Quick as the thought, she pushed past Alasdair so she stood beside Moira and Farlan, to one side. Alasdair seized the back of her jerkin.
“Back wi’ ye, wee one.”
She froze where she stood, directly in sight of Rory MacLeod. Her enemy. Her lover. She opened her very spirit to him and took him in.
A tangle of emotions filled him, not all what one might expect from a chief bent on conquest. There was anger, aye. A wealth of determination. But also deep unhappiness and grief. He would do as he must this day. He did not relish it.
He carried his drawn sword in his hand. His shield, with the MacLeod bull painted on, rested on the opposite arm. His black hair, tied back out of his way, shone in the sun, and his green eyes looked hard as stones as he stared at Moira through narrowed black lashes.
He had not seen her, Saerla, not yet. Did she want him to? Would she be able to raise her sword to this man who had held her in his arms? If it meant saving the life of her sister or this man at her back?
“Moira MacBeith!” he called out, and the sound of his voice made Saerla tremble. It traveled along the course of her very blood and set her soul to dancing. Love and fear and despair all tumbled through her, unbearably bright.
“I give ye here one last chance to surrender all MacBeith lands to me. I offer ye a last chance at ending this strife between us wi’out bloodshed. Wi’out the dead littering this ground when I take it from ye.”
Moira’s head came up and her shoulders went back. Farlan, at her side, glanced at her as if willing her to accept.
But it was an offer Moira MacBeith could not accept.
“Never!” she called out, just as Saerla knew she must. “’Tis sacred ground upon which we stand. Never will I surrender it from MacBeith hands!”
Both armies stirred, the men shifting on their feet. Warriors eyed one another, choosing their opponents. In a moment, the peace of the beautiful morning would be shattered.
Saerla wanted to scream. She wanted to wail, to do or say something to prevent it all. To throw herself at Rory MacLeod and beg him, for all they’d meant to each other, to turn around and go home.
But she did not. She could not. Alasdair’s hand still clutched the back of her jacket.
It was Farlan who stepped forward from Moira’s side instead. Head high and his sword in his hand, it was he who addressed his former chief and friend.
“Let us fight it out, Rory! Just ye and me in single combat. To the death, for the fate o’ MacBeith lands.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Both armies seemedto take a collective breath and to shudder. Single combat. It was a deed performed in legends, the colorful, ancient tales told beside a winter’s fire. Two warriors fighting to the death with a bright fate of some kind resting upon loss and victory.
Saerla had never seen it done. Not in all her life. She doubted anyone there had.
The idea of it seized them all. So shocked was Alasdair, he forgot to keep hold of Saerla, and she stumbled forward. As did Moira, who caught hold of Farlan’s arm.
“Nay,” Moira said. “Nay!”
The man she loved lacked her permission to make such an offer. Indeed, the council should have to approve it, for did not ownership of all their lands waver upon it? But none of that made Moira cry out with such passion. It was love that made her do so. Love and terror.
“Ye?” Rory stared at Farlan, the sneer that twisted his lips an insult. “Ye think to best me?”
“Aye.” Steady as the rock that lay beneath the green turf upon which he stood, Farlan faced Rory. He heeded not the protestations of Moira, who tried to catch him back, or the rumblings of the men behind him.
“Farlan!” When Moira spoke his name, Farlan looked at her. In his level brown gaze, Saerla could see the reflection of her Vision. Moira falling. Dead. Farlan would risk his own lifea thousand times over to prevent that, even if the bid was a perilous one.
She glanced next into Rory’s narrowed eyes and saw the reflection of still another Vision. Three young lads racing on the green turf with purloined swords in their hands. The black-haired lad turning to the brown-headed one.
I dare ye to face me!
Farlan had never beaten Rory in such combat, not in play or in earnest. Never.
“Look here!” Alasdair rumbled. “I ha’ a say—”
Rory glared at him, then fastened upon Saerla, who stood at Alasdair’s shoulder.
