Bound by Wish and Mistletoe (Highland Legends #1.5)(15)
Robert ignored the trespasser’s rants, glancing at her. “Was there a treaty made?”
“Aye. I doona care. I’ll not be like my mother. No woman should have to suffer the way she has.”
Robert growled.
Dougal drew his sword, the ring of its metal the only battle cry the Brodie needed. Then Dougal kicked his horse, leading his animal wide and out of their sight while two of the men he’d brought urged their mounts the opposite direction and the other four directly charged their stand of trees.
Fools.
Seamus and Duncan moved apart in a blur.
Like water rushing over jagged rocks, Robert’s men jumped and fell in response to each obstacle in their way. With Seamus’s boulder of a fist, he unseated the first unlucky man from his horse and buried an ax deep into his heart right as his victim’s back hit the ground. Duncan unsheathed his sword, ducked under an arcing blade, and sprung into the air, piercing a rider through one side and out the other.
As their commander and natural-born strategist, Robert held back from the immediate fray, his senses heightened to detect their unseen foe. His men continued in silent grace, deadly shadows moving amid pure, white snowfall, dispatching their enemy with unparalleled skill. Robert turned, keeping Susanna at his back, as he scanned for movement through the trees. He’d been hunted by a hungry predator before, including men wishing to end his life. Never had it been with a woman on the battlefield.
“Susanna, stay between my back and the horses.”
“Aye, Robert. I’ve no intention of bein’ anywhere else.”
He nodded, pleased that she cooperated with him against their common enemy. Mental notes of the weapons Dougal possessed flashed through his mind as Robert unsheathed a claymore from a scabbard strapped to their spare horse.
Robert relegated unnecessary sounds into background noise as adrenaline spiked through his veins, honing his senses. With keen eyesight and hearing, he distinguished each move their attackers made: the shift in a saddle, a twig that broke beneath a hoof, snow that crunched on a dismount.
With slowing breaths, he closed his eyes and calmed the heartbeat pounding in his ears. On instinct, his body readied for the fight: weight shifted to the balls of his feet, muscles relaxed, charged awareness amplified. On an inhale, he opened his eyes, flexing his fingers one hand at a time on the leather hilt.
A dark shape flashed to his far left, and Robert spun around.
Susanna shifted behind him, quick as his shadow.
Disturbed air rippled to his right.
A flash of metal arced past his shoulder.
Susanna gasped.
He shot his claymore up, catching the descending smaller sword. The deafening ring of blade crashing into blade pierced his ears. Robert shoved a shoulder into the block, throwing his opponent backward. He jerked the hilt higher, punching a hard blow into the attacker’s jaw.
Dougal grunted, stumbling back. “You’ve no right to her,” he growled, spitting out blood and adjusting a jaw that had likely been cracked.
Robert squinted at him. “You speak the truth. She seeks sanctuary here. You’ve no right to her either.”
On a roar, Dougal charged forward, swinging his lighter, one-handed sword. Robert held his ground, unwilling to expose Susanna. Robert deflected the flying blade, but Dougal spun around at the last moment, arcing his sword under Robert’s, slicing the razor edge into his side above a rib.
Susanna gasped.
Robert hissed, wincing at the pain, but remained focused on the danger. He had to get Susanna to safety. Duncan and Seamus must’ve given chase to the remaining two attackers, or they would’ve arrived to assist them.
Focusing on his opponent, Robert circled around in deliberate steps, his hands gripping the hilt only tight enough to direct his claymore without choking his ability for fluid movement. Susanna moved in graceful motion with him. He caught a slight hesitation in Dougal’s rhythm and shifted his weight into his leading hip, arcing his weapon wide and low.
He caught a flash of movement down behind him, but concentrated all his energy forward, following through on the forceful swing. Blade met blade with a loud clang that reverberated through Robert’s arm and into his entire body, but the crushing force of the impact sheared his opponent’s sword in half. Both men blinked, shocked at the improbable occurrence. Robert slowly lowered his newer claymore, staring at it, wondering if Iain had the smithy weave magick into its metal or if Dougal’s blade had an inherent flaw.
A sudden whir of air brushed by Robert’s ear as a dagger flew past his face, straight and true. The blade embedded into Dougal’s left upper chest up to its jeweled hilt. Dougal gaped down wide-eyed. A moment later, he coughed up blood.
Robert inhaled a deep breath, realizing what Susanna had done. Not only had she thrown her weapon expertly, she’d pierced Dougal’s lung.
In the few seconds it took for the two men to recalculate their odds of victory, Robert felt the heavy presence of his formidable clansmen descend among them—the air sizzled with immense power. Without turning around, he slowly smiled at the hunched-over Dougal, whose chances had just vanished in a wisp of smoke.
“This isna over,” Dougal threatened, another bloodied cough sputtering out.
The vegetation to Robert’s immediate left rustled, and he spun toward the sound, reaching back and wrapping an arm around Susanna as he guided her in step with him. A scuffle broke through the low brush, and Seamus and Duncan burst into the small clearing, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with two of Dougal’s men.