The Raider (Highland Guard #8)(16)

“The gate!” Seton shouted in warning.

Robbie swore. “I see it.”

The English garrison had apparently decided to leave the comfort and protection of their stone walls and come to their countrymen’s aid, probably because of the lad.

Robbie and his men had overstayed their welcome. But he had no intention of leaving the boy behind. He could see him now—and the plaid-cloaked problem. The woman had her back to him, but she was clutching the boy, trying to pull him away from an obviously uncomfortable Fraser, who was doing his best to try to detach her from the boy without being too rough and equally obviously having a difficult time of it.

The woman was tenacious; Robbie would give her that. She wouldn’t let go. He’d recalled a few of the sort at the Highland Games.

He swore again, glancing at the hill. The soldiers from the castle were closing in quickly.

His mouth fell in a hard line. They didn’t have time for this. He would take care of the problem himself.

Three

Rosalin had to do something, as clearly no one else could. The one knight who was close enough to come to Roger’s aid was deep in a fight for his own life. Her brother’s men—battle-hardened knights and men-at-arms—were being cut down as if they were wet-behind-the-ears squires. Roger was a wet-behind-the-ears squire. He wouldn’t last longer than it took the warrior to swing his massive two-handed sword.

She knelt down and took Meg by the shoulders. “I’m going to get Roger.”

“I want to go—”

Anticipating the little girl’s instincts—probably because they were her own—Rosalin cut her off. “I need your help. I need you to run as fast as you can up that hill and tell them that they must send soldiers. Tell them that Lord Clifford’s son is in danger. Can you do that?”

Meg nodded uncertainly.

Not willing to rely on the child to keep her promise, Rosalin saw her safely entrusted to the arms of the sturdier of the two attendants, with a stern warning to not let her go until they’d reached the safety of the closed gate.

Rosalin didn’t think she’d ever run so fast. She prayed every second it took her to wind her way through the crowd and cross the distance to her nephew. Don’t let me be too late…

“My father will kill you for this! He will see all of your rebel heads on spikes!”

She nearly sighed with relief, hearing Roger’s voice—even if she wished that indelible Clifford pride would show more discretion in issuing threats to large, menacing-looking barbarians with sharp swords. Her too confident, thirteen-year-old intent-on-being-a-fearsome-knight nephew was going to get himself killed.

Pushing her way past the last few fleeing villagers, she was at last able to see him. The Scot was still holding him by the neck, with Roger’s sword at his feet, having disarmed the youth rather than kill him. Thank God!

“Let me go, damn it!” Roger thrashed around, pulling on the hand of the man holding him.

“Let him go!” Rosalin shouted, echoing her nephew’s demands. Racing forward, she threw herself between them.

She didn’t know which one of them looked more surprised. Beneath the steel helms she could see both sets of blue eyes widen.

The rebel recovered first. “Get back, my lady,” he said, in the same surprisingly refined Norman French that she’d instinctively used. Although she was fluent in the English more typically used by people in the North and Borders, French was the language of nobles and the court. “I don’t wish to hurt you.”

“Then let go of him!” she said fiercely, latching on to her nephew and trying to free him from the warrior’s hold.

Her appearance incited a renewed frenzy in her nephew’s effort to free himself. Together they fought against the much larger warrior and struggled to free Roger from his vise-like grip.

They almost succeeded. Roger saw just as she did that the warrior wasn’t going to draw his weapon, not with her there (apparently there was some vestige of chivalry even in barbarians), and they used it to their advantage.

A fierce Viking game of tug-of-war ensued, with Rosalin trying to insert herself between Roger and the warrior. If his frustrated swearing was any indication—at least she assumed it was swearing from his tone, as it was spoken in Gaelic—their efforts were taking a toll.

Finally, she freed Roger’s habergeon from the warrior’s grip (he’d been holding the mail shirt and not Roger’s neck as she’d thought) and was about to pull him free, when she heard a horse galloping up behind her.

She turned and caught the heart-stopping, blood-chilling flash of an enormous shadow looming over her right before darkness smothered her. Instinctively she cried out and raised her hands to claw at the thing covering her head. It was coarse and scratchy and smelled of grass. Nay, grain, she realized. Barley.

The vile beast had put a sack over her head!

She fought to rip it off, realizing her mistake too late. She’d let go of Roger. Only for an instant, but it was enough. The terrifying shadow barked some kind of order in Gaelic, presumably to the warrior who’d been holding Roger, and an arm circled around her waist. At least she thought it was an arm, though it felt more like a steel hook. With her as the fish!

She gasped, too shocked to scream, and in one smooth motion, he lifted her off the ground and none-too-gently slung her over his lap.

Her ribs and stomach met the rock-hard muscles of his thighs with enough force to jar the air from her lungs in a hard whoosh.