Page 54 of Awoken
A young man sprinted toward them, face flushed with panic. Craeg, who was already up on his feet and had drawn his sword, met him.
“It’s MacKinnon!” the lad announced, eyes wide with panic. “He’s found us.”
Craeg spat out a curse, his expression turning savage. “Why haven’t the scouts alerted us?”
“They’ll be dead.” Ross drew his own claidheamh-mor, his expression fierce now. “As will yer foolish friend. Ye of all people should know that ye under-estimate Duncan MacKinnon at yer peril.”
25
Lethal
CRAEG’S GAZE CUT to Ross, his moss-green eyes darkening to jade. Gunn had stepped up to the outlaw leader’s side while, behind him, Fenella had shouldered a quiver of arrows and taken a longbow that one of the outlaws passed her.
I need a bow too.The thought rose, unbidden, before Leanna dismissed it. Her body trembled, and her heart raced; she wasn’t sure she could think straight right now, let alone wield a weapon.
Instinctively, Leanna stepped close to Ross and reached for him, her fingers curling around his forearm.
“The guard has at least twenty bowmen,” Ross spoke up then, his gaze spearing Craeg’s. “All the others will have claidheamh-mors.”
“All of them?” Gunn interrupted them, alarmed.
“MacKinnon has always invested heavily in The Dunan Guard,” Ross replied, his mouth twisting. “Most of them will be wearing mail shirts as well.”
Craeg’s face turned grim at this news. “Will MacKinnon be leading them?”
“After the injury Leanna dealt him, I’d say not,” Ross replied. “He’ll be there though … watching at the rear.”
Something feral moved across Craeg’s face. Watching him, Leanna realized that the man wanted MacKinnon to be there. He wanted a chance to have his reckoning upon him.
Spitting out another curse, Craeg then sprang into action, shouting orders at the panicked men and women who scrambled around him. The low timbre of his voice echoed across the valley, and Leanna noted that his commands had a calming effect on the band. The alarm quietened, and instead the outlaws gathered their weapons and fanned out around the perimeter of the village.
Moments later the twang of bow-strings releasing cut through the gloaming. MacKinnon’s men had initially kept to the shadows, hiding amongst the trees. But now, as they loosed their arrows, they advanced upon the settlement itself.
Ross glanced around, his features tightening. “They’ve got us surrounded,” he murmured. This comment earned him a sharp glance from Craeg, to which Ross answered. “Aye … it’s his preferred method of ambush.”
Craeg’s gaze flicked from Ross to Leanna. “Ye need to go now,” he said roughly. “While ye still can.”
The outlaw turned then, dismissing them, his attention upon the figures that approached from the perimeter of the village. Many of his men had already engaged the attackers. The whistle of flying arrows and the clang of blades clashing split the misty air.
Leanna watched the outlaw leader stride off to join the others, and then she took an instinctive step closer to Ross. “What now?” she gasped.
An arrow flew past and embedded into the door-frame of a nearby hut. Leanna tensed, fighting the urge to cower. She felt so exposed out here. Fletched arrows peppered the air now.
“Ye heard the man,” Ross grunted. “It’s time to leave. Come on.”
Together they edged back from the fire pit, gazes scanning their surroundings. There was fighting on all sides, it seemed, and shouts and cries rang out over the valley.
Fear clutched at Leanna’s chest, and her legs trembled under her. She didn’t know how men coped with battle. She felt as if she might lose her wits if someone ran at her swinging a broad-sword.
However, Ross remained calm, focused, his gaze flicking left and right. A few yards to their right, they came upon their first fallen outlaw. A young man with an arrow through his neck.
There was nothing they could do for him so they kept moving, heading toward the northern edge of the village. Ten more yards in, and they found themselves on the edge of a pitch-battle. Men flailed and stabbed at each other.
Leanna’s legs wobbled once more, threatening to give way as terror seized her. She dug her heels into the ground, yet Ross towed her forward as if she weighed nothing.
“I need to find ye a weapon to defend yerself,” he said, his voice tight with tension.
He cut down a man who’d broken through the outlaw lines and lunged toward him, before they reached the prone figure of an outlaw woman. A discarded longbow lay upon the ground next to her.
