The Campbell Trilogy Read online

  He held her gaze for another moment before shifting to the man she’d stabbed.

  The situation came back to her in a staggered heartbeat and she froze, waiting to see what he intended. One beat. Two. Her heart rose higher in her throat.

  Relief washed over her when an arrow shot by one of his men landed in the tree inches from the MacGregor’s head. A friend. Thank God!

  “Help us! Please help us!” she shouted. But her words were unnecessary. The warriors had already drawn their swords and started to attack the outlaws. It didn’t take long to measure their skill and see their superiority. Her cousin’s remaining guardsmen fought with renewed vigor, energized by the additional sword arms.

  It was as if the wind had shifted; the attackers had become the attacked.

  The dark knight dismounted, his horse an encumbrance in the narrow clearing, and came to the aid of one of her clansmen, swinging his sword down hard to fend off an attacker. The steely clash reverberated through the dense forest, and Lizzie could have sworn the earth shook with the force of the blow. He fought with savage grace, wielding his sword with skill and ease.

  Forsooth, this was a swordsman who might give her brother Jamie a challenge.

  A small cry drew her attention from the dark knight. Alys! Frantically, the other woman was searching the fighting men with her gaze, looking for her husband, and Lizzie knew she had to do something.

  “Alys, come.” She grabbed her icy hand. “We must get out of the way.”

  “But Donnan …” She turned to Lizzie, her face crumpled with such despair that Lizzie’s heart broke for the pain she would suffer. “I don’t see my husband.”

  “The men are spread out, I’m sure he’s fighting up ahead,” Lizzie lied. “We can’t look for him now. It will be over soon and then we’ll find him.”

  She started to lead her away, only to find her path blocked. The MacGregor ruffian she’d stabbed had managed to get to his feet and unsheathe his sword. He held it with one arm, as the other was wrapped around his waist to stanch the flow of blood streaming from the wound in his stomach.

  The rage in his expression shook her to her toes. He raised his sword above his head …

  Everything stopped. Time. Her heart. Her breath. She didn’t feel anything. For a moment, it didn’t seem real. She could have been standing on a balcony watching players on a stage below. The girl was too young to die. She’d barely lived. There were so many things still before her. A family of her own. A man to love. A child to hold in her arms. All that she’d yet to do was reflected in the shimmer of steel poised precipitously over her head.

  I don’t want to die.

  The urge to live broke through the shock of impending death, and Lizzie started to back away, ready to do whatever it took to protect herself and Alys.

  The sword started down …

  “Don’t,” a man boomed from across the path. His deep, husky voice held the cool ring of authority. Lizzie knew it was the dark knight even before she looked. When she did, she saw him still a good distance away, but he’d exchanged his sword for a bow and had it aimed right at the MacGregor warrior’s heart. “I won’t miss.” Cold certainty made it a promise and not a threat.

  Her heart stilled.

  The two men squared off in a silent battle. Tension stretched between them, thick and heavy. Finally, the MacGregor brigand lowered his claymore.

  One of his men appeared at his side with a horse. “We must away.”

  The MacGregor looked as though he wanted to argue, but with one last glance at Lizzie that promised future retribution, he mounted his horse and let out a fierce cry: “Ard Choille!” The Woody Height, Lizzie translated from her childhood memory of the Highland tongue. Probably the clan battle cry, she realized.

  His warriors responded immediately. Like wraiths, they vanished into the forest as suddenly as they’d appeared. Only the flutter of leaves trailing behind them gave proof to their existence.

  That and the dead bodies of her clansmen littered across the forest floor.

  She muffled a dry sob in her mouth.

  It was over. But she was too numb to feel relief. She was too numb to feel anything at all. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, letting air fill her lungs. Breathe. Just breathe.

  When she finally opened them again, it was to search for the man to whom she owed her life.

  Chapter 2

  The battle was over, but the hot pounding of blood surging through his body had yet to slow. Patrick was too damn furious.

  He lowered his sword, wincing as a sharp pain bit his side. Blood wasn’t just rushing through his body, but also out of it. He could feel the unmistakable warm dampness soaking the linen of the shirt that he wore under his leather cotun. It wasn’t a new wound, but an old one, suffered weeks—nay, months—ago at the battle of Glenfruin. And now reopened.

  Thanks to his damn brother.

  Patrick tugged off his steel helmet and raked his fingers through newly shorn hair, surveying the senseless destruction before him. His gaze slid over the battlefield, over the dead bodies, a sick feeling twisting in his gut. He had been reared on a battlefield. With all the death he’d seen, he was surprised that it still had the power to affect him. Perhaps it was because this time the loss of life was so unnecessary.

  No one was supposed to get hurt.

  At least that had been the plan, before Gregor had taken it upon himself to decide otherwise. His damned hotheaded brother had gone too far. Gregor had all the boldness of their cousin without the charm and fortune—and added a dangerous streak of recklessness.

  Patrick swore with even greater fury when his gaze fell on the mutilated body of one of his clansmen. Bitterness soured his mouth. Conner had been a bonny lad who smiled more than not—a rarity among the outlawed men—though you wouldn’t know it by looking at him. A musket shot had hit him in the cheek, blowing half his face off. Patrick’s fists clenched. Not yet eight and ten and look at him.

  The senseless waste of a young life made him want to lash out. If Gregor were here right now, he’d feel the weight of Patrick’s anger.

  It was little comfort that his brother was paying for his sins—if the wound in his belly felt anything like Patrick’s side right now. What the hell could Gregor have been thinking to attack the lass like that? He hoped that the lass’s dirk hadn’t done lasting harm, but Gregor had much to account for.

  By his count, four MacGregors and twice as many Campbells had died today. He did not mourn the lives of his enemy, but neither had he intended their deaths. Today wasn’t supposed to be about killing Campbells. He’d thought Gregor had understood that the risk was too great. With the king and his Campbell minions hunting them down, there were too few of them left as it was. Even one lost MacGregor was too many. Depriving them of their land wasn’t enough: the king wouldn’t be happy until every last MacGregor was rooted out of the Highlands.

  They’d been hunted before, but nothing like this. The battle of Glenfruin might prove to be their undoing. Though the MacGregors had won the battle against the Colquhouns, it had mobilized the king and the Earl of Argyll—the king’s authority in the Highlands—against them with ruthless intent. Of course, the Colquhoun theatrics hadn’t helped—who could have foreseen the widows riding on white palfreys while parading the blood-soaked sarks of their dead husbands on spears before the notoriously squeamish king? False rumors of MacGregor atrocities had only added to the furor against them, and the broken men were being pursued with a vengeance never before encountered.

  It had become harder and harder to hide. Though there were plenty in the Highlands who were sympathetic to the MacGregors, the penalty for harboring the clan was death—something not many were willing to risk. And those unsympathetic to the clan were only too eager to collect the bounty hanging over their heads—or perhaps he should say on their heads, as the Privy Council was offering the bounty to anyone who could produce a severed MacGregor head.

  And he was the barbarian?

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