Page 54 of Tair

Lochran dismounted, touching a gloved finger to his lips before he lifted Lucy off and placed her on her feet. The other men gathered around them as the Night Watch Chieftain peered at the campfire, and held up his hand. Thundering hooves and roaring screams suddenly broke the silence, and Lochran gestured for them to follow him.

Lucy couldn’t believe what she saw as they entered the camp; Tair and his men were still mounted and dragging four guards by ropes away from the campfire while trading blows with others who were attacking them. On her side was a row of wooden cages packed with grimy-faced young men and women wearing little more than tattered rags. She hurried over to the first cage where Lochran had already smashed the lock, and lifted her head enough for the captives to see her face.

“We’re here to rescue you,” she said, beckoning to them. “We have horses in the forest. Follow me.”

The slaves all cowered, but then one older woman nodded and started dragging the younger girls out of the cage. Lucy waited until they had all stepped out and then led them out of the camp. She left them with the guard watching the horses, and went back to get the next group.

“How do we ken you’re no’ more slavers stealing us from your foes?” one elderly woman demanded.

“You don’t,” Lucy told her. “You’ll have to take a chance.”

The old woman regarded her for a long moment before she nodded. “Stay near me, lassies,” she said to the other women from her cage, and brandished a huge rock. “If she lies, I’ll crack her skull as a rotten egg.”

Some twenty captives had been freed and brought to the horses by the time Lucy returned for the last group, only to see the fighting had sprawled past the campfire. Tair and his men now fought on the ground with swords and cudgels against the guards’ axes and spears, with more men coming out of the shadows behind them.

Something’s wrong.

The battle was anything but swift. She looked over at Lochran who had picked up a young woman who couldn’t stand.

“The guys need help,” she told him, as she quickly herded the remaining captives to the trail.

“We shall send it once we reach safety,” he said, putting the woman over his shoulder. “Stay close, my lady.”

Lucy glanced back at Tair before she said, “Right behind you.”

But as Lochran took off at a light trot, Lucy stepped off the path and into the trees. She slipped into the shadows to draw closer to the fighting, which had grown ferocious and completely unbalanced. Tair and his team now faced three times as many guards as there had been when they’d approached the camp. As the wind rose and the sky flashed with lightning behind the clouds, she wondered if they could prevail over the slavers and their guards. The laird and his raiders fought even more savagely than their opponents, but there were simply too many for them to defeat.

It’s a trap.

Pulling on the leather gloves that Lochran had given her, Lucy darted out of the shadows and struck one of the guards fighting Cath with her nettle whip. The guard howled in pain as she rushed back into the darkness and watched the war master knock him out with the hilt of his sword. She then looked around and chose her next target, freeing Beinn from two guards beating on him.

“My thanks, my lady,” he called after her before he struck the two temporarily blinded men with his enormous fists, sending them flying.

Lucy made one more attempt, this time to help Tair, but on her way to strike his opponent something sliced across her back, leaving a blazing wound that burned her from shoulder to waist. She spun around to find a heavy man with an empty eye socket drawing back his own leather whip and preparing to strike a second time.

“Sodding coward.” She lunged directly at him, knocking him off his feet and landing on top of him.

Hitting him over and over with the nettle whip made him utter shrill shrieks for help, and then someone dragged her away. She nearly struck the man until she saw it was Dorchad, his masking being erased by blood from a gash in his brow.

“Go to the laird,” the chieftain shouted to her to be heard over the howling wind, and then shoved her away a moment before another guard tackled him.

Lucy couldn’t stand up straight now, but she ignored the pain of her back as she looked for Tair. She hobbled around the perimeter of the camp until she finally spotted him wrestling with three different men. He had wounds all over his face, arms and chest, and his eyes had turned a fiery golden orange. Behind the brawl she saw trees thrashing and a huge dark column approaching the camp.

The three men attacking the laird were suddenly dragged away from him by the churning, whirling winds. Nothing seemed to affect Tair, however, and when Lucy staggered over to him she entered an area of still air and silence that seemed to surround him.

“Eejit woman.” He seized her by the arms. “I told you to run away from the fighting.”

“I can’t do that anymore,” Lucy said. “I’m in love with you. I’m staying. I’m fighting.”

The storm and the forest and the slave camp faded into a now-familiar dark gray void, and Tair pulled her close as he drew a dagger from his belt.

Laird of the MacRune, the voice said, I granted your wish, and now ’tis fulfilled.

At the same time Tair’s voice said, If I could but find a woman who could truly love me.

“Right. There must live one with a heart large enough to accept a dark-blooded swine like you,” Lucy said, remembering the thoughts she’d heard. “You should wish for naught more in your life but her.”

His fierce expression softened for a moment. “I shall never wish for anything more than you, mo bhana-bhuidseach òir. You’re mine for now and all eternity.” He glanced around them. “Why do you imprison us here?”