“Bring him awa’ in,” said a voice she knew.
Willing hands lifted Adair and carried him into the darkened dun. Away behind, Bradana could still hear someone—her grandfather’s men—pursuing the last of Mican’s who had broken away.
Blood. There was so much blood. It trailed from Adair’s body as they carried him. More blood than one man should be able to shed.
He breathed and he lived, aye, but for how long?
Chapter Fifty-Four
Asection ofthe dun still smoldered, making it dark inside, and a terrible reek of burning filled the hall.
They did not carry Adair there but to the other side, where lay Grandfather’s quarters.
Someone took Bradana’s arm. She jerked in surprise.
“Morag?”
“My dear, wha’ are ye doing here? We thought ye safe awa’.”
“We came back.” She had no other words. Those said it all, did they not?
“He turned the battle, yer young man. Everyone saw.”
“Grandfather?”
“He saw, aye.”
“He is alive?”
“We had to drag him fro’ the battle.”
Suddenly, Grandfather was there, tottering on his own feet, ushering them in out of the gloom. It did not seem real. But none of this could be real, the flames, the presence of those she knew. Adair, bleeding so.
So much blood.
Maybe she was still back in Erin, dreaming it all.
They laid him down upon a pallet and suddenly the healer was there, the same who had treated them before.
Bradana looked into the man’s face, which appeared so terribly grave that she had to look away again.
At the man she loved.
Someone put his arm around her. Grandfather, it was.
“Lass, come awa’.”
“Nay.”
“Let the healer do his work.”
“I canna lose him. If I do—”
“Let her stay,” the healer said, and his eyes said still more.It will not be long.
With a sob, she fell down beside the pallet and took Adair’s hand, scraped raw and red with blood. She drew it to her lips.
“Please, my love. Please.”
