Heart of Shadows (Hearts of the Highlands Book 2), page 11
He didn’t trouble himself about it now but ripped his sword free and rushed Avalon into the oncoming swarm of reivers. She moved with him, a warhorse made of pure muscle and fire, guided by the power of his thighs.
He swiped his blade across the throat of one man and blood splattered across his face like war paint. He hacked at the chest of another while keeping Avalon at a charging pace. He didn’t slow or hesitate but cut down two more, felling them from their horses with one deadly swipe. A large, hairy brute bore down on him, lifting his axe, ready to remove Torin’s left arm. But Torin moved with the skill of an efficient killer, slipping slightly to the right with Avalon beneath him. At the same time, he brought his right arm up and around and swung his sword, removing the brute’s head from his shoulders.
He took down three more Armstrongs with masterful ease and morose satisfaction. He wasn’t here to kill reivers and protect the English, but every rider who approached met either flying, feathered arrows, deadly hooves, or huge chomping teeth before they got close to Torin, and when they did get close, they died.
But Avalon could not keep away five horses at once, in every direction…and Torin was having a hard time fighting off their riders. One stabbed at him from his left rear flank while another rider galloped in from the right and swiped his blade across Torin’s throat. He leaned back almost flat on Avalon’s back, avoiding them both.
But there was another sword coming from the right. It came down but was stopped inches from Torin’s shoulder with a clang from a blocking blade that sent sparks scattering.
Rob Adams brought his sword around and killed the man in his saddle.
Torin smiled at him. Adams nodded and then they both continued fighting.
One of the Armstrongs could have killed him and it fired up Torin’s anger well enough to hack the limbs from two more men before noticing a figure standing high upon the keep battlements. Braya. Her hair waved like a pennant behind her. She was watching him. Something leaped in his heart…or his belly. He couldn’t tell which.
She turned suddenly to look behind her, as if someone had called her name. He watched in horror as she lifted his sword and disappeared beyond the wall.
The Armstrongs had breached the keep! How many were in? All at once, it felt as if he were falling back in time…when he found Florie, when he watched his father die and his house burn down with his family in it.
This time, he wasn’t going to run.
He tugged on Avalon’s mane and turned her toward the keep.
Now, he wouldn’t hold back.
Now, he would treat the Armstrongs like a true enemy.
Braya turned from watching Torin fight and met Millie’s wide, fearful eyes as someone pounded on the door. She had wanted to see what was going on outside and thought the battlements might be the safest place to go. She’d brought her mother and her two dearest friends to the top of the keep, where a heavy wooden door protected the upper battlements.
Could it be her father, Galien, Will? She didn’t call out and held her finger to her lips to keep the others quiet.
“Open the door, lady,” a voice she had never heard before called out and set her heart to pounding. “We saw you come up here with the others. Open the door or we will break it open ourselves. No one is coming to save you.”
For a moment, her fear vanished and anger took its place. She tilted one edge of her lips in a disgusted smirk. She’d like to open the door and kill him for saying that to her. If she was alone, she might have. Although she had to admit, she did hope someone came to aid them. She could kill—just not more than one at a time.
How long would the door hold?
The man outside the door took an axe to it. Braya startled at the powerful thump and crack. She was thankful she’d been on more raids than she knew how to count. She was afraid, but she’d had men running at her before in the midst of worse chaos than this. She would not lose her command. But her family. She was afraid for them. She hurried to the other women and made certain they had the knives they’d taken from the table ready.
“If one of them comes near you—” Another crack of the wood under the strength of the axe sounded in all their ears. Lucy whimpered. Millie prayed softly under her breath and held her hand to her belly. May Hetherington held her knife at the ready and nodded. Braya thought she could almost hear her mother’s heartbeat from here. “—do not hesitate to kill them,” she continued.
She spun around as another axe joined in with the first. She was going to have to protect her family. She bit down hard to stop her teeth from chattering. There were at least two men outside the door. The metal landed once again and made it through the wood.
Braya lifted Torin’s sword and knew it was too heavy for her to fight with it. But she could still use it. She’d have to come upon their assailant from behind and stab him. She hurried toward the door and waited behind it.
Her heart thrashed against her ribs, through her veins, making her feel a little ill. She looked across the rooftop at her mother. May Hetherington winked at her. Braya smiled, gathering strength from her mother as she always had.
If there was one, she’d kill him. If there were more, she’d kill them, too. She had to.
They were almost in. A few more strikes. She prayed and hoped they were too tired to move with any speed. They began kicking, and the look of horror on Millie and Lucy’s faces told Braya the men were almost through. She readied the sword.
The door splintered and caved in and the first man stepped outside. Braya wasted no time and drove Torin’s sword into his back, using all her body weight. She ripped a knife from a fold in her skirts and turned to swipe it at the next man before the first went down. She slashed his face then aimed it at his neck. He screamed and smashed her across the jaw with the back of his hand.
She flew off her feet and landed on her arse. Her knife went the other way. No! Her mother! She fought with everything she had in her not to close her eyes, not to surrender to the darkness and sleep. She had to save them!
Her assailant grasped his bloody face and then pulled her up by her hair and closed his fingers around her throat. She heard someone scream.
