Their path wound over hills and down into hollows, up steep mountainsides and through gullies. The party stopped often to rest the weak and the injured. On a gentle plateau, Christie collapsed on a pile of boulders. Sweat stained his forehead. His teeth chattered and his lips shivered.
Sadie bent over him and checked his pulse. “He’s losing too much blood. You can’t let him walk anymore.”
“She’s right, lad,” Lachlan agreed. “Let the others carry ye fer a wee while. At least rest yerself.”
Christie sighed. Sadie saw in his eyes he meant to concede. He couldn’t go on.
Before he could speak, Callum interrupted. “None o’ us’ll be restin’ any time soon. take a look o’ that.”
The others glanced in the direction of his gaze, and Sadie’s heart stopped. A silent trail of black shapes rose out of the grey landscape. It ate up the hill behind the fleeing party and chewed down the rolling territory separating the fugitives from the castle they just abandoned.
The closer the vampires came, the more Sadie recognized individuals. All the terrible memories of battles she experienced in the past weeks flooded back.
Lachlan’s voice echoed down the field. “Tae ye weapons, lads! E’ery mon tae the rear!”
The McLeans charged their enemy in wild fury. Christie struggled to his feet, though he could barely keep his balance. He pulled his saber, but he didn’t run. He planted his legs right where he stood and prepared to engage his enemy.
The women and children fled screaming. They ran down the field to get as far away from the battle as possible, but Sadie didn’t run. She saw too many of these battles. She couldn’t escape the vampires by running. If everybody ran, the hellions would chase them down and slaughter them.
No, they had to stand and fight, and the only way to win this fight was for every able-bodied person to take up a weapon and do his or her best. She looked around, but she didn’t see a weapon available. Every man fought with what he had.
The vampires arrived at the bottom of the hill and flooded across the plateau. Their howling cries set Sadie’s teeth on edge. Her hands itched to hold something, anything she could use against them, but she had nothing, nothing but her bare hands against their teeth and claws.
Callum took his place with the McLeans. Jamie charged past him, straight for the vampires. He called over his shoulder. “Come on, Callum! Come on.”
Callum’s eyes flew open. Whatever that meant, Sadie never found out. Jamie got three steps and stumbled on a rock. He pitched forward on his face. He pushed up onto his hands, but it was too late. The vampires rushed the defenders in a mob.
The vampires closed with the men all at once. They engaged Callum, Lachlan, and the others. Steel flashed in the hazy light, and vampires started falling. Callum lopped off heads right and left.
Lachlan roared his battle cry at the slobbering menace. He slashed two sabers at once and crushed them by the dozen. He hacked his way through the vampires to get to Christie.
Christie stood his ground. He bared his teeth, and his dark hair falling in his eyes gave him a wolfen appearance. He cut down every vampire that came near him, but he couldn’t keep up with the overwhelming tide rushing all around him.
The vampires surrounded Jamie before he could get to his feet. He barely got his saber unsheathed in time to stop them pouncing on him and tearing him to pieces. He lay on his back and swung his weapon over his head. Little by little, he got onto one knee. At last, he got to his feet, but so many of the things pressed him he couldn’t move.
A mass of the enemy rushed past the Highlanders and pursued the fleeing women and children. Sadie had to act now. She charged after them and lunged between the vampires and the helpless bystanders. She caught the first vampire by the neck and flung it back under the feet of its onrushing companions.
The vampires tripped over their comrade, but that wouldn’t stop them. Sadie looked around one more time in desperation when she caught sight of something that made her spirits soar. The cook from the Tower House dropped her basket when she bolted. The supplies tumbled out over the ground, and the woman’s knitting unraveled. Two pointed needles stuck up out of a ball of wool yarn.
It wasn’t much, but Sadie didn’t need anything else. She snatched the needles and wheeled to confront the vampires. She never knew what came over her. She flew into a blind rage and stabbed every which way at once. She wreaked her revenge on these lifeless monsters for every McLean she ever saw murdered in battle.
