The man beside her took hold of her arm. “This way. Quickly.”
“Sarah!” Elora scanned the market street as the man pulled her.
“Hurry,” the man urged.
Another woman screamed. A large group of men surged forward like a tide, throwing punches and hurling curses. Elora noticed a man sitting on the ground, bleeding from his nose and mouth, as a bearded man stood over him, lifting his fist for another blow.
The man tugged at her arm, pulling her away from the brawl. She could no longer find Sarah amongst the fleeing crowd and hoped her friend had moved to safety. Elora grabbed the man’s hand and let him guide her, knowing if she stayed, she would be swept up in the fight and possibly injured.
As they moved with the pack of villagers trying to escape the commotion, men sprinted past them in the opposite direction toward the battle.
Elora looked over her shoulder. A sea of bodies clashed. Men shouted and swore. Thunks sounded as fists met flesh. Dust swirled about the fighters. One bald man grabbed another man with a green tunic around the head and flipped him to the ground. The brawl was spreading.
The man held her hand and pulled her through the increasingly chaotic crowd. Someone ran into her from behind. She stumbled but righted herself. What if she couldn’t escape the fight? What if she got hurt? A villager ran between them, breaking her hold on the man’s hand. Desperately, she surged forward, reaching for him, but the villagers swarmed around and jostled her.
He looked back for her through the throng.
She glanced around frantically. Her heart beat loudly in her ears. A man with a missing tooth passed her. A woman with wide, determined eyes hurried by. Another merchant clutched a basket of his wares. Someone knocked into her shoulder.
Through the mass of strangers, a hand suddenly engulfed hers. She almost pulled away until she realized it was the man who had been helping her. Her rescuer. He pulled her in close and put an arm about her shoulders, protecting her. “Are you all right?”
She managed to nod, clinging tightly to his hand. He glanced about and then led her into a smaller, less crowded street.
On the side street, the shouts seemed to come from the distance. Here, at least, she could breathe for a moment.
He faced her and put his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look into his eyes. “Are you hurt?”
Her heart pounded madly in her chest, but somehow, she managed to take stock of herself. “No. No. I am not hurt.” She swallowed, looking back toward the fight. Good Lord, she thought, what had gotten into them? Why were they acting like savages? And then, suddenly, her mind turned to Sarah. Her friend had been swept away in that madness. She put a hand to her throat. “I don’t know where Sarah is.”
Villagers rushed past the entrance to the road, and then one man stumbled. He recovered and lunged out of view.
“We’ll find her. Do not worry,” he reassured her.
“What’s happening?”
He scowled as more men blocked the entrance to the road they were on. One man with long, brown hair threw a punch at a smaller male, landing against his cheek. “A brawl. A rather large one by the looks of it.”
Stunned, Elora stared at the smaller male who had fallen to the ground and was now being pummeled by the one with brown hair. She turned away, disgusted. “They are acting like savages.”
Her rescuer grinned apologetically. “They’re acting like men.”
Her gaze swept his face from his furrowed brow to his square jaw. “How are we going to get away from this?”
Her rescuer looked down the street they were on. “We can continue down this road and see where it leads, or wait and hope…”
Another fighter with a bloodied nose shoved a squire with short black hair into the wall of the building near the road’s entrance. The black-haired squire swung him down the side street they were on, moving close to where they stood.
Elora’s rescuer stepped before her protectively. “Break up! No need for this.”
The black-haired squire whirled to face them, instinctively punching her rescuer in the jaw. Her protector recoiled from the blow and fell to his knee. The black-haired squire turned back to the fighter with the bloodied nose.
Elora jerked forward to help her rescuer up, eyeing the line of blood on his lip.
“We have to go,” he said sternly as he stood, wiping the blood from his lip with his sleeve. He took her hand into his and led her down the road, away from the main street where the brawl had begun. They came to the intersection of the side street and another road, only to find the fighting worse here. More men crowded the street, shoving each other and kicking men on the ground.
Her rescuer hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at the direction they had come.
“Here!” a voice called. A woman waved at them from an open door in one cottage.