Millie. She looked into the gash going across his face, his eye, and pounded her fist into it. It angered him further and he tightened his grasp until she could no longer breathe.
She felt her fight begin to fail. No.
His fingers loosened, and then his hand fell away from her neck. She sucked in a deep, life-giving gulp of air and almost sank to the ground with him when his suddenly lifeless body was shoved away from her.
Torin stood in his place. His wide, terrified eyes were a startling emerald against his blood-covered face as he reached for her to hold her steady. “Braya!” he breathed, lifting his fingers to her bloody throat. “Are you hurt, my joy?”
She took a moment to look at the three dead bodies behind him and the knife in her assailant’s back. She shook her head and then began to tremble. They would have killed her and the others.
He was there. He saved her. No one had ever saved her before.
Without another word, Torin began to draw her in. She wanted to go. If she didn’t feel so weak, she would have flung herself into his embrace, but her mother and cousins were there to gather her in their arms.
Torin smiled slightly at her as she left his hands. She smiled back.
They heard more footsteps running up the stairs. Torin stepped on her first victim lying dead on the ground and yanked his sword free of the man’s body, then pointed it at the door.
“May!” It was Braya’s father and uncle. Just behind them was Will Noble. They rushed outside and into the arms of their family.
“We cannot stay here,” Braya said after a moment and moved away to look over the wall.
“’Tis safe,” Torin said, coming to stand beside her. “The Armstrongs lost a heavy number. The rest are retreating.”
She turned to look at him. She’d watched him fighting down there, protecting the gate. He’d moved his sword as if it were a part of him, hacking away at their enemy as if they were not fighting back. She had never seen anyone move the way he had. He was a force unto himself. And then he had come for her, killing four at the door, including her assailant.
“You saved them,” her father echoed her thoughts, moving toward them. “What can I do to thank you, Sir Torin?”
“Acknowledge that your daughter almost gave her life doing the same,” Torin replied, and slanted his wintry gaze to her.
She did all she could not to leap into his arms.
Thankfully, he looked down into the ward, littered with the dead. “Where is your son?”
“Here.”
Everyone turned at the sound of Galien’s voice. He stood in the archway. His face was pale. His jack was bloody. “Are any of you hurt?”
“No, no, thank God,” their father assured while Braya and her mother rushed to him.
After he assured his family that the blood was not his and he was well, their father gathered them toward the door. “We need to find the warden. Let us hope he still lives.”
“Aye,” Galien agreed quietly. When Braya moved to pass him, he took her hand and held it to his lips. “If anything would have befallen you or mother…” He paused, unable to continue.
“They are unharmed,” said their father, “thanks to Sir Torin…and Braya.”
“Aye, and Braya,” her mother and her cousins all agreed.
Braya wondered how one of the best moments in her life could happen in the midst of so many bad ones.
As they hurried down the stairs, she said a silent prayer of thanks for her family’s safety and for…him. He’d gone ahead and she watched him, hoping he would turn around and look at her the way he had on the battlements. As if his next breath and every one thereafter depended on seeing her. But he had reached the landing below and spoke to Mr. Adams while the older man wiped blood from his face.
“The great hall is safe,” Torin called out to them and led the way inside. Braya and Galien took the rear.
Before Braya entered the hall, the warden came upon her. He took one look at the swelling purple bruise along her cheek and reached his hand out. “What’s this? Who dared put a hand to you, Miss Hetherington?”
“A dead Armstrong,” she replied, moving away to avoid his touch.
He smiled, not truly concerned about any man putting his hand to her. “As are the relatives he brought here with him tonight. The inner ward is littered with them. The Armstrongs have been defeated, I’m told, by the efforts of Mr. Adams and Stir Torin. ’Tis said the two held the eastern gate alone. Then again,” he laughed, “we know how tales are enhanced.”
“The tales are true,” Braya told him woodenly. “They did hold the entire east end by themselves. I saw them.”
She wanted to tell him he repulsed her, but why anger the old toad? The Armstrongs had proven tonight that they were a powerful enemy. They needed Bennett’s army. Still, no one had expected the Armstrongs to be so bold as to raid the defender’s stronghold.
“What will you do about this bold, unlawful family, my lord?” she demanded.
“I must wait and bring it up before the other wardens on the day of truce since the Armstrongs have family on Scottish land. But believe me, I will see that the Armstrongs pay for this.” He breathed and seemed to move closer to her. He dipped his head and lifted a finger to her cheek again, touching her this time. “Especially for this, little pigeon.”
Chapter Twelve
Braya Hetherington was not his woman.
Torin didn’t want her to be, he thought as he led Avalon and another horse out of the stable and looked up at the morning sky. He didn’t want a woman. He’d managed fine enough on his own his whole life. Besides, Braya was going to hate him when she discovered who he was and why he was truly here.
He searched the inner ward. Where the hell was Adams? They were due in Rowley Hetherington’s town hall within the hour. Torin hated not being someplace when he was supposed to be. He’d even saddled Adams’ horse to save time.
