Highlander's Ransom (7 page)

Straightening her spine and resolving to brave facing
Robert, she started walking toward him. She was willing to risk the gag again
if she could only get some more information out of the man about what he
intended to do with her. Before she got halfway there, though, Robert threw a
fist in the air, instantly stilling his men. She too stopped in her tracks,
unsure of what he was straining to hear. A long moment stretched with Robert
poised and motionless, then he gave a signal with his hands, and his men
swiftly and silently mounted and drew their weapons. Panic began to edge into
her.

In three strides, Robert was in front of her. He
placed a finger over his lips, indicating that she should remain silent, and
she nodded her understanding. He took her hand and pulled her toward his horse.
He mounted first, then lifted her up to sit behind him this time. His sword
made the faintest rasp as he drew it from its sheath. With another signal from
Robert, his men began to form a circle around his horse—around her, she
realized with a start.

Alwin still hadn’t heard anything out of the ordinary.
The falling snow baffled the normal sounds of the forest. Then ever so faintly,
she heard the crunch of a hoof on snow. Before she could gasp, sound erupted
all around them, and armored men on horses poured from the dim forest in every
direction.

Chapter 10

Robert’s well-trained men waited for the attackers to
get closer. An eternity stretched as Alwin watched the riders barreling toward
them from all sides, weapons drawn. Finally, when the attackers were nearly on
them, Robert let out a battle cry, which his men immediately took up too. They
swung their swords just as the attackers got within range. Instantly the air
was filled with the sounds of ringing metal, screams, and horses’ cries.

“Hold on, lass!” Robert shouted over his shoulder. She
wrapped her arms tightly around his waist and pressed her cheek to his back.
They were still inside the protective circle of Robert’s men, but the nearness
of the battle made her nearly mindless with fear. Robert’s men were severely
outnumbered, yet all of them seemed to still be upright in their saddles and
swinging their swords mightily.

But they couldn’t stem the tide of attackers forever.
Glancing over her left shoulder, Alwin saw one of Robert’s men go down, and
several of the assailants wedged their way inside the circle. Robert wheeled
his horse around to face them, letting them come to him. The first man to reach
him got a slice to the stomach that quickly ended his charge. Then two more
were upon them, and Robert maneuvered to block their blows. As he worked his
blade fluidly back and forth between the two attackers, a third entered the
circle, but didn’t attack. Instead, the rider wheeled his horse behind Robert’s
stallion.

The hairs on the back of her neck standing on end,
Alwin sensed the rider before she turned. Her eyes widened with fear as she
took in the helmeted man behind them, but he didn’t raise his sword to them.
Instead, he reached out with his free hand and grabbed Alwin’s long brown
braid. She screamed in pain as he yanked her from the back of Robert’s horse by
her hair. The rider scooped her up onto his horse and threw her across his lap,
face down, then wheeled his horse back toward the opening in the circle. Just
as he was about to reach the outside of the circle, Alwin felt a lurch beneath
her and went tumbling forward along with the rider across whose lap she lay.
The horse they were riding on seemed to crumple, and the two of them landed in
a heap on the ground. Her attacker quickly scrambled to his feet and wrapped
her braid around his hand, yanking her up with him. He dragged her backwards
through the melee until they stood on the outside of the circle, the attackers’
backs to them as they continued hacking away at Robert’s men. But Alwin noticed
through the frenzy that there were much fewer of the attackers now, and that
almost all of the Highlanders still fought ferociously.

The man holding her hair breathed heavily beside her
through his helmet and watched the battle continue to unfold. He, too, could
probably see that his men were losing. He yanked off his helmet, and she was
surprised to see a sandy-haired, hazel-eyed man underneath in the grey light of
the evening. He would be considered remarkably handsome, except for the fact
that he twisted her hair cruelly in his hand.

“Thomas!” he shouted over the din of the battle. One
of his remaining fighters turned, and seeing his apparent leader, wheeled his
horse around, leaving one of his compatriots to fight alone.

“Give me your horse,” the man holding her demanded,
and Thomas began to dismount.

“Who are you? Where are you taking me?” Alwin shouted,
the terror in her voice piercing.

Without warning, the man lifted the hand not holding
her hair and dealt her a heavy blow to the face. “Shut up, you stupid girl!” he
screamed at her.

Just then, as if from a nightmare, Robert exploded out
of the circle of fighting, blood dripping from his sword and death in his
ice-cold eyes, which seemed eerily illuminated in the bluish light of dusk. He
was coming straight for her attacker.

Instinctively, she knew she wanted to help Robert and
not the man who had struck her and still gripped her braid in his fist. She
began to fight with all her might. She kicked at his shins and clawed at the
hand in her hair, despite his tightening grip. His attention divided between
Alwin’s struggles and the terrifying warrior barreling down on him, her
attacker shouted to Thomas again, who dutifully stepped in front of them to
face off with Robert. Cursing, the man released her all of a sudden, apparently
deciding that he wouldn’t get away with her struggling like a wild animal.
Instead, he flung himself on Thomas’s horse and kicked it into a gallop away
from the dwindling battle, not even looking back to see if any of his men had
survived the skirmish. A few of the remaining attackers, noticing their
apparent leader’s flight, disengaged with the Highland warriors and rode hard
after him through the forest.

It was too late for Thomas, though. Alwin watched as
Robert quickly dispatched the man with a blow that cut him downward from neck
to chest. Thomas crumpled in a sickeningly lifeless heap at Dash’s feet. She
felt her stomach clench and flip. Looking after the fleeing attackers, Robert
seemed to consider giving chase, then decided against it after scanning the rest
of his men. Her eyes followed his and she thought she would lose the meager
contents of her stomach right then. The fight was over, and Robert’s men were
victorious again, yet the sight of all the carnage assured Alwin that “victory”
was subjective. None of the attackers left nearby remained standing, and the
once-pristine snow was now a brownish red slush underneath the mangled bodies
of men and horses.

Just as Robert’s eyes swung back to her, Alwin felt
her legs give out beneath her, and she slumped to the ground.

Chapter 11

Instantly, Robert was at her side.

“Are you alright, lass?” His voice sounded pinched and
far away, even to his own ears. Alwin gazed up at him in a daze, her grey eyes
clouded. He ran his hands all over her, checking for injuries. When he was
satisfied that she hadn’t been seriously wounded, his eyes went to her cheek,
where a red mark in the shape of a hand stood out clearly, and the shadow of a
bruise looked to be forming on her cheekbone. “I will kill that bastard. I
swear it,” he said with quiet heat to himself. Then he scooped her up in his
arms, cradling her, and carried her past his men.

Burke rushed to his side, fear in his deep blue eyes.
“Is she—?”

“She’ll be alright. But she shouldn’t see this,”
Robert replied, indicating the bloodied snow and lifeless bodies strewn on the
ground with his head.

“And you, Robert?”

“Just a few cuts and scrapes,” he said, the sting of
the few minor injuries he had sustained registering at last as the heat of
battle drained from him. Burke quickly nodded, turning back to see about the
injuries the rest of the men had received.

Robert carried Alwin to a nearby stream. He cleared
the snow from a rock on its bank with his boot, then sat her down as gently as
he could. She was still dazed based on the far-off look in her eye. He had seen
such a gaze in boys after their first battle. He had once felt that way as a
lad, but years of warfare had crushed such innocence from him. He quickly
dunked his hands in the icy stream, rubbing away the blood as best as he could.
Then drawing his freezing hands from the water, he placed one against the red
mark on her cheek, cradling her face. He longed to rub his callused thumb over
her quivering lower lip, but resisted the urge. Instead, he lowered his eyes to
her hands, which rested in her lap. He noticed that there was blood under her
fingernails. The lass had managed to get in a few good scratches to Warren’s
face, he thought, and a flutter of pride in her strength brushed somewhere in
his chest.

She blinked a few times at the cooling sensation of
his hand on her flaming cheek. Robert could see her eyes clearing as she shook
away the battle’s haze and her cheek cooled under his icy hand. Before she
could start to piece things together, though, he wanted to distract her, to be
the one to ease her pain and confusion for a few minutes. He resorted to his
best attempt at small talk. “Alwin. Isn’t that a man’s name in your country?”

She gave him a startled stare for a moment, then a shy
smile crept to the corners of her mouth. “Yes. My father was convinced that he
would have a boy.” Then the sadness returned to her face and voice. “I was
always a disappointment to him.”

Robert sensed the deepness of that wound, and
redoubled his efforts to keep things light for her. “The man sounds like a
stubborn old mule. I can see where you get it from.”

A shocked look crossed her face, then she gave him a
wobbling smile and he felt his heart pinch a little. “He is that. I always
thought I got more of my character from my mother, but perhaps you are right
about the source of my obstinacy.”

Before Robert could rummage another conversation topic
from his brain, which was rusty at making small talk with anyone, Alwin took a
deep breath and asked, “Who were those men?”

Robert’s hand, which was still cradling her cheek,
slipped down to his side. He surmised that she knew they were her own
countrymen based on their armor. He had initially thought to hurt her by
rubbing in the proof of what a monster her betrothed was, but now he found that
he didn’t want to inflict more pain on her. He hesitated a long minute, looking
into her weary and confused eyes, trying to gage how much she could handle.
Finally, he said, “The man who held you, who—struck you” he nearly choked on
the words with his rage, “—he was Raef Warren.”

Her face transformed from tired openness to horror.
“No!” she cried. “He wouldn’t—”

Robert felt himself turning cold at her disbelief. Why
did she trust the man, when she clearly hadn’t met him, and didn’t even know anything
of his character? “Aye, he would,” he cut in. “And he’s done much worse than
you saw here today.” He didn’t mean to cause the frightened look that took hold
of her features, but he also would not stand by and let the lass think something
other than the truth about Warren. A part of him longed to reach for her again,
to comfort her and tell her that soon Warren wouldn’t be able to harm her or
anyone else again. But another part of him wanted to shock her, to make her see
the truth.

Just then, Robert heard Burke cough a few feet away.
His eyes snapped to his second in command, silently demanding an explanation
for the intrusion.

“Laird, I have made an account of the men,” Burke
started.

Robert glared at him, for he spoke English. Burke
cleared his throat again, and finished in Gaelic. “Minor injuries for the most
part. But Robert,” he said, then hesitated. “Liam has fallen.”

“Is he—?” Robert’s irritation fell away instantly, and
fear for his man replaced it.

“He lives yet, Laird, but not for long.”

Alwin looked between the two men, trying to parse what
was happening. She heard Burke emphasize the name “Liam,” and her eyes sought
Robert for a reaction. His face hardened, but she noticed his eyes went hollow
with a deep grief. He gave Burke a nod and stood, then looked down at her.

“What has happened?” she asked, dread lacing her voice
as she gazed in his eyes with concern.

“Your betrothed’s men have slaughtered a husband and
father.” Robert’s voice was so filled with icy rage that Alwin actually
recoiled slightly from her position on the stream-bank rock. Before she could
move farther away or speak her disavowal of Warren and his actions, though,
Robert grabbed her elbow and hauled her to her feet, then pulled her back
toward the site of the battle.

As the three approached, Alwin had to throw a hand
over her mouth to keep from crying out at the sight. The clouds had broken up
somewhat, allowing the large moon overhead to illuminate the horrible scene.
Yet again, her eyes were filled with the bodies of English soldiers. She tried
to tug out of Robert’s hold, but he only tightened his grip and dragged her
along toward his men. They had dismounted and seemed to be forming a circle
around something on the ground. Robert and Burke, with Alwin trailing in
Robert’s grasp, pushed their way toward the center. Alwin caught a glimpse of a
Scot on the ground. The dark blood soaking his shirt matched his tartan in the
moonlight. She vaguely recognized the man’s face. He was young, perhaps only a
few years older than she was. His labored breathing seemed to fill the
otherwise silent air.