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He sprinted back down the stone stairs, ignoring the sharp stones cutting into his bare feet. Duncan ran directly behind him. They burst through the iron-bound doors of the Great Hall and practically tore out into the main courtyard.

The keep was in absolute, terrifying chaos.

Thick, black smoke was already billowing over the high stone battlements of the western wall. Flaming arrows streaked across the pitch-black sky, slamming into the wooden roofs of the stables and the blacksmith’s forge. Men were screaming, running in opposite directions. Dozens of young guards were scrambling out of the barracks, half-dressed, fumbling blindly with their sword belts in the dark.

A flaming arrow slammed directly into the dirt less than five feet from Caelan.

He did not flinch. He walked straight into the absolute center of the chaotic, blood-soaked mud. He raised his heavy broadsword high into the air, his massive, scarred chest bare to the freezing wind, and filled his lungs.

“TO ARMS!”

The sheer, deafening volume of his roar cut straight through the frantic screaming of the courtyard. It was a brutal, terrifying sound, forged by ten years of commanding the bloodiest borders in the north.

Instantly, every single warrior in the courtyard stopped moving. The blind, scrambling panic vanished in an absolute fraction of a second. They turned their heads, their eyes locking onto the massive, scarred warlord standing in the center of the mud.

The Black Laird had taken command.

“Archers!” Caelan barked, pointing the tip of his broadsword directly at the western wall. “Get on the battlements! I want a continuous volley on the tree line! Daenae wait for targets; fire into the brush!”

“Aye, Laird!” a dozen voices shouted back. The men broke ranks, sprinting in perfect unison toward the stone stairs of the battlements.

“Rowan!” Caelan shouted, spotting his captain emerging from the armory with a heavy shield.

“Here!” Rowan yelled, shoving his way through the crowd of soldiers.

“Take thirty men to the postern gate!” Caelan ordered rapidly, his eyes constantly moving, assessing the trajectories of the incoming arrows. “Lock shields. Daenae let them set the battering ram. If they breach the timber, ye hold the choke point with spears. Move!”

“Shields up! With me!” Rowan roared, breaking toward the western gate with a massive column of armed men falling in step behind him.

“Alasdair!” Caelan shouted at the stable master. “Get the horses out of those stalls before the roof catches fire! Form a bucket line to the well!”

Caelan stood in the mud, directing the violent chaos into a highly coordinated, lethal defense. The men moved strictly on his word. He did not need to shout twice. The courtyard transformed from a panicked scramble into a disciplined, impenetrable machine of war within sixty seconds.

“They are pushing the left flank!” Duncan yelled, blocking a stray arrow with his iron gauntlet. “They have ladders against the stone!”

“Let them climb,” Caelan stated coldly, his grip tightening on his sword. “When they reach the top, dump the boiling pitch. Let them burn.”

Suddenly, the wooden doors of the southern gatehouse groaned open just enough to let a single man slip through.

“Me Laird!”

Caelan whipped around.

A MacCarron guard stumbled blindly into the torchlight of the courtyard. He was covered in thick, freezing mud. His helmet was gone, and blood poured freely from a gash on his forehead. He practically dragged himself across the dirt, his breathing ragged and wet.

Caelan crossed the courtyard in three massive strides, grabbing the man by his chainmail collar to keep him from collapsing face-first into the mud.

“Report,” Caelan ordered sharply.

“Miss Mabel…” the guard gasped, coughing up a mouthful of blood and spitting it onto the dirt. “They took her… right out from under the walls.”

“Who took her?” Caelan demanded, shaking the man once.

“A man… in a dark hood,” the guard wheezed, his eyes rolling back slightly. “He dragged her out of the rusted iron grate at the foundation… below the southern ridge.”

Caelan’s chest tightened. The hidden passage.

“Did she fight him?” Duncan asked, stepping up right behind Caelan.