Page 8 of My Warrior
“I’ll tell de Ware that you refused the alliance,” Fitzroi bit out, “that your clan met us with swords.”
Angus’s body was curiously numb, but his mind suffered an agony of hopelessness and disbelief. The English had betrayed him. He had failed his clan. Horrible images assailed him—images of Gavins starving in the hills, of brave knights executed like traitors, of Cambria…”
“Cam…” he wheezed.
“Blackhaugh will be mine,” the devil sneered, “and your precious clan will be no more.”
Roger saw his taunts were wasted. The light of life had already flickered and faded in the old man’s eyes. He released his grip. The laird slumped to the floor. Roger dusted off his hands.
“Well done, Owen,” he said. “Hugh?”
Hugh gingerly reached over the top of the dead body with one skinny arm and wiggled the laird’s sword free from its sheath. Then he turned toward Owen. Without warning, he drew the blade viciously across his brother’s ribs.
Owen gasped in pain and disbelief, clutching his chest. Blood from the shallow wound dripped between his dark-haired knuckles.
“It has to appear you were provoked, dear brother,” Roger explained without a shred of pity.
Hugh sniffed delicately, and then shrugged his bony shoulders. He tossed the sword to the floor, dappling the rushes with flecks of Owen’s blood.
Roger watched, amused, as Owen glared at Hugh through the oily brown strands of his hair, like a mangy dog about to turn on its master. Then Hugh made the mistake of laughing, tittering like a court whore, pushing Owen over the edge.
Roger’s eyes glittered as he realized that mayhem was about to take place. He could have stopped it, but there was something fascinating about watching Owen attack Hugh like a rabid mongrel. Owen was the smaller of the two, but he was wiry and stronger than he looked. Even wounded, it was easy for him to bowl over their lance-thin brother.
Perhaps if Roger had noticed the drawn dagger in Owen’s hand, he might have stopped the fight. Or perhaps not. But by the time he glimpsed the steel blade thrust between them, he couldn’t have intervened if he’d wanted to.
Hugh was pinned through the heart. As he lay dying, his heels drummed on the stone floor like the erratic beating of a moth’s wings. After he gurgled out his last feeble words, Owen viciously wrenched the dagger free and dropped it to the floor. Then he looked up, wiping his sleeve across his mouth.
Roger narrowed his eyes at his little murdering brother. Evenhewasn’t certain if the smile he gave Owen was one of disbelief or approval.
But time was a-wasting. With a nod of mutual understanding, he and Owen put their shoulders to the heavy oak table and heaved it over with a loud thud. Then, hauling open the door, Roger called his startled knights to arms.
Cambria was dreaming. Her father was smiling, walking toward her across a sunny meadow with his arms outstretched in welcome. But as he drew near, from out of nowhere a great gray wolf appeared between them, its paws massive, its eyes penetrating. The beast opened its jaws in a mournful howl as a great black shadow fell across the laird.
She woke with a scream stuck in her throat. Her heart raced as she tried to break the threads of the nightmare. She rested her damp head in trembling hands. They came more frequently now, the dreams that haunted her sleep, dreams that seemed to portend the future. This one was a warning, she was certain. The Wolf boded ill for her father.
Shaken, she rose on wobbly legs, dragging the fur coverlet with her, and peered out the window. Damn! The sun was in the sky already. Katie had let her oversleep, probably out of kindness—Cambria had been up past midnight polishing armor—but she couldn’t afford to be late, not today. She let out a string of curses and tossed the fur back onto the pallet.
A loud crash echoed through the stone corridors and shook the oak floor, bringing her instantly alert.
The shouting of unfamiliar voices rumbled up from downstairs, and she heard the frenzied barking of the hounds. Her heart began to pound like an armorer’s mallet. She scrambled over the bed, snatching her broadsword from the wall. With frantic haste, she struggled into her linen shift, cursing as her tangled hair caught in the sleeve. The crash of hurled crockery and women’s terrified shrieks pierced the air as Cambria finally pulled open her chamber door and rushed out.
She was fairly flying down the long hallway when she heard the unmistakable clang of blades colliding. She hurtled forward, descending the spiraling steps that opened onto the gallery above the great hall.
At the top of the landing, she froze.
The scene before her took shape as a series of gruesome paintings, none of which she could connect to make any sense: brightly colored tabards flecked with gore; servants huddled in the corners, sobbing and holding each other in terror; hounds yapping and scrambling on the rush-covered stone floor; lifeless, twisted bodies of Gavin knights sprawled in puddles of their own blood; Malcolm and the rest of the men chained together like animals. Numbing cold enclosed her heart like armor.
But as her eyes moved from the overturned trestle tables to the slaughtered knights and cowering servants, trying to make reason out of the confusion before her, that armor shattered into a million fragments.
The laird. Where was the laird?
Panic began to clutch at her with desperate claws. She shifted her death grip on the pommel of her sword, frantically seeking out her father. If she could find him, everything would be all right. The laird would explain everything. He always took care of the clan.
She ran trembling fingers over her lips. Bloody hell, where was the laird?
As if in answer, two lads came forth from the side chamber, struggling with the weight of the grisly burden they carried between them.
Nay! Cambria silently screamed as she recognized the tabard of her father. Not the laird!
