Bride of the Beast (30 page)

"My sorrow that I must leave you," he said, his hands caressing her back. "In especial here, but I haven't the belly to carry you to your chamber and not stay."

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then pulled back to look at her. "I shall carry you to your bed as a proper bride upon my return. That I promise you."

Stepping away from her, he caught her hand, bringing it to his lips for one last kiss. "I will see you sometime on the morrow, and with fine Keith cattle in tow."

Caterine shook her head. "I know you seek more than beef for our table," she spoke plainly, letting her words and the lift of her chin dare him to deny it.

He didn't, and her stomach clenched at his honesty. She touched her fingers to the steel links of his hauberk, felt the thick layer of toughened leather beneath.

He rode out expecting battle.

Or another ambush.

And the knowledge sent her heart plummeting to her toes. "W-will you ... return?"

To her surprise, a slow smile spread across his face.

A confident smile.

"I always return," he said, leaning down to kiss the tip of her nose. "The saints wouldn't allow otherwise."

Then he turned away and was gone.

Her man of steel, experienced and able-armed, vanished like a wraith into the darkness before she could question him further.

She waited until his footfalls faded before she turned and walked away. And with each step she took, she prayed.

For the successful execution of whate'er it was he truly Purposed to do.

For the safe return of his men upon its completion.

But most of all that, once again, the saints would smile on Sir Marmaduke Strongbow.

much later, in
the windy dark of the still-moonless night, Sir Marmaduke, those men he most trusted, and one craven snake he didn't, drew rein on a steep hillside high above Sir
John
's
English-held
Kinraven
Castle
.

The stronghold's walls rose dark and proud above the far shore of a long and narrow loch, with an endless expanse of low, rolling hogbacks spreading out behind.

Smooth, grassy ridges.

Prime pastureland dotted with a large number of slow-ambling darkish
lumps.

Keith cattle.

The finest beef to be had within a three-days ride.

"Here?'
Sir
John
kneed his horse through a patch of thick-growing gorse-bushes to reach Marmaduke's side. "Did you mis-hear me? There—"

He broke off to thrust his arm toward the distant loch-head where Kinraven raged up through the mist. 'There on yon grasslands is where the cattle graze."

Ignoring the other man's vexation, Marmaduke let his gaze follow Sir
John
's pointing finger across the night-blackened waters. Some lights still glimmered in Kinraven's narrow slit windows and shadowy forms could be seen moving about on the parapets.

"You are full mad if you think to find even one bullock roaming this hillside," Sir
John
persisted, hot-voiced.

"Some would say you are mad to speak thus." Sir Ross turned on the dispossessed Scottish lord. "There are those have lost their tongue for less," he added, drumming his fingers on the hilt of a dirk thrust beneath his belt.

The other two Highlanders rode closer, menace glittering in their narrowed eyes. James urged his horse between them, his own face tight with anger.

But not at Sir
John
. James stared past the lot of them to the black specks scattered the length and breadth of the distant shore.

Tension poured off him, thick and heated. "It galls me to ken how long my people have gone to bed with naught but fish and seaware in their bellies."

He blew out a hot breath. "They are all there, our entire herd," he seethed, glancing at Marmaduke. "Do not tell me we have come all this way to search for one bullock on a wooded hillside when so many are within reach?"

"One is all we need this night, though two would serve better," Marmaduke gave back with all the calm he'd learned in years of battling demons. "Be of patient heart, my friend, we will retrieve the others soon enough."

And if we rode down to fetch them now, we'd find more waiting for us than bullocks and mist.

Sir
John
gave a derisive snort. "You'll find naught but scrub and brush clinging to this precipitous ground."

"Think you?" Marmaduke met his haughty stare, then dismounted. Untying his rolled oxhide from the back of the saddle, he looked over at Sir Alec. 'Tell Sir
John
where you were two nights ago."

"A-poking about this very ridge is where I was," Alec furnished, dropping to the ground and reaching for his own oxhide. "Looking for bullocks and swine."

Shaking out the somewhat tatty skin, he slung it round his shoulders. "Saw more than enough cattle grazing through the gorse hereabouts, but no swine."

He gave Sir
John
a mirthless grin. "We're a-hoping to catch one tonight, though."

A flash of irritation crossed Sir
John
's face.

Irritation and... something else.

"Then let us have done with this foolery and begone from here," he snapped, dismounting as well. "Why you wished me to accompany you when you will not heed my advice about where to best employ such thievery—"

"Thievery?!" In one smooth motion, James leapt from his saddle, closing the short distance between them with heated grace.

And nary a stumble or hitch.

Marmaduke turned away to hide his smile.

The Highlanders did the same.

Behind them, James railed at his father's friend. "How can you dare utter such a word when Kinraven lies occupied before you? If we were to retake its walls this night, would you call that thievery, too?" he raged. "Where is the difference?"

Swinging back around, Marmaduke found James gripping Sir
John
's arm... and appearing a full head taller than just moments before.

Clearing his throat, he intervened. "My good men," he said, purposely using the word
men,
"your bellows will give warning to any lying about these hills in wait for us."

"Lord save us!" Sir
John
exploded, jerking his arm from James's grasp. He whirled on Marmaduke. "First you'd see us skulk about with oxhides on our backs, now we are to be set upon as well?"

