Highlander Undone (Highland Bound Book 5) (22 page)

“Go back inside,” Logan’s voice was strained. “Please.”

“Grant!” MacDonald bellowed.

“Prepare for battle!” Logan answered, turning his attention back to MacDonald.

“Who are they?” MacDonald roared, his sword drawn and pointed at the lassies.

Ranulf leaned over and whispered to MacDonald once more.

Rory had been so intent on the men below he’d not taken notice of Moira peering over the side with Shona trying to yank her back.

“Get them down!” Rory yelled rushing forward, attempting to hide Shona and Moira with his body.

Ewan was right behind him.

“One of red and one of black, born at Ayreshire and swept back, lost forever the princesses of time, the last of the king’s most sacred line.” All fell silent as MacDonald repeated the nursery rhyme they’d heard since childhood. “So it is true.”

Rory met Moira’s gaze. “Inside. Now.”

She nodded, fear in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to see…”

“’Tis too dangerous. Please…”

All three of the women were rushed inside, guards flanking them.

“Rubbish,” Logan said. “Ye’re a fool to believe a childhood rhyme upon seeing two women.”

“There is magic here, Grant, and ye know it. I know it. Give them to me and ye can keep Rory.”

“Nay!” Ranulf shouted.

Logan bared his teeth. “Ye’ll be getting no one behind these walls.” He turned to his archers. “Ready your bows!”

“Shields!” MacDonald ordered.

The click of arrows being nocked, the stretch of bowstrings, and the scrape of shields being raised echoed in the deafening silence.

“I canna let ye do this!” Rory hissed. “Grant, please. He’s my son.”

“Your son sided with the enemy. An enemy who demands death. This has been a long time coming.” Logan grimaced, his eyes alive with fire. “MacDonald and I, we were born to wage war.”

MacDonald and his men began to retreat, their horses walking steadily backward. Rory prayed his son, as hateful and vengeful as he was, got the hell out of the way.

Logan ticked off numbers in his head, a countdown, tapping his fingers methodically on the stone.

“Fire!”

Arrows sang through the air, arching up to touch the clouds before sailing down toward the enemy.

Relief swept through Rory when most of the arrows sank into the ground, a few into shields, only a couple into the thighs and arms of the warriors below—and Ranulf was left uninjured.

MacDonald called for the men to retreat at the same time Logan shouted for his archers to reload.

“They’ll be back,” Logan growled.

Rory glowered at the laird, crossing his arms over his chest. “This can all be easily settled with me.”

“Nay, it canna. MacDonald wants power. All he needed was an excuse to come back here, and Ranulf gave him one. If he’s aligned himself with the regent then he is no doubt trying to convince the regent that he should be Guardian of Scotland and not myself.”

“Then MacDonald would have no need for Ranulf. He’s expendable.” Rory dragged a hand through his hair.

“An excuse.”

“Well, even if he is a bastard backstabber, the lad is my son, though I was never his father. I’ll not let him get himself killed by your enemy.”

“Your enemy, too, MacLeod,” Logan growled. “He’s come here for your woman under the pretense that she’s an Ayreshire princess.”

Rory seethed. “She is an Ayreshire.”

“But we dinna know for a certainty, if she’s actually one of them. Could all be a huge coincidence.”

“Dammit, Logan. Let me go and reason with Ranulf.” Rory clenched his fists at his sides.

Logan eyed him wearily. “Reasoning with him will not stop this battle from happening.”

“But it might just save his life.”

Logan held up his hands. “If ye want to get yourself killed, then by all means. Do so.”

Rory stormed passed Logan and down the stairs. He called for the dozen men he had to his name—men he wasn’t even certain would stand behind him when it came down to it—who mounted up behind him. The gates were opened just enough for them to file out. A dozen against fifty wasn’t good odds even with men as skilled as Rory, and especially not with these men.

“Rory!” The shout was from Moira from an upper window.

“I love ye, lass,” he whispered, a slight wave of his hand, hoping she would see his mouthed words.

“Wait,” Ewan called.

Rory stilled his horse only long enough to see that Ewan was joining him with two-dozen men.

“What are ye doing?” Rory asked.

“This ends now,” Ewan said.

“Nay.” Rory reined in his horse, cutting off Ewan’s progress. “Ye and your men are supposed to stay inside. To protect the castle and its treasure, just as ye always have.”

“Logan’s orders.” Ewan’s stare dared Rory to challenge him.

Logan appeared, then, on horseback, another two-dozen men behind him. “We stand together. We’re bound, whether we like it or not.” He grinned, showing Rory he wasn’t disappointed in the prospect.

Rory bowed briefly on his horse. “I pledged my allegiance to ye, not the other way around.”

“No need to bow to me, Laird MacLeod. We’ll call this the point at which we formed an official alliance between Clan Grant and Clan MacLeod.”

Rory held out his arm and Logan gripped it. “Agreed.”

They made formations on horseback outside of the gates. Logan allowed Rory to be first in line at his own request, followed by Logan and his men, and Ewan’s elite forces.

MacDonald had made his formations, too. The bastard sat at the back and was sending Ranulf out in the first.

“Dinna kill my son,” Rory said, the order passed back amongst the troops. “Knock him out if ye have to, but he is to be taken alive.”

Rory raised his sword in the air and issued a battle cry that shook the heavens. Ewan was right; this was going to end now. He was tired of hiding. Tired of running. He’d not be able to live out the rest of his days looking over his shoulder at an enemy vowing revenge. Nay, he’d look him straight in the eye—right now.

His sword sang through the air as he swished it down, giving the order to, “Attack!”

