They rode through the day and into the night, the three of them, hardly stopping for anything but the direst of nature’s needs and the watering of the horses. They exchanged barely a word, concentrating on the ride.

That was more than enough to concentrate on, as the muddy ground and hot, moist air—combined with nonstop riding—made the journey one of the most difficult he’d ever taken. He couldn’t imagine how much more difficult it was for two women, though they seemed to be handling it well.

Always in the back of his mind was his brother.

His brother who he’d never liked much but who was still his blood. They shared a clan, they’d shared a home. So many of his earliest memories involved Alan. As youngsters, they’d even been friends.

Where had they gone wrong? What had changed? Certainly, Alan had been all but impossible to get along with, but they were still brothers. He should have tried to be a better friend to him, to support him a bit more instead of looking down on him as a temperamental, undisciplined, immoral waste.

He might never have the chance to make amends.

For all he knew, he might already be head of the clan.

They rode alongside the River Nevis on the last leg of the journey, the horses all but ready to collapse from exhaustion. “Just a bit more,” he urged, tapping his heels to the beast’s sides and praying in his awkward, unpracticed way that they could make it in time.

It had been so long since he’d prayed, since he’d even felt the need to do so.

He prayed then. As fervently as he ever had.

There were lights in the windows of the house, and he kept his gaze focused on them. Come on, come on, hurry, he silently urged. What was happening inside? There were horses out in front, dozens of them left to their own devices rather than being cared for in the stables. The closer they came to the house, the louder the sound of men’s voices raised in angry protest.

Caitlin shot him a terrified look when they dismounted. She was still somewhat of an outlaw as far as the Andersons were concerned, he supposed.

“Worry not,” he assured her as he took her by the hand, Sarah on their heels.

The house was a flurry of activity, the entry hall packed nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with clansmen. Rodric pushed his way through, pulling Caitlin along with him. As he cut a path, he heard enough to know that Alan was still alive.

At least, according to what the men believed.

The stairs were empty, and he took them two at a time in his haste. So great was his haste, in fact, that he crashed into Padraig as he turned the corner.

His younger brother looked as though he might burst into tears. “How did you know?” he asked, already leading the way down the corridor.

“It’s a long story. I’ve brought a healer.”

Padraig cast a look over his shoulder. “I don’t know if that will help now.” They stopped at the door, and Padraig threw up an arm to block Rodric’s progress. “I must warn you. He is in dire condition. The village healer has done what she can, but I do not think it’s done much good.”

He looked over Rodric’s shoulder to where Sarah stood. “Perhaps you can do more.”

“I’ll do everything I can.” She touched Rodric’s arm. “I must have space in which to assess him, however. I ask that you wait here while I do. You can leave the door open to watch, if you wish.”

He nodded, unable to speak, only grateful that his brother still lived. There could still be a way to save him.

Why he wanted so badly to save Alan was just as much a surprise to him as it would have been to anyone else, he supposed.

Padraig opened the door, revealing a dark room. The curtains hanging in front of the windows were drawn tight. Only a single candle burned by the side of the bed.

Once his eyes adjusted, Rodric made out the shape of his brother’s oversized body stretched out on the bed. He was covered in linen sheets pulled up to his neck, leaving no way of seeing what was beneath.

His eyes were closed, though his head turned from side to side as though he were in the middle of an unhappy dream. Sweat glistened on his brow.

Sarah immediately went to work, washing her hands before drawing back the sheets. He held his breath.

Caitlin gasped, burying her face in Rodric’s arm. He should have warned her of what she might see and smell.

The wounds were infected. Anyone could see it. He’d witnessed the progression of infection more times than he cared to remember. There was no way to forget the way a festering wound looked and smelled, the foulness of it. The red lines which extended from the wound once the infection began to enter the blood.

Alan bore wounds to his stomach, his sides. Sarah examined each, the creases in her brow deepening all the while.

“Can you assist me?” she whispered, motioning for Padraig to join her in rolling Alan onto his side, away from the door. When they attempted it, and the sheet beneath the body stuck to the wounds on his back, he closed his eyes in impotent rage.

Who had allowed his brother to come to this? The head of the Anderson clan, no less?

Sarah looked up from her work, her gaze meeting his. There was no need to ask whether his brother would live through this. Just from the look of the wounds and the spread of the infection, the fact that he was alive at all was something near a miracle.

