"Are those bagpipes?" he asked.
"Damned if I know," Charles panted.
Thomas shoved the other man away with a foot in his belly. He stood there, chest heaving, and listened to what sounded remarkably like Scottish bagpipes.
"Ach, Duncan, do ye hear?" Iolanthe asked in surprise. "'Tis Robert!"
"It is, my girl. Come to play for your love."
Thomas wasn't sure what he was more surprised by: Iolanthe talking to Duncan, or that their clan's bagpiper was serenading him. He had to admit, though, that the music was very stirring. He looked to his right, past the men standing there, and saw a lone piper on the side of the hill, his plaid stirred by the breeze.
And then he realized that if he didn't let the sound stir him some more, he was going to find himself without his head. He ducked, rolled, and came up on the other side of Charles's flashing blade. He tuned everything else out. Full concentration came readily to him, and he supposed he would have to thank Ian for it later. He fought as if his life depended on it. His and Iolanthe's. His future and hers.
The battle felt as if it dragged on for an eternity. There came a point where he couldn't feel himself anymore. He was nothing but a lethal blade flashing through the air and the drone of the pipes winding its way through the grass and the descending twilight. He felt a part of the land, a part of his clan, a part of a connection that couldn't be severed. His ancestors stood around him in a circle, and he felt them willing him to fight harder, to stand up against the strain, to be victorious.
He could tell the precise moment when the tide turned for him. Charles looked just the slightest bit indecisive, then he fell back. Thomas pressed him mercilessly, the song of the piper and the murmuring of the men driving him, giving him strength, reminding him of what he fought for.
Charles's guard slipped, and Thomas drove his sword into the man's belly. He'd meant to skewer him straight through, but Charles twisted aside at the last possible moment. He watched Charles fall as if in slow motion.
Charles dropped his sword, then clutched his side. He staggered back, reeling, then slipped to the ground. Thomas pulled his blade free of Charles's side just as the man—
Disappeared.
Thomas was so surprised, he almost overbalanced and fell onto the precise spot where Iolanthe's one-time murderer had fallen. Hands grabbed him and pulled him back.
"Don't," Iolanthe gasped.
"Aye," Jamie agreed, giving Thomas a sure tug. "You won't want to follow him there."
Thomas looked at him with wide eyes. "Where is there?"
"The Inquisition," Jamie said with a twinkle in his eye. "Almost makes you glad you'd just nicked him, aye?"
"I did more than nick him," Thomas said. "He'll die from that."
"I suppose he'll survive long enough to wish you'd finished him," Jamie said with a grin.
Thomas rolled his shoulders. "Well, I wouldn't want to do that every day."
"No one ever does," Jamie said, clapping Thomas on the shoulder. "But you made a fine showing."
High praise from his laird. Thomas acknowledged the same with a nod, then found Iolanthe prying his sword from his fingers. She sheathed it, then handed it to Jamie. Thomas noticed absently that one of her fingers was wrapped in some kind of material that looked to have been torn from somebody's T-shirt. It was bloody.
Then she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him, and he didn't notice anything besides Iolanthe MacLeod in his arms.
"I hope that finished him," Thomas said with a sigh.
"Oh, aye," she agreed. "I daresay it did. He'll not trouble us again. Think you?"
"What I think is it was a helluva way to get you into my arms," he said. "Let's not do that again."
"I'm for that," she agreed, turning to rest her cheek against his chest.
He closed his eyes, unable to decide what he was more grateful for: that the battle was over or that Iolanthe was standing willingly in his embrace. At this point, he thought it might just be a toss-up.
"I thought," he said finally, "I honestly thought I wouldn't get to you in time."
" 'Twas a close thing."
"Duncan came and got me. I don't know if I would have found you otherwise."
"Weren't the pipes lovely?" she asked, her voice muffled against his sweater. "Robert always could play a tune to stir the dead."
Thomas snorted out a laugh before he could stop himself. He met her eyes as she lifted her head.
"You've found your sight then, I see," he said with a smile.
"Apparently so," she said.
Then she smiled up at him, and it was all he could do not to bend his head and kiss her. The thought had crossed his mind so many times over the past few months, but he'd never been able to do anything about it. Well, there was no time like the present, especially when the lady seemed willing.
He started to kiss her, then realized they had a very large audience, and likely one that they wouldn't get away from any time soon.
"We should go fix your finger," he said. That would be enough reason to get her into a bathroom small enough to exclude this cluster of Highlanders.
"But..." she said, hesitating, looking around her.
He had no trouble understanding her hesitation. He looked around him as well at all the men who were looking at her with smiles on their faces. He touched her cheek.
"Greet your kin. And your garrison. I can wait."
"You're a very patient man, Thomas McKinnon."
When compared to all the patience she'd had in waiting for him to show up and put into motion things souls had counted on for centuries, he considered himself rather hasty. But he'd tell her that later. For now, it was enough to watch her receive the garrison of Highlanders she had known either in life or death.
And to watch her weep as, to a man, they knelt before
