Chapter Twenty-Five
Everyone had been wrong as to when Malvern would arrive.
Feagan sounded the horns as dawn broke across the skies. They did not have an extra day to prepare. They did not even have the morning. Malvern’s army was spotted crossing Buchanan lands to the south, at least a thousand men, most of them Scots. Sorcha cursed her countrymen but understood their betrayal in the same breath. Many of their families were starving, banished from land and home, and Malvern would have offered them more coin than they knew what to do with. The scouts had reported that the army flew the marquess’s colors, but Malvern himself had not been spotted.
Dressing quickly, Sorcha wondered whether he would even show his face. He was not known for braving the front lines with any of his infantry during a battle. No, he stayed in the rear, in relative safety like the gutless coward he was. Brandt hurried back into the room, his face tight. He wore the Montgomery kilt again and looked every inch the laird of his clan. His eyes snapped to hers, opening in surprise. She had worn Montgomery colors, too, a sash made from his plaid draped over her shirt and belted over her breeches.
He drew her into a swift kiss. “You’ll need to stay here with the women and children. They will need you to defend them.” Brandt’s eyes met hers, his heart in them. “You’re the only one I trust with my mother and Aisla.”
Sorcha nodded. She wanted to be on the front lines with him at his side, but she understood his fear—he had only just found his family. She grabbed her husband’s shirt by the fistfuls and dragged him to her for another hard kiss. “Don’t die.”
He shot her a wicked grin as they descended the staircase. “I won’t. I plan on thoroughly seducing my Gaelic teacher. I’ve a feeling she finds me bonny.”
Which would explain why she was smiling when they reached the bottom of the stairs. Her amusement faded quickly. The great hall was filled with pale-faced women and children. Aisla and Catriona were at the middle of it, giving instructions and calming those who were crying. There were a lot of tears, and for good reason. Montgomery was about to be under attack, and just days after it had been freed from the bleak rule of a madman. Sorcha hurried to where Aisla was waiting and stopped, stock-still, as the girl turned to face her.
She was dressed in a blue shirt, men’s breeches—Callan’s, Sorcha presumed—and boots. But that wasn’t what shocked the words from Sorcha’s mouth and made her heart constrict painfully. Three lines of green pigment slashed one half of her face from brow to cheek, much like Sorcha’s own scars.
“Ye’re the bravest lass I know,” Aisla said. “I wanted some of yer courage.”
Sorcha was struck speechless. All she could do was take Aisla’s shoulders in her hands and squeeze, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. It was unimaginable that another person would look upon her scars as a symbol of bravery, and yet here this lass stood, her war paint mimicking the scars Sorcha had always been made to feel ashamed of.
Never again.
“We’ll take courage from each other,” she told Aisla, and meeting Catriona’s gaze, then several other women standing around them, she added, “We are not helpless women. We stand together, protecting the wee ones and fighting as warriors here, should any of Malvern’s men make it through. We are Montgomerys, and we defend what is ours!”
Heads nodded, grim but resolute expressions transforming many of the panicked faces she saw. Sorcha felt her husband’s hand on her waist, and she turned to him, sinking into his embrace. She breathed in his scent, the one her body had already memorized, and ran her palms over his broad shoulders. It was tempting to hold on to him, to cling to him and command that he come through the battle unscathed. But the other women were watching her, and as their lady and laird’s wife, she had to display the same courage she’d just demanded of them. She had to be worthy of the painted scars on Aisla’s cheek and brow.
“Say it again,” she whispered.
Brandt’s lips moved against her forehead. “Say what?”
“That you love me,” she answered. He’d said the words a handful of times before, and they’d caressed her body and soul as well as any part of his body could. She needed to hear them again, and in the privacy of her own mind, she admitted why: because it might be the last time.
“I love you, Sorcha,” he said, kissing her temple, then her brow. “And I’ll tell you as much every day for the rest of our lives. Our very long lives, in case you were thinking any different.”
She smiled, not surprised in the least that he’d read her mind.
