Highlander Enchanted(71)

Richard managed to drive him to the ground once more, and Cade rolled away from his sword. Coated in mud and certain he had indeed reopened the worst of his wounds, Cade lay still on his belly and whispered an enchantment to the sky.

Breathing hard, Richard moved closer. “I have … waited for this day since first we met,” he said. “Were it not for this rain, your clan would have fallen beneath my sword, and I would have your cousin Brian’s head on a pike! But this is better. ‘Twill be your head I collect first!”

Cade laughed. “What could he have done t’ye?” he asked and climbed to his knees. Niall he envisioned angering Richard but Brian? Who thralled those he was unable to charm?

Richard swiped at him.

Cade dropped to the ground and rolled then forced himself to his feet. Richard stood between him and his sword, and he had no shield to fend off the next strike.

“He sought to cause sedition among my men.” Richard snatched a purse from his waist and threw it at Cade’s feet. “Did I not tell you ‘twas deceit?” He shouted to the English knights clustered among the Highlanders. “As assured as I am Black Cade will die at my hands, I know ‘twas treachery that boy spread under the orders of Black Cade’s cousin!”

While Richard berated his men, Cade snatched the purse from the ground and dumped its contents onto the ground. He ran his thumb over one of the smooth medallions then the other. They were the same, and many of the English knights carried signets bearing the mark of their lord. Puzzlement gave way to disbelief and finally to the kind of joy he was unable to contain.

Isabel was safe and apparently, so was the English knight Cade abandoned in a Saracen prison.

He threw his head back and laughed loudly enough the warriors around them began to quiet. Clouds roiled above them in response to the intense emotion.

“’Tis no treachery!” he said when he was able to draw a breath. He held up the two medallions and faced Richard and the knights. “Lady Isabel is well and with her brother, Lord John of Saxony, the rightful baron.”

“’Tis not possible. Every English lord at court was told the news of his death in the Holy Lands by your hand!” Richard shot back.

“I left the Baron of Saxony in a Saracen dungeon,” Cade replied.

Richard appeared triumphant.

“When I last saw him, he wore this. He would ne’er part with it. ‘Twas all he valued.” Cade studied the two medallions dangling before his face. Warmth spread through him. He did not understand how Brian came by the medallion, but he knew John would have been buried with it before he would let anyone else claim it.

Isabel had hers, when they had last been together. They were together, the two of them, the Englishman whose madness condemned him to a life of darkness and his sister, whose touch saved Cade from it.

He closed one fist around the two medallions. If John and his cousins were alive, there was hope for his clan.

“Yer lord is alive and beside my wife, Lady Isabel de Clare of Clan MacLachlainn. If ye be not cowards, then ye shall leave Lord Richard t’face the fate of a traitor alone!” Cade shouted.

Laird Duncan appeared intrigued by the turn of events.

Richard’s knights were shifting and glancing at one another. None of them moved, but Cade did not expect them to. He suspected those with any honor would sneak out before morning. Their lord, however, was red faced and angry.

Richard lifted his sword and charged Cade.

Lightning slammed into the ground between them, sending both of them flying backwards. Cade landed hard enough to knock the air from him. His ears rang, and sunspots blinded him. He stared into the sky, blinking fast, until his senses began to clear and he was able to breathe again. He sat up with effort. A steaming hole in the ground was between him and Richard where the lightning had struck. Many of those gathered had scattered, and Richard was being helped to his feet by two others. Laird Duncan was on his knees, dazed.

Cade gripped his head. His strength was nearly gone for the night, and a storm howled overhead. He dropped onto his back and closed his eyes. If he had any strength at all, he would flee while the camp was in disarray.

He lay still, unable to help the smile tugging up the corners of his mouth. He clutched the medallions to his chest.

Laird Duncan’s men hauled him to his feet and dragged him back to the wagon, where the healer waited.

Cade collapsed against the wet wooden bed of the wagon. The healer pulled the canvas covering over them and knelt with a sigh.

“Yer headed fer another fever,” he complained.

Cade chuckled. “Nay, healer. I am far better than I have ever been.”

“Then yer mad.”

Knowing he would need his strength for the morning, Cade did not move as the healer tended him. He did not feel the symptoms of a fever. If anything, he was more energized after facing Richard than he had been before.

He had proof in his hands of a miracle beyond any he had hoped to imagine. His guilt at failing to heal Saxony’s madness, at leaving the wounded knight in a dungeon, vanished upon learning the Englishman lived.





Chapter Twenty Three


Dawn sent his seillie magic dancing within him, and Cade lifted his weary gaze to the horizon. Too tired to shiver, he ensured his black clouds had blocked any ray of light from the direction of the rising sun in another attempt to delay Laird Duncan’s attack. After the single combat bout the previous evening, he had begun to fall into fever once more and was fighting it with the aid of the surly healer.