More screams rent the air, Tira glancing over her shoulder as bright orange flames shot up from one side of the settlement, the attackers setting the cottages afire.
In the distance she saw three massive birlinns beached along the shoreline and dark shapes surrounding the settlement, their swords flashing in the firelight. Yet it was their shouts in a familiar accent she hadn’t heard since November that made her knees suddenly grow weak—God help her,Highlanders!
“Pick her up and carry her!” came Brinda’s shrill voice, Tira gasping as one of the guards hoisted her into his arms.
His grunts of exertion fanning her cheek as Tira struggled against him, though a sharp slap across her face from Brinda made her grow still, sobbing.
“So your clansmen have come at last tae rescue you, lass, but they willna find you! Thorgren charged us with your care, your protection, and he will kill us if we fail him. Go on, men, faster!”
As if with one body, the guards and Brinda surged up the hill, Tira’s head bumping against her captor’s shoulder while what sounded like utter mayhem exploded behind them.
More men shouting and flames crackling, and the screams—ah, God, what did it matter if Tira lent her own to those pleading desperately for their lives? She doubted anyone would hear her above the melee, but if there was even a chance…
Tira drew in a great breath and shrieked with all the strength she possessed, even as Brinda yanked her hair so fiercely, Tira was certain a handful came out by the roots.
Her scalp stinging, another slap silenced her and Tira tasted blood, her lower lip swelling painfully from the blow.
Not Brinda this time to strike her, but one of the guards who swore vehemently at Tira and lifted his hand to hit her again—only for a wild roar not far behind them making the raider who held her to dump her onto the ground.
So jarring a drop that Tira felt pain ripple across her belly and she cried out, only for Brinda to crouch down beside her and clap a hand over her mouth.
“Silence! Mayhap they willna see us if we lie still—och, too late! Look what you’ve done, lass,look what you’ve done!”
Tira did look, scarcely able to breathe for Brinda’s hand pressed so tightly over her nose and mouth while the four guards encircled them, facing outward and their swords raised.
Their defensive stance and defiant war cries bursting from their throats no match for the thunderous shouting coming toward them, a host of strapping Highlanders racing up the hill.
Still Brinda kept her hand firmly pressed against Tira’s face as the ringing clash of swords filled the air, the raiders struckdown one by one by overwhelming force—ah, God, she couldn’t breathe!
“Your clansmen willna have you, lass, Thorgren made me swear tae kill you first!”
Brinda’s terrifying words ringing in her ears, Tira scratched desperately at the woman’s fingers as she felt blackness overwhelming her, her lungs screaming for air.
The last guard falling dead at her feet while the flash of a sword seemed to sweep right above her head, Brinda’s limp hand falling away from Tira’s mouth as the woman slumped dead against her.
The warm sensation of blood gushing onto her cloak made Tira scream in horror, someone bending over her to lift her from the ground.
Not roughly, but so gently that she fell silent, still gasping for breath, and stared almost uncomprehending at Errol’s face lit by the soaring flames over the village…ah, God, could it be?
The shock so great, her heart pounding so fiercely that everything seemed to grow dim around her and her body went limp, Errol’s stricken voice receding into darkness.
“Tira…Tira!”
CHAPTER 4
“Och, Sutherland, she’s great with child!”
Errol nodded at Gavin, so stunned to see Tira in her condition that he had no words with which to speak. The woman he loved no more than skin and bones and a swollen stomach as her head hung limply, her long hair draped over his arm.
“Take her tae the ship! We’ll soon be finished here.”
Grateful for Gavin’s command, Errol made himself move though his legs felt wooden, his heart pounding against his chest.
Why had he never thought that her long captivity might have bred a bairn? Thorgren’s bairn, no doubt! Such hatred filled him at the memory of that fur-laden bed that his hands clenched in Tira’s blood-soaked cloak, squeezing her against him. He gasped when she moaned so piteously, but still she lay unconscious in his arms…for which he was grateful at that moment.
With the settlement ablaze and Gavin’s men striking down raiders attempting to escape in every direction, Errol wouldn’t have wanted her to witness such slaughter after suffering near death herself.
He had seen that Orkney woman’s hand pressed over Tira’s nose and mouth and guessed she intended to kill her, whichThorgren must surely have decreed—bastard! A few seconds more and Tira would have been lost to him after finally managing to rescue her, though mayhap death still beckoned to her.
