The Pride of Lions (48 page)

Crouched low and drawing on every fiber of speed and muscle in his powerful legs, Alex hurled himself through the air like a human catapult. He caught Campbell by the shoulders, and together they slammed into the jagged face of the stone wall. Alex’s arm was scraped bloody to the elbow as Campbell’s bulk trapped him momentarily against the rock, and seeing his enemy down, Campbell raised his sword and turned, roaring obscenities as he carved a glittering arc through the air.

Alex rolled to one side with a hair’s breadth to spare as the blade missed his throat and clanged loudly on the cold stone. He avoided a second windmilling slash and was forced to retreat out into the sunlight, only then discovering he had lost hold of his saber in the mad charge. Campbell came after him, his broadsword raised and clenched in both hairy fists.

A bright sliver of steel came stinging through the air and stuck in the hard ground inches from Alex’s foot. He heard a bellow from over his shoulder and recognized MacSorley’s enormous
clai’mor
, but he had no time to shout his thanks as Campbell screamed in for the kill. Grasping the five-foot length of bloodied steel, Alex pulled it free and raised it, barely in time to block the jarring impact of a direct strike. There was no finesse, no grace involved in dueling with the heavy weapons; power and brute strength were all that mattered, and a man drunk on the scent of blood was far more dangerous than a man defending his skill and reputation. Alex had forgotten more than he cared to admit about the tremendous weight and awkward balance of the Highland weapon, and he paid for his ignorance with two successive slices across his ribs and shoulder.

Sensing the weakness in his adversary, Campbell grinned malevolently and pressed forward, advancing
with a killer’s bloodlust to slash at an arm, a thigh, the exposed belly and neck …

Alex staggered back from the force of the attack, his breath labored and dry, burning along his throat, scorching into his lungs. He felt the sword slip in the wetness of his palms, twisted loose on a wrenching blow that left his fingers and arm numb from the recoil. He grasped the hilt in both hands and swung with all his might, but Campbell was fast, despite his bulk. Steel scraped on steel as their blades crossed, and for a long moment the two men stood face to face, eye to eye, the muscles in their arms bulging, their sweat and blood splashing each other.

In a sudden downward lunge, Alex canted his blade forward, breaking the tension in Campbell’s wrists and trapping the edge of Malcolm’s sword in the ornate scrollwork of MacSorley’s finely wrought basket hilt. He forced the blade down and turned it inward, feeling it bite through hard flesh as he dragged it up and along the straining muscle of Campbell’s inner thigh. He heard Campbell scream and felt the hot spurt of blood as an artery was severed; at the same time he released his hold on the
clai’mor
and brought his dirk up hard and fast, thrusting it deep into the stubbornly beating muscle of Campbell’s heart.

Campbell slumped forward, his single eye gaping in outraged disbelief as he stared down at the handle of the knife protruding from his chest. His hands clawed upward and curled around Alex’s throat, but there was no strength left in the fingers to do more than score a few bloody scratches into the side of Cameron’s neck.

Alex supported the sagging weight of his enemy long enough to hiss a curse in his ear, then shrugged it aside and stepped back, his chest heaving, his hands red and dripping. A soft cry from behind made him tear his eyes away from the bulbous corpse, and he turned in time to catch the slender body that came running up the slope behind him.

Catherine threw herself into his outstretched arms, weeping his name over and over and sobbing a great wet patch onto the front of his shirt.

He stroked the blonde silk of her hair and closed his eyes, gathering her close enough to feel her heart beating against his own. “It’s over,” he promised her. “It’s all over.”

“I was so frightened.” She buried her head deeper into the curve of his shoulder. “I was so frightened you wouldn’t come.”

“Wouldn’t come?” His hands cradled her face and tried unsuccessfully to tip it up to his.

“I thought … I thought you would not want me back,” she sobbed, her words muffled against his throat.

He let her hide there a moment longer, then angled her face upward in strong, sure hands, and pressed his lips over hers. “Well, now you know better.”

