Page 103 of The Falcon Laird
“The Bruce! He and his men are invading the castle!” one of them shouted to Hastings. Until their arrival, he had been cornered by Gavin. Now, as the two guards began to fight Gavin, Hastings slid past all of them and ran toward the entrance.
He reached Christian before she could react to what had happened. Grabbing her arm, he yanked her toward him and trapped her against him, tipping the edge of a dagger to herthroat. They stood so close to the outer ledge that Christian feared he would throw her into the air.
Gavin backed toward them, clashing his blade rapidly, blocking left, blocking right. Though he took a hard slicing blow to the left shoulder, he hardly faltered. Watching, Christian cried out, and arched desperately against Hastings’s grip, but he held her fast.
“Now you shall watch your husband wounded to the death,” Hastings growled into her ear. “And when he is unable to move, when he lays dying, I will use you however I please.” His breath was hot and fast on her cheek. The hand that held her around the ribs grabbed across her breasts, painfully. She wrenched, sobbing in outrage, feeling as if she were caught in a cruel cage formed by his long, sharp dagger and his steel-covered arms.
Blood soaked Gavin’s arm and dripped over his hand. He kicked out at one of the guards and tripped him. In the small space, the other guard tumbled backward and fell too. Gavin thrust quickly, wounding one, knocking the other in the head. Then he whirled to face Hastings, breathing heavily.
“Let her go,” Gavin said, low and ominously.
“But I’ve not had a Scottish widow for a while. I am looking forward to it,” Hastings rasped. He kept his hand on her breast, and his blade at her throat.
“Let her go,” Gavin hissed. His eyes were cold and hard as dark ice. Christian had rarely seen such stark hatred.
But she saw an element of fear pass through that hard gaze when Gavin glanced briefly toward her; he obviously realized that Hastings could easily cut her throat or throw her over the ledge. She cried out as the razored edge bit into the tender skin beneath her jaw.
Then Gavin’s eyes flashed to the tunnel entrance behind them, a flicker only, but it warned Christian. She braced her feet for what came next.
Rising up from the ledge like an avenging angel, John hit into Hastings’s feet and threw him off balance, slamming him forward. As she went down with him and hit the floor with her hands and knees, Christian felt a sharp sting in her leg, of rock, of chain mail, she could not tell. Hastings fell on top of her, and John shoved him aside, pinning him down with the tip of his swordblade.
“I saw you from below,” John said to Hastings, breathing heavily. “That red surcoat you wear is like a banner. Did you know that Bruce has taken the castle from your men?”
Gavin reached for Christian, lifting her to her feet and pulling her away. “Are you hurt?” he asked. She shook her head. He pushed her gently toward the door of the golden chamber. As she stepped back to stand inside the doorway, Gavin turned away.
One of the guards rose up then and caught Gavin around the legs, bringing him down hard to the floor. Christian screamed out, pressing her fist to her mouth, as she saw them wrestle desperately on the floor.
At the corner of her vision, she saw Hastings grab the end of John’s swordblade, grasping it with his thick leather gauntlets. Flipping John off balance, Hastings slammed the hilt end against his head. The Scotsman dropped to the floor of the tunnel like a sack of grain.
Hastings shifted the sword and leaped forward; Christian shouted out, trying to warn Gavin. Grappling with the guard, Gavin reacted when she shrieked, rolling to one side just as Hastings thrust toward him.
Thwarted, Hastings’s momentum caused him to stab his own serjeant in the back. He looked up, startled, confused, as Gavin slipped away and jumped to his feet.
“You are as persistent as the devil,” Hastings snarled, rebalancing his sword. “Your life has some charm over it.”
Gavin, breathing heavily, flashed a grin. “Then stop trying to kill me,” he said.
“Never,” Hastings said, and lunged.
And as he did, the wild doves came back to their dovecote.
Wings fluttering wildly,their frightened cries curdling in their throats, the doves panicked as they flooded into the tunnel and encountered Hastings standing in the entrance. In a flurry of snowy feathers, they tried to turn during their flight and go back outside. But in turning, the birds slammed into Hastings’s head and chest and shoulders.
He threw his arms up over his head and screamed, dropping his sword, backing away to knock into the wall. Flailing his arms wildly, he fought at the frenzied cloud of doves striving to get past him. But his balance was thrown off, and he stumbled sideways. As the birds soared out and up, away from the crevice, Hastings stepped out onto the ledge and fell.
Gavin had realized quickly that the panicked birds were not attacking. As he ran toward the entrance, Hastings shrieked and tumbled backward an instant before Gavin could reach him.
Halting at the edge of the rock platform, Gavin watched as Hastings plummeted, a slash of red and glinting steel, toward the loch. Weighted down by his chain mail, falling two hundred feet or more straight down, Hastings sank into the water without a struggle.
Waiting, breath heaving, Gavin pressed his hand over the stinging cut in his upper arm. As the ripples of Hastings’s plunge gradually disappeared, Gavin turned to go back in.
He noticed the cluster of empty boats moored at the base of the promontory. They had not been there earlier, and he quickly realized that Robert Bruce had invaded Kilglassie Castle from within. Gavin stood there, exhausted, grimly victorious after hisown battle, and knew that the inner walls of Kilglassie rang with clashing steel.
Turning away, rubbing his hand wearily over his face, Gavin leaned his sword carefully against the wall. He put his hand to his shoulder for a moment and was surprised to find that the wound had already clotted and his tunic sleeve was stuck to the wound; he would not need to tend to it for a while.
A few white doves flew in overhead and fluttered to rest in the wall niches. Quiet filled the little sanctum of the tunnel. The soft cooing of the birds was soothing and peaceful, oddly so, Gavin thought, after a struggle that had killed Hastings and left two guards dead on the floor.
Gavin saw Christian leaning against the stone doorframe, her face pale and drawn. He gave her a rueful, exhausted smile, and stepped toward her, hands out. She pointed toward John.
