Page 4 of The Highlander's Twisted Deal
Ava hissed, “I have to help him.”
“Are ye mad?” Elsie spoke up from the kitchen, sounding panicked. “Ye mustnae. Niamh, tell her.”
Niamh was watching her daughter carefully, a sad smile on her face. “There’s no stopping the healer’s instinct, Elsie. Ava, if we are to go out there, ye are to stick close to me. Do ye understand?”
Ava nodded, barely listening. The worst of the fight—a knot of thirty or so soldiers, including Laird MacCarthy—was moving away down the cobbled street, leaving the injured in its wake. If she went out now, she could administer basic care to the wounded before the fighting came back or until Laird MacCarthy had leisure to notice she was there.
She glanced over to see where the Laird was. She spotted him at once because he was whirling a great sword above his head.
Thatwas a mistake. In a melee like that, a great sword was only a liability. It was too easy for a quick, nimble soldier with a shorter blade to slip under one’s guard and deliver a cut. As she watched, the soldiers pulled back around the Laird, giving him and his blade a little space.
Another man, dressed in the unfamiliar tartan, squared himself up to Laird MacCarthy. The Laird immediately backpedaled, putting himself behind a protective line of his own soldiers. The unfamiliar man rolled his eyes.
Narrowing her eyes, Ava tried to angle herself against the window to get the best view. The unfamiliar warrior was tall with broad shoulders and a thick chest. He had black hair, just a little too long and half pulled back into a lazy queue at the base of his neck. He was handsome, remarkably so, and that was unusual for warriors his size. Usually, they had faces like stone slabs with noses that had been broken again and again and never quite set straight.
This man had an almost fox-like look about him, but there was an intent expression in his eyes—blue, Ava guessed, although it was difficult to tell from this distance—that was distinctly wolfish. Black locks of hair fell in his eyes, and he absently jerked his head, flicking them away. He was watching Laird MacCarthy with an odd expression, calculating and amused all at once, and Ava was suddenly very, very sure that Laird MacCarthy was in big trouble.
Well, he probably deserved it.
“Ava?” Niamh interrupted quietly, inching open the door. “If ye are coming, we’ll go now.”
Ava moved back from the window. “I’m coming,” she said shortly.
2
Callum had spotted the Laird almost at once. The man made himself fairly obvious, wearing a grand belted plaid that swung out around him and looked suitably impressive but also caught on things and got in the way. As Callum watched, the heavy fringe of the kilt tangled around the Laird’s knees, making him stumble.
Not that it mattered, Laird MacCarthy was working hard to make sure he stayed away from Callum. The man preferred to stay where he was, it seemed, and swing his great sword around his head.
Only a fool who’d never seen battle would bring a great sword to battle in narrow village alleyways like this.
There was something of a pause in the fighting, and Callum fell back a few paces until he was level with a fierce-looking warrior who fought with an axe.
“Coming here was a waste of time, Lachlan,” Callum remarked, his eyes on the enemy laird. “We’re going through them like a hot knife through butter.”
“Fighting to regain yer honor and stolen cargo is hardly a waste of time,” Lachlan responded sharply with just a hint of reproof in his voice.
Callum didn’t bother arguing. Lachlan might act like a grizzled, old sage and experienced warrior, but really, he was barely a year older than Callum himself. Callum was close to thirty years old, and Lachlan just short of thirty-one, but, already, gray streaked his black hair, and a nasty scar spanning from his eyebrow to his jaw made him look older and more dangerous.
Lachlan seemed to like the respect he had earned, especially coupled with his role as right-hand man to Laird McAdair, Callum himself. Out of all of his men, Callum trusted Lachlan the most.
Sometimes, it felt like he was the only one Callum could trust.
Callum blinked, and suddenly, a young man—a boy, really—in enemy tartan was in front of him, having darted through the enemy ranks.
The boy drew in a deep, ragged breath and lifted his sword with shaking hands, pointing it at Callum. Behind him, the enemy soldiers had gone quiet, with Laird MacCarthy himself craning his neck to see over the ranks of his men.
“Ye can go no further, Laird McAdair,” the boy said loudly with the air of someone who’d rehearsed his speech in his head over and over again. “Nae before ye kill me.”
Callum lifted an eyebrow, glancing sideways at Lachlan. “Is that so, laddie? Does yer maither ken ye are out here, fighting?”
There was a ripple of laughter from the McAdair men at that.
The boy blushed hotly but stood his ground, lifting his chin. “I was born in this village,” he said, his voice wobbling, “and I willnae let ye hurt anyone in it.”
“I dinnae want to hurt anyone in this village,” Callum responded, leveling the point of his sword over the boy’s shoulder, and directing it at Laird MacCarthy. “Me quarrel is withhim. If anyone should challenge me to single combat, it’s Laird MacCarthy himself. I assume that is what this is, then? Single combat?”
The boy’s face was pale, and he adjusted his sweaty hands on the hilt of his sword. It was a newish sword, Callum noticed, and the boy held it badly. He dressed like a MacCarthy warrior, but he didn’t act like one.
