Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 92771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Quint’s hands gripped her waist, and he hoisted her into the cart.
A quick look and touch told her what she needed to know, and she shut her eyes briefly at what she saw and what it meant. Then she focused on her husband when she opened them. “I need a room away from others where I can be provided with a lot of light.”
“The chieftain’s solar,” Nug said, his breathing labored from running to join them after hearing the news, and the young pregnant woman hurried into his arms. Nug looked at Shade. “Liam is my brother.”
“Mercenaries and more wounded,” a young warrior called out rushing toward them and stopped suddenly, bending over, his hands braced on his thighs while catching his breath.
Attention was turned to the young warrior while several men worked to get Liam out of the cart and to the keep.
“Where, Heath?” Nug asked as he hurried to the warrior.
Heath raised his head. “Where the path bends.” He straightened up and took a deep breath before speaking. “I stayed back to keep watch. There are four mercenaries not far from four of our wounded warriors who couldn’t keep pace with the cart. The mercenaries will catch them soon if we don’t go help them.”
Nug ran his fingers through his hair, frustrated. “Our warriors are exhausted and some too wounded to fight.”
“I’ll fight,” Heath said.
“We’ll gather what men we can,” Nug said and turned to look at Quint.
Before he could ask, Quint said, “I will not leave my wife unprotected when more mercenaries may be in the area.”
Many of the wounded stepped forward ready to fight again. While plans were discussed among them, Quint took his wife by the arm and hurried her to the keep, walking past the men cautiously transporting, as Shade instructed, the injured Liam.
Shade issued orders once in the keep and while people rushed about to see them done, she and Quint went to the solar for a moment of privacy.
She knew what he planned to do but asked anyway. “You’re going, aren’t you?”
“Aye, but no one is to know, and you will not leave the keep while I’m gone.”
“I will be too busy working on Liam to go anyplace, and you, husband, better come back to me,” she said with a poke at his chest.
“I will always come back to you, Shade. Besides, there are only four of them and they will never see me coming.”
People began to enter the room to move things about.
Shade moved to a corner of the room with her husband and laid her hand on his chest as she rested her cheek against his and whispered, “I love you.”
He whispered back, “The reason I will always return to you.”
“Shade!” Ena cried out frantically and Shade turned to see Liam being laid on the table. She hurried to the table and turned one last glance at her husband, but he was already gone. She got busy tending to Liam, praying that both he and her husband would survive the night.
CHAPTER 16
“Leave me, I can’t walk another step,” the seasoned warrior said. “Be off with you.” He shooed them off with a blood-stained hand. “You can easily make it without me.”
“Nay, Mervin, we’ll not leave you. Chieftain Ryland would never leave any one of us behind. We stand together and die together if necessary.”
“Heath said there are four of them and there’s four of us. We can fight them and win,” a young warrior said, limping over to Mervin, where he had dropped down to sit on a flat boulder.
Mervin chuckled, shaking his head. “You got one part of that right. We can fight them, but win?” He chuckled again. “You can barely walk, Harris. I have no strength left and Andrew and Stuart have arm wounds that will not let them lift a weapon.”
“I got another arm,” Andrew said, barely raising it without cringing.
“We go together. Now get up off your lazy arse and get moving,” Stuart ordered as seasoned a warrior as well as in age as Mervin was and just as long of a friend.
Quint listened to the group from the darkness of the woods that surrounded them and watched as Stuart bolstered Mervin with the weight of his shoulder beneath his arm and was about to get his friend walking when a shout stopped them.
“Don’t bother. You won’t be making it home tonight.”
The four injured men went for their weapons with what strength they had left as a large man stepped out of the woods, followed by three other men, and he laughed.
“We’ll be done with the likes of all of you soon enough, then we’ll make our way to your clan and oversee it by order of Lord Torrance,” the large man said and looked at the three men with him. “Kill them.”
One warrior eagerly rushed forward and collapsed before he reached the four MacLeish warriors, falling face down and blood pooling beneath his face. That stopped the other two from taking a single step as they glanced around fearfully.