"Mayhap I am of a mind to hear that from you," Marmaduke challenged him, swirling his own oxhide demonstratively about his shoulders. "Are de la Hogue's men about? Or was the ambuscade only planned for yon grazing ground?"

He indicated the nearest end of the loch, its night-bound waters visible at the base of the steep hillside. "Mayhap there, where the track narrows so severely it is scarce possible to ride two abreast?"

"You
are
mad." Sir
John
's hand flew to the hilt of his sword. "A baseborn son of—"

"And you are a dead man if my suspicions prove true." Marmaduke seized him by the neck of his hauberk, hefting him off the ground before he could draw the blade.

"Be glad I have enough honor to wait until I am certain," he added, releasing him.

Panting, Sir
John
rubbed his throat. He glowered at Marmaduke. "That shall cost you—"

A rustling in the gorse-bushes cut him off.

Thrashing noises ... and the shriek of drawn steel as each man took his sword to hand. Each man save Sir
John
. Red-faced with anger, he stood glaring at the gorse and hawthorn thicket whence the noise came.

A disruption greeted with amazement and tension-cutting smiles when its source lumbered from the shadows.

A bullock, and as fine a one as they come.

"By the Rood!" Gowan lowered his blade and grinned at toe great beast. "He is fat enough to feed every mouth at Dunlaidir and in the village, too."

But then the blustery wind carried other sounds to their ears. More rustlings, only this time accompanied by an ominous chorus: the jangle of bits and bridles, the
chinking
of armor, and the muted
clopping
of iron-shod hooves on damp ground.

“To horse!" Flinging the oxhide to the ground, Marmaduke vaulted into his saddle. "Swords!" he yelled, his own already aloft, its well-hewn blade gleaming in the darkness.

“Cudich'N'Righ!"
his men roared the MacKenzie battle ' "their bold shouts rising above the ever-louder rumble of drumming hooves.

At their cries, and the whinnying of the nervous, sidling horses, the bullock plunged wild-eyed into the underbrush In the same instant, a host of mounted knights burst out of the trees and all chaos erupted.

The sword-wielding riders thundered into the clearing, circling Marmaduke and his men, their blades flashing silver against the pale gray of the fog.

With a calm control the hot-blooded Highlanders lacked, Marmaduke pushed up in his stirrups, his broadsword raised high above his head and waited as the knights surged forward in swift, furious attack.

The instant the first assailant came within striking range, he brought down his blade in a deadly arc, smiting his opponent with such shearing ferocity he near sliced the wretch in twain.

"Strongbow! To your left!" one his men warned, and he swung around to deflect a vicious blow from the side.

Undaunted, this new challenger hauled out for another slashing swipe. Their swords met with a loud, jarring
clank,
the sheer force of the clash shooting up Marmaduke's arm.

He blocked the next jabbing thrust with the flat of his own steel, sending the other to the ground with sheer brute strength.

Sir Alec appeared at his side, his great Highland brand already dripping red. "There are more," he shouted over the din of clashing steel. "A sea of the bastards streaming out o the woods."

Blinking to clear the stinging sweat from his good eye, Marmaduke shot a quick glance toward the edge of f clearing.

Alec hadn't exaggerated.
                                         

A veritable tide of steel-girt horsemen swarmed onto the hillside now. They barreled forward to hem Marmaduke his men into the very middle of the hellish pandemonium the sheer press of their greater number.

"In mercy's name," Marmaduke breathed, and hoped the saints looked on.

"Ho, lad—my ax!" Sir Gowan's cry rang out somewhere to his left, the urgency in the Highlander's voice chilling Marmaduke's blood.

He jerked round to see Gowan toss his battle-ax to James. His sword gone, James Keith grappled with a helmeted knight, valiantly attempting to fend off the man's slashing attack with his shield.

His breath rasping, Marmaduke stared across the chaos, his heart plummeting when the ax sailed past James's reaching fingers.

James himself let out a cry of savage rage at the miss and, his face a dark mask, he raised up and brought down the hard edge of his shield onto the sworder's extended forearm, striking with such smashing fury the man's arm-bone snapped with a sickening
crack

Letting loose of his blade, James's opponent toppled from his horse, his shrieks of pain swallowed by the unholy cacophony of clashing and clanging steel.

But he'd no sooner hit the ground before a second assailant hurtled toward James, his blade already drawn back for a killing blow.

"Mother of God!" Marmaduke dug in his spurs, but Sir Ross, much closer to James, tore through the slashing steel at a thunderous speed, his huge Highland sword extended before him like a lance.

“C'uidich N' Righr!”
he cried, reaching James first and
skewering his attacker before the man could finish his
de
adly sweep.

Without pausing, he heaved the body off his crimson sword and pressed on to join Marmaduke and Alec at the
cen
ter of the fray, James hot on his tail.

Drawing together in a tight phalanx, they fought on, the ear-splitting screech of blade sliding along blade, a deafening accompaniment. The stench of spilled blood fouled the air, filling their lungs with its metallic sweetness with each drawn breath.

A bit apart, Gowan stood tall in his stirrups, windmilling his
Highland
two-hander in such a wicked manner, hardly challenger dared near him.

And when one did, the burly cateran felled each such fool with a single, viciously arcing swipe ... and a smile on his bearded face.

A shrill cry rent the red-hazed air, louder and more agonized than all before. Marmaduke swung around to see Sit
John
, far from the apex of the fighting, crash to the ground ... the whole left side of him, a sea of crimson.