“And I love you, husband,” she said, and after raising her chin to take his mouth in a fast kiss, she pushed him away. “Now go, and think only of the fight. I’ll take care of things here.”
She watched Brandt draw in a long breath, as if drinking in her face to carry with him into battle, and then with a short nod, turned to exit the great hall. As soon as he was out of sight, the sounds around her came into focus. The women had begun to plan their own positioning within the cavernous hall. Aisla was pointing out the alcoves on either side of the room where the children could crouch and hide for the duration of the battle. Catriona had gathered a group of women to prepare a corner of the hall into a makeshift infirmary, and Sorcha realized the wounded would be brought here as well.
“These tables and benches,” Sorcha said, seeing the places where the clansmen sat while taking their meals in a new light, “can be turned on their sides and put to use as barricades.”
The women were not weaponless. More than half of them carried bows and dirks, a few had crossbows, and even the children had baskets of stones. The room was a commotion of activity over the next several minutes as tables were upended and dragged across the stone floors. Outside the walls of the hall and beyond, Sorcha could hear the firing of rifles and the muted crash of swords, along with the muffled shouts of men. As the women positioned themselves behind the tables, and more used the hearth to boil water for cleaning future wounds, she tried to shut her ears to the sounds of battle. But try as she did, they seemed to grow only closer.
Sorcha found Aisla instructing two wide-eyed women on the bow and pulled her aside. “Is there somewhere else to send the children, should the fight reach this hall?”
Already the youngest of the boys and girls were taking shelter in the alcoves, but Sorcha needed another place to send them. A safer place, should they require it.
With a pinched brow, Aisla nodded. “Aye, there is, though it may be a bit tricky—and a risk. ’Tis a number of tunnels leading out to the southern walls of the keep, to the quarry. Callan and I used to play in them during dry seasons, though they’re usually half filled with mud and water during the spring. They could be bogged down right now, for all I ken.”
Sorcha’s relief swelled at the idea of the tunnels leading out. The southern end of the keep would be facing the craggy hills, and in the opposite direction of the current battle unfolding at the north and northwestern sides of the fortress.
“Send two women to the nearest tunnel to see if it’s passable,” she said as a rapid volley of musket fire sounded, much closer than before. It did not escape her attention that the tunnels could be a way in as well, but Malvern’s men would likely not know of them.
Aisla nodded and started to turn away when she suddenly jerked to a stop, the flush of purpose and vigor draining from her face. Her eyes had gone wide as saucers, her pupils to pinpricks. A hush clamped down over the rest of the hall, and the small hairs on the back of Sorcha’s neck stood on end, even before she turned to see what it was the women were reacting to. She had not yet turned fully when already her instincts knew.
And they were dead on.
Standing within the side entrance to the great hall, in the doorway that led directly to the kitchens, were a handful of men dressed in chainmail armor, another scattered handful in leather and plaid. Two of the men stepped forward, and their faces drove the breath straight from Sorcha’s lungs.
“Lord Malvern,” she whispered, a shock of nausea slamming into her. The marquess’s upper lip pulled into a smug sneer.
To his right, his knight, Coxley, grinned viciously. “Miss me?” he drawled.
“Sod off, Coxley,” she hissed, even as her heart cinched tight. Ronan. What had become of her brother? She ordered the tears threatening her vision to retreat, and to her relief, they obeyed.
A third leather-and-chainmail-clad man came forward, and Sorcha’s pulse quaked. It was Rodric, his pale blue eyes fixed like bait hooks on Catriona.
“Ye traitor,” he seethed.
“I?” Brandt’s mother returned, holding out an arm to stay Aisla as the girl started for her side. “Ye’re the betrayer, Rodric, no’ I. Ye’ve led these men against yer own kin!”
The man tossed back his head and thundered laughter into the high ceilings. Beside him, Malvern and Coxley stood, emotionless, their somber glares reserved only for Sorcha. They’d used Rodric, she knew, and the ex-laird had willingly allowed it for his own benefit. The half-dozen enemy warriors were unbloodied, though they were not unstained. From their knees down, each man’s legs were coated in a dripping layer of mud. They had taken the tunnels Aisla had just spoken of, Sorcha realized. Rodric had known of them and had led the way. Malvern would not have breached the keep without his help.
