Fourteen

Dogs, damn it! How in the hell had they caught their scent?

Ewen didn’t have time to think about it. They needed to lose themselves in the forests and hills of Lowther before the English caught up with them. If he could hear the dogs, they had to be close.

The Highland Guard used the countryside as a weapon. The more dense the forest, the steeper and more unfriendly the terrain, the more they could take away the English advantage—both in number and their superior weaponry. The English heavy armor and horses were a liability in the wild, and Bruce had learned to use that to his benefit.

Ewen didn’t waste time trying to cover signs of their presence, breaking camp as soon as they could gather their belongings. The old motte and fort had provided shelter, but it would provide little defense. Worse, Janet would be right in the middle of it.

She made him feel vulnerable in a way that he’d never felt before. Bàs roimh Gèill. Death before surrender, the motto of the Highland Guard. He’d never thought he would question it. But he would surrender a thousand times before he let anything happen to her.

He didn’t know what that meant, but he knew it was significant. In the heat of danger, in the face of an attack, he wasn’t thinking about Bruce, Stewart, an unfinished castle or his responsibility to his clan, he was thinking about her—her safety was all that mattered, and it wasn’t just because of the mission.

Steeling himself, he turned to face her. But nothing could have prepared him for the fist that wrapped around his heart and tugged when their eyes met. He could see the fear, but also the trust that no matter how desperate it might seem, he would protect her. It moved him. Humbled him. Nearly brought him to his knees with the force of an emotion he’d never felt before. God, he—

He didn’t finish the thought.

But nothing could stop him from reaching out to cup her face. She nuzzled her cheek into the leather of his gauntleted hand, burrowing right into his heart.

“We have to run,” he said, his voice unrecognizably tender.

She nodded. “I can do this.”

He believed her. She was strong and determined. And for the first time, he realized that he wouldn’t want it any other way. He’d never thought of a woman as anything more than a bed partner or the keeper of the home and hearth. A delicate, fragile creature whom it was his job to protect. A necessity, but never someone to stand by his side, to talk to and argue with—not to mention drive him crazy. But Janet made him want all those things.

He swept his thumb over her mouth tenderly. “Don’t stop, no matter what you hear. I will find you.”

The small smile that curved her mouth stole his breath. “I know.”

And so they ran. Ran as fast as he could push her into the snow-covered moors and mist-shrouded hilltops that loomed in the distance. Bruce’s army had taken refuge in them many times before, but it would be too much to expect to find anyone this near to the village. It was up to him and Sutherland to get them out of this. They wouldn’t be able to outrun their pursuers, not on foot, with dogs and horses chasing them.

They didn’t have as much time as he’d hoped. The shadow of the fort behind him in the breaking dawn had yet to fade when he caught the first glimpse of horses.

“The river!” he shouted over his shoulder to Janet. “A few hundred feet ahead through the trees. Follow it until you reach the edge of the tree line and then into the hills. Remember what I said. Don’t stop. No matter what you hear.”

Her face was flushed from the exertion of running, but he thought she paled. “Ewen, I—”

He didn’t let her finish. “Go!”

He couldn’t hear it. Not now. He waited until she’d disappeared into the forest before turning to Sutherland. But the newest member of the Highland Guard had already anticipated him. “The pass?”

Ewen nodded. The deep, narrow valley of the glen would slow the horses down and give him and Sutherland time to get into position.

But there wasn’t time. The enemy was already breathing down his neck. He turned and drew his sword right as the first mailed arm came swinging down toward him. He blocked the blow of the poleaxe with a quick twist of his sword that send the Englishman’s weapon flying from his hands. A moment later, Ewen’s sword struck down hard on the rider’s leg, nearly severing it.

He heard the man’s startled cry before he toppled to the ground, his life’s blood pouring from him. A quick glance told Ewen what he needed to know: a dozen men-at-arms, one knight, de Beaumont’s arms, two dogs barking wildly.

No sooner had he apprised himself of the situation than the next rider was on him. He felt a roar of energy surge through his blood as the rush of battle crashed over him. He held his sword in two hands over his head and brought it down against the other man’s blade with enough force to knock him from his saddle.

One by one he and Sutherland struck down the enemy, working in tandem as they moved the attacking Englishmen into position in the narrow pass.

Just like that, the battle shifted. The horses couldn’t maneuver. Instead of the aggressors, the English knight and his men became like herring trapped in a barrel. With Ewen on one side and Sutherland on the other, there was nowhere for them to go. They were forced to abandon their horses or die.

They died anyway.

The loud clash of battle began to dull as the English fell beneath their swords. The barking had stopped. One of the dogs appeared to have been trampled by the fleeing horses, and the other …

Ewen swore, shaking off some of the sweat that had gathered beneath his helm to clear his vision. Where was the other dog?

