“There!” cried someone up ahead. “’Tis one o’ the bastards!”
Not his men, then. A cleanup crew of MacBeiths.
He drew a hard breath that expanded his broad chest and increased his agony. He lifted his sword in his left hand, since the right no longer served him. One last battle, then. He’d rather die out here beneath the stars than as a captive.
There were three of them, and they loomed before him like something from a bad dream. Splashed with blood they were, hard-eyed and well-armed. Aye, when he was whole, he might be able to take on three of them. Especially with his back to the wall. He was not whole now.
“Kill him!” one of the MacBeith warriors howled, and they all fell upon him.
His sword did not work as well as it should in his left hand. His muscles did not respond as well as they should either. But he fought with the desperation half choking him, till they beat him down to his knees.
He glimpsed one face coming closer, and felt a blow to the head before everything went dark.
He could not see. He could not see, but he could still hear, so that must mean he was still alive.
“Bring him,” said one of his opponents. “And his sword. ’Tis a fine sword, that.”
The others guffawed. “He’s awfy big to carry. Can we no’ just put a dirk through his brain?”
“Nay. Alasdair said bring any prisoners. He’s no’ dead—yet—and that makes him a prisoner.”
I canna see. That fact frightened Leith badly, and he tried to express it even as the MacBeith men hoisted him up. It came out as a croak, and they ignored him.
He wished they’d plunge a dirk into his brain, because he did not want to be taken prisoner. Rory would never forgive him.
And he certainly did not want to live as a man blinded.
Chapter Five
“There is aprisoner ye maun see.” It was Alasdair who dropped the words in Rhian’s ear. She raised an inquiring gaze to him and groaned inwardly.
Morning had come, bringing light that displayed all too clearly the scars of last night’s battle. The blood, the broken and butchered bodies. The scattered weapons.
Not that Rhian had found time to look outside. She’d been kept busy tending the wounded since she came back into the stronghold.
She glanced up at Alasdair with impatience. He’d clearly had no respite either and had come from the field in his current condition—blood splashed on one side of his face and spattered over his leather armor. Rhian assumed that last was not his own.
Alasdair, a big man with an ironlike disposition, seemed indestructible. Though he fought always in the vanguard, frequently beside Moira, he rarely took other than minor wounds.
“I do no’ ha’ time for prisoners.” Not that she failed to care. Suffering was suffering. She thought briefly of the MacLeod warrior she’d tended out in the dark. “I ha’ enough o’ our own men to tend.” She indicated the man, lad, really, who now suffered beneath her hands.
Alasdair scowled at her.
“Is Moira whole?” she asked. He would know, since he looked after Moira as an overgrown hound might.
“She is inside,” Alasdair confirmed. “With that man o’ hers beside her.”
“Ah, then the MacLeods did no’ kill him?”
“They did no’.” Alasdair snorted.
The lad beneath Rhian’s hands echoed the snort and got to his feet. “Thank ye, Mistress Rhian.” He glanced at Alasdair. “As for that MacLeod bastard, if his own folk do no’ kill him, someone here soon will.”
He stalked off, and Alasdair frowned after him.
Rhian cleaned her hands carefully. “I ha’ others o’ our men waiting. I tell ye, Alasdair, I ha’ no time for prisoners.”
“This man is important. Farlan says so.”