“Ye are my wife,” Rodric said. “I own ye, Catriona, and ye’ll pay for standing up against me.”
With a twitch of Malvern’s wrist, his men surged forward. Screams erupted in the hall, echoing off the ceiling and bouncing off the walls as the women rushed to arm themselves. Sorcha’s entire body went cold. She held no weapon; nothing but the single dirk at her hip. She’d leaned her sword and bow against one upended table while she worked with the other women to build their barricades.
She palmed the hilt of her dirk and readied her grip, slicing at the first Scottish traitor who came at her. Her blade met its mark, carving into his jaw before she whirled to the side and slid the blade along the back of his ribs as well. The leather he wore parted easily and she heard his cry of pain and fury. Finished with him, Sorcha darted away, sticking her blade into the back of another man’s thigh as he was herding two of the Montgomery women toward the alcove where the children huddled and wailed. He growled and swiped behind him but Sorcha had already whirled out of reach.
As she moved, she saw Coxley’s mammoth form lumbering toward her. She couldn’t see Malvern and she didn’t care; at that moment, it was Coxley she needed to defend herself against. The man who had bested her own brother. Had he killed Ronan? She ground her teeth and let out a scream of rage as she gripped her dirk and prepared to meet him, head on, his sword at his side. He wasn’t planning to harm her—not mortally, at least. But before he could reach Sorcha, a small figure whipped in between them, a bow in her hands, one slim elbow pulled back as she nocked her arrow.
“Aisla!” Sorcha shouted, though her voice was more of a rasping and breathless cry. “Behind you. Coxley, no!”
Her warning came too late. Brandt’s sister screamed as Coxley’s immense arm slammed into her bow, knocking the weapon to the side and out of her hands. The arrow loosed without force and skidded along the stone floor.
A body slammed into Sorcha’s back and took her to the ground, her knees cracking painfully as she landed, her dirk knocked from her hand and spinning out of reach. She heard Aisla scream again and from the corner of her eye, she saw Coxley shoving Brandt’s sister against the laird’s table, one hand closing around her throat, his knees pressing her into a caged position. A pair of hands grabbed Sorcha’s arms from behind, restraining her as she was jerked from the floor and dragged forward.
Around her, all was screaming and chaos, and for the briefest of moments, her faceless captor was knocked off-kilter, his hands loosening around her arms. She twisted to make a lunge for Aisla and stopped short at a startling sight.
Her sister-in-law held the twin dirk Sorcha had given her days before, the blade buried to the hilt in Coxley’s side. The man’s body had arched away from her, a guttural cry ripping from his throat. Aisla stared in horror at Coxley’s face and screamed as she withdrew the dirk, only to plunge it in again, this time higher, in the unprotected gap in his chainmail armor, just below his left arm. From its angle, Sorcha guessed, the tip of it would have lodged right into his vile, black heart. She felt a moment of triumph, and no small amount of relief that Aisla had saved herself from such a monster.
It was then Sorcha’s captor returned, wrenching her arm and spinning her around. She lashed out with her leg, trying to kick his feet out from under him, but he intercepted her powerful kick, jamming his knee into her inner thigh. Bright pain flared, and she crumpled, her captor’s hands clutching at her as she writhed for freedom.
“You’ve avoided your fate for too long, Lady Maclaren.” Her limbs went numb with recognition.
She snapped her gaze up and came eye to eye with the Marquess of Malvern. “My name is Montgomery.”
“A trifling matter that will be dealt with.” He jerked her closer to him and, with a growl, tugged her forward. Her feet stumbled, tripping over each other as he dragged her toward the kitchen stairwell entrance. She thought she heard her name being shouted, and as she twisted in Malvern’s cruel grip, one of his hands readjusting to wind his fingers into her hair like a barbarian, she caught sight of Aisla’s dark blue shirt dashing through the melee, toward the great hall’s main entrance.