Caitlin saw it, too, and her hand tightened around Rodric’s. It wasn’t for Alan’s sake that she was concerned, but rather for his. He loved her all the more for knowing without being told of it the conflict raging within her.

The same conflict raged within him as well.

Alan’s death might just bring peace to the clan for the first time since he’d assumed leadership.

Alan was his brother. Their father’s firstborn son.

Alan had never been kind to him.

He’d looked up to his older brother as a child.

He was only a child then. He knew no better.

Alan was his blood. Part of his past was dying in front of him.

Sarah straightened, washing her hands once again in the basin beside the bed before motioning for Rodric to join her. Caitlin nudged him into the room, waiting in the doorway.

“The fever will take him before the night is out,” she predicted in a low voice, grimacing as she looked around him to where his brother lay dying. “I know not who treated him, but they have no right to call themselves a healer.”

Why did he care so? Why did her words send a cramp of panic to his chest? “I heard of what you did for Jake Duncan when he was wounded. He, too, was close to death when you arrived at the manor house.”

Her face seemed to crumble. “Aye,” she whispered, placing her hands on his arms. “But the damage is far more widespread than it was in Jake’s case. He’s sustained multiple wounds, including what I fear is a puncture to his liver. Even if we had been here to immediately treat him, I’m afraid there would have been nothing to do to save him. I’m very sorry.”

It didn’t seem possible. How was such a thing possible? How could a man as vital as Alan succumb so quickly?

“What did the healer do wrong, then?” Padraig asked.

She all but growled in response, angered at the laziness of a healer like herself. “For one, the wounds were not properly cleaned. He’s been given nothing for the pain. If the man is bound to die, he might at least have been tended to, and his pain managed. He need not die in pain and filth.”

Rodric absorbed this, refusing to allow himself the luxury of wallowing in emotion. There would be time enough for that later. “I’ll see to it they answer for what they’ve done,” he vowed. “Is there anything you can do to ease his suffering?”

“Of course, and I intend to do it,” she promised. “If you could direct me to the kitchen, I’ll get to work.”

He looked over his shoulder, where Caitlin hovered just outside the room. “Caitlin knows. She can direct you.” It wouldn’t do for her to be there while he and Alan spoke their last words to one another. Sarah seemed to understand this, going to the door and exchanging a quiet word with Caitlin before the two of them disappeared.

“I’ll go, too,” Padraig announced. “I must see to the men and make certain they don’t tear the house down.”

This left just Alan and himself.

For the briefest moment, he wasn’t certain he wanted to speak to his brother at all. What good would it do? Alan was likely delirious with fever. Nothing he said would mean anything.

And yet…

Perhaps it would do him good to speak of that which he’d never have another chance to address. What would he have said to his father if he’d had the opportunity? It was that lack of opportunity, of knowing they would never share another hour, which haunted him.

It was this knowledge which drove him to the side of the bed, which made him stand over his brother’s dying body. The stench which rose from him was not unknown to Rodric. It brought to mind the battlefield, throngs of men whose bodies had been torn to shreds. Tents filled with the wounded, arms and legs missing, eyes and ears, wounds which couldn’t be kept clean thanks to hovering flies and the blood-soaked earth in which the bodies rested.

But this man wasn’t one of those nameless wounded. He wasn’t even a friend made while training side-by-side. This was Alan. Alan who might have taunted and lorded advanced age and skill over his younger brothers, but who had spurred Rodric to improve himself as a result. He’d fought to become stronger, smarter, a better rider and an unbeatable fighter.

All because he had longed to live up to his brother and eventually surpass him.

Alan’s eyes fluttered open, unfocused at first but soon narrowing once he recognized the figure standing beside him. “You.” His voice was barely a whisper.

“Aye, I’m here, brother.” Rodric drew up a stool which sat nearby and perched on it, leaving them a roughly the same level.

“Didn’t think you’d come.”

“I almost didn’t—not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t know. Once I found out what’d happened to you, I rode through the night.”

“Wanted… to get here before you lost the chance…” Alan grimaced, his body tensing from head to toe as a wave of pain washed over him.

Rodric found himself grimacing along with his brother.

“The chance for what?” he asked once it appeared Alan had once again relaxed.

“The chance to tell me you were right, of course.” His body shook again, but Rodric soon realized that laughter was the cause. Even while dying, his brother was able to laugh.

“You don’t truly believe that was the reason I came, do you?”

