Page 126 of The Splendor of Fire
She leapt to the next tree, and then to the next tree. Catching a high branch in one hand, she moved forward on a bouncing young branch, nearing the field of battle. Planting her feet, she balanced as the branch stilled.
Beithir destroyed three men in front of him but still did not turn. Eight large men were now almost upon him.
She drew an arrow.Loose.One man down.Loose.Two.Loose.Three.Loose.Four.
At last, Beithir turned, and she saw him quickly register the four men shot dead around him, then the hundreds of enemy combatants now streaming through the forest and more and more coming. Realizing they were all in danger of being overwhelmed, she began nocking arrows and shooting men all around them.
As man after man went down around the field, the enemy caterans began to turn and look in her direction, still not comprehending where the source of the arrows was coming from.
“Up in the trees!”
Birdy heard the call just before she saw a man mount the trunk of the tree, sending the branches of the young yew bobbing up and down.Oh, Lord, no.
Beithir’s face looked at her in fright just as the flimsy branch she was standing on cracked apart and fell away from the trunk.
For the first time, she was falling toward the ground in an uncontrolled descent. A low branch came toward her, and she put her hands out and held on, feeling her raw palms scrape against the bark. The branch gave a great dip, slowing her drop and then sending her back up before it too cracked and she was falling again.
Landing hard on the quiver, she rolled, destroying it. It had broken her fall. She threw the bow away and got to her feet, not feeling any broken bones. All around her, men laid into one anotherfighting with swords, fists, war hammers, and axes, and she staggered forward, disoriented to be suddenly on the ground.
Hearing a blade cutting through the air, she turned and dodged. The man who’d shaken her from the tree swung his sword at her head and she folded backward away from it. Again he swung downward and she bent backward. Frustrated, he roared and ran forward.
A sense of focused survival settled over her mind and narrowed on her opponent, and she knew what to do. Drawing her dagger, she followed the sword as it moved toward her, dancing away, and bringing the dagger down into the man’s thigh, and ripping it out again. He went down on one leg, and she turned and nearly collided with Beithir.
With a cry, he raced forward, bringing his axes down again and again into the man who had dared shake her out of the tree. Calum pulled her between them and stopped the slice of another blade headed for her middle. Lachlan ran past her and plunged his sword into the chest of a man with a war hammer raised above his head aiming for her pate.
The enemy was everywhere and kept coming. The man fighting Calum hit him with a gauntleted hand and his head snapped to the side. Without hesitation, she ran to his aid, bringing the dagger down into the man’s side until Calum kicked him away and pushed her back behind him.
A roll of thunder from the hillside grew. On the horizon, a wave of horses swept onto the field, running unopposed over the Wolf’s forces. Around them, men began to turn and run to avoid being trampled. The broad line of more than fifty horses trod right through the fleeing men.
At the center of their line, Eoghan raced at full gallop, charging into the enemy, javelin raised, yelling after the fleeing men. “Buaidh no bas!”?2
The Irishmen around him echoed the war cry as they cleared the field.
Birdy’s eyes went to the trees and across the field, and her mind cleared enough to remember why they’d come this direction. Running back to the woods, she climbed the nearest tree. Now free of the quiver and bow, she leapt, turned, and swung through the branches moving closer and closer to the tunnel.
Lion. She must find Lion.
Chapter 43
DUN RINGILL CASTLE - SEPTEMBER 28, 1385
Léo eased through the hole in the dungeon and crept up the corridor. After finding Angus on the shores outside Dun Ringill, it’d taken him less than an hour to fight his way through the foothills and into the forest surrounding the tunnel. He should have felt fatigue in his muscles, the way he always did after heavy fighting, but all he felt was rage.
Moving through darkened dungeon, he was struck by how quiet it was inside the keep. Everyone within was gone. Picking up his pace, he climbed the stairs, moving past the kitchens and hearing low voices from Isobel’s room. Quietly, he knocked upon her door.
“Isobel. It’s Léo.”
Shuffling sounded within and he heard the bar slide back. With wide eyes she waved him inside.
On a narrow bed beneath the window, Ardis lay moaning, battered almost beyond recognition. Isobel hurried back to her and crouched down, taking her hand and whispering to her. “Ardis, love. Léo is here.”
Ardis moaned again but couldn’t respond. Her jaw was swollen to thrice its normal size.
“What happened to her?”
Isobel wiped tears away from her cheeks. “Niall came home from Cràdh last night in an awful state. Called her up to his room and…and…” Tears choked her voice and sick understanding soured his stomach. “Then he beat her again. Finlay carried her down here this morning just before he fled along with everyone else when they warned about the boats on the horizon. I couldnae leave her. No’ like this, with Niall about.”
Crouching beside the bed, he brushed a hand over Ardis’s hair, and she whimpered. “I’m here to get you out now.”
