Page 41 of For an Exile’s Heart (Ancient Songs #2)

A thousand thoughts crowded Adair’s head as he engaged in the fight, but one dominated. He had to reach Mican, to cut him down and end this terrible travesty before the man made off with Bradana.

Naught else truly existed for him. Even though his heart was torn by the desire to protect Wen, who had thrown himself headlong into the battle. To protect the old man who so valiantly fought at his side, nothing came before rescuing his wife.

Why had she done it, delivered herself into Mican’s hands? But he knew, aye, even as he battled, his sword crashing into weapon after weapon. Even as he watched Mican, still clutching Bradana, slip away while his men held Adair off. He knew.

She could no more bear to see harm come to him than he could see it come to her.

He fought like a wild man, some old skill flooding through him from he knew not where. Mican’s men fell to his blade one after the other. But even as he felled them, Mican moved off and away, fighting his own path through Rohracht’s guards, who surrounded him. When Mican reached his ponies, he mounted, pulling Bradana up with him.

Adair and Wen both broke through the battling crowd of Mican’s men. Wen leaped at Mican’s pony and the man danced the animal away even as Adair struck at him, careful not to hurt the woman clutched to his enemy’s chest.

Her eyes filled with agony. With regret. With a plea for forgiveness.

Mican dug his heels into his pony’s sides and, in company with several of his mounted men, sped off, scattering the remaining ponies out of Adair’s reach.

Adair wanted to scream. He wanted to flail and rage. Instead he chased after them till his breath gave out, and he found himself surrounded by those of Mican’s men who had followed him.

“Go!” he told Wen then, for the hound had accompanied him on his desperate chase.

Wen took off in a gray streak after the charging ponies, no longer in sight.

Not what Bradana had asked of him. She’d wanted for him to keep her hound safe. But she had done something so terrible.

For the sake of love.

He was not sure he could forgive it.

For the moment, though, he found himself in a desperate fight against no fewer than four of Mican’s men. They would like naught better than to kill him and take his corpse—or at least his head—back to their chief.

Winded as he was, distracted as he was, he might not have survived that fight had two of Rohracht’s men not reached him and thrown their swords behind his. One of them was Dabhor, with whom Adair had grown friendly. When the last of Mican’s men fell, their eyes met, Dabhor’s wide with dismay.

“He has the chief’s granddaughter!”

“Aye.” Adair gasped for breath, his distress weighing him down. “The chief?”

“He survives. Just barely.”

Why had Mican taken Bradana when he’d wanted Adair’s blood? Because he wanted to cause Adair maximum pain. And he now had the means in his hands.

Adair wanted to retch there on the ground. He wanted to tear something apart with his bare hands. Neither would do the woman he loved any good.

He straightened and said, “I ha’ sent Wen after them.”

“The hound? Wha’ good will that do?”

“Ye may be surprised.”

*

Rohracht was distraught, though not half so upset as Morag. The kindly woman, when Adair and his companions reached her, stood torn between dismay over the plight of her husband and fear for Bradana.

“He took her! Och, he took her,” she kept repeating over and over again. “Whatever will we do?”

Rohracht had collapsed after his valiant stand and had to be carried to his quarters.

“Go after her,” he implored Adair, grasping his arm. “That brave, misguided lass—she has done this for yer sake.”

“I know.”

“He will hurt her. Just because he can.”

“Aye. The hound has gone after them. I will need ponies. A few men.” A small party would make for a better pursuit. “If I cannot reach them before he gains his stronghold…”

“Aye. Go. Tak’ wha’ ye need.”

“And ye.” Adair clasped the old man’s hand. “Keep alive till we return. She will need ye.”

Rohracht nodded. His wife fell upon him, fussing over the man even before Adair walked away.

With nothing more than his sword, a knife, and the flint in his pocket, Adair left Rohracht’s settlement behind. Dabhor had chosen their ponies and did his best to keep up with Adair as he rode off. Quick as they’d been, Adair feared they had lost too much time.

The ground showed evidence of Mican’s departure back through the turf and up along the rise from whence Adair and Bradana had first arrived, until the ground turned to stone and the possible trail veered in several directions. Dabhor tried to convince Adair to scout for signs, and further time was lost, all while Adair sweated.

He meant what he’d said to Rohracht. If they did not retrieve Bradana before Mican reached his own stronghold, he did not believe they could succeed in getting her back.

Mad lass with the valiant heart, throwing herself to the wolves that way. He could still see her, stepping up fearlessly. Her thoughts all for him. Him. The third son of an Erin chief with little to recommend him.

Save her love. If he ever amounted to aught, it would be her love that made him so.

Still, he thought as Dabhor scoured the ground for sign, he should have done as his first instinct argued, taken her and sailed for Erin. Got her clear away out of danger.

If he was too late…

He closed his eyes against the pain of that thought, and it seemed as if the land spread out before him.

“Alba,” he whispered, “lead me.”

A bird flew off in a flurry of wings southward, giving a wild cry.

“That way,” he told the men.

They went on over stone, across the hill, and through the forest as the day grew strong around them. They passed the site—a fire not long dead—where Mican and his men must have spent the night, waiting for dawn. That told Adair he headed the right way.

All four of them were quiet, searching for signs. No glimpse of a party ahead. No sight of Wen, upon whom rested Adair’s greatest hope.

Wen had gone ahead, and the intelligent hound could find Bradana. So long as the valiant animal did not go rushing in and get himself slain.

Help us , Adair said silently to the land itself. This wild and dark-hearted place where he’d been exiled. Save her for me.

“Master Adair,” said Dabhor, who drew his pony up. “We are veering too far west. Mican’s holding is almost due south from here.” Worry stood stark in the man’s eyes. “It will no’ tak’ much to lose them.”

“Aye.”

Adair scanned the forest ahead of them, crowded with trees and looking nearly identical in every direction.

Again he closed his eyes. “Show me.”

As soon as he opened his eyes, a flash of russet brown caught his attention. A deer slipping off.

“That way,” he said, desperation rising to near choke him. “And hurry.”