As they had a nasty habit of doing of late, his thoughts returned to Braya. He couldn’t stay away from her. He’d even insisted on escorting her and her family home last eve after the attack. He hadn’t wanted to leave her. He missed her now. It made him feel ill that he was allowing himself to feel a bond with someone. A lass. An English lass. An English lass who hated Scots. There didn’t seem to be anything he could do to stop it. He hadn’t been sure he wanted to stop it—until he thought he might be too late to the battlements last eve. He’d tried to get to her quickly, but the Armstrongs had tried to stop him. He’d had to hack and slice and stab his way through them. And he had, leaving dozens of dead behind.
When he’d reached her and found her struggling in the arms of a bloody bastard, Torin thought he might go mad with rage.
If he thought denying himself her attention all night because of Bennett had been hard, then resisting her because her family was watching had been the most difficult thing he’d ever accomplished.
He was glad he had though. He needed to keep a clear head. He was to meet the king’s messenger tonight. He had both good news and bad. The good news was that, as of last eve, there were twenty-two less English soldiers in Carlisle. The bad news was that Carlisle was thick with reivers. The king’s army should be prepared for possible heavy fighting.
He was bringing war.
What else would he tell the king? That something terrible was happening to his heart and he was seemingly, achingly helpless to stop it? And what was so terrible, the king might ask. Torin would like to be able to tell him that because of an English lass, he was having some second thoughts about things he’d never had second thoughts about before. Things like war.
Her family needed Bennett. What good would a Scottish defender do them after Bennett was replaced? Mayhap he should reconsider killing the warden and, instead, compel him to swear fealty to Robert. They could avoid much killing, especially if reivers joined the fight.
He’d gone mad. He’d showed no mercy in the past. He’d never let the lord of a stronghold live whether the lord wanted to swear fealty or not. Perhaps other commanders did it differently, and that was why there were so many seized lands still occupied by English converters. Torin didn’t believe a man ever changed the way he saw his captor. Submission came from fear, and the instant that man had a chance to fight against his lord, he would. If the lord served Edward with his sword once, Torin killed him.
He had many demons. He had never believed he would be free of them. He still didn’t. But as of late, he found himself doing things for peace—like asking for forgiveness, of all things! Or convincing Bennett to invite Braya’s kin to the castle for a night of feasting and celebration…and a chance for Torin to see her again. Or killing his enemy’s enemy for her.
He usually traveled alone. He was used to keeping his thoughts to himself. Never once in all his years since he was let out of the pit in Till Castle had he let anyone through the walls he’d erected around his heart.
He’d never felt lonely before, and if he had, he found a willing wench’s bed to occupy and nothing more. If he ever needed an ear, he had God’s and Avalon’s. Whether either of them listened, he didn’t know.
But now that he found himself at such odds and on unfamiliar ground, he wished there was someone who could speak back to him.
“Ah, you are ready,” Rob Adams greeted when he entered the inner ward and found Torin leaning against Avalon’s left shoulder, and his own horse, saddled and ready to go.
“And waiting,” Torin replied with the flash of a wooden smile before pushing off his horse.
“I know I’m a bit late, but are you not sore?” Adams rubbed his shoulder. “My arms ache.”
“I practice every day,” Torin advised him and leaped onto his saddle.
“As do I,” Adams defended, then shook his head and fit his boot into his stirrup. “I’m getting old.”
Torin almost cast him a genuine smile. Hell no. Torin couldn’t…wouldn’t speak to Adams. Aye, he’d saved Torin’s arse last eve but that didn’t mean they were friends—not truly. But there was something Torin wanted to finish talking over with him.
“Have you given any thought to what we spoke about last eve, after the fight? You know the men better than I. Who would have gone over to the Armstrongs and informed them that Carlisle was ripe for raiding?”
“Why does it have to be someone in the castle?” Adams asked as they rode toward the outer gate.
Torin turned to Adams. “You think it was a Hetherington?”
Adams shrugged beneath his tabard while his horse matched Avalon’s slow trot. “Could be. None of their own died.”
“But Braya and her mother…” No. The men trying to get to the battlements had deadly intentions. None of the Hetheringtons would have risked such a danger to their women. But, then again, what better way to get revenge without being blamed for the deaths of Carlisle’s men? “Would Rowley Hetherington put his wife and daughter at such risk?”
Adams shook his head without needing time to think on it. “No, he would not.”
“You can say this for certain?”
“Aye, for certain.”
“Can you say the same for his son?”
“I would like to,” Adams answered solemnly. “He would not purposely put his family at risk, but he is rash and ill-tempered and he has been known to disregard consequences when his pride is at stake. Still, I do not believe he would endanger his mother and sister.”
They rode on in silence until they reached the trees along the river. The water was cold but shallow enough to pass through without trouble.
“What should we do about it?” Adams asked, guiding his mount over slippery stones.
“There is nothing we can do,” Torin told him, keeping a gentle hold on Avalon’s reins and letting her walk at her own pace in the water. “But if he is responsible for what happened last eve, I will make certain he pays. And if he is responsible, then the Armstrongs likely had instructions on making certain you and I perished. You saw how angry he was when his father stated that he believed we were telling the truth. There is nothing more sinister than passion.”
