Page 59 of Fallen
24
Legacy
COIRA KNEW THAT Craeg wanted to be the one to kill MacKinnon—but that didn’t stop her searching for the clan-chief all the same.
Craeg needed to have his reckoning, yet so did she. However, she couldn’t get close to the front. The press of male bodies was too thick.
From early on in the battle, she was glad that the quarter-staff was her weapon of choice. Although tall and broad-shouldered compared to many women, she still lacked a man’s brute strength. Those massive broad-swords that even a warrior had to wield two-handed would never have suited her.
Instead, the iron-tipped quarter-staff cut a path through the ranks of the Dunan Guard. She’d just knocked two men off their horses, when a warrior came at her, sword swinging.
Blood coursing down one cheek, he had a maddened look upon his face, an expression that warned her the man had passed the point where he cared about his own mortality. If he died bringing her down, so be it.
Coira spun the quarter-staff, using a two-handed under-arm spin. The weapon flew so fast that it became a blur. Leaping forward, she struck the warrior across the face with the staff, before his blade could reach her. He reeled back, kept his feet, and lunged for her.
She spun the staff once more and struck her opponent again, felling him this time, before stabbing him through the throat with the pointed end of her weapon.
Breathing hard, Coira turned quickly to face another warrior and blocked his attack. She then delivered a downward strike, hitting him hard across the ribs. The man hissed a curse and attacked once more, but this time Coira ducked and swept low, knocking the warrior’s feet out from under him.
Sweat trickled down Coira’s back, heat pulsing through her as she struck, swept, and thrust her way through the fray.
And then, through it all she caught a glimpse of black and white on the hill above.
Three nuns, spaced around half a dozen yards apart, were firing arrows into the fray.
Coira gasped.
The Sisters of Kilbride were here, fighting alongside the outlaws.
A few feet away, a MacKinnon warrior went down, a feather-fletched arrow embedded in the back of his neck.
Coira’s attention snapped back to the fighting then, as another man launched himself at her, dirk drawn. He was trying to get under her guard. Coira gritted her teeth and struck hard, bringing the staff down on his hand. She felt the bones crack under the impact. The warrior howled, the sound choking off when Coira swung her staff into his face.
Whirling away from the fallen man, Coira peered through the fracas and spied the abbess.
Mother Mary … she can fight!
Coira had sparred with the abbess often over the years, but had always known the woman was holding herself back.
She just hadn’t realized how much.
The abbess moved like a woman half her age, striking like an adder and dancing away from any attack that came near her. She toyed with the big men who swung at her with their claidheamh-mors. She made them look like lumbering giants as she escaped the reach of their blades again and again.
Blood splattered across Mother Shona’s face and her snow-white wimple. Her delicate features were set in hard lines, and her brown eyes gleamed. An instant later Coira recognized Sister Elspeth fighting at the abbess’s side. The woman wielded a dirk, its long blade dripping with blood. Coira remembered that Sister Elspeth was as good with blades as Sister Ella had been. Nonetheless, it was a shock to see the nun fighting with such savagery. The left sleeve of her habit was torn, and blood oozed from a long cut to her upper arm, yet Sister Elspeth paid it no mind.
Coira’s fingers tightened around the ash quarter-staff.
She wouldn’t let them face the Dunan Guard alone.
She resumed her path through the press of MacKinnon warriors and horses. Eventually, her breathing coming in short gasps, she staggered from the press to join the nuns.
Mother Shona yanked her sword free of a fallen warrior and favored Coira with a savage smile. “Thought we would leave ye out here on yer own, did ye?”
Coira shook her head, too exhausted to answer. The battle was starting to drain her, and she realized this was where men held a distinct advantage. Their stronger, more muscular bodies withstood battle for longer. They had greater endurance. It was just as well she now stood with the Sisters of Kilbride, for her arms had developed a slight tremor as she spun her staff and readied herself to face a man on horseback who now charged at her.
This wasn’t the time for her body to fail her.
She widened her stance, anchoring herself on the ground. And then, an instant before she swung her staff at the warrior bearing down upon her, she caught a glimpse of two men fighting with claidheamh-mors in the heart of the melee: Craeg and MacKinnon.