Sorcha prayed the girl got away to alert the men, but as Malvern slammed her into the walls of the kitchen stairwell, her feet sliding down the steps, his brutish grip on her brought tears of pain to her eyes.
“Let me go, ye bastard!” she screamed, anger boiling just beneath her fear.
“You worthless witch,” he replied, his voice unnaturally calm and collected. “Did you truly believe I would allow some dirt-heeled nobody to take a piece of my own property from me? Make me look like a blundering fool?”
The stairs leveled out, and she felt the heat of the kitchens, could smell yeasty breads and burning meat. His grip on her hair wouldn’t let her so much as look around for any nearby weapon, though she knew there had to be knives about. She swung her free arm in futile lashes, reaching for something—anything. But Malvern only laughed and slammed her hips purposefully into the edge of a table.
“You are mine,” he hissed.
A sharp ache dug into her hip as Sorcha scratched at his face, her nails gouging into his skin. “I am wife to the Montgomery and will never be yers!”
Malvern growled and unknotted his fingers from her hair in order to clasp both of her arms together at her back. “Oh, you will be. My men will make you a widow, and then they’ll watch as I take what’s mine. By the time I’ve finished with you, you will beg for my mercy, you savage little hellcat.”
He shoved her through a slim opening between two walls and then yanked her again to the side, the crown of her head slamming into a low ceilinged tunnel as the floor sloped down. It hurt less than his promise to make her a widow; the threat coiled like barbed wire around her heart as her feet skidded downward and landed in a cold murk that went up to her shins. A musty odor overtook the kitchen’s scents, and a ball of panic billowed in her chest. This was the tunnel they’d used to sneak inside, and now, he was taking her from the keep. Taking her away from Brandt.
Her shoulders smarted with pain at the vicious hold he kept, shoving her forward through the black tunnel, her senses overloaded with the smell of rot and mud now rising to her knees, the muted sounds of their heavy breathing, and the taste of blood in her mouth.
She felt the tunnel closing in around her, her hope sinking, drowning in the rising mud. She could not allow this man, this crazed, power-hungry devil, to win—but how could she stop him? With no weapon, no way to defend herself? And with her husband busy battling the hundreds of warriors Malvern had sent in order to see his reputation repaired and upheld.
A spot of sunlight flashed up ahead. They were approaching the tunnel’s exit, and what lay beyond it was anyone’s guess. More of Malvern’s men? What would he do, throw her down and attack her then and there? Panic threatened to consume her wits as the half circle opening drew closer. Through it, she saw reeds and marsh and low scrubby brush. An idea took hold—a desperate, likely impossible idea—but it was all she had. If she could get on top of him somehow…if she could pin him under the swampy mess and hold him there until he drew the muck into his lungs…
At the head of the tunnel, Sorcha heard the shouts of men just outside. Malvern’s men? She came to a stubborn halt at the tunnel entrance, jamming her back into Malvern’s front. He grunted and moved to push her forward, but Sorcha surprised him by dropping as far down onto her knees as his grip on her arms would allow. She wrenched her shoulders in the process, but her intent proved effective—Malvern stumbled forward, bashing his head on the low ceiling as he went. He yanked her forward, but his grip had unintentionally loosened. Sorcha landed on her side in the marsh, and with every ounce of strength she had left, broke free of his hands and rolled on top of him.
More shouting reached her ears, but she ignored it, her hands jamming down against Malvern’s chest and thrusting him beneath the thick, marshy surface. Water and mud closed over his face, and Sorcha screamed with the effort it took to keep him there, his big body thrashing underneath hers. She was strong, but not strong enough. Malvern bucked her off and the next thing she knew, he was on top of her, shoving her down into marshland. Water filled her ears, the cold sting of it rushing up her nose and into her eyes. She clamped her lips, her breath tight in her lungs as Malvern’s fingers throttled her throat, holding her down, squeezing. He wouldn’t kill her, she knew. But that didn’t mean he would be merciful, either.
