Page 48

Chapter Twelve

Gavan drove his horse forward before the next attackers had fully cleared the trees. The stallion thundered across the churned earth as steel rang sharply through the clearing, the cold air thick with shouts, snapping branches, and the restless panic of horses.

The men pouring from the forest had expected fear. He saw it instantly in the reckless confidence of their charge, in the way they pressed towards the smaller Munro escort as though sheer numbers would scatter them quickly. Instead, they collided with disciplined resistance and Highland fury.

A Munro warrior struck the first attacker hard enough to send him tumbling from the saddle before horse and rider vanished into the chaos. Nearby, another clansman drove his opponent backward with a brutal sweep of his sword, forcing the man to crumple into the mud beneath the trees.

Gavan barely registered it. His attention kept pulling unwillingly towards Sorcha.

She remained near the centre of the formation where he had ordered her kept, though fear had drained the warmth from her face. One attacker forced through the melee anyway, his horse lunging towards her while his blade rose through the confusion.

Gavan intercepted him a heartbeat before the strike landed. Steel crashed hard enough to jar his shoulder as he turned the blow aside. The attacker fought fiercely but without discipline, striking too fast, too wildly. Gavan drove him backward with two sharp strokes before the man lost his balance and fell heavily from the saddle.

Another rider surged towards them immediately. Gavan wheeled sharply, his stallion slamming into the other horse hard enough to throw both animals sideways. A Munro guard seized the opening and pulled the attacker down before he could recover.

The clearing dissolved fully into chaos. Horses screamed. Men shouted warnings through the clash of steel beneath the bare black branches overhead. Mud churned beneath pounding hooves while snow scattered in dirty sprays across the ground.

Yet even through the violence, Gavan sensed the shift beginning.

The attackers had expected frightened prey. A small escort. Perhaps hesitation from men unwilling to kill on uncertain roads. Instead, they had ridden directly into seasoned Highland warriors protecting one of their own. Now they were beginning to understand the cost of that mistake.

Gavan saw uncertainty spread through them as more of their men fell or were driven back. Riders glanced towards the edge of the clearing where wounded companions struggled to rise. Momentum fractured beneath the realisation that this ambush would not end swiftly or cleanly.

“Drive them back!” Gavan roared.

The Munros surged forward immediately.

Colin Bayn cut one rider from the saddle before turning his horse into another hard enough to scatter the men nearest him. Nearby, an attacker stumbled towards the trees, clutching his side, while two others abandoned the fight entirely and disappeared into the darkening forest.

The remaining riders broke soon after.

Not in panic, but in retreat sharp enough to reveal the truth of the attack. These men had not come prepared for open battle. They had wanted speed. Surprise. Vulnerability. Instead, they had found resistance fierce enough to make the risk no longer worth taking.

“After them?” Colin asked, his breathing laboured.

“Nay.” Gavan’s voice cut sharply through the clearing. His gaze swept immediately towards the forest beyond. “Hold formation.”

A deeper trap might still wait among the trees. Men clever enough to stage one ambush were clever enough to use retreat to pull defenders away from their true target. And Gavan already knew who that target was.

The surviving attackers vanished quickly into the shadows beneath the pines, leaving behind overturned tracks, discarded weapons, and several wounded men groaning faintly in the snow and mud.

Silence settled unevenly afterward, broken only by harsh breathing and the restless stamping of horses. Gavan lowered his sword at last before turning towards Sorcha.

She held herself unnaturally still in the saddle, the dagger clenched in one hand, her chest rising and falling with quick, shallow breaths. Mud streaked the hem of her gown, and loose strands of hair clung damply to her pale face, but she remained upright. Unbroken.

Relief struck him with dangerous force. He mastered it immediately. Still, as he looked towards the wounded men left behind in the clearing, cold certainty settled deeper into his bones.

This had not been random violence. Nor simple theft.

Someone had wanted to reach Sorcha badly enough to spill blood trying to take her.

*

Gavan did not move for a long moment. Every line of his body remained taut as his gaze swept the woods. Only after searching the shadows one final time did he lower his sword. As he did, a tight breath escaped him, too quiet for anyone but her to notice.

Pain.

She slid from her horse before she could think better of it. “You are hurt.”