Lords of Honor (52 page)

Micah and O
wen stayed together
moving
silently
through the obsidian gloom
through the back garden
.
T
he
ir colleagues
made their way
around the side and
toward the front of
the house
.

Micah
motioned for
Owen to stop and pointed to the outline of t
hree
men standing beyond the hedge at the edge of the garden
.
He pointed
for
Owen
to go to the right, while Micah went to the left.

An alarm rose from the front of the house
at that moment
.
The Brown Coats behind the hedge sprang to attention
.

Micah came up behind
the first man easily
.
He
dispatched him with a slice to the throat
.
Owen’s man noticed him and the two now grappled on the ground
.
Micah hurried toward
the pair
.
H
is opponent
pinned Owen
.
Micah saw the glint of
a knife
raised
above him.

Micah leap
t
toward them, grabbed the man’s hair and lifted his head
back
.

Owen finished him with his
own
knife.

The third man rushed
M
icah
.
Micah simply let one of his knives
fly
.
It caught the man in the eye
.
He fell
backward
with a thud on
to the ground and
lay still
.
Micah paused to
lean over and
remove his knife
.

Owen
regarded
Micah
with
curios
ity
.

“It’s one of my favorites,” Micah shrugged
.
“It’s hard to find a perfectly balanced knife
.”

T
he sound of horses
’
hooves
pounding on the ground came
from
beyond
the grounds of
Horethorne Hall
.
Even though they could not yet see them, they knew
.
Brown Coat reinforcements were coming
.

“Damn!” Micah hissed
.
“Another attack!”

“Back to the house
!”
Owen
commanded
.
They
stayed in
the
co
ver of
shadow
as they ran
.
They met with the
rest
of their party in the midst of the garden.

“Jesu
, t
here’s another twenty or more coming!” Newt spat as the five of them made their way to
ward
the kitchen.

“We got three,” Owen said.

“We got seven, four of them were Newt’s,” Charlie grinned
as he slapped Newt on the back.

“Get in
, n
ow!” Wyldhurst motioned them
in
as he held the
kitchen
door wide open
.

Once they entered, Wyldhurst
slammed the door and
threw the bolt
.
He
picked up his rifle
.
“Alert the others
.
I’ll stay right here
and pick them off
as they come
.”

“You’re not having all the fun, Luc
!
I’m with you
.”
Newt
grinned at Wyldhurst,
opened a window and lifted his rifle
.

Micah met Harry and Lyon in the hall
way
.
“Owen and I got three
, Newt and his men got
seven
.
There’s about twenty
more coming
from the south on horseback
.”

He opened
his bedchamber
door to find
Libby
already
dressed and
in the process of
lacing her half
boots.

“Get the ladies in the safe room
, Micah,” Harry ordered
.
“K
eep watch over them
, the s
ame as
last night
.”

Micah nodded
.
He r
eached for Libby’s hand
as she came to his side
.
“Come on, sweetheart
, int
o the safe room.
”

“Rowena
!
Sophia!” Harry called
loudly
.

Sophia
joined Rowena,
her face pale
and her
eyes wide
.
Harry ushered them into Micah’s bedchamber
.

Micah
made certain
the pistols and knives were still on the table
where he put them earlier
in the evening
.
Rowena and Sophia entered
the priest hole
.
Rowena lit the candles in the candelabra
.

Libby turned to
ward Micah to
g
i
ve him a quick kiss
.
Suddenly Micah shoved her away
from him
and
against
the wall
.
He
raise
d
his pistol
.
Libby pushed the bookcase closed
.
She
turn
ed
back
to
ward
Micah
just as
the boom
of
gunfire reverberated through the room
.
She
jerked
her head
quickly
toward her husband
and saw
blood staining
the
lower
side of
Micah’s shirt
as he fell
back
agai
nst the wall
.
She saw his eyes close as he
slid
down and
crumpled into a
limp
heap on
the floor
.
Libby scrambled to
reach
him
.

She
turned
to
ward
the doorway
as she caught movement out of the corner of her eye
.
She saw a
large
man wearing a
brown coat
and hat
lowering his pistol
and heading toward her
.

“Micah
!”
She bent
over
her husband
.
His eyes were
barely open
.
There was so much blood
.
“Micah
!”
She knelt beside him
.
She s
creamed
,
“Owen help
, please
! M
icah’s hurt
!”
She reached for Micah’s pistol which lay beside him
.
H
er arm was jerked roughly
back
.
S
he was
yanked
to her feet
before she could grasp the weapon
.
Micah struggled to
push himself
up
from the floor
.
The man in the brown coat
brought down the butt of his pistol
against
Micah’s head
.
Libby screamed
again as loudly as she could
.
She clawed,
pushed
,
and scratched to try and break the man’s hold and get
back
to Micah
.
She was roughly
pulled,
then
dragged
from the room as she screamed Micah’s name, over and over
.

Libby thought she heard Rowena
’s
and Sophia’s voices
as
the Brown Coat
drug
her
down the hall
.
The only sounds coming from below were gunfire
.
She doubted Owen and the others could hear her
.
She tried everything
she could think of
to slow the man’s progress.
“
Owen,
help Micah, he’s hurt!” s
he screamed
as
loudly
as she could manage
before she
felt
a
blow to her
head and everything went black
.
Her last thought
was
that Micah
must
live.
Archangel Michael,
Please help Micah!
He must live!

Lyon
was
bent over Micah
.
“He lives
!
But he’s lost a lot of blood
.”

“Thank God.” Harry breathed
as he entered the room
.

“How could you let them take Libby
?
No one could save her
?
You
just
let them ta
k
e
her away?
”
Rowena asked
her husband
angrily
.
Tears rolled down her cheeks
.

“They used her as a shield,
Rowena.
” Harry hugged his wife to him
.
“
Shh, my love
.
They warned they would kill her if we followed
.
Owen and Newt
waited
until they were far enough away
.
They
are tracking
them
.
They will get her back
.”

At least Harry hoped they would
find Libby
.
The Brown Coats pulled back completely
and were gone
within minutes of them taking
Libby
from Horethorne Hall
.
He
believed
their intention was to get in and
take
one of the women to hold
to obtain
the scrolls
as ransom
.

“She saved me and Sophia
.
She
was on her way into the safe room
when Micah was shot
.
She
pu
shed the bookcase back
into place
.
When we heard her screams leave the room we came out with our pistols, but they were gone
.”
Rowena wiped her eyes
.
“We need to get Micah to his bed and get a doctor here quick
ly
.”

Sophia still knelt next to Micah as she held Lyon’s
blood-soaked
cravat to his side
.
“He’s bleeding too much…”
she said tearfully as she looked to her husband.

Harry nodded and stepped into the hallway
.
He bellowed down to Charlie to send a servant for a doctor.

“I’ve already sent fo
r one,” Charlie called back up.