The Hunter (Highland Guard #7)(65)

One by one he and Sutherland struck down the enemy, working in tandem as they moved the attacking Englishmen into position in the narrow pass.

Just like that, the battle shifted. The horses couldn’t maneuver. Instead of the aggressors, the English knight and his men became like herring trapped in a barrel. With Ewen on one side and Sutherland on the other, there was nowhere for them to go. They were forced to abandon their horses or die.

They died anyway.

The loud clash of battle began to dull as the English fell beneath their swords. The barking had stopped. One of the dogs appeared to have been trampled by the fleeing horses, and the other …

Ewen swore, shaking off some of the sweat that had gathered beneath his helm to clear his vision. Where was the other dog?

While fending off blows, he scanned the area around them, grazing over the bodies of the men and horses that had fallen alongside them. No second dog.

A chill raced through his blood as he realized there was a man missing as well.

There were still four soldiers left. Three of them had converged on Sutherland, hoping to overpower him, while the other tried to keep Ewen from helping him. Sutherland didn’t need help. And neither did Ewen. He exchanged blows with the man-at-arms, a thick-necked, barrel-chested brute, who managed to land a solid blow of his sword on Ewen’s shoulder before the edge of Ewen’s blade could meet his neck.

Sutherland had realized what had happened. “Go!” he shouted between swings of his sword. “I’ll finish them off.”

Ewen didn’t hesitate. Jumping on one of the remaining horses, he tore off in the direction he’d told Janet to run.

He leaned down low over the courser’s neck to avoid the branches and limbs that splayed out in all directions of the forest that circled the base of the hills, and prayed. Prayed he’d counted wrong. Prayed that he reached her in time.

But a moment later he heard a piercing sound that would haunt him for the rest of his life. A shrill, terror-filled scream tore through the misty dawn air, stopping his heart and catapulting him forward into the dark, unfamiliar abyss of fear.

Janet had every intention of following his orders. But when the piercing clash of metal on metal shattered through the air, her head instinctively turned at the sound.

She stopped to look for only a minute, but the sight that had met her eyes was not one she would soon forget. It was battle, in all of its gruesome, horrifying chaos. Twice before she’d seen the violence of warfare—the night at the bridge when she’d tried to rescue her sister and the day in the forest with Marguerite when she’d first met Ewen—but the fierceness, the brutality of it, startled her anew. The sight of swords swirling, dirt flying, blood spurting in a gnarling mass of men and beast struck terror in her heart. As did the sounds. The very loudness of it. The violent clamor of steel and death.

Like a steel-clad plague of locusts, the English swarmed the two Highlanders. By all rights it should have been a slaughter. She couldn’t breathe, fearing Ewen would be cut down with the first stroke. But she’d forgotten, or told herself she must have exaggerated, his skill in her mind. The extraordinary strength and deadly intent. The brutally cold purpose by which he went about his task. Sir Kenneth fought the same way, not like a knight but like a barbarian. It wasn’t too hard to imagine them striking terror across the seas in a Viking longship.

The two Highlanders might be overmatched in number, but they were far superior in skill. In the first shadowed blink of daylight, in the midst of that chaos and horror, with their blackened helms and dark-colored plaids flaring like ghostly robes, they looked like deadly, menacing beings from another world.

They looked like … phantoms.

The realization stunned her for a moment, but then, remembering Ewen’s admonition, she turned and ran. Ran until her legs ached and her lungs felt as if they would explode, through the trees and underbrush, along the rocky riverbank as it wound through the forest.

She’d gone no more than a mile when she heard barking behind her. Fear tightened her already straining chest. She looked over her shoulder, saw the hound racing up behind her, and against every instinct in her body that screamed danger—run!—she forced herself to slow.

The dog was trained to hunt. To pursue. It would not stop, and she could not outrun it.

She would not be its prey. With her hand on the hilt of her blade, she turned to face it. Half-expecting it to leap on her, she was surprised when it stopped about ten feet away. They stared at one another in a silent face-off. Beast and man. Or in this case, woman.

Animals had always liked her. She tried to remember that as she stood perfectly still, except for the heavy rise of her chest sucking in air.

The deerhound was big, its gray head at about the level of her waist. Its mouth was pulled back, letting her see every one of its impressively long teeth, but its black eyes were more curious than angry. Could a dog be curious?

Its shaggy fur was dirty and matted, and it looked to be in need of a good bath, but it was a nice-looking animal, with the long, lean lines of a hunter, if perhaps on the skinny side.

With the hand that was not holding the hilt of her blade, she reached into the leather purse at her waist and dug out a piece of dried beef. Cautiously, she held it out, murmuring soothing sounds as the dog eyed her speculatively. Her heart hammered as the dog slowly made its way over to her. Not wanting to tempt fate, she put the beef down on the ground. The dog pounced on it. Devouring it in seconds, it looked up at her again, giving a little bark of encouragement.