His opponent staggered back, and William didn’t hesitate to end their battle with a lethal strike.
He spun around, but Kinsey wasn’t where he’d left her.
Damn.
He knew better than to assume she’d listened to him and gone to the forest. Reid was several feet away, fighting off five other men. An unfair number. William raced to his side, letting his blade join that of his friend’s.
“Get the men and meet in the forest,” William said. There had been a predetermined place named in the thick woods, near where a collection of large stones by the river created a cave-like hollow for them to hide within. A meeting place was something William had always named prior to any battle or siege in his refusal to lose any more men than was necessary.
“I was hoping ye’d say that.” Reid plunged his blade into an Englishman to his right.
Once their attackers had been defeated, he and Reid separated to gather the men. William ran through the field, minding the bodies underfoot, his attention on full alert for any danger as he found his men and directed them to meet in the forest. His peripheral trained for the sight of a flash of red hair.
A clang of weapons called his attention. He glanced up and froze.
Kinsey had somehow procured a sword again and was arcing the blade as William had shown her, blocking an Englishman’s battle axe from slamming into her head. She wore no helmet, only her trews and the leine with the leather belt at her waist. Her hair had been bound back in a braid, but in combat had come loose, flying in streams of vivid curls around her.
He dashed toward her, but something slammed hard into his back, sending him sprawling on the ground. His lungs seemed to suck in on themselves, not allowing air into his chest. He pushed upright and choked in a breath as a massive hammer flew toward his torso.
His body shifted to the left before his mind could catch up. But once the wind of the hammer’s missed strike blew past him, he’d recovered from the hearty blow and charged toward his new opponent. William shoved into the man’s abdomen, not stopping until the Englishman’s feet were skittering over the ground, and he toppled backward with William atop him.
The man had a mail coif beneath his helm. William growled his frustration. He’d wanted to slay the man and return to Kinsey.
If he was not already too late.
Nay.
He shoved at the man’s helm, knocking it from his head. Wide green eyes blinked up at him as the Englishman was momentarily stunned by the sun. In that brief moment, William was able to yank the coif from the man’s head, revealing his vulnerable neck.
The Englishman snarled in outrage and swung toward William, catching him in the side where he’d been struck by an arrow three weeks earlier. Pain exploded at the old wound he’d thought fully healed, and his body locked up around the agony.
William’s world spun around him as he was rolled over onto his back. He closed his hand around his sword and found no hilt in his palm. Somehow, he had dropped his sword.
A metallic taste filled his mouth.
Fear.
The Englishman rose over him, pinning him into place, lifting the hammer high overhead. William struggled against the man’s weight as his opponent grinned at his impending victory.
William’s mind raced with ways he might free himself, all futile. And with thoughts of Kinsey.
He would not be able to save her.
* * *
Kinsey grabbed up the bow from the ground where it had fallen when she’d picked up the discarded sword. Urgency blared in her head like a scream. There wasn’t a second to spare. She grabbed an arrow from the quiver where it still lay in the grass, nocking it as she straightened.
There was no time to think, to breathe. There wasn’t even a moment for her hands to tremble with the rapid firing of her pulse. She loosed the arrow. It flew through the air toward the man hefting the hammer over William.
Her heart snagged mid-beat, and for one instant, everything froze.
If she missed…
The arrow sank into the back of the man’s neck.
The Englishman sagged to his side, the hammer tumbling harmlessly to the ground.
Kinsey’s gasped out an exhale at her incredible luck. She lifted her quiver to her back, along with her bow, with hands that did shake now. And badly.
She left the sword where she had dropped it. There were many scattered on the field beside dead men. Far too many of them were Scots.
William’s lesson about using the weapon’s weight rather than fighting it had saved her life. And allowed her to save his.
She ran toward William as he shoved the Englishman off him and staggered to his feet, dragging his sword with him.
Blood flecked his face and gambeson, his hair disheveled from the struggle. But he was alive.
Hysteria tickled at the back of her throat, and her eyes swam with tears. She wanted to laugh. To cry. To do both at once and neither at all.
He was alive.
He met her halfway as his gaze skimmed the area around them. “We need to go to the forest. The men have been told already.” A sense of urgency rushed his words.
She knew what he saw, what had put the authoritative finality to his voice. Scotsmen lay dead in the fields they had once hoped to reclaim. Slaughtered without armor, some without even weapons.
This time she didn’t hesitate. The men she’d fought alongside were already fleeing, and William would be joining her. She nocked an arrow, taking aim at any Englishmen who might run toward them while William remained directly in front of her. Protecting her.
Several men came at them and paid with their lives, by way of one of her arrows or the razor edge of William’s blade. Through it all,