While fending off blows, he scanned the area around them, grazing over the bodies of the men and horses that had fallen alongside them. No second dog.

A chill raced through his blood as he realized there was a man missing as well.

There were still four soldiers left. Three of them had converged on Sutherland, hoping to overpower him, while the other tried to keep Ewen from helping him. Sutherland didn’t need help. And neither did Ewen. He exchanged blows with the man-at-arms, a thick-necked, barrel-chested brute, who managed to land a solid blow of his sword on Ewen’s shoulder before the edge of Ewen’s blade could meet his neck.

Sutherland had realized what had happened. “Go!” he shouted between swings of his sword. “I’ll finish them off.”

Ewen didn’t hesitate. Jumping on one of the remaining horses, he tore off in the direction he’d told Janet to run.

He leaned down low over the courser’s neck to avoid the branches and limbs that splayed out in all directions of the forest that circled the base of the hills, and prayed. Prayed he’d counted wrong. Prayed that he reached her in time.

But a moment later he heard a piercing sound that would haunt him for the rest of his life. A shrill, terror-filled scream tore through the misty dawn air, stopping his heart and catapulting him forward into the dark, unfamiliar abyss of fear.

Janet had every intention of following his orders. But when the piercing clash of metal on metal shattered through the air, her head instinctively turned at the sound.

She stopped to look for only a minute, but the sight that had met her eyes was not one she would soon forget. It was battle, in all of its gruesome, horrifying chaos. Twice before she’d seen the violence of warfare—the night at the bridge when she’d tried to rescue her sister and the day in the forest with Marguerite when she’d first met Ewen—but the fierceness, the brutality of it, startled her anew. The sight of swords swirling, dirt flying, blood spurting in a gnarling mass of men and beast struck terror in her heart. As did the sounds. The very loudness of it. The violent clamor of steel and death.

Like a steel-clad plague of locusts, the English swarmed the two Highlanders. By all rights it should have been a slaughter. She couldn’t breathe, fearing Ewen would be cut down with the first stroke. But she’d forgotten, or told herself she must have exaggerated, his skill in her mind. The extraordinary strength and deadly intent. The brutally cold purpose by which he went about his task. Sir Kenneth fought the same way, not like a knight but like a barbarian. It wasn’t too hard to imagine them striking terror across the seas in a Viking longship.

The two Highlanders might be overmatched in number, but they were far superior in skill. In the first shadowed blink of daylight, in the midst of that chaos and horror, with their blackened helms and dark-colored plaids flaring like ghostly robes, they looked like deadly, menacing beings from another world.

They looked like … phantoms.

The realization stunned her for a moment, but then, remembering Ewen’s admonition, she turned and ran. Ran until her legs ached and her lungs felt as if they would explode, through the trees and underbrush, along the rocky riverbank as it wound through the forest.

She’d gone no more than a mile when she heard barking behind her. Fear tightened her already straining chest. She looked over her shoulder, saw the hound racing up behind her, and against every instinct in her body that screamed danger—run!—she forced herself to slow.

The dog was trained to hunt. To pursue. It would not stop, and she could not outrun it.

She would not be its prey. With her hand on the hilt of her blade, she turned to face it. Half-expecting it to leap on her, she was surprised when it stopped about ten feet away. They stared at one another in a silent face-off. Beast and man. Or in this case, woman.

Animals had always liked her. She tried to remember that as she stood perfectly still, except for the heavy rise of her chest sucking in air.

The deerhound was big, its gray head at about the level of her waist. Its mouth was pulled back, letting her see every one of its impressively long teeth, but its black eyes were more curious than angry. Could a dog be curious?

Its shaggy fur was dirty and matted, and it looked to be in need of a good bath, but it was a nice-looking animal, with the long, lean lines of a hunter, if perhaps on the skinny side.

With the hand that was not holding the hilt of her blade, she reached into the leather purse at her waist and dug out a piece of dried beef. Cautiously, she held it out, murmuring soothing sounds as the dog eyed her speculatively. Her heart hammered as the dog slowly made its way over to her. Not wanting to tempt fate, she put the beef down on the ground. The dog pounced on it. Devouring it in seconds, it looked up at her again, giving a little bark of encouragement.

In spite of the circumstances, she laughed. It was a cute little devil, once you looked past the size and teeth.

Tentatively, she held out her hand, letting the dog sniff her, murmuring her apologies. “I’m sorry, that’s all I have.”

It barked again, and then panted expectantly, sitting at her feet. When she reached out to pet its head, it crooned.