Aluinn came up beside them. He was holding his shoulder and gently massaging the wounded flesh, but when he looked at Alex and Catherine a smile broke through the gray mask of pain. “It’s about bloody time you two acted like man and wife.”

Alex ended the kiss on a sigh. “She’s stubborn, for a
Sassenach
.”

“And he’s extraordinarily obstinate and proud, even for a Highland barbarian,” Catherine responded, her face turning into his throat again.

“You will hear no arguments from me,” Aluinn said, “on either count.”

Both men sobered and looked down at the sprawled form of Malcolm Campbell.

“All these years,” Alex murmured. “He’s been like a cloud over my shoulder all these years.”

“Yes, well … the sun’s out now.” Aluinn tipped his head up and narrowed his eyes against the dazzle of sunlight. The lofty, windswept vista that stretched out before them seemed too regal a setting for such carnage as lay at
their feet, and then he noticed a scarred, gaunt tree as old as time itself standing alone some distance down the slope. Collecting on its gnarled, spiny limbs were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of black-winged ravens, silently watchful, smugly awaiting their bloody repast. Aluinn looked up at the mountain again and a cold chill shuddered over the surface of his flesh as he realized that one of the peaks that formed Hell’s Gate was also known as Clach Mhor.

The ravens will drink their fill of Campbell blood three times off the top of Clach Mohr
.

The prophecy had come true. First Angus, then Dughall … now Malcolm.

“Why don’t we get out of here?” Aluinn suggested, bending to retrieve Struan’s sword. The big Highlander was standing a short distance away, shaking his hand to rid it of the gore flowing down his arm. The other Cameron men were retrieving their weapons, assessing their own wounds, of which there appeared to be many.

Alex, by far the most seriously injured, lifted Catherine gently in his arms and carried her, despite her protests, down the slope to where the horses were tethered. He placed her on Shadow’s back and swung himself up behind her, rearranging the folds of his tartan so that they were both wrapped within the warm cocoon.

He was so gentle with her, she felt her throat swelling with tears again. “Alex?”

“Hush. Don’t talk. There is a tiny hamlet a few miles down the glen where we can—”

“He did not touch me. None of them did.” The wide violet of her eyes turned to his. “He only said it to make you angry. I earned these bruises and cuts myself trying to run away last night. I didn’t get very far because I slipped and fell halfway down the mountain, but—Why are you laughing?”

“You are a great deal of trouble, you know. One of these days a man will be clever enough to tie you hand and foot to the bed before trusting you on your own.”

A flicker of a challenge sparkled in her eyes. “Will that someone be you, my lord?”

He traced the tip of a finger across her lips and smiled. “I believe I have another method in mind for keeping you in bed.”

23

T
he crofter’s cottage was small and primitive, huddled in the lee of an imposing overhang of rock. The structure was built of sod and thatch, windowless aside from ventilation slits above the stone chimney. The floor was dirt, the fireplace large and smoky and hung one end to the other with assorted pots, forks, and dried meats. The farmer, recognizing the Cameron tartan at once, set out food and drink, boiling vast quantities of water to wash and care for the men’s wounds. A bathtub was an unheard-of luxury in the glen, but Catherine was thrilled with a pan of warm water and a soft cloth. Her torn dress was replaced with one of simple homespun, many times repaired but obviously the best the family had to offer.

Word of the
Camshroinaich Dubh
’s presence in the glen spread, and within the hour men and women arrived at the cottage bearing baskets of food, bread, ale—whatever they could spare. The clansmen who had won such a resounding victory over the Campbells were toasted time and again, and as dusk began to settle over the vibrant green of the fields, fires were lit, stories were told, and songs were composed to mark their triumph.

Catherine slept through the afternoon and most of the evening. She wakened briefly each time she felt Alexander’s presence in the room with her, but the fear, anxiety, and shock had taken their toll and she could do little more than acknowledge his gentle questions with reassuring murmurs and fall back asleep.

