Page 130

That’s when the battle truly turned desperate and ugly.

If Jamison wasn’t physically throwing men off of the wall, he was using his broadsword to fend them off.

Tremendously strong, he had been able to push several of the ladders away from the wall, sending a dozen men crashing to the wet ground below.

But the fallen men occurred on both sides.

The wall walk wasn’t more than a narrow, wooden fighting platform and, unfortunately, it was crowded with de Lohr men.

So, in addition to the ladders crashing down, several de Lohr men had taken the unexpected plunge off the wall walk about fifteen feet to the bailey below.

The falls resulted in more than a few injures.

It was dark, too, due to the cloud cover, the only real illumination coming when the lightning flashed.

Most of the fighting had been in the dark because the torches wouldn’t stay lit in the pounding rain.

But there were a few about on the wall, near the gatehouse mostly, as men tried to light their path to prevent them from goring a comrade.

That had happened a few times as well. In the darkness, there was confusion.

But there was also great danger.

Jamison had discovered that his first hour upon the wall.

In addition to the dark-haired lass he’d tangled with, there seemed to be two more just like her.

He’d seen one of them when he’d first mounted the wall walk, a girl with her dark hair knotted up on the top of her head and wearing a heavy mail coat on her skinny body.

Jamison could only presume she had seen the beating he’d given the other girl because she had glared at him ferociously.

He swore he could feel the shards of steel coming out of her eyes, aimed right at him.

Then, she pulled an index finger across her neck in a garroting gesture. He’d simply chuckled.

But the chuckle had been a cover for his heightened sense of protection.

Considering how rabidly Havilland had fought, he wasn’t taking any chances with the other warrior woman.

He found himself watching his back as he positioned himself on the wall, guarding against that steel-glaring lass and also against another woman down in the bailey with wild red hair that made her head look gigantic.

She, too, was wishing hate upon him; he could see it in her pale face.

Jamison, therefore, knew that the enemy wasn’t only outside of the walls of Four Crosses.

It was all around him.

They moved like wraiths, those women, in and out of the shadows of the castle, but Jamison eventually lost track of them as the Welsh mounted the walls and he found himself throwing men over the side.

In fact, he forgot about the women completely in the chaos of the fight until shades of dawn began to appear on the eastern horizon and the Welsh attack died down.

From the brutal battle most of the night to the eerie stillness left by their abrupt retreat, Jamison and the beaten, bloodied de Lohr men waited for the next wave of fighting that never came.

An hour passed before the de Lohr troops on the perimeter outside the walls began receiving information from their scouts that the Welsh were departing.

As great relief swept the weary men of Four Crosses, Jamison was finally able to climb down off the wall.

Exhausted and very thirsty, he managed to make his way to the great hall where the wounded had been taken.

He wanted to check on his men. A long stone building with a steeply pitched roof, he entered the hall to see that the wounded had been placed at the far end, away from the entry and the cold, wet weather blowing in.

Before he reached the wounded, however, he noticed that there were great, fat bread rolls and ale set out on the big feasting table for the hungry.

The lure of food was stronger than his desire to see to his wounded men at the moment and Jamison wolfed down several of the crusty, hard bread rolls, washed down with great gulps of ale.

With a full mouth and a full cup, he finally made his way to the wounded to see how his men were faring.

That was one of the things that set Jamison apart from the rest of the commanders; he genuinely cared about his men.

He had a connection to them and his men were pleased to see him, assuring him they would be well very soon and praising him for his actions in the battle.

Jamison spent a few moments with one man before moving on to the next, and soon he’d spoken with every man under his command.

The battle had been fierce and he congratulated his men for their bravery.

He couldn’t spend too much time with the wounded, however, knowing that he should return to assess the damages and speak with Becket and Tobias to see what their instructions would be for securing the castle for the eventual departure of the de Lohr army back to Lioncross.

So he begged his leave of his men and, with a half-cup of ale still in his hand, returned to the night outside.

The storm had eased, now just a faint mist falling where there had once been rain.

It still made for wet and miserable conditions, and Jamison had the gatehouse in his sights, noting that both portcullises were still down which told him that everyone was still remaining vigilant.

The Welsh had been known to lay quiet and then come back strong and he, much like the other commanders, weren’t entirely certain this lull wasn’t a ruse.

He was nearly to the ladder leading to the wall walk when something muddy and hard came hurling out of the darkness, hitting him squarely on the neck and shoulder. Mud exploded everywhere.

Mud even landed in his ale. Grunting with disgust and some pain, Jamison put his hand back to the spot where the mud ball had hit him, feeling slimy, wet dirt all over his neck and right shoulder.

It was probably all down his back, too, but he couldn’t see it and, frankly, he didn’t much care.

It was there and he was dirtier and more miserable because of it.

Angrily, he wiped away what he could and spilled out a goodly portion of his ale to get the mud out of it.

He drank the rest, quickly, still tasting some grit from the mud. It was revolting.

With the taste of mud on his lips, he looked around but didn’t see anyone who might have been guilty of throwing the mud.

Something told him those hateful young women had something to do with it.

It was just a hunch he had. He could see that his turn spanking the bold lass at the gatehouse probably wouldn’t be the last time he would be beating a woman soundly at Four Crosses Castle.

His open palm was ready to spank more should they push him.

Turning back for the hall to refill his cup, he was on his guard when a small figure with a sword in hand suddenly appeared in front of him.

Jamison came to a stop, eyeing the small figure in the dim light. She was small and slender, and he thought she might be the skinny lass with the knot on her head he had seen earlier. The figure lifted her sword defensively.

“Now,” the figure spoke, decidedly a woman, “you shall receive your punishment, Gael . No one beats on my sister and emerges unpunished.”

Sister. Now, those hateful stares were starting to make some sense. “Get out of me way, ye foolish wench,” he said, his voice low and threatening. “There is no world in which ye would be able tae best me, so get out of me way. I’ll not tell ye twice.”

The woman swung her sword in a surprisingly controlled movement. “And you’ll not threaten me, you brute,” she fired back quietly. “You had no right to lay a hand on my sister.”

Jamison was weary and snappish, a bad combination.

He started to move past the woman, a direct insult, when she rushed at him.

Jamison was prepared, however, suspecting she might do something so stupid, so the hand on the hilt of his broadsword unsheathed the weapon and thrust it directly into her path.

She met with it, violently, and, much like her sister, did not have the strength to effectively counter such a powerful foe.

As she grunted and fought, Jamison drove her back in the direction she had come.

But there was a problem with that; out of the recesses near the wall where it met with another wall, this one encircling the stable yard, Jamison heard a screech cry and the darkness came alive with more swinging swords.

The female with the wild red hair was suddenly in their midst, grunting and groaning as she swung her sword at Jamison’s head.

Very quickly realizing that these foolish women intended to do him harm on behalf of the beating he gave the woman at the gatehouse, Jamison rapidly summed up the situation and realized there was only one thing he could do– multiple foes called for extreme measures unless he wanted to find himself at the tip of their blades.

He had to fight back rather than simply deter them.

He was going to have to get the upper hand.

For as exhausted as he was, he was growing increasingly angry with these childish games.

He had just fought off an entire Welsh army and wasn’t about to let two small women get the best of him, so he lashed out with his sword hard enough to knock the dark-haired woman’s weapon from her grip.

He’d hit her hard enough to make her fumble and when she stumbled forward, he reached out and grabbed her arm, spinning her around so her back was against his torso.

One big hand went into her hair to control her while the other hand grabbed her wrist, the one still holding her sword.

In doing so, he moved headlong into the red-haired woman who had been trying to attack him.