Janet laughed. “Why, you’re not so terrifying—”

Suddenly, a horse and rider broke through the trees. A startled gasp stuck in her throat, the gleam of mail identifying him as the enemy. The man reached for her, obviously intending to pull her onto his horse, when suddenly the dog leapt, its teeth clamping onto the mail-clad arm, trying to drag him off. Somehow dog and beast became tangled under the back hooves of the horse, causing the horse to pitch forward.

She heard a hideous snap and the pained howl of the dog. She turned away quickly, but instantly realized what had happened: the dog had been crushed under the horse, the horse had broken its leg, and the rider … the rider had been tossed off but was slowly coming to his feet. Swearing, he pulled out his sword and swung it down on the tangled mess of dog and horse.

She screamed and turned away.

“Damned stupid cur,” he growled. With one swipe, the pained crying of the dog stopped. He followed it with a second, and the anxious rustling of the horse as it tried to stand stopped.

Knowing he would come after her next, she tried to run, screaming again, when his steely hand caught hold of her arm.

He spun her around, his sword lifted above his head. “Where do you think you are going, you stupid rebel bitch—”

Janet didn’t think, she reacted. She was fortunate he’d grabbed her by her left arm, because it was the right she needed to jerk the blade from its scabbard and thrust it up with all her might between his legs, hoping to find the gap in the mail.

Just as her knife plunged, she heard a horrifying thump. His eyes widened. His hand tightened on her arm, and then released as he fell to her feet, a spear sticking through his neck.

Ewen had never experienced that kind of rage. The sight of Janet clasped in the rough, steely hold of the knight did something to him. She looked like a flower about to be crushed in a steely vise, her delicate bones no match for the strength of the big, mail-clad warrior and the sword that could at any moment take her head.

A black rage came over him. Bloodlust. The urge to kill. His vision narrowed as if he were peering through a dark tunnel with one objective in sight. He adjusted the spear in his hand. He didn’t let himself think that if he missed, she would die. He didn’t have time.

Forty, thirty, twenty feet away … he threw with all his might.

The spear ripped through the air with a whiz, piercing the mail of the knight’s coif as if it were butter.

Ewen hit the ground the same moment the soldier did. Janet turned, saw him, and with a soft cry that tore through his heart, raced into his arms.

He held her close as she buried her head against his chest, savoring every bloody sensation that came over him. She’s safe, he told himself over and over. Safe. But his damned heart wouldn’t stop pounding.

The emotions clamoring inside him were like nothing he’d ever experienced, and it took him a while to get them under enough control for him to speak. “Are you all right?”

She nodded against his chest, but he needed to see for himself. Carefully he tipped her chin back and looked into wide, tear-filled eyes. The baby-soft skin under his fingertips was so pale it seemed almost translucent. “I was so scared. The dog …” She looked up at him, stricken. “It was horrible.”

A wave of tenderness rose inside him with chest-crushing intensity. “It’s over, sweetheart. It’s over.”

She nodded obediently—he doubted she’d done that since she was a child, and probably not even then—but the horror of the attack was obviously still weighing on her. She trembled against him, her slender shoulders shaking, and a fierce wave of protectiveness surged over him. It took everything he had not to put his mouth on hers and kiss her until they both forgot.

But he didn’t. The danger was over, and with its absence came the reminder of his duty.

Slowly, reluctantly, he let her go.

She blinked up at him, at first surprised, and then with a wounded look that tore at him mercilessly.

He cursed the unfairness of it. The duties, the loyalties, the responsibilities that made it—them—impossible.

Suddenly, she gasped, her gaze flying to his arm. “You’re hurt!”

He glanced down, realizing the Englishman’s sword had sliced through his cotun and blood was seeping out. Truth be told, he didn’t feel it. Although he couldn’t say the same about his leg, which throbbed and burned like someone had thrown whisky on it and then lit it on fire. “I’m fine. It’s only a scratch.”

She screwed up her mouth in the familiar purse. Who knew annoyed could look so sweet?

“Your arm could be hanging by a string and you would say you were fine.”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile. She was probably right.

“You warriors are all alike—” She stopped and looked around anxiously. “Where is Sir Kenneth?”

“Don’t worry. He was finishing up when I came after you. He should be along any minute.”

“I can’t believe—I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself. Two men against so many.” Her voice held the unmistakable reverence of awe. But he couldn’t enjoy it. She was treading too close. Somehow he knew what she was going to say even before her eyes locked on his. “You are part of it, aren’t you? You are one of Bruce’s phantoms?”

God’s blood, the lass courted trouble like a lovesick troubadour! She’d seen too much, and now she was making guesses—dangerous guesses that could put them all at risk. Wasn’t what she was doing dangerous enough? Knowledge—even suspicions—like that would have half the English army after her. Identifying and capturing the members of Bruce’s secret army was top on the list of the English command.