Alex insisted all of the other men have their wounds tended before he allowed the crofter’s wife to strip him
of his shirt and cluck over the tears and cuts in his flesh. One particularly nasty slash that wanted cauterizing and a poultice of mustard and cobwebs earned him a long lecture in muttered Gaelic when he refused.

“Thank you, Old Mother, I’ll be fine.”

“Ye’ll be deid, ye dinna get some sleep,” she warned.

“I will,” he promised, his eyes wandering to the slender form already asleep on the single, straw-filled mattress. “Soon.”

“
Alane
.” The old crone was reed-thin and if she stretched she might possibly stand level with Alex’s waist, yet she had a tongue as sharp as an executioner’s blade. “The puir wee lamb’s exhausted. She disna need ye climbin’ all over her wi’ yer lusty thoughts.”

Alex was permitted no defense, no chance to deny the charge as a bony finger was thrust toward the hearth to indicate where he could spread his tartan. “Mayhap when she wakens, an’ when the thoughts come frae
her
, ye can gie her a wee cuddle. But no’ afore.”

Alex retreated gallantly, but before he could give way to the overwhelming weariness that gripped him, he went outdoors and spoke to Struan and Aluinn for nearly an hour. When he returned he stood over Catherine, watching her sleep for some time before he spread his tartan in front of the fire and rolled himself in its warm folds. He did not close his eyes for some time, however. He stared at the small bundle of blankets on the bed and relived every moment of every day they had spent together, every look, every touch, every whisper that had changed the course of his life over the last three weeks. He relived them and hoarded them next to his heart, secure in the knowledge he was making the right choice. The only choice.

Catherine woke with a start and for several panic-filled minutes did not know where she was. She heard the crackle of flames in the grate and smelled the musky sweetness of burning peat, but it was only when she saw
the outline of the old woman bending over to stir the contents of one of the large iron pots that she remembered.

She was safe. The horror was over. Alex had rescued her, had ended the nightmare, and had admitted to wanting her back—a declaration that almost made the terror of the past twenty-four hours worthwhile.

She stretched carefully, testing the aches and pains that flared along her body. She did not know how long she had been asleep or whether it was day or night. The door to the cottage was closed, but she thought she could see tiny particles of light floating through the smoke that sought escape through the ventilation slits.

“Excuse me?” With one hand she pushed herself carefully into a sitting position, while with the other she held the thin blanket modestly high to cover her nakedness. “I beg your pardon?”

The old woman looked up from the fire.

“My … husband. Is he nearby?”

The crone frowned and said something unintelligible.

“Mr. Cameron.” Catherine tried again. “Is Mr. Cameron nearby?”

“Aye, aye.
Camshroinaich
.” The woman beamed and patted her shrunken breasts, confirming herself to be of the clan. She bowed her head over the cauldron again, babbling away to herself in Gaelic.

“Oh, dear.” Catherine gathered the blanket around her shoulders and climbed up off the pallet. The woman glanced over and the volume of what she was saying increased, but Catherine only shrugged helplessly and pointed to the door. “I only want to speak to him. Actually, I … I just want to see him.”

The woman clamped her toothless gums together and jutted her chin in a gesture of disapproval as she watched Catherine take short, stiff steps to the door. It was held closed by a crude wooden latch, and as she drew it aside, the door swung outward. Catherine raised a hand instantly to shield her eyes from the flash of bright sunlight; it
blinded her for some few seconds, as did the sight of clean blue sky overhead and brilliant green foothills surrounding them. The air was crisp and clear, filled with the sounds of insects buzzing, cattle lowing, and children playing somewhere off in the distance.

It was such a different and welcome scene than what she had wakened to the previous morning, she felt tears spring to her eyes. She let them flow unchecked and could not have moved from that spot had she wanted to, not even when the three men seated beside the narrow sluice of a stream stopped their conversation to turn and stare at her.