The Saint (Highland Guard #5)(97)

He was rocking side-to-side, obviously in a daze. “My head,” he mumbled.

She soothed him as best she could, easing him back until he was seated on the ground.

Every instinct recoiled from removing the helm and its hideous appendage—fearing what she would find—but she had to see the extent of the damage and stop the bleeding.

“I need to take off your helm,” she said gently. “Can you help me?”

He tried to nod, but winced with pain.

Helen held her breath and slowly started to pull the helm from his head. There was one horrible moment when it seemed the helm would not come off—that the axe was embedded too deep in his forehead—but with one hard tug she pulled it free.

Helm and axe fell to the ground as Helen did her best to staunch the blood gushing from the king’s brow with one of the swatches of linen she kept in the bag. But the small pad of fabric was soon drenched.

If only it weren’t so dark. It was hard to see the extent of the injury. But aside from the ringing to his head the king was sure to be feeling from the blow, it looked as if the vertical gash bisecting his left eyebrow and forehead was deep but not necessarily deadly. If she could stop the bleeding.

The king’s shock had seemed to fade with the removal of the helm and axe.

“You shouldn’t be here, Lady Helen. I told you to hide.”

“I will. Just as soon as I tend your wound. Does it hurt badly?”

A silly question to ask a warrior. In her experience, nothing ever hurt.

“Nay,” the king said, true to form. “Where’s my sword?”

Helen gazed toward the body of the fallen man where the sword had landed when the blow had struck.

The king lunged for it, but Helen had to keep him upright when he nearly fell over, dizzy. “You’re losing a lot of blood. I need to get something to bind the wound.”

He was able to hold the pad as she used the scissors in her bag to cut a section of linen from her shift to make a larger pad, and a second thinner piece to secure it with. She knew it wouldn’t last long, but she needed something until she could get some salve—

Suddenly, she heard men moving toward them. The king heard them, too.

“Hood,” she heard a man say.

The king stiffened, detecting the same thing she had: English.

Then, a moment later, another muffled voice said, “Find the lass.”

The king was already getting to his feet and reaching for his sword. By sheer force of will, he seemed to be fighting against the urge to sway.

“Go,” he said. “I’ll keep them back.”

Helen’s heart stopped, realizing he intended to try to fight them off himself. But he was far too weak. Thinking quickly, she said, “Please, Sire. You can’t mean to leave me. What if one of them comes after me?”

Chivalrous to a fault, he saw her point. “Aye, I need to get you somewhere safe.”

She almost headed back toward the trees where the others were hidden before realizing the danger she would be putting them in.

The king seemed to have a different idea anyway. He took her hand and started pulling her away from the battle into the mist and darkness.

When they heard a shout behind them, they started to run.

Twenty-two

Helen ran until the ground began to climb, and the king started to slow. Her own lungs were close to bursting. With the amount of blood he’d lost, the king had to be struggling.

“Did they see us?” she asked.

He listened for a moment. “I don’t know.”

They stood side-by-side in the darkness, sucking in deep breaths of air. Although she could see little around her, the hulking shadows of the mountains loomed all around them. Beautiful by day, at night they took on a sinister cast.

“Do you know where we are?”

The king shook his head. “A few miles to the north of the loch. But I don’t know these mountains like—” He stopped.

“Like Magnus,” she finished.

He nodded. Neither of them wanted to voice what they both were thinking: where was he? If they’d been attacked, did that mean the attackers had made it past Magnus?

She shuddered, her mind instinctively shrinking from the possibility.

The king gave her a compassionate smile. “Don’t give up, Lady Helen. MacKay is one of my best men. It would take more than a few brigands to bring him down.”

She nodded, but they both knew those weren’t normal brigands. “Who were they, do you think?”

Bruce shook his head and when he swayed a little, Helen urged him to sit down on a large rock. “I don’t know. But at least one of them was English, and they knew it was the royal party they attacked.”

“They also knew about me,” she said quietly.

Bruce nodded. “Aye, it seems so.”

Helen frowned, noticing the blood seeping through the bandage around the king’s head. She moved forward to examine it. She needed something better with which to bind it … but what?

“It’s still bleeding?”

She nodded. “Aye. I don’t suppose we can light a fire?” It would be the surest way of sealing it closed.

“Not until we’re sure they’re gone.”

“I wish I’d thought to grab my sewing basket. The embroidery thread would do in a bind.”