Page 91 of My Scot, My Surrender
She cut him off with a resolute scowl. “I killed Coxley, ye ken.”
Brandt faltered. She did have a point. He couldn’t fathom that his slight baby sister had felled a man who was notoriously hard to kill. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time a man had underestimated a woman and paid the price for it. She’d done Sorcha’s marks proud.
Grudgingly, he nodded and handed her a dirk from his boot. “Stay behind me.”
Brandt crept up the stairs to the keep entrance with his sister on his heels. He glanced over his shoulder and was surprised to see his dirk held in her confident grip, a fierce look on her face. He almost smiled at the effect of what was certainly Sorcha’s influence. He hoped to God that she was still alive, or Malvern would pay with his last drop of blood. Quelling his roiling emotions, Brandt placed a finger to his lips and eased the door open.
Light as a wraith, Aisla followed. They inched through the shadows until they were near the rounded arches that led into the great hall. The push of voices reached them, wrapped in the soft sobs of children and louder jeers. Peering around the edge, he scanned the hall. There was no sign of Malvern. Or Sorcha.
Children and women sat against the walls, their faces wreathed in terror. But pride swept through him as he took in that they hadn’t gone down without a fight. A few soldiers lay prone on the floor, groaning and holding injured limbs. Brandt risked another quick look. Rodric stood upon the dais with Catriona. Brandt counted seven men with him. Two standing over the women and children, and the other five at his uncle’s back.
“How many?” Aisla asked in a low tone, handing him back his dirk. She had retrieved a fallen crossbow and now held that along with two bolts in her grip.
“Seven,” he whispered. “Eight counting your father.”
“He’s no kin of mine,” she hissed.
“And he has Catriona.”
Brandt grasped his sword and bent his head over the hilt. The odds were not terrible. He had taken on a dozen men and lived to tell the tale. But he’d never fought while someone he loved was so exposed, and Brandt had no doubt that Rodric would use Catriona, and the rest of the women and children, however he saw fit to gain the upper hand. He thought of the way Rodric had branded her and felt fury envelop him. It didn’t matter if he had to take down a hundred men, he would do what needed to be done. Exhaling slowly, he turned to where Aisla squatted beside him to tell her to go for help. But she wasn’t there.
All he saw was the back of her blue shirt and the flick of Montgomery plaid as she rounded the corner, into the hall.
Bloody hell.
“Father, happy to see me?” he heard her say in a loud clear voice, and then the unmistakable twang of the crossbow. That was his cue. He lurched to his feet and flung the dagger Aisla had returned to him, sending it straight into the neck of the man on the other side of the room. A second dirk from his belt lodged itself into the chest of the man on the right. The man Aisla had shot crumpled, and she’d loaded the extra bolt and taken out a second man before the other two at the dais rushed her.
Brandt leaped in front of her, his sword raised.
“Stop!” Rodric’s barked command echoed throughout the hall, and the two soldiers charging him and Aisla skidded to a halt. Rodric got to his feet, hefting Catriona up with him. The lazy, insouciant motion of it clawed down Brandt’s spine like a warning. A glint of something in the overthrown laird’s hand confirmed the premonition. Rodric gripped a wickedly curved knife, the blade of which was pressed into Catriona’s side. Brandt lowered his sword.
“If anyone is going to kill this interloper, ’tis going to be me,” Rodric said, to which Brandt’s mother protested with an attempt to pull away and kick at her husband. She whimpered and winced as the tip of the dirk pressed deeper into her flesh.
“Is this what you think a powerful duke and laird is, Rodric?” Brandt asked, his breathing coming short at the sight of that dirk and his mother’s pain. She was masking half of it, he knew. The stain of blood blooming through her dress proved it, and the sight made Brandt’s heart stutter. “A man who turns traitor on his own clan? Holds women and children hostage? Funny. I thought the word for those things was ‘coward.’”
Rodric gnashed his teeth and pushed on a false smile at the same time. The effect was blood-chilling, but Brandt wasn’t about to let him know that. He kept his eyes steady, his grip on his sword’s hilt firm.
“I’m simply flushing the vermin from my home and lands, Mr. Pierce,” he replied. “With the help of some like-minded men, ye ken. Lord Malvern is already seeing to yer widow.”
He had Sorcha, then. Where Malvern had taken her, and what he was currently doing to her, nearly rendered him blind with rage and fear.
“Release my mother,” Aisla grit out from where she stood just behind Brandt’s right arm. He prayed she didn’t do anything brash again, like raise her crossbow and shoot. He didn’t know how true her aim was, but Rodric would not hesitate to use Catriona as a human shield should he see a deadly bolt flying at his head.
“With pleasure,” Rodric said smoothly, another macabre grin splitting his mouth. “Though first, I’ll have this man surrender his title as duke and laird to me, or I’ll carve her open from hip to breast.”
Despite his chilling words, Brandt was the one to let out a mirthless laugh this time. “Too afraid to challenge me for it, Rodric?” The man’s ice-flecked eyes snapped, and Brandt realized he’d touched a nerve. He pushed on. “You haven’t had enough time to recover from the wounds I left you with, I wager. Maybe you should have one of your men here champion you. I’d suggest Malvern’s best soldier, Coxley, but it seems your daughter already killed him.”
Rodric’s lips were tight with rage, his knuckles white from his savage grip on Catriona’s arm and the dirk with which he’d already drawn her blood. The suggestion that he required another man to fight in his stead, and that his own daughter was more effective in a fight than he, had caused him to shake off his smooth, foreboding exterior and wear his true one: callous and cruel and utterly incensed that his dead brother’s son had stolen his title from him.
“I willnae just kill ye,” Rodric said, flinging Catriona to the side so harshly that she landed on the dais, knocking over a chair as she fell. He sheathed his dirk and drew out his broadsword. “I’m going to gut ye and hang yer innards over the ramparts. Then I’m going to do the same to my conniving wife. I should have killed her while she still had ye in her womb.”
“You like to talk,” Brandt said, only pretending that the man’s crazed words hadn’t made him sick. “I wonder if that’s because talking is the only thing you’re good at.”
Rodric charged at him, his sword raised and a guttural cry ripping from his throat. His two soldiers had scattered, and Brandt spared only one moment to be sure Aisla had backed away before meeting Rodric’s sword with his own. The initial blow shivered through his arms and bones, straight to his spine, but he kept his grip, thrusting Rodric’s sword away and slicing into his leather breastplate with the same stroke.
Brandt parried Rodric’s sword as he attempted to flay Brandt’s thigh, then warded off a second blow as his enemy’s broadsword jabbed at his gut. Rodric clenched his teeth, lunging and slicing at Brandt as if he were possessed by the devil himself. Unhinged. That was the word to describe him, and as their swords clashed, again and again, their circle of battle widening out, Brandt began to wonder if he’d misjudged Rodric this time. If perhaps he was crazed enough not to tire as he had during their earlier battle in the courtyard. Madness sometimes gave men impossible strength.
They spun toward the alcove where the children and women were huddled, Brandt’s shoulders and back beginning to burn from the stalwart bite of Rodric’s blade. The children and women screamed and fled in all directions, the commotion distracting Brandt, especially as one young child ran within striking distance of Brandt’s swinging sword. He eased the momentum just enough to let the boy pass, unharmed—but as he did, a searing pressure in his calf sent his leg collapsing beneath him.
