Annie and Niall were halfway to the horses when two men slipped into the alley, blocking their path. She saw two silver flashes as Niall’s knives hurled through the air and found their marks. Both men dropped. Annie froze at the sight of blood gushing from the wounds.
“Nae now, lass.” Niall turned her with a gentle push. “Get to the horses. I’m going to retrieve my blades.”
He had just sheathed them and turned around when three more men came into the alley and jumped him. Dropping her portmanteau, Annie mounted her mare and took the reins of Niall’s gelding. The sounds of fists thudding against bones and flesh amid grunts and groans was sickening. From the tangle of men—three down and two still fighting Niall—she could not tell who was winning. But she had to do something.
Remembering Niall had compared her to Boudicca, she pulled down her cap and let out what she hoped was a war cry, charging toward them with the horses.
Chapter Fifteen
At the sound of horses’ hooves pounding in the narrow alley, the men looked up momentarily, giving Niall the seconds he needed to land a fist in one man’s face and cause him to fall back on the other. They both staggered. Annie looked like a wild barbarian bearing down on them and Niall hoped she had control of the horses. He stepped to one side and then grabbed the saddle, feeling a searing, sharp pain to his thigh as he vaulted onto his horse.
More men came running around the corner of the boardinghouse. Although his sword hung from his saddle, he didn’t draw it, since fighting in such close quarters would be useless. They needed to get away.
The alley finally opened onto a street. Men were already pouring into the street, no doubt alerted by the noise of the horses. Annie looked back, inadvertently pulling her reins, and her mare slowed.
“Go!” Niall yelled. If the men closed in on them, Annie would be pulled down. That she was a woman wouldn’t matter in their current crazed state. He’d seen mob mentality before. It was akin to the feeding frenzy of sharks when the fishermen threw chum back into the water. “Go!” he shouted again as a rock came flying way too close to their heads. “Go!”
Annie’s eyes widened as she evidently understood the danger. She kicked her horse’s flanks, leaning low as another rock came hurtling by. A third rock hit Niall’s shoulder, but he ignored it as he did the slash from the knife to his thigh when he’d mounted. Red stained his breeches, but at least it wasn’t flowing freely. Tending it would have to wait.
They thundered down Argyle Street, causing carriages to swerve and the drivers to swear at them, then on to Trongate and past the Tolbooth, scattering pedestrians along the way. Itwasn’t until they veered onto Gallowgate on the way out of town that Niall finally called to Annie to slow down.
“Are we clear?” she asked as he came alongside, keeping them to a trot.
“Nae yet,” Niall answered, “but I doona risk injury to the horses by galloping further on cobblestone. Besides, the ruckus we raise will leave a trail for any who are following us.”
Annie’s eyes widened again. “Do ye think they will?”
“I doona ken. The men were all on foot, which means they’d have to get to mounts. But I doubt any heads will cool so soon.” Niall gave a quick glance behind him to the presently quiet road. “We may have a quarter hour’s lead on them.”
“Where will we go?” Annie asked.
“For now, we just need to get into the country where we can hide.”
“And then?”
“And then, we head north,” Niall answered.
“How far north? Will I be safe? I doona feel—”
“Doona fash. I am taking ye where ye will be safe.”
Annie looked unconvinced. “And where is that?”
“Arisaig,” Niall replied. “My home.”
****
The gloaming had settled in by the time Niall finally called a halt to their travel for the day. The horses were tired and had taken to plodding along. Annie was exhausted from the hours of riding, and she thought Niall was looking a little peaked too. The empty shepherd’s shack he chosen to stop at didn’t look like it would offer many creature comforts, but at the moment, Annie didn’t care. Even a bed on rock-hard ground would feel good after hours spent in the saddle.
“’Tis nae an inn,” Niall said as he helped her down, “but ’tis dry shelter and there is a burn nearby for water.”
“I doona need an inn, but I wish I had nae dropped my portmanteau. My mother had put bread and cheese in it.”
“Doona fash,” Niall replied, “Shepherds oft leave supplies for the next one to use.”
“I will go in and check.”
Niall nodded. “I will tend to the horses and bring some water.”
