Cormac immediately redirected his aim. He sent a flurry of arrows in Giric’s direction, but they all fell short. “He’s too far away,” the bowman reported. “I’ll need to move closer.”
He slipped out from behind a rock and dashed along the ridge. Although he wisely zigged and zagged as he ran, his luck was in short supply. Just as he was about to dive behind a protective slab of slate, one of the Welsh arrows sang through the air and drove deep into his thigh. He fell hard, sliding a good thirty feet on a loose bed of shale.
In the corner of his eye, Bran saw Giric lay another man low and barrel through the blockade. Once again, the Englishman was making an escape. A low growl of frustration rumbled in his throat. He’d promised Caitrina that he would leave the fighting to more experienced warriors, but all were occupied. No one was giving chase.
Bran eyed the horses tied at the far end of the plateau. There wasn’t time to dwell on the likelihood of success. He simply ran. Slipping and sliding on loose shards of rock, he dashed for the bottom of the basin. When he reached the grass, there were other obstacles in his path—bodies felled by MacCurran arrows, dying fires, the trampled remains of pitched tents.
To his amazement, he reached the horses and suffered nary a scratch. Freeing the closest palfrey with a quick jerk on its lead, he bounded onto the back of the powerful beast and spurred it toward the crumbling blockade.
“Duck,” he yelled to his men as he urged the horse into a jump. He sailed over the heads of several men and raced for Giric’s departing back.
It was only as he gained on the mighty Englishman that he remembered the significant difference in their sizes. Giric was nearly twice the man that he was. And the swing of his sword had enough power to make the air hum. The last time they had met in battle, Giric had very nearly destroyed him. What had possessed him to think he could duel such a mountainous man and come out the victor?
Giric spun around at the clatter of horse hooves on the stone path. His eyebrows clashed as he recognized Bran. “You,” he growled. “I should have taken your head the first night I saw you.”
He swung his blade with lethal intent and very nearly decapitated the horse—only a quick jerk on the reins saved the poor beast’s life. And even so, the edge of Giric’s blade sliced across the horse’s shoulder, and it screamed in pain.
Bran slid to the ground and sent the palfrey on its way with a swat to its rump. He gripped his sword in one hand and his dirk in the other. “Only cowards take aim at unarmed horses,” he said, with more calm than he felt. Winning a lengthy duel against Giric would be impossible. The man was a giant.
Giric shrugged. “Only a weak-minded man would concern himself with a beast.”
Bran studied the huge Englishman with a critical eye, trying to recall every detail of their last meet. Everyone had a weak spot. What was Giric’s?
“Where is Marsailli?” he asked as he dodged left to avoid an impressive slice.
“Dead,” Giric pronounced. “She was too small to take all of my cock and she bled to death from her injuries.”
A crude tale, with just enough fact to make it believable. But Bran knew a lie when he heard one—there was a tad too much glee in Giric’s voice for it to be an honest accounting. Which suggested, thankfully, that Marsailli was still alive. All Bran had to do was discover her whereabouts.
“Escaped your camp, did she?” he taunted.
The Englishman growled with rage and swung his sword. Bran ducked—just in time to avoid losing his head.
“A resourceful lass,” Bran said. “Just like her sister.”
“Nothing like her sister,” dismissed Giric. “A scrawny bird with unremarkable plumage.”
Bran feinted right with his sword, then spun left, slashing with his dirk. The tip of his blade caught the Englishman’s upper arm, and his sleeve blossomed with red. First blood belonged to Bran.
But he paid a price for the maneuver.
Giric came at him with a series of quick, powerful strikes, two of which he deflected with the flat of his blade. The third struck his sword at an awkward angle and left a nasty gouge in the steel.
As he parried and blocked his opponent’s blade, Bran continued to hunt for a weakness in Giric’s defenses. But the man was surprisingly nimble, leaving very few openings. And he kept the pressure on Bran, forcing him to dart and dash from side to side to avoid the brunt of his blows.
When he finally spied an opening, Bran was nearly exhausted. Rivulets of sweat ran down his back and his hair clung damply to his neck. The moment was now or never.
He raised his sword to parry a blow and ducked under Giric’s sword arm to stab the huge Englishman in the chest. It was a well-executed maneuver, and he surely would have succeeded had his damaged sword not chosen that precise instant to fail him. It snapped neatly in half under the force of Giric’s strike.
The muscles in his arm were wrenched sideways as the blade gave way, and a paralyzing numbness ran across his shoulder. The pieces of his sword clattered to the ground.
The huge Englishman immediately took advantage, twisting his blade as it swung and clipping Bran’s undefended midriff. He planted his feet and prepared to make the killing thrust.
It was a moment of crisis.
And in such moments, Bran’s father had taught him to do the unexpected.
He dropped to the ground and rolled.
