Page 88 of Anice’s Bargain

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The arms restraining James released him suddenly. But it was too late. Anice was in the castle and the reivers were already breaking inside.

The departure from Caldrick Castle had been too abrupt for James to know if Tall Tam had been able to successfully deliver the message to Lord Bastionbury. It would be impossible to know until James was inside. And he would get inside.

He shoved free of his captors and sprinted toward the castle, toward Anice. Men rushed on either side of him, driven by avarice and anticipation for plundering.

“Go back to yer farms,” James shouted at the men as he ran. “Yer wives and children are waiting for ye, for a life of peace.”

But they did not hear him, or if they did, they did not care for what he said, for on they ran.

Surely Anice would know he hadn’t betrayed her. After all, he’d given her the dagger. And thank God he had, or she would have been surely killed on this day. The very idea sent a shiver of fear rippling over his skin.

Ahead, the entry to the castle was jammed full of men engaged in close quarter combat. Blades flashed in the afternoon sun, glinting red with blood.

James shoved his weight into the wall of men. His weapon had been taken, but he did not need it. Nay, he relied on his fists, refusing to take the lives of either a soldier of Werrick Castle or a Graham reiver. Both his brethren—by blood or by marriage—but brethren all the same.

His armor was good, and his instincts were better still. A blade flew in his direction, but he ducked to avoid its strike. The man beside him cried out and fell hard against him. James caught the reiver and held him upright. Not that he could do anything to save the man. Blood gushed from a wound in his throat and splashed hot and wet against James’s gambeson, staining it with death.

The light dimmed from the reiver’s pale blue eyes and the gripping hold he kept on James’s sleeves slackened. Slowly, he slid to the ground, leaving James covered in gore from having borne witness to the man’s final moments of life.

Regret and rage burned in James’s chest. This was what he’d striven to prevent. Lives senselessly taken for no purpose but purloined treasure. It was disgusting, this greed.

He’d finally given peace to his men, but they wanted treasure more.

James roared with anger, with anguish, and shoved into the melee once more. Something hard and heavy slammed into his back. Searing pain cracked through him and robbed him of his breath. He staggered, held upright only by the pressing wall of others around him. Were it not for the armor in his gambeson, no doubt that blow would have felled him.

A massive battle axe came down from above, but James jerked hard to the right, through the agony it cost him to do so, and narrowly avoided the impact. He had to get through the melee and into the castle, to Anice. To do what he could to protect her. To do what he could to stop this battle.

All around him were faces he recognized, men from his youth and men from his weeks spent at Werrick Castle.

“Anice,” he cried out. “I need to get to my wife.”

The man in front of him, a Werrick soldier, shifted back slightly. Whether the move had been intentional, or by accident, James shoved past and slipped between the soldiers. Now he was on the side of battle with Werrick Castle’s soldiers, an area far more dangerous.

Battle was confusing; it always had been with the cacophony of melee and screams and death. Fear ran high, as well as confidence and the heart-rattling energy pumping hot through every man’s veins. James used that confusion to his advantage. He darted and dove through the men, pushing his way further into the bailey.

His awareness tingled. Something moved in his direction from the side. Something fast. He spun around and was immediately struck by a hurtling body. James dropped to the ground, the man still standing over him. He swept his leg out with all the strength he could muster. The man fell beside him.

Not just any man. Drake.

The younger man stared at him through the slits of his helm.

James held his hands at his side, trying not to appear as a threat. “Drake, I—”

Drake’s right leg curled in as he moved to stand.

“Forgive me,” James muttered. He shoved hard on Drake’s chest, using the weight of the younger man’s armor against him, and sent Drake crashing to his back once more. The weight of his helm crashed into the hard cobblestones and Drake went still.

The pain at James’s back had abated some, but his breath still came like heavy fire in his lungs. He turned from Drake before the man regained his senses and regarded the castle once more.

Anice stood at the entrance only feet away, her eyes wide with horror.

“Anice—” He reached out for her. It was then he noticed his fingers, covered in blood. All of him, covered in blood. In that instant, he realized how it must look with him approaching her thus. He’d come through the battle still standing and smeared with gore.

He doubted he looked like a man set on reclaiming his wife, but instead a reiver set on pillaging.

“Anice, wait, I—”