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He had to trust they could hold their own ground.

Darach cut his gaze forward once more, up the road, past the sea of bobbing heads and flashing blades—past where standards bearing the Braewall stag listed—back to where his brother looked on atop his stallion.

Niall’s face was tight, focused.

Now and again, he shouted instructions, for he could command easily from where he sat.

You think you’re safe there. Darach pushed forward, bringing up his broadsword to ward off a heavy blow. But you aren’t.

But even as he focused on cutting through the throng to reach his brother, he marked a change in the warriors surging forward. The Circines warriors’ eyes didn’t merely glow now; they shone like lamps. Their tattoos stood out like glowing silver snakes upon their skin.

Someone crashed into his back then. He staggered, barely keeping his footing before a sword flashed where his head had been.

A blade skimmed across his shoulder, white-hot agony following.

Warm blood flowed down his arm, but he deliberately didn’t look at the wound.

There was no time for that. He needed to get through this press.

It was even harder now though, for Niall’s army boiled around him, choking the road.

Darach met them, jaw locked, blade swinging. The clash of iron became a deafening roar, until he could barely tell one blow from the next.

And then his muscles started to twitch.

Burning heat shot up and down his limbs.

The clag-doo was fighting to get out.

It knew what needed to be done. It knew that there was no way he’d be able to get through this maddened horde to his brother. Not unless he unleashed it.

No.

Darach fought on, trying to deny the inevitable.

It took Ailsa a while to notice just how badly things were going.

Understanding only dawned when she found herself fighting back-to-back with Kayla, surrounded. As the battle had progressed, her mentor had moved away from the other sacrificers, even as she continued to chant, and the two of them had found each other.

They were a little too close to the marsh for her liking, and she edged the pair of them south, just as one of Lara’s warriors sent his opponent sprawling headfirst into the water-filled ditch at the roadside.

She’d been making good progress earlier, cutting a swathe through the press toward where Niall sat atop his horse, golden torc gleaming in the morning sun. Nothing else had mattered but getting to him.

But as the moments slid by, she’d slowed. The Circines choked the way forward, and they were harder to push aside than she’d thought.

Cutting her gaze right then, she scanned faces. She couldn’t see Darach anymore.

Cailean’s enforcers had been twenty paces ahead only moments earlier. Now they were gone.

Everywhere she looked were unfamiliar faces.

Only then did she realize she and Kayla were being driven backward.

No! How would she kill Niall if she couldn’t reach him?

Next to her, Kayla’s breathing held a worrying wheeze, and she was starting to stagger. Her voice wavered now.

They’d both taken shallow cuts.