Page 23 of His Wicked Highland Ways

As soon as he heard approaching horses, Finnan MacAllister swung down from the tree in which he perched and alighted on the path. The long twilight had just descended, that time when shadows competed with the half-light of gloaming and men’s nerves stretched tight. A perfect time for a surprise attack.

He recited a silent charm for protection as he leaped, and felt the familiar confidence return. His dirk, clenched between his teeth, tasted of metal, and even before his feet hit the ground his sword came to his hand.

He had been in one-sided fights before. And he had faced four-to-one already in his own glen; these odds did not really seem so bad.

The first man went down without even knowing whom he faced; Finnan’s sword took him in a fell swoop, and he tumbled from his horse into the path. The other three men—none Trent or Stuart Avrie—quickly tried to maneuver their mounts in the narrow space. Finnan had chosen his place of ambush well, trees on one side and hard granite on the other.

“’Tis he!” Finnan heard one of them yell. “The demon!”

Demon, was it? Finnan grimaced even as he leaped for his second man. It would be easy to disable the fellow’s mount, but Finnan did not like harming horses; he had served in far too many campaigns when they were hired, same as he. And he could think of no better way to bring himself ill fortune than to bleed one.

The gods knew he had ill fortune enough.

That thought became his last before he switched off his mind and took on the warrior’s mien. Years spent serving as a mercenary had taught him the necessity of it: complete and intense concentration kept a man alive, and no room for pity.

Save for the horses.

Two more men went down in quick succession, one to his sword and one to his dirk—dead or severely wounded; he did not have time to tell. The fourth man decided quite wisely to make a break for it, but Finnan hauled him from his mount and threw him to the ground, with the point of the dirk at his throat.

“Now, then,” he said as he crouched above the fellow and tried to catch his breath. “You will give me some information before you die.”

In the gloom beneath the trees, he could barely see the fellow’s expression. Wide eyes caught what light there was and reflected it in a slick shine.

Finnan let the dirk bite a bit deeper. “You will be a hired sword.” Not so different from him, then. “And with no real investment in this fight. Is it worth the dying?”

The man made a spasmodic movement but did not speak.

“How many hired men do the Avries have on hand?” Finnan demanded. It seemed like a small army. Finnan did not understand how they could afford it.

“A score,” the man croaked out.

Finnan’s brows jerked up. “Fewer now,” he returned seriously. “This will not end well for any of you. If I let you go, will you tell the others to clear off?” He bared his teeth. “This glen belongs to me. It will always be mine. Trent and Stuart Avrie—”

A flicker in the man’s eyes, or perhaps pure instinct, warned him just in time. He bounded to his feet and whirled even as the sword of his first opponent, not dead after all, swooped past his head. Finnan swore to himself and rued the fact that he had not made sure and slit the man’s throat. Now he would have to face both of them.

But nay, for he heard the man behind him get up onto his horse and away—going for help, most like. Avrie House lay not far off. Reinforcements would come soon, which meant Finnan needed to end this fight swiftly.

His opponent streamed blood from the wound at the side of his neck that Finnan had already inflicted, but he had a firm grip on his sword and a terrible grimace on his face. Finnan, with his sword in one hand and the dirk in the other, whirled like a dancer and attacked the man from behind, making the most of the limited space.

A deadly and desperate fight ensued over the bodies of the two fallen men, while the dark increased by the moment. Like fighting a shadow, Finnan told himself, one with a deadly blade. He could hear his opponent grunting and gasping with every blow rather than see him, and the breath began to heave in his own lungs.

End it , he told himself, but at that moment his opponent leaped.

Finnan felt the man’s blade make contact with his left arm. The dirk fell from his hand.

Anger ignited inside him then: it had always been so, on the field. Had not Geordie said Finnan fought like a boar, and like a maddened boar once blooded?

He swung his sword in a blur that caught the last of the light and, speaking another charm, completed a wide sweep that parted his opponent’s head and body.

