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“Tadhg,” she whispered helplessly. How much more could one man take? “I am sorry.”
He turned his gaze to Sherwood. “Now see what you’ve done,” he said, his voice menacingly soft. “You’ve made her cry. You’ll pay for that.”
The sound of booted feet came running up stairs, and Sherwood smiled. “You are fools if you think I would only have five men.”
“Bollocks,” someone muttered as they turned, and fighting erupted.
Sherwood swung Magdalena around harshly, moving his restraining arm from her waist to her neck, he crooked his elbow around her throat and, almost choking her, began dragging her backward toward
a door, her heels dragging as they went.
From above the grunts of men and the crash of steel, they could hear shouts come in through the open windows. The sound of galloping horses thickened as it roped into the room.
Someone called out, “The prince! Prince John is here.” And with that much warning, the prince of England, John Lackland, stepped into the room.
He took in the fighting, and as his personal guard, his mesnie, his bachelor knights spread out behind him, he scanned the room, then locked on Sherwood.
“You bastard,” he roared. “I have received word of your treachery! You mean to sell the dagger to me, do you? Or perhaps even to the French king? I will cut out your heart and roast in a fire. I will—”
Sherwood yanked Maggie off her feet, swinging her toward the back door.
The prince’s knights swept into the sea of battle as Maggie closed her fingers around his elbow and tried to yank his arm away. She kicked and pushed and elbowed, to no avail. Her feet skidded over the floor, and as the breath was almost squeezed from her, her breath constricted to nothing and her vision started to blacken.
Then the suffocating arm around her throat suddenly went limp, and fell away.
She collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath.
Sherwood’s body lay behind her, crumpled and spurting blood from a six inch gap that swept the front his throat like a ruby-red necklace. It soaked his tunic in a red sea. Beside his body stood a pair of boots.
She tipped her spinning head up and peered into Máel’s dark eyes.
“Get up,” he ordered, reaching for her hand, and spun her behind him, to the wall, then waded into the fight.
Magdalena scrambled backward on her hands and heels, to the wall, as Tadhg came toward her through the fighting. A soldier stepped in front of him and Tadhg lifted a boot and planted the bottom of it in the man’s stomach, then shoved. The man went flying back and Tadhg disarmed him as he went, wrenching the sword from his grip before advancing in a relentless march toward her, pushing men out of his way, slicing with cold steely strokes, men dropping in bloody waves. He reached her and turned to stand before her huddled body.
From across the wild sea of fighting, Fáelán caught Tadhg’s eye. “Go!” he shouted, sweeping his sword before bringing it down on someone’s head. Blood sprayed. “Take her and go!”
Tadhg shook off a soldier and moved back into the fight.
Fáelán bashed through the fighting and grabbed him and shoved him backward so hard Tadhg staggered
“Go,” Fáe snarled. “You think we came here to watch you fight? Always showing off. For God’s sake, go save one of us. You’re the only one who can.”
Tadhg pushed back against him. “Not on your life—”
“Then on hers.” Fáelán flung his arm out, tossing the ruby dagger into Tadhg’s hands, then shoved Tadhg backward again to the wall and turned back to the fight. “There are horses in the back.”
Tadhg grappled to catch the dagger. He stared at it, then cursed brutally and whirled to Maggie.
“This is the last time we run, lass, I swear it,” he vowed hoarsely, grabbing her hand. “But this time, we have to run like hell.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
THE FIGHTING ABATED when everyone realized Sherwood was dead, but that wasn’t immediately helpful for Fáelán and the others. Indeed, they were being backed into the corner, Sherwood’s men and the prince’s men slowly congealing like pus around a wound, when yet another shout came through the open window, along with the sounds of galloping horses.
From his vantage point on the dais, unencumbered by sword or blade, Prince John looked wildly toward the door as William, Marshal of England, strode in.
Sixty years old, weathered like an oak tree, sturdy like one too, he looked over the sea of fighting and barked an order.