His expression gave no hint of the storm of emotions her question had unleashed inside him. He feigned unconcerned amusement. “Didn’t your parents tell you there is no such thing as ghosts?”

She lifted her chin. “Do you deny being part of the secret army that has wreaked havoc with the English troops—”

He cut her off with an oath, taking her by the arm. “We need to go.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

But barely had the words left her mouth when she heard it, too. The bark of a dog, and not far behind it, the sound of horses. Her eyes widened, and she dug her heels into the ground, preventing him from pulling her toward the horse. “But what about Sir Kenneth? Don’t we need to wait for him?”

His mouth fell in a grim line. “He’ll find us.”

He hoped. But the sound of approaching horsemen did not bode well. He cursed again—silently, not wanting to add to her concern. But the mission that had started out bad only seemed to be getting worse.

He was about to help her up on the horse, when she pulled away again. “Wait! I forgot my dagger.”

Realizing she must have used it to try to defend herself, he stopped her from going after it. “I’ll get it.”

He approached the body of the dead knight. It didn’t take him long to locate the knife.

Well, I’ll be damned. If his spear hadn’t ended the bloody Englishman’s life, her blade, which was wedged deeply in his leg, would have.

He felt an unmistakable swell of pride. The lass was a fighter. His first impression all those months ago of a Valkyrie had not been far off.

Wiping the blood from the blade on his chausses, which were already splattered with any manner of deathly grime, he handed it back to her.

She looked up at him hesitantly. “Did I …”

He knew what she was asking. “You defended yourself well, lass. You would have hobbled him for life,” he lied.

She sighed, looking visibly relieved. “I wasn’t sure.”

He had enough death on his soul for both of them. He could protect her from that at least.

Another bark—this one discernibly closer—put an end to the brief delay.

Helping her onto the horse, he mounted behind her and they were off, riding hell-bent for leather along the riverbank toward the hills. They would ride the horse as long as they could—he hoped long enough to break the scent and make it more difficult to follow them. One of the best ways to do that was with another animal. Water would also help. Whenever it was shallow enough to do so, he steered the horse into the river.

They continued at that frantic pace for a few miles, until the sounds of their pursuers grew fainter and fainter, eventually disappearing altogether.

He heaved a sigh of relief. They’d lost them for now, and none too soon. He was forced to slow their pace considerably, as the ground started to rise and the forest and river valley gave way to heather-covered hillsides that beckoned to him like the first sight of land after days at sea. Home. Refuge. Safety.

Though dawn had broken some time ago, a thick blanket of wintry mist hid the barren mountaintops from view. Not only did they look ominous and haunting, they would also provide plenty of cover for them to disappear. Even if the English picked up their trail again, they would think twice about following them into such forbidding terrain.

But he wasn’t going to take any chances. Knowing the horse would only hinder them from this point, when he came to a small bridge over the river, he told Janet to wait while he rode it across. Dismounting, he hit the horse on the rump and watched it gallop down the narrow path. With any luck it would do so for some time. Careful to hide his tracks, he retraced his steps to where Janet stood watching him.

She stared down at the dark river with a wrinkled nose. “I assume my feet are going to be getting wet again?”

He grinned at her expression. “Afraid so.”

Instructing her to step on rocks or harder ground whenever she could, he helped her down the riverbank and into the water. Unfortunately, unlike the last river, the banks were steep, and the water swirled nearly up to her knees.

They followed the river up the hill until the ground grew too steep and the water became falls. Trudging up the bank, he motioned to a large rock. “We can rest here for a while.”

Not needing any more encouragement, she collapsed. Shrugging off the bags he carried, he used one of them as a seat and joined her. Fortunately, along with the bags of their belongings, he was also carrying the food. He tried not to think about Sutherland, telling himself their new recruit could take care of himself. But the attack shouldn’t have happened. It was Ewen’s job to make sure it didn’t. If he felt responsible, it was because he was responsible. He’d failed, damn it, and the failure didn’t sit well with him.

What had gone wrong? How in the hell had the dogs picked up their scent?

Apparently her thoughts were running in the same direction as his. “Do you think we’ve lost them?”

“For now,” he said. “With the horses and the river, the dogs will have trouble following the scent.”

“How did they pick it up in the first place?”

“I don’t know. I made damned sure we didn’t leave anything—”

He stopped, his gaze catching on a shimmering coil of golden hair that had slipped from its braid. Even in the mist, her golden head shone bright. Her bare golden head.

His mouth fell in a hard line, as the explanation for what had happened became clear. He swore. “Where is your cap?”