’s him—my cousin!”
Such fury filled her that she wrenched herself free and ran toward him, Aislinn pushing Clive with all her strength against the wall and pressing her sword to his throat.
“Where is my father? My brother! Tell me or I’ll kill you this very moment!”
His pudgy face gone white, Clive stared at her as if seeing a ghost while Cameron rushed up behind her, his sword stained with fresh blood.
“By God, woman,dinna run off like that again!”
Aislinn couldn’t say if the fearsome look on Cameron’s face or her blade already piercing Clive’s flesh swayed the man, but he gestured to the entrance he’d just escaped from as glowing sparks rained down upon them.
“The dungeon beneath the keep! Yet your father is near death—you canna save him!”
Such swamping relief had filled Aislinn, only to become horror at Clive’s pronouncement, that she almost cut his throat. Only Cameron’s strong hand covering her grip on the hilt stopped her, his voice low and urgent in her ear.
