Page 13 of The Son of a Highland Witch
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One minute Erica was trying to talk to the strange Highlander, and the next thing she knew, he’d grabbed her and flung her up on his horse behind him. She caught him around the waist only to keep from falling, mouth already open to protest when she heard them.
Men. Shouting. Coming their way.
“Quick now! Inside!”
He was shouting to Trudy, who wavered half in, half outside the coach. Thankfully her indecision was managed by those who were better at making decisions than she was, for Tomas was there in an instant, hauling the maid down off the conveyance and thrusting her before him into the widow’s cottage.
All this Erica saw in pieces. Finn’s horse was everywhere, the man shouting orders, lining the men up where he wanted them, all while managing to draw a sword and somehow deposit her on the widow’s stoop without so much as taking a breath between actions. Erica staggered, falling back into the safety of the doorway but going no further, wanting to see, needing to be where she could still escape. Going into that cramped inn felt too much like trapping oneself within. The inn had few doors nor windows large enough for a lass to scramble through.
The men assigned to guard her thought differently. Mattie and Tomas pushed her into the inn despite her protests, bidding that she bar the door and then run upstairs in no uncertain terms. Erica struggled against them, but the men proved stronger, especially when Trudy and the widow herself put an end to things by fastening the door themselves the moment she was safe within.
“But…”
Her protests fell on deaf ears. Frantic now to see what was going on, Erica flew to the window and peered out, trying to make sense of what she saw through the leaden glass sheets. There was no way she would go upstairs, not after what she had heard about Finn’s mother being burned alive inside her home.
Finn’s heels dug into the side of his horse. The stallion bolted and reared as the tree line disgorged a dozen men on horseback.
The stallion gathered itself and launched on strong rear legs, leaping the ground between it and the attackers. The front horse of the enemy shied and reared, throwing the rider off and fouling the attack of the horse to its right. Finn pulled the reins hard and, using his legs, drove his stallion to the other side, his blade flashing in the humid air. Where it swung, a trail of light and blood traced behind it, and the rider to his right fell, a wound open from shoulder to waist. The man who fell from his mount tried to attack Finn from the other side but soon realized his mistake. It was the last lesson he would ever learn. Finn blocked the blow, spun his horse, and caused the massive beast to rear again. A front hoof dented the man’s skull, and he fell senseless to the ground.
Finn had taken three men before the battle even began, but soon the others rode around him and charged the line of soldiers that stood before the widow’s home. Erica felt no small amount of pride that each man held their own against the bandits; one on one, they met them blow for blow, but it was Finn that drew her eye and left her breathless.
He raced the rest of the attackers who had not yet rushed the house and into the very teeth of her soldiers. His mighty sword sliced the air, and where it swung, men died or fell. One of the bandits found himself in a terrifying embrace as Finn simply reached over and pulled the man from his saddle. The pommel of his blade came down upon the man’s head and he too fell at the feet of Finn’s horse. Two more surrendered to her guard and the last ran off, obviously finding his chances greatly improved by being alone in the woods.
In the end, the soldiers held three men under their blades, though she doubted the one with the pommel-shaped dent in his forehead might never awaken again.
Finn turned his stallion back and forth at the tree line, peering into the gloom for more enemies, but if there were any more, they had no more stomach for fighting.
The whole thing was over in minutes.
“What is happening?” Trudy tried to peer over her shoulder while pale-faced and weeping, the widow huddled with her children in her arms.
“’Tis over. Just like that…’tis over.”
Erica had never seen anything like it. Her emotions were in a whirl, wavering between relief and joy intermingled with abject horror and belated fear when she realized how different things might have gone were it not for Finn.
She needed to thank him in person. Even more importantly, she needed to apologize. Here she’d been giving him a tongue-lashing about his attitude of all things, and he’d only just opened up about his own tragedy when this…thisdisasterhad struck and could have ended with killing them all. She rushed past Trudy to the door, throwing back the plank which barred outsiders from entering, and rushed to where Finn had dismounted, clearly with an intent to question the would-be bandits.
“My…” she started, then stopped, unsure how one addressed such a man after a moment like this. Giving him a title where he had none seemed insulting now that she knew his background, while at the same time he had just saved her life and that of the others. Surely if any deserved a proper title, it was here.
“My lady, ’tis no place for one such as yerself,” he said, moving to block her from the roving eyes of the prisoners.
“I only…I only wanted to see if ye were well after…” She gestured helplessly at the carnage. Behind her, several of the guards lay the dead in a pile.
Around her, the ground was soaked with blood.
Erica wavered on her feet.
“My lady?” Finn came and put an arm around her waist, guiding her gently back toward the house. “As ye can see, I am well. But perhaps it would be best if ye waited…within. Some cider, perhaps?”
She looked up at him blearily, sensing that, once again, she had done the wrong thing entirely.
“Yes. Cider,” she said, and with more meekness than she’d ever exhibited before in her life, she returned to the inn as she’d been told.