She plunged one needle into a vampire’s eye socket. She impaled another through the head. She punctured a third in the ribcage and felt the satisfying pop of its lungs. Blood stained her arms and face and clothes, but she didn’t care. She tasted blood on her lips, and it fueled her rage more than ever. She wanted gore. She wanted flesh and pulp and brain. She wanted to bathe in it and become one with it.
She whipped around to drive her knitting needles into another vampire’s chest. The tip struck bone and snapped off in her hand. The creature collapsed away from her. She moved too fast to notice. She plunged her remaining weapon into as many bodies as she could.
An angry bellow caught her attention. She barely had time to pause in her fight to see a man charging at her with his weapon raised. It was Arch McLean. He took a flying leap and came to rest between her and the vampires hemming her in all around. He spun on his heel, and his saber blade sliced into the nearest monster.
Sadie battled at his side, but she couldn’t do much with a solitary knitting needle. What she wouldn’t give for a blade right now. She didn’t know how to use it as well as the men, but she would make a dent in these demons before they dragged her down.
The resounding thunk of her needle piercing flesh and bone sank deep into her guts. She turned into a monster herself. She cared for nothing but death. She hungered for it. She craved the sight of her enemies ripped and torn and bloody on the ground at her feet.
In the chaos of battle, she became aware of the vampire horde thinning out. They broke off their pursuit of the women and children to concentrate on the defenders. At that moment, two more vampires attacked Sadie from both sides. She rounded on one and lunged with her needle. She hit the thing in the shoulder. It convulsed under her hand, and when it turned side-on, the needle snapped.
The other vampire collided with Sadie hard enough to knock her down on one knee. Icy cold teeth pierced her neck. She roared her rage and desperation to the skies. She tried to turn around, but she couldn’t dislodge the thing.
Arch saw her at the same instant. He let out an animal snarl and charged her. He brandished his saber to cut the thing off her when another vampire pounced on him from behind. The thing climbed up his back and perched on his shoulders to drive him to the ground.
Arch went down. His saber flew out of his hand and landed not far from Sadie. The vampire on his back bent over to bite him. Sadie didn’t hesitate. She snatched up the saber and launched herself to her feet.
She didn’t even notice the vampire still clinging to her. She raced over to Arch. On pure instinct, she gripped the saber in both hands and swung. The blade crunched into the vampire’s neck right behind Arch’s head. The creature’s cranium sagged forward on a bloody flap of skin. It bumped Arch’s shoulder, and the vampire slumped sideways.
Adrenaline scorched through Sadie’s being. She looked around for something else to kill. Man, that sword felt good in her hands. Only then did she feel the vampire sinking its teeth into her neck. It took advantage of every move she made to bite deeper. It inched around toward her throat.
Chapter 11
In a fraction of a second, Arch was on his feet. He moved in on Sadie, but before he got there, a powerful impact vibrated through her down to her feet. Blessed relief washed over her, and the vampire’s weight fell forward over her shoulder. It hit the ground with half its chest cleaved in half.
Sadie whirled around and came face to face with Christie. He doubled over in exhaustion and agony, but he kept his feet. A
t that moment, another wave of vampires rushed at them. Sadie, Arch, and Christie turned to meet them. They had to stop them following the women and children down the valley into the forest beyond. Even if every defender died on the field, they had to ensure the innocent and helpless got away.
Arch pulled a dirk from his sock, but that wouldn’t do much. Sadie’s heart sank. She had no fighting experience, Christie was injured, and Arch was disarmed. She opened her mouth to tell Arch to swap weapons with her. He could do more with a blade.
She never got the words out before a dozen vampires hit her at once. They clustered around her and blocked her view of her friends. She made one decent swing with her saber before they crowded her arms to her sides.
Teeth pricked her leg, her back, and on her hip. She couldn’t face all these things at once. Her blood screamed in her brain. She couldn’t go down like this. She couldn’t die when she only just made up her mind to fight for her life.