Bright spots mixed and popped with black bursts of dots before her closed eyes, and Sorcha knew she had but seconds before her mouth opened on instinct and gulped in water. In that moment, she thought of Brandt. Heard his whispered promise to tell her he loved her every day for the rest of their lives. A last pulse of fury shivered through her, and Sorcha bucked, one of her knees miraculously free to move. She slammed it up, connecting with soft tissue, and Malvern grunted and groaned.
In the next moment, all of his weight was lifted from her. Sorcha jolted up, out of the water, hacking for air. She blinked and saw a tumult of men clomping through the marsh around her sodden body, her chest heaving to fill her lungs.
Malvern was on his back, his arms up in surrender as the points of two broadswords pressed into his neck and chest.
“Move, and ye die, ye worthless piece of English scum.”
The voice came through Sorcha’s waterlogged ears and struck her with a sobering clarity.
“Ronan!” she choked, her eyes landing on the broad back and muscled arms of her brother. He was alive! And he wasn’t alone. Beside him, her younger brother, Niall stood with his broadsword gripped menacingly in his right hand, the tip drawing blood from Malvern’s neck.
“Let me kill him, brother,” Niall breathed as Sorcha stumbled to her feet. Behind her, more men on foot, and wearing Maclaren plaid, were taking care of the last of Malvern’s men who had remained behind to stand guard. And cleaving one of the men in half was the Duke of Dunrannoch. Her head was still swimming, her vision blurred, and her throat ached from where she’d been strangled, and yet Sorcha wanted to sob in relief and joy that her father and brothers, and more of the Maclaren warriors, had somehow converged upon Montgomery keep in the height of battle.
“As much as I’d like to see ye do just that, ’twould bring us only more trouble from the Crown,” Ronan answered Niall, his hand coming to rest on Niall’s shoulder. “We deliver the marquess alive.”
Deliver him? Sorcha didn’t understand. Deliver him to whom? Niall grunted as he lowered his sword, leaving a shallow wound seeping blood in its wake. “On yer feet,” he ordered.
A few more Maclarens surrounded them in the marsh, including her brother, Finlay. He took Sorcha by the arm, his fingers too hard on her bruised flesh. But she didn’t mind—this grip was one of support and worry, not cruelty.
“Are ye well, sister? Did the bloody bastard hurt ye?”
She shook her head, her vision still wobbly. “I’m well,” she said, breathless. “Why are you here? How did you know to come to the Montgomery? Or this path through the quarry?”
Niall came to her side as Ronan and Finlay led Malvern away at the ends of their swords. More men kept their muskets trained on him as they splashed through the marsh. The water had drenched her boots and trousers, and she started to shiver.
“Sorcha,” Niall said, his arm coming around her waist as he threw a plaid over her shoulders. “We’ll explain later. ’Tis still a fight at the north wall of the keep and in the hills. Our men are surrounding Malvern’s, but we need to help secure the main gate and beat them back. We left our horses at the top of the quarry.”
She nodded, knowing the time for answers would have to wait. All that mattered was that they were here, now—and that Brandt and his clansmen would have the brawn of the Maclaren warriors at their sides.
A distant scream tore her from encroaching relief. It had come from within the keep.
“The women and children…they’re in the great hall—” she started to say.
Her father strode up to her, his forehead bloodied, though it only made him look even more fierce. He was a warrior through and through, and had not softened with age.
“Go to them,” he said, tossing her a bow and a quiver of arrows from his own back, “and protect them. Ye’re better with a bow than all of our archers combined. Niall, go with her.”
She felt Niall go rigid at her side, knowing her brother felt the order as a dismissal.
“No,” she said, pushing her brother’s arm from her waist. “I can go alone. You need all your warriors with you, Papa, and naught but a few men are back in the great hall to contend with. Go!”
She trudged through the marsh, back toward the dark tunnel, thinking only of Catriona and Rodric. Of Aisla and the children huddling in the alcoves. By then, the women and children might have scattered throughout the keep in escape. Sorcha’s only hope was that she’d find Brandt’s mother still alive. She gripped her father’s bow, nocking one arrow as she plunged back into the tunnel.