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She nodded. “I believe we’re even.”

She’d just saved his life. Her face was sprayed with blood, her eyes shining, her back straight. She’d never looked more powerful, more beautiful, and more alive. Konnor forgot how to breathe, how to move, how to live for a moment. She was the sun, and he was a man who’d lived in an eternal night.

And she needed him. He needed to protect her, to do everything to have her live, even if it meant to take a blow meant for her. He looked around. More enemies came at them, and Konnor stood in position to take his next opponent. “Chruachan!” he cried, and Marjorie beamed at him.

But the more people woke up and came at them, the more enemies the Cambels had to face. Soon, it was clear they were being pressed back.

He pierced an enemy’s throat and kicked him back. He exchanged a glance with Marjorie, who’d just wounded another man and stood panting, her sword dripping with blood. “We need to retreat, Marjorie,” he said. “Command the retreat.”

She looked around, her eyes determined. “Aye.” She took in a lungful of air. “Retreat! Quick! Retreat!”

“Retreat!” Konnor echoed.

He made sure Marjorie turned around and ran, and then he followed her, putting himself between her and the enemies. Their people ran back as well, and Konnor saw Muir, Tamhas, and Malcolm, as well as others. He estimated there were fifteen of them alive.

The enemy warriors started following them but soon stopped, and Konnor knew they were getting instructions from their commander, taking horses and equipment, and they would arrive at Glenkeld with full force.

And then it would be a matter of whether the castle’s fortifications would hold the MacDougalls back or not.

Chapter 24

Marjorie’s chest strained for breath, her shoulders and arms aching after the battle. Her head ached from a couple of hard punches she’d received. Her face was cut, her ribs ached, and she was bruised in several places.

Konnor stood by her side on the wall, watching the MacDougall army approach. Konnor had swung his sword well on the battle field, and she was proud. He was like a Highlander. What he lacked in experience, he made up for with cunning and dexterity.

She watched the MacDougalls arriving at Glenkeld in full force. The rain had stopped, and the sky began to clear in the east behind the trees, spilling everything in a whitish stone-gray hue. Pine trees in the nearby grove looked almost black.

This night, she’d been christened as a warrior on her first real battlefield. She wasn’t a weakling anymore. Her hands had not shook. It was thanks to Konnor, who’d given her the strength and security to believe in herself. She hadn’t realized how much strength she’d built up after all these years.

Thanks to Konnor’s idea, Cambels had taken out about six dozen men, but there was still no way they could win a battle in an open field. She could see now there were many more of them. Three hundred or so.

It was the matter of defenses now.

Her archers hid behind the hinged wooden shutters between the stone merlons on the walls. While Marjorie and her group had been fighting, the men who’d remained in the castle had covered the wooden hoardings on top of the towers and the roofs of the buildings with animal hides to them to make them fireproof. The northern wall was as secure as it could be, given the limited time and resources they had. In the courtyard, six cauldrons full of hot sand hung over the campfires, and a heap of sand lay nearby to replenish them.

The castle had to hold.

The mass of warriors were approaching. A siege tower loomed in the middle of them with a battering ram by its side. People carried long siege ladders. Marjorie shivered at the sight of these siege weapons.

But then the army came close enough.

She saw him.

The face she’d never forget. The face she saw in her nightmares. The father who’d let his son treat her like a dirty rag.

John MacDougall.

Chief of the MacDougall clan, John MacDougall, sat up front on a horse. He was in expensive chainmail and armor that glistened in the milky light of dawn. His white hair was gathered in long tail that ran down his back.

A shiver went through Marjorie at the sight of him. When she’d seen him last, all those years ago in Dunollie, he’s been much younger. Strangely, he seemed shorter now and less powerful, though his shoulders were still mighty and broad, and he sat on the horse with the grace of a highly experienced warrior.

His eyes met hers.

Oh, nae.

“Marjorie,” John said, a surprised frown on his face. “Was it ye who attacked us?”

In the darkness of the night and in the chaos of a surprise attack, he probably hadn’t recognized her, or he hadn’t seen her. That’s right, ye pig. Triumph spread through her core like an avalanche of fire. “Didna expect that, did ye?”