She looked around for any help. Christie fought nearby with vampires dangling from every limb. He tried to rage, but he wound up screaming instead. He couldn’t raise his sword arm to fight with five of them hanging off hm.
She couldn’t see Arch anywhere. She almost gave up when a fresh burst of murderous fury took over her being. She didn’t care about herself. She worked too hard to save Christie’s life to stand by and watch him fall.
She dragged her attackers along with her and started hacking her way through Christie’s tormentors. She chopped off their arms and legs. She stabbed them in their faces and in the guts. She marauded anywhere against any vampire she laid eyes on. In her rage, she lost all awareness of the vampires trying to hold her down.
She got rid of half of them before her own burden became too much for her. She struggled to raise her saber, but her arms wouldn’t obey her. She studied her surroundings, but she couldn’t get her addled brain to comprehend what was happening.
Just then, rough hands seized her from behind. They whipped her around. A huge, hulking figure smashed into her view, and her heart exploded in joy.
She gazed up into Callum’s face. The battle scene went still and silent, but he wouldn’t smile or acknowledge her at all. He pursed his lips in annoyance. His arms moved all around her, but she couldn’t see what he was doing.
He finished his work and vanished. She shook herself out of her trance. The vampires were gone. She spotted Callum some distance away. He fought side by side with Arch to clear the rest of the things off Christie.
Sadie cast her gaze over the battle. Her sword hung at her side, unused. She didn’t know what to do with herself. Then she saw Lachlan on his back with a vampire latched to his throat. He pawed at the thing with his bare hands, but he couldn’t dislodge it.
Sadie sailed across the gap. She destroyed the monster with one vicious down-stroke. It collapsed on top of Lachlan, and he choked under its weight. Sadie grabbed the body by the arm and hauled it off him. She knelt next to Lachlan. “I’m so sorry, Lachlan. I should have got here sooner.”
He raised his hand to touch her. “Ye got ’ere, lassie. That’s all I care aboot. You saved Christie and Arch, didnae ye?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t form the words to express how she felt. She almost saw Lachlan die, and she couldn’t cope with that. She concentrated on his wound instead. “How deep is it? Did it get the jugular?”
“It’s naught. It didnae get naught. I’m awright, lassie. I’m just grand fer seein’ ye again.” He started to get to his feet.
“Stay where you are, Lachlan,” she told him. “At least stay there until I can get it bandaged.”
He pushed himself up. “Where are yer bandages? Ye ha’enae got ’em.”
She froze. She cast her eye over the scene and realized he was right. She had nothing, and almost every man on the field had some kind of injury.
A soft voice touched her ear. “Ye’re hurt, too, lassie.”
She turned aside to find Arch standing next to her. Before she could react, he unwound his tartan from his shoulder and started cutting it up with his dirk. “What are you doing?”
“Ye said we needed bandages.”
“We mun’ treat allus hurts wi’ the medicine afore we go a step further,” Lachlan added. “These wounds’ll fester on the road.”
Sadie submitted to Arch’s hands. He wound a strip of cloth around her neck, but her wound wasn’t serious enough to need much attention. It hardly bled anymore. Then he bent down to examine her leg. “These’ll need treatment, lassie. We cinnae ha’e ye fallin’ o’er on us.”
“We can’t treat them,” she murmured. “We don’t have any alcohol left. I didn’t want to tell you, but I used the last of it before we left the Tower House. We won’t be able to treat these wounds until we get to Duart.”
Lachlan winced when Arch bandaged his neck. “Then we better get movin’.”
“We’ll no make Duart afore nightfall,” Arch replied. “Wi’ all o’ us injured, we’ll move slower than e’er. We mun’ break the trip intae stages.”
“We can’t do that,” Sadie told him. “The vampires could attack again at any second, and we’re already weakened.”
“There’s another way,” Lachlan replied. “There’s a place near ’ere we’ll rest and ready our strength fer another push.”
“Where is it?”
He pointed over a pointy hill nearby. “Just o’er there, beyond that hill. It’s the Lochbuie Standing Stones. They’ll protect us. The things dare no attack us there. As laing as we stay there, we’ll be safe.”
“We’ll be safe from the vampires,” Sadie replied, “but we won’t be safe from the infection. We can only stay there a short time. Then we have to push on to Duart. If we wait any longer, we’re all dead.”
“Then let’s move.” Lachlan raised his voice. “Gang ye down intae the forest to find the others. Take ’em tae the stones, and we’ll camp there fer one night ainly. Move out!”
Sadie looked around for Callum. She caught sight of him on his knees. He bent his head and didn’t move. He showed no sign of hearing Lachlan’s order.
The McLeans broke into action. They gathered up the scattered supplies, and Carson led a band into the forest to intercept the fugitives. Sadie waited until no one was looking and went over the Callum’s side. Her heart sank when she saw what he was looking at.
Jamie sat on the ground at Callum’s feet. The top half of him looked normal. He shot her his best mischievous grin, but the bottom half of him was no laughing matter. A ragged cleft sliced down his leg. The muscle lay open and bleeding from his hip down to his thigh.
Without thinking, Sadie let her hand fall on Callum’s shoulder. “Oh, Jamie,” she breathed.
“It’s awright, lass,” he quipped. “It’s naught but a flesh wound. Just get me on me feet and I’ll be on me way.”
Callum worked over his brother’s leg in fevered haste. He unbuckled his sporran and strapped the leather belt around the leg to cinch the two flaps together. “Ye’re no goin’ anywhere like that, lad. Ye’ll no put yer feet on the ground again if I ha’e tae carry ye meself.”
Sadie rushed back to Arch, gathered up the remaining bandages, and hurried back to Jamie. When she got there, she bent over Jamie’s leg. She and Callum worked to wrap up his leg and stop the bleeding. Their hands got in each other’s way and they bumped into each other in their haste to deal with the wound.
Sadie glanced up into Callum’s eyes. “This is serious. We have to get him to shelter, and we have to get the wound disinfected right away. We can make a litter with blankets and carry him.”
Callum surveyed the landscape. The last McLeans headed down the hill toward the forest. “Ye’ll no carry him. Ye’ll spend all yer strength when there’s no need.”
“There is a need. We can’t leave him out here like this.”
Jamie thrust his hand up at Callum. “Ye dinnae need tae carry me like a bairn. Help me up, and I’ll hobble it like the others.”
“Ye’ll
hobble tae yer grave, ye mean,” Callum shot back.
He seized his brother’s outstretched hand and heaved him to his feet. Jamie teetered on one leg, but not for long. Callum turned his back on his brother and lifted Jamie onto his back.
Jamie cried out, “Hey, mon! What do ye think ye’re doin’? Put me down. I can walk by meself.”
Callum grumbled something under his breath and didn’t stop walking. He set off after the McLeans. Sadie scrambled to collect the last clean bandages, but she need not have bothered. She ran to catch up with Callum, and they took their place behind the stragglers following the column downhill.
Chapter 12
Callum did his best to block out all awareness of Sadie walking at his side. She could only bring him trouble. He couldn’t miss the way she reacted when Lachlan almost caught them kissing on the roof.
So Lachlan wanted her. That was the only reason she would react like that. Well, he should have known it would come to nothing. He never should have let himself feel anything for her in the first place.
He didn’t feel anything for her anyways. She was a stranger. She was a coincidence, a fluke. He could walk away and leave her to Lachlan. She would have no reason to choose him over a Laird and a Clan Chief like Lachlan. What could penniless Callum Cameron offer her compared to that?
He could offer her Urlu, but she probably didn’t want to get with a dragon. She would run away the first time she found out about him, and he didn’t blame her in the slightest. She wanted a real man, not a lizard.
Besides, Urlu wasn’t his. He had no crown, no Phoenix Throne, no lands or riches or influence. All those things belonged to Angus.
The column marched for hours, and Jamie got heavier and heavier. Callum felt his legs starting to give out. He stumbled, and Sadie moved in. “Take a rest. Catch your breath.”
Wolf Castle Page 8