They charged on their horses, leaning over the withers, shields raised, swords steady. Beneath him, Rory’s borrowed mount moved with grace and power. He charged Ranulf, intent on being the one to take him prisoner. A split second later, he was clashing with one of the MacDonald men who intercepted, knocking his horse into Ranulf’s and shoving him aside. Ranulf looked ready to topple over but righted himself in time to attack one of what used to be his own men, while Rory engaged with the interferer.

The MacDonald warrior fought like a vicious bear, stabbing with a long, curved dagger and slicing with his sword, but Rory blocked each blow, though his attention wasn’t in it. He couldn’t stop watching his son to see if the men followed his orders not to kill him, for Ranulf was intent on carnage.

Rory dispatched of the MacDonald warrior, only to be attacked by another. He bent backward, dodging a hacking blow of an axe, only to feel the slice of some other blade in his shoulder. The wound stung, but it wouldn’t slow him down. Rory thundered his anger and brought his own sword arching down on the warrior, reaching back to stab another who tried to pounce on him.

Sweat dripped from his brow and he swiped it with the back of his arm, his already bruised face throbbing. He searched the sea of brutal warriors for his son. Ranulf was still holding his own, and though Rory shouldn’t have been impressed because that meant he was hurting Rory’s own men, a part of him was. He whirled his horse in his son’s direction.

“Ranulf! Ye’re mine!” he bellowed.

Ranulf flicked his gaze in Rory’s direction, an abrupt enough shift in his attention that the warrior he’d been fighting—one of Ewan’s men—was able to hit him on the temple with the hilt of his sword. Rory reached his side as Ranulf’s eyes slid into the back of his head and he slipped from the saddle.

“Good work,” Rory said to the man he’d been fighting. “Baodan?”

“Aye, my laird.”

“Take him back to the castle.” Rory maneuvered his son’s bulk to Baodan’s lap, and slapped the man’s horse on the rump, sending him in a gallop toward the gates.

The Grant and MacLeod men, seeing that Ranulf had been obtained, blocked the path of all the MacDonald men trying to get in the way.

Satisfied that his son would be safely behind walls, Rory searched out MacDonald, meeting Ewan and Logan in the center of the battlefield.

“There!” Rory shouted, pointing toward a lone figure racing across the moors.

“We canna let him get away,” Logan said.

“We end this,” Ewan declared.

Rory had a sudden flashback to years before, a similar scene. Nay. He couldn’t let them go, but they were already racing forward and if he didn’t join them, then he’d not be able to help them should MacDonald prove his treachery once more.

Several MacDonald warriors broke away from the melee in pursuit of their master, hot on the heels of Ewan and Logan, their swords raised and ready to attack.

“Nay!” Rory bellowed.

He’d not let this happen again.

Chapter Eighteen

Rory hurtled forward, his blood thick with battle-rage. He gained on the men following his friends, blades of grass disappearing foot by foot until, finally, he was upon them. With a resounding battle cry, he raised his sword bringing it down on one warrior, causing the others to turn around and raise their blades.

Rory yanked his second sword from his scabbard, one in each hand. His vision was blinded by red, and all he could do was block and thrust. There were six of them surrounding him, and he decided that even if he died right here and now, at least he’d die protecting his allies, his son and the woman he loved—the latter two safe behind the castle walls.

Every move seemed to be in slow motion. The sounds slurred, the gentle breeze so ironic considering their ruthless fight to survive. As he hacked at the men—one down five to go—their blades sliced into his own limbs. Slice. Cut. Arc. Swipe. Twist. Every move he’d ever known was brought out in this battle of might.

He was startled by the sudden fall from their horses of two opponents.

Ewan and Logan.

They’d turned around and now dispatched of the MacDonald warriors surrounding Rory.

With renewed vigor, Rory took out another, who’d nearly stabbed Logan in the back. What felt like seconds later, all six of the MacDonald warriors littered the ground.

“Laird MacDonald,” Rory said, breathless. “He’s gotten away.”

“Let him go.” Logan swiped at his brow. “He’ll be back, we know it. And we’ll be waiting for him.”

“We need to get ye back to the castle. Ye’re going to need more stitches.” Ewan studied the cuts on Rory’s limbs. “That one is looking particularly deep.” He pointed to Rory’s shoulder.

Rory nodded, his tongue feeling a little thick, his limbs slightly trembling. His grip wasn’t as tight anymore either. Both swords were harder to hold with his palms slickened with blood. One fell to the ground, and then the other, making a subtle thud against the bloodstained grass.

Battle-lust had been what kept him conscience in the wake of having lost so much blood.

As soon as he started to slip from the saddle, Ewan caught him, setting him upright.

“Let’s go. I’ll get your weapons,” Ewan said. “Hold on tight.”

“I can ride.” Rory widened his eyes, blinking, as tiny black dots started to appear. He could ride. He could. Blurred vision be damned.

He nudged his horse forward. Logan rode up beside him, keeping pace, perhaps just a tad worried that Rory might fall from the horse.

They crossed under the gate without incident, for which Rory thanked the Lord and Fate for watching out for him. They might have lost MacDonald, but there were so many other wins to be grateful for.

“Rory!” Moira screamed.

He tried to look for her, but by now his vision was gone completely and he was feeling light and heavy all at once. “Moira.” He tried to say her name, formed the syllables on his tongue, but he couldn’t hear them. Wasn’t sure if she did either. “Moira, my love.” Again, he swore he spoke.

“Ohmygod,” Moira said.

Rory smiled. He could smell her, that spicy citrus scent that was all her own. God, how he loved her. He would miss her most of all if he left this earth right now. They’d never even gotten the chance to rekindle their love.

“I will love ye, forever,
mo chridhe
,” he murmured, still unsure if his words were coming out.

He tried to reach for her, but felt himself falling, followed by some shouting, and then everything went black.