CHAPTER TWO
C aelan did not take a moment to determine where the voice had come from. He merely obeyed the order and turned his head swiftly, keeping his body angled towards the attackers in front of him.
His eyes landed instantly on a fourth man only a few paces away, heading straight for him. He jumped backward, angling his body so that all four attackers were in his view, and braced himself.
The three he had been fighting for ten minutes already were exhausted and injured. Their bodies were weak, and their minds even more so. He would worry about them later. The new attacker was charging at full speed, as energized as ever. His eyes were ablaze with malice.
But Caelan immediately caught his weakness. He held his sword too low and left it swaying in his grip with each long, rushed stride. He was young and angry, but he did not have the skill to back it up. He had no idea what he was doing.
“Prepare to die, Sinclair!” the young assassin screamed, charging with a low swing, trying to sweep Caelan’s legs out from beneath him.
But his blade swung so low that it cut the grass and brushed against Caelan’s boots, getting nowhere near his skin. It did, however, cut the leather.
Those were his favorite boots, the pair he wore on every ride. And thus Caelan's rage flared hotter.
“Come here, ye bastard,” he growled, having had enough of these foolish attempts.
If they were going to try to kill him at every outing, they might as well send worthy opponents. These men were nothing more than annoying midges to be swiped off his face.
He lunged forward, taking large, heavy strikes at the boy. He caught him with every blow, slicing through his left arm and left shin and even shoving his armor to the side, scathing his ribs.
The boy fell to the ground, and Caelan towered above him, awaiting his surrender.
“Ye might survive today,” the boy choked out, “but yer days are numbered, Sinclair. They’ll always send more of us. Ye’ll never survive us all.”
Caelan glared at him as he bled out on the ground.
The boy’s words triggered him deeply. He was tired of these attacks, always hovering around a corner, never harming him much physically but leaving him endlessly paranoid, always on high alert.
Even if none of them were good enough to kill him with their blades, they would eventually drive him mad.
In a moment of rage, Caelan lifted his sword above his head and drove it down into the boy’s stomach, plunging it through his body and into the ground beneath him. The boy’s eyes glazed over instantly as his blood pooled beneath him, the dark red puddle soaking into the mud.
After only the briefest of pauses, he turned back to the three blackguards. They stood on shaky feet, pale and trembling as blood seeped from their wounds. They looked at each other as if waiting for one of them to announce the plan.
The tallest man took a step forward, finally ready to play his hand.
“Decided to give yer lads a hand now, have ye? Now that they’re bleedin’ out on the ground?” Caelan spat out.
The man was a coward.
“We will get ye in the end, Sinclair. Ye willnae rest.”
The giant lunged forward, swinging his sword straight at Caelen’s neck this time. If the blow landed, his strength would likely have chopped Caelan’s head straight off.
It was a firm strike, well-placed, but with too much preparation.
Caelan could calculate the angle well in advance and simply ducked beneath the blade.
He took advantage of the momentum behind the swing, which would spin the attacker’s body around, and swung his sword upwards against his torso.
He skinned the man, causing him to stagger backward in pain and crumple to the ground.
“I’m nae done with ye yet,” he muttered, pulling a rope from his belt and moving to straddle his opponents.
He was taking at least one of them back to the castle to interrogate them. He wanted answers. He wanted to know who was sending all of these assassins after him.
But before he knew it, the three men did the same thing he had seen the assassins do every time he had them cornered.
He tried to stop them, to pull their arms back down by their sides, but they used the last ounce of energy they had to reach behind their ears and pull a small tincture, stopped with a cork.
In one swift motion, they poured the liquid into their mouths, and in mere seconds, their eyes drooped and closed.
They had poisoned themselves.
“Argh!” Caelan groaned in defeat.
He may have been the victor, sitting surrounded by dead opponents with barely a scratch on him other than his boots, but the victory was pointless if he could not get any more information. He still did not know where these assassins were coming from or why, so they would keep coming.
Caelan rose and wiped his sword on his kilt before sliding it back into its sheath.
He paced backward, shaking off the thrill of the attack and trying to quell his anger.
He had survived another battle—another practice session, more than anything.
But he wished for less practice at this stage of his life.
But who warned me of the fourth man ?
The question came to his mind for the first time, now that he did not have to worry about staying alive. He looked around the clearing, searching for the source of that voice.
It was a woman’s voice, he was sure of it, so he was expecting to see someone small, hidden in the trees.
Caelan considered whether this woman could be a threat to him.
What was she doing in the forest by herself?
She could have been working with these men to spy on his location, moving more quietly than they ever could.
But no, he decided. If she wanted to hurt him, she could have just let the fourth assassin do the job.
He would never have survived that attack unscathed if she hadn’t alerted him.
He owed her a thank you, he realised, and now he was intrigued.
He wandered to the forest’s edge, peering closely but seeing no one. He listened carefully but heard no twigs snap underfoot. Not even a breath.
“Where are ye, lass?” he called. “I owe ye me thanks.”
But there was no answer, no stir, not a movement to be spotted or heard.
“I’m nae goin’ to hurt ye. Reveal yerself.”
Still nothing.
He grew slightly annoyed.
She obviously meant him no harm if she had saved him. Surely, she would have let him die if she thought he would harm her.
His eyes scanned the trees, the rocks, the grass.
“Dinnae make me hunt ye, lass.”