Page 105 of Desire of a Highlander

Murdoch fighters burst out of cover and came thundering towards them. Some were mounted, most were not, but there were so many that they looked like a tide rushing closer, ready to sweep Ronan’s people away. Fortunately, not many had muskets. This would all have been over very quickly if they had.

Ronan raised his arm and bellowed at the top of his voice. “Hold!”

Murdoch’s fighters slammed into their line with a crack like gunshots. Staffs thumped. Steel rang. Someone screamed. Angus reared beneath him as a rider lunged with a sword. Ronan parried automatically then turned and swung, toppling a man from his saddle.

Years of training flooded back. His body remembered every lesson, every drill. He hated how natural it felt as he guided Angus with one hand whilst fighting with the other. He stabbed and parried, swung and cut, jabbed and slashed.

Ahead of him Bran suddenly launched himself between a horse’s forelegs and the horse stumbled. Its rider crashed heavily to the ground where Eamon and two others overwhelmed him.

“Left!” someone yelled.

Ronan twisted just in time to catch another blade and the impact jarred through his arm. He leaned over in the saddle and thumped the pommel of his sword into the man’s face. He fell without a sound.

Smoke obscured everything and the battle dissolved into fragments. There was a pistol shot here, a flash of steel there, but the closeness of the two forces meant that muskets and pistols had become next to useless. Instead, it had descended into a melee of close quarter fighting.

His people were losing ground. Step by step they were being forced backwards as the Murdochs’ numbers began to tell.

Eamon came alongside him. “We canna hold them off much longer!”

The defenders’ line had bent almost into a horseshoe and even as Ronan watched, he saw his people take another step back.

“Fall back!” he shouted. “Defend the wagons!”

The defenders peeled away and closed around the wagons. Women stood behind the makeshift barricade with stones, axes and boiling water. Even the older children gripped staffs.

Ronan spotted Elodie within the ring of wagons. She stood beside Faye, helping bind a wounded man’s arm. As if sensing his regard, she looked up and their eyes met across the chaos. Everything around him seemed to fade until he saw only her. The woman who had fallen out of another century into his life. The woman who had challenged him. Argued with him. Loved him. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, that this was all his fault. He wanted to hold her in his arms and kiss her.

Instead, he gave her a tiny smile. An apology. A farewell.

Then he turned back towards the enemy and straightened in the saddle. If this was to be where it ended, he would take Henry Murdoch down with him.

He raised his sword—

Then a sound reached his ears. The heavy drum of hoofbeats. And it was coming from behind them. Ronan yanked Angus around and stared at the bridge. Campbell horsemen were streaming over it like a gathering storm.

Bryce rode at their head with his sword raised high. “For the Campbells!”

His voice rolled across the valley. The charge smashed into the exposed flank of the Murdoch forces and the impact shattered their formation. Horsemen tumbled. Infantry scattered.

From his place at the rear of his forces, Henry Murdoch stared in disbelief. “What—?”

Ronan hardly dared to believe the evidence of his own eyes. His brother, the man he’d almost killed, the man who he’d thought would never forgive him, was riding to his aid.

Chapter 23

For one suspended heartbeat, nobody moved. Elodie froze, as stunned as the rest of them as she watched Bryce Campbell’s cavalry pour over the bridge, banners snapping in the wind. Even the Murdoch riders seemed frozen by the sight.

But it took Henry Murdoch only a second to recover. He wheeled his horse sharply.

“Come about!” he bellowed. “Form up! Let’s meet the bastards head on!”

Bryce’s riders crashed into the Murdoch flank like a breaking wave. Elodie winced as she heard horses scream and saw men thrown from their saddles. The orderly ranks of the Murdoch force folded in on themselves, split cleanly apart by the sheer force of the charge.

A cheer rose from the defenders. It was ragged at first, almost disbelieving. Then louder.

“They’ve come!”

“They’re helping us!”