His question went unanswered. “We all knew I would come to such an end,” Alan gasped, grinding his teeth in pain. His eyes were bright with fever, searching Rodric’s as though searching for something beyond what he saw. Reassurance? Comfort? Rodric wondered if he could offer either.

“From what I understand, you weren’t at fault for this last battle,” he pointed out. To his surprise, there was a lightness in his voice which belied the dread in his heart. He was watching his brother die.

“Ah, but I was,” Alan breathed with a slight shake of his sweat-drenched head. “Would that I’d died quickly, then and there, so as to avoid thinking.”

“Thinking?”

“A man thinks quite a bit when he knows the end is upon him. I’ve had nothing to do but lie here and think over my mistakes.” He ground his teeth again, tendons standing out on his neck as he battled the pain.

Where was Sarah with the potion?

“I suspect you’ll have to live much longer,” Rodric attempted to jest, forcing a chuckle. “After all, you have so many mistakes to think over.”

Alan tried to smile as beads of sweat rolled down the sides of his head and soaked into his pillow. His smile was tight, desperate, as though he smiled through something too terrible for words. Every time he moved, the stench of rotting flesh wafted up toward Rodric and wrapped itself around him.

“I suppose… it was for the best that I had this time to think.”

“Why do you say that?” Though he loathed leaning in closer, knowing it would only mean smelling more of his brother’s death stench, he did so in order to hear him better. Alan’s sour breath made his nose wrinkle in distaste—but he held steady.

“I thought about… what I’ve done. Who I’ve hurt. I wasn’t… a good son. Brother. Leader.”

Rodric turned his head in order to meet his brother’s eyes. “Alan, don’t do this to yourself, brother.”

“I cannot help what has already plagued me. I haven’t been able to keep from thinking. When I sleep, when I wake.” He groaned in pain, frustration, and possibly many other things he dared not speak of. “If there is a hell, I’m in it, brother.”

Rodric clasped Alan’s hand as tightly as he dared. “I’m here with you. You aren’t alone.”

Sarah burst into the room a moment later, balancing a tray.

Rodric glared at her. “What kept you?”

“I had to find my way around the kitchen,” she hissed, glancing Alan’s way. “It’s in a bit of disarray at the moment, with so much of the clan staying in the house.”

She leaned closer to her charge, seeming to disregard the stench which hung about him. “I’ve brought you a potion for the pain, which I’ll mix with strong broth.”

“You should’ve mixed it with strong ale,” he gasped, chuckling softly through gritted teeth.

Sarah chuckled along with him. “Perhaps I should, then. You’ve given me an idea.”

Rodric could hardly believe his ears. “You’re not serious.”

She fixed him with a hard stare. “It cannot harm him any further. He’ll suffer no more.”

“Lass, tell me true.” Alan’s glassy eyes fixed on Sarah’s face. “I’m not much longer for this world, am I?”

She let out a soft sigh, taking one side of his face in her hand. “I’m afraid you aren’t. It’s sorry I am to say it. I wish there was something I could do.”

“Och, I’ve known all along the end was upon me,” he assured her, going so far as to pat the hand which still caressed him. “There’s only so much a man can fight his way through. When the time comes, no man can hold it back.”

Rodric listened to this, watching the tender scene unfold. If Sarah couldn’t pull his brother back from death, she could at least make his final moments warm and peaceful.

This knowledge did not make it easier for him to accept his helplessness. Alan was fading away, slipping from the world and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

If anyone had told him only a day earlier that he’d sit at his brother’s bedside and wish desperately to stop death from making a claim, he might have laughed. Now, he wanted to scream and rage against the cruelty of it all—Alan’s suffering, the helplessness of it all, the fact that it was too late for either of them to do bridge the cavern which had stretched between them for most of their lives.

A knock at the open door introduced Padraig, who looked very nearly apologetic as he entered. “They’re asking questions,” he murmured, his eyes fixed on Alan.

“Let ‘em ask all the questions they want, the vultures,” Alan grumbled. “They’re here to pick the bones, nothing more.”

“You’re their leader,” Padraig reminded him. “Surely, they’re here to offer their allegiance to you, and to whoever you name as your successor.”

Successor. The word turned Rodric’s blood to ice. Everything around him seemed to fall away—even the stench of the sweat-soaked bedding which had commanded so much of his attention up to that point. None of it existed any longer.

Successor.

He was the second son.

The clan would, by rights, be his to lead.

Should he choose to do so.