The corpse fell with two separate thuds that he heard rather than saw. He stood with his heart pounding, alone.

But not for long.

He had to get away from this place, as the fox leaves the hunt. He needed to find Danny, get the lad up and moving. Not easy with the fever that beset the boy every time night came.

Swiftly he took stock of himself and swore bitterly. Another scar to add to the number; for his left arm had been laid open in a long cut. He could not go dripping blood in a trail.

He fumbled on the ground, recovered his dirk by feel, and then wrapped his arm with his plaid.

A score of men, so his opponent had said. Only seventeen now. But this time he had not come out of it unscathed.

****

Danny tossed in a restless sleep as Finnan reached him, burning with fever and difficult to rouse. Their hidey hole lay high above the glen. From here, by day, Finnan could look out and assess Avrie’s movements, but now he saw only darkness and little pricks of light—torches, perhaps—heading out from Avrie House to the place he had just fought his battle.

He unwound his plaid from his arm and rewrapped the wound in a shirt that would never again see service, and once more assessed himself. Only minor cuts, besides this one. He had to get moving, and Danny with him.

But the lad made a nearly dead weight and mumbled fretfully when Finnan got him up.

“Come, lad,” he said grimly. “We must find a better hiding place until morning.”

He had in mind a stony copse at the south end of the glen, where they had concealed themselves before. Half way there he knew Danny would never make it so far—nor, to be honest, would he. He paused to gulp a great lungful of air and saw that Jeannie’s cottage lay almost directly below.

Refuge. But why should he think of her that way? She had no real reason to help him, and her cottage, this night, could prove more trap than haven.

Yet if he might leave Danny there once more he could move far more swiftly, lead the hunters on a true fox’s chase.

Danny made the decision for him—he went down and would not rise again. Finnan carried him the rest of the way and bore him, like an oversized child, to Jeannie’s door.

The maid Aggie, and not Jeannie, answered his knock, and the blood drained from her face in horror.

“Oh, mistress!”

And then Jeannie stood there, her gaze reaching for Finnan like welcome. “Come in.”

“They are after us, or soon will be.” It seemed only fair to warn her.

Her only answer, a gesture, swept them in. Aggie shut the door behind them and barred it carefully.

“Lay him down beside the fire,” Jeannie instructed. “Aggie, run and fetch the blankets we used before.”

Tenderly, Finnan placed the lad where indicated and then stood back, watching Aggie fuss. He realized belatedly that both women stood in their nightclothes; he must have flushed them from their beds. To be sure, the night was now well advanced.

“His fever has returned,” he told them unnecessarily. A hectic flush mottled Danny’s cheeks, and Aggie had already placed a soft hand on his head. “If I might just leave him here a wee while, I would be most grateful. I ken fine ’tis not your fight, this. And I will no’ stay to endanger you.”

Jeannie turned her head to look at him. Her hair, loose down her back, tumbled like a river of golden silk; she looked impossibly beautiful. Did she know that when she stood so, before the fire, her gown became damned near transparent? He glimpsed everything he had already touched, and his throat went dry with longing.

This was no’ the time for such thoughts.

Her face paled. “You are bleeding. Your arm—”

He looked down at himself in rueful acknowledgement. Not only did the wound on his arm bleed, it now dripped through the wrappings and onto her clean floor.

“I am that sorry.” He tried unsuccessfully to stanch the wound. “There was a fight back down the glen.”

She spoke a word no respectable woman should know. “Sit down. You can go nowhere like that.”

“But—”

She fixed him with a fierce, blue gaze. “Sit.” She planted a hand in the center of his chest and pushed him down onto a stool. To his surprise, his legs collapsed and he sat. “Someone must see to that wound. Aggie?”

But the little maid, completely occupied with Danny, did not so much as turn her head.

“And it seems,” said Jeannie MacWherter through stiff lips, “it must be me.”