Maids with Blades

by Glynnis Campbell

  But Deirdre had never shied away from a fight. She’d be damned if she’d do so now. With her dying breath she’d defend those whom she loved. And, God help her, she loved Pagan.

  So she battled as if the fate of her soul depended upon it, pairing with her husband to rout the soldiers within the pavilion, then following him out into the night to take on as many as she could of the English army.

  The Rivenloch knights set fire to the rest of the pavilions, one by one, and the enemy spilled out of their blazing tents like rats fleeing a flood. But like rats, there seemed to be an endless supply of them.

  “You know we cannot win,” Pagan muttered, dispatching an attacker with his dagger.

  “I know.” Deirdre dodged a sword slash.

  The men of Rivenloch didn’t stand a chance against nearly a hundred English knights. Miriel should never have sent them. But Deirdre couldn’t blame her sister. In Miriel’s situation, she would have done the same thing. Sometimes love outweighed logic.

  “You should have let me die,” Pagan said, clubbing someone in the face with the butt of his sword.

  “Never.” She swallowed the lump rising in her throat. “I…I love you too much.”

  “If you love me,” he snarled, hurling a man into the bushes, “then get out of here. Run. Flee. Before they find you.”

  “I won’t do that.” She punched a soldier in the nose, then shook her bruised knuckles.

  “Rivenloch will fall.”

  “Not without a fight, it won’t.”

  She straightened to her full height, blew out a forceful breath, and stood fast—where she knew she belonged now—shoulder to shoulder with her beloved husband. She would fight beside him until she had no more strength to raise her blade.

  Until she could no longer draw breath.

  Until her lovesick heart ceased beating.

  And when the time came for her to die, she would do so bravely, defending the man she loved, knowing she’d done everything in her power to save him.

  From high atop Rivenloch’s battlements, Sir Rauve d’Honore squinted into the darkness. Swords clanged in the enemy camp, and the distant screams and shouts of men suddenly punctured the heavy silence. “What the Devil..?”

  “See?” Shivering on the parapet beside him, Miriel noted with satisfaction that the Rivenloch knights had begun to sow turmoil in the English camp, setting fire to their tents and wreaking general havoc. “’Tis the men of Rivenloch. Now will you send reinforcements?”

  But Rauve was confounded by the fact that the Scots had somehow slipped beneath his guard. “Impossible! The gates are closed, and I have men posted all along the wall. How could they have—”

  She stamped her foot. “Never mind! We have to hurry.” She hoped Sung Li was right, that Lachanburn and his men would arrive soon. But mostly she hoped she could convince the stubborn giant beside her to lend a hand. Loyalty was a fine quality. Blind loyalty was not. She tugged on his hauberk sleeve. “Pagan is out there. Deirdre is out there.”

  Rauve’s eyes narrowed as he stared sternly toward the hillside. “Nay. I have my orders.” But his voice was colored by frustration as he added, “They were fools to disobey. Fools.” And while his brow was furrowed in bullheaded refusal, his jaw worked in indecision. It was obvious he’d be glad of almost any excuse to join the battle.

  Miriel chewed thoughtfully at her lip. As Sung Li always said, there was more than one way to move a mountain.

  There was no time for subtlety. Taking a deep breath, she suddenly burst into tears.

  Sir Rauve almost jumped out of his armor.

  She let out a loud, mournful wail, and several of the archers along the wall walk turned to gape.

  “Shh!” he bid her, casting an uneasy glance toward the archers. “Hush, my lady.”

  “How could you?” she wailed, burying her face against his shoulder and pounding ineffectually at his chest. “How could you?”

  Disconcerted by her outburst, he awkwardly patted her back. “Ah, don’t cry, my lady.”

  “How could you leave my sister to die?”

  She felt his shoulders sink. “But ’tisn’t my fault,” he said bleakly. “I follow my captain’s orders. Your sister…your sister should have heeded them as well.”

  Miriel froze, intrigued by something he said. “Wait. Your captain’s orders?”

  “Aye.”

  She sniffled. “But Pagan is not lord here. My father is lord. He commands Rivenloch’s army.”

  Rauve cleared his throat. “Well, aye, but…” He was obviously uncomfortable discussing her father’s feeble state of mind.

  “And therefore, the knights of Cameliard.”

  “I…suppose.”

  “And if he were…” she said, angling her head to look pointedly up at him, her eyes conspicuously dry, “awake…”

  Rauve returned her gaze. A spark of understanding passed between them, and he cursed under his breath as he realized her ploy. He shook his head in self-mockery. “What would he do, your father…if he were awake?”

  Mischief glittered in her eyes. There was no time to waste. She caught his hand and tugged him toward the stairwell. “I’m certain he would command the knights of Cameliard to lend a hand.”

  Deirdre knocked another enemy blade away from Pagan’s head. She could see his wounds exhausted him. Her own strength flagged as she battled foe after foe and suffered untold cuts and bruises. But she wouldn’t surrender while blood yet flowed through her veins.

  “Away!” she yelled, lashing out at one of the half dozen knights surrounding them.

  Suddenly, as if by magic, two of her attackers were yanked backwards, and she wheeled to find Sir Rauve, grinning malevolently, his battleaxe in one hand and a squirming English knight in the other.

  “Rauve, you son of a…” Pagan growled in disapproval, his words punctuated by hacks of his sword. “Does…no one…heed my…commands?” His opponent finally slipped on the grass, and Pagan ran him through.

  Rauve used his wriggling captive to block a charging attacker. The two collided with a dull thud, slumping to the ground. “We came at Lord Gellir’s comman-…will.”

  If Deirdre detected something evasive in Rauve’s manner, she held her tongue. All that mattered was that her knights no longer battled alone. With reinforcements, their hopes would be restored, and they’d fight with new determination.

  “For Rivenloch!” she cried.

  “For Rivenloch!” Rauve replied.

  “For God’s sake,” Pagan grumbled, “I hope you left someone guarding the keep.”

  “Oh, aye.” Rauve caught an attacker square in the nose with his elbow. “Colin. And Helena.”

  Deirdre would have smiled at that, but she was preoccupied, ducking under an English blade.

  Indeed, so focused was she upon fending off the advance of a soldier wielding a particularly lethal mace