“I have… business to attend to,” she said. “I need some privacy.”
He knew what she meant. Overhead, they could hear Neart screeching and Devlin let out a piercing whistle between his teeth, lifting his arm for the bird to zero in on. Only when he was sure the bird was heading in his direction did he turn to Emllyn.
“There is a copse of trees over to the east,” he pointed to a group of saplings sprouting from the side of a rocky hill. “Go there but no further.”
Emllyn looked at the rather sparse trees. “There is not much privacy there.”
“That is your only choice. Take care of your business and be done with it. We must continue on.”
Giving him an expression of extremely disapproval, she nonetheless dutifully trudged off in the direction of the trees. Devlin’s gaze lingered on her as she moved, distracted only when the bird settled on his arm. Still, his gaze returned to Emllyn as she slugged up the hill towards the trees. Having ridden all morning with her pressed against his back, he was not hard pressed to admit he had liked it. He felt oddly settled and content with her against him, like he’d never felt in his life.
Since he had met her, each hour of the day was bringing him feelings and thoughts he had never believed himself capable of. Each minute was a new discovery and it had occurred to him sometime during the morning that he had ceased to view her as a prisoner and now viewed her as something else. He wasn’t entirely sure what; a possession perhaps or something more,something companionable. All he knew was that she didn’t seem like his prisoner any longer.
She was something else.
As Emllyn reached the group of trees and faded into them, he returned his attention to Neart. The heavy bird on Devlin’s arm began to fuss and he began to dig around in his saddle bags for some jerky for the animal. Neart ate rodents and other small creatures but he was particularly fond of jerky. Just as Devlin laid his hands on a bit of food, the bird suddenly screeched and took off, launching itself into the sky and screaming as it usually did when danger was sighted.
In fact, Devlin’s men froze at the sound and looked to the sky. It was an instinct with them; Devlin always took the bird into battle and for very good reason– Neart’s bird of prey intuitions were never wrong. They had depended upon the animal’s cries at the start of their rebellion and even on the stormy night when Kildare’s fleet had come ashore, the bird had alerted them. He had eyes and ears and senses that no human being possessed, so as the bird cried overhead against the cloudy sky, the men instinctively went for their swords. Their first hint at danger wasn’t long in coming.
Oblivious to the screaming bird, Emllyn had just finished relieving herself in the grove of trees. As she lowered her skirts and came out of the foliage, she heard a noise behind her. Turning to see a group of men dressed in tartans approaching through the leaves, she let out a yelp of fear and bolted in Devlin’s direction. In her haste, however, she slipped on the muddy slope and fell flat on her face. Before she could get to her feet, someone grabbed her by the ankle and she screamed as loud as she could.
“Devlin!”
Devlin and his men saw her near the copse of trees, on her belly as men swarmed around her. Seized with fury and panic,Devlin leapt onto his horse, as did Iver and Shain, and made haste in Emllyn’s direction. His foot soldiers, thirty of them clad in stolen tartan from various clanns so de Bermingham men could not be identified to outside observers, ran after the knights on horseback. The scent of battle filled the air and the Irish breathed heavily of it; battles were commonplace and they were prepared. They fed on the rush and were prepared to kill.
Devlin reached Emllyn quickly, just as men were trying to drag her away by her feet. She was fighting them furiously, kicking heads and slapping hands as she was able. Devlin charged his horse right up to her and swung his sword at the nearest man, cleaving his head cleanly off at the shoulders. His head hit the ground right next to Emllyn; in fact, she looked over and next to her shoulder were a pair of sightless eyes gazing back at her. Screaming hysterically, she kicked a man holding her left foot right in the face and bolted to her feet.
A nasty fight was going on around her but the only thing she could see was Devlin’s hand reaching for her. Once, she would have recoiled from it but at the moment, it was safety. She grabbed hold of the extended hand and Devlin yanked her up onto his horse. Emllyn settled in behind him, threw her arms around his waist, and held on with a death grip.
With Emllyn safe, Devlin was better able to function. Odd how the moment he saw her being dragged away, his mind had clouded over and all he could see, think, or feel was Emllyn’s predicament. Nothing else at that moment mattered. Until she was safe, he could think of nothing else so now that she was tucked in behind him, he was capable of functioning.
Rage overtook him now. These men had tried to abduct Emllyn when she quite clearly belonged to him, so he reckoned to punish them just as he would have punished anyone else who had tried to take what belonged to him. Swords were swinging, as were clubs, and he buried his sword in two of the men whohad tried to take Emllyn from him. He had seen them; he never forgot a face and he had singled these men out to pay for their sins. They were all going to pay. Already, it was a bloodbath as Black Sword’s fury was unleashed. There were more than one headless body lying about.
Devlin’s first thought upon reclaiming Emllyn should have been to remove her from the fighting, but it was not. He felt that she was safe enough on the back of his horse that no one would try for her again, but he was wrong. As he sliced through one man’s shoulder, he felt Emllyn lurch behind him. Screaming, she began to slide away but he grabbed her hands, still wrapped around his waist, and realized at that moment that he should probably remove her. As long as she remained with him in battle, she was a target. Spurring his courser forward, he plowed through a gang of fighting men in order to flee to safety.
The horse thundered across the wet grass and towards the area where they had originally paused to rest. Eefha was still there, still sitting on her palfrey and puffing on her shite pipe. As Devlin pulled up beside her on his sweaty, bloodied horse, he was rather surprised when the old woman reached up to pull Emllyn off the steed. Usually she wouldn’t have bothered. But as Emllyn slid off the animal, Devlin could see why.
Emllyn had been wounded.
Her left leg and the bottom portion of her surcoat was stained with blood and she winced as Eefha helped her to the ground. Devlin forgot all about the battle going on several dozen yards away; he bailed off his horse and was at her side in a moment.
“Let me see how badly you’re wounded,” he said calmly, although his heart was racing with fear and adrenalin. “What happened?”
Both Eefha and Devlin lowered Emllyn to the ground. As she sat upon the wet grass, Devlin lifted her surcoat to get a look at the injury.
“Someone with a blade cut me,” she said, pain in her voice. “One of those men who tried to carry me away. I think they were aiming for you but when you turned the horse, they cut me instead.”
He looked at her as her words sank in.They were aiming for you. God, he had been so foolish not to have removed her from the battle immediately. Arrogance had kept him fighting, thinking of himself before he thought of her. Feeling horribly guilty, he returned his focus to her leg to see that she had been sliced cleanly just below the knee, a cut a couple of inches long. It wasn’t terribly bad but it was still bleeding a great deal.
“Eefha,” he said. “In my saddle bags there are medicaments and boiled linen. Will you please get it?”
Puffing on the pipe and creating a smelly cloud above Emllyn’s head, Eefha stood up and went to Devlin’s bags. Sticking her hands in, she began pulling forth bandages and other items. Handing them off to Devlin, she then went to her own bags and began rummaging around. Emllyn’s attention moved between the old woman’s busy movements and Devlin’s careful touch on her wound.
“She understood you,” she murmured. “I did not think she understood normal language.”
Devlin grinned weakly. “She understands more than she lets on,” he said. Then, he glanced at her, almost apologetically. “I must put a few stitches in this. It is fairly deep.”
Emllyn struggled against her fear; she wasn’t very good with pain and didn’t relish a needle to her flesh. But she swallowed bravely.
