Naught else truly existed for him. Even though his heart was torn by the desire to protect Wen, who had thrown himself headlong into the battle. To protect the old man who so valiantly fought at his side, nothing came before rescuing his wife.
Why had she done it, delivered herself into Mican’s hands? But he knew, aye, even as he battled, his sword crashing into weapon after weapon. Even as he watched Mican, still clutching Bradana, slip away while his men held Adair off.He knew.
She could no more bear to see harm come to him than he could see it come to her.
He fought like a wild man, some old skill flooding through him from he knew not where. Mican’s men fell to his blade one after the other. But even as he felled them, Mican moved off and away, fighting his own path through Rohracht’s guards, who surrounded him. When Mican reached his ponies, he mounted, pulling Bradana up with him.
Adair and Wen both broke through the battling crowd of Mican’s men. Wen leaped at Mican’s pony and the man danced the animal away even as Adair struck at him, careful not to hurt the woman clutched to his enemy’s chest.
Her eyes filled with agony. With regret. With a plea for forgiveness.
Mican dug his heels into his pony’s sides and, in company with several of his mounted men, sped off, scattering the remaining ponies out of Adair’s reach.
Adair wanted to scream. He wanted to flail and rage. Instead he chased after them till his breath gave out, and he found himself surrounded by those of Mican’s men who had followed him.
“Go!” he told Wen then, for the hound had accompanied him on his desperate chase.
Wen took off in a gray streak after the charging ponies, no longer in sight.
Not what Bradana had asked of him. She’d wanted for him to keep her hound safe. But she had done something so terrible.
For the sake of love.
He was not sure he could forgive it.
For the moment, though, he found himself in a desperate fight against no fewer than four of Mican’s men. They would like naught better than to kill him and take his corpse—or at least his head—back to their chief.
Winded as he was, distracted as he was, he might not have survived that fight had two of Rohracht’s men not reached him and thrown their swords behind his. One of them was Dabhor, with whom Adair had grown friendly. When the last of Mican’s men fell, their eyes met, Dabhor’s wide with dismay.
“He has the chief’s granddaughter!”
“Aye.” Adair gasped for breath, his distress weighing him down. “The chief?”
“He survives. Just barely.”
Why had Mican taken Bradana when he’d wanted Adair’s blood? Because he wanted to cause Adair maximum pain. And he now had the means in his hands.
Adair wanted to retch there on the ground. He wanted to tear something apart with his bare hands. Neither would do the woman he loved any good.
He straightened and said, “I ha’ sent Wen after them.”
“The hound? Wha’ good will that do?”
“Ye may be surprised.”
*
Rohracht was distraught,though not half so upset as Morag. The kindly woman, when Adair and his companions reached her, stood torn between dismay over the plight of her husband and fear for Bradana.
“He took her! Och, he took her,” she kept repeating over and over again. “Whatever will we do?”
Rohracht had collapsed after his valiant stand and had to be carried to his quarters.
“Go after her,” he implored Adair, grasping his arm. “That brave, misguided lass—she has done this for yer sake.”
“I know.”
“He will hurt her. Just because he can.”
