Eoghan’s sword fell from his limp fingers and thumped to the ground.He stumbled back a single step.His knife fell next, but Eoghan somehow managed to stay on his feet.Eoghan’s white, shocked face coughed up a mouthful of blackish-red blood before he sat backward onto his arse.
The crowd fell silent as William crawled over to Eoghan.
“Yield now,” William begged.“It may not be too late for a healer to get here.”It was probably too late – the wound looked to be a mortal one – but William had to cling to the last bit of hope.And if the sword wound was not fatal, then Eoghan must yield, so William was not forced to take that final, devastating step to the end of this combat.
“I’m sorry, William,” Eoghan coughed out, more blood spraying his lips.“We canna let someone like Ailith live.She’s too dangerous, to ye and to the Highlands.I’ll not say otherwise.”
William dropped his head as he came up on his knees, ignoring the burn from his right knee by shifting the weight to his left.He raised his hands and grasped his sword handle that extended impossibly from Eoghan’s chest.
With a scream of unbridled effort and heart-wrenching remorse, William ripped the blade from his friend’s body.Eoghan slid backward to the ground.
Why?The question echoed inside William’s head as his gaze remained fixed on his dear friend.Why were we driven to this?Why so much death when it could have been avoided?
With the wound now free of the blade, Eoghan bled like a broken dam.The very sword that had killed him had been the only thing keeping him alive.Eoghan's brown eyes closed as his chest stopped moving.
If he hadn’t been condemned to hell before, he felt like he was walking through that damned perdition now.
William’s eyes filled with tears as he crouched down to Eoghan and rested his hand on Eoghan's shoulder.
“I told ye ‘twas no’ the end of my days, dear cousin.Go with God.”
William might be alive, but this was no victory.A brutal fight to the death to save himself and his family, his future with Ailith, and it seemed to have happened for the most trifling reason.A reason that William could not share, nor would Eoghan have understood.
Instead, he had been forced to do the one thing he did not want to do – the last thing he ever thought he would do.Waves of sorrow, guilt, and relief battled in his chest.
How had it all come to this dark moment?
And what would happen to the alliances between the clans now?
Keeping his hand on Eoghan’s lifeless body, William sat back on his heels and let his tears wet his cheeks.
Chapter Eighteen
SecondsafterEoghanfell,the quiet of the crowd was broken by the keening – Betris, shrieking over her brother, and Ailith turned her horrified gaze from the harrowing sight of William bent over his kin to Eoghan’s screeching sister.Several Grants quickly escorted her away, her shrieking cries drifting through the small Grant village as she departed the scene of her dead brother.
In a swift move, Teagan rushed to the dying Eoghan’s side and put her hands on the bloody wound to try to stop the bleeding.The gash scored a long and deep fissure of jagged flesh that tore from his front to his back.Ailith watched with fascination, almost as if watching a television show from her own time, while Teagan switched to her nurse mode.Her face tensed, and her absolute focus was on the dying man.
He was bleeding out – that was a term Ailith was familiar with, and she strode to Teagan’s side.
“Can I do anything?”Ailith asked, crouching next to her.
Teagan took a deep breath as if steeling her nerves, and, with a glance at Ailith, pressed her fingers under Eoghan’s bloody jaw.Ailith understood the gesture– she was checking for a pulse – and Ailith tried to block the movement as best she could from any onlookers.
Teagan’s other hand kept pressure on the wound; Eoghan’s blood stained her hands and his tunic.It trickled over her pale skin in branching networks of deep russet red, a chaotic topography of tiny highways on Teagan’s hand.
Ailith knew the outcome before Teagan said a word.He was too far gone.With a grim expression, Teagan shifted her mossy green gaze to Ailith and shook her head slightly.
“Thank ye for trying to save him,” Ailith told the nurse.
Although her skills might only have extended into the First World War, she had more skill than Ailith.The attempt, futile though it was, did not go unappreciated.
Wiping her bloodied hands against the lower part of Eoghan’s tunic, Teagan stood, and Ailith followed her.Teagan went immediately to William.
As Teagan inspected William’s injuries, primarily his horribly swollen and bruised knee, Ailith knelt in front of him, holding his hand.Yet her mind kept going back to her worries about the clans and the Highlands as a whole.
What would happen to the unity of the clans after this miserable day?Had William and his father made any headway with the Morays?And her most pressing concern – what action would the Grants take now after everything the MacDougals had done to form an alliance?
So many questions, yet she hesitated to ask William any of them.His sorrow and his pain were etched into his face, and Ailith feared it would be a long time before they eased.He did not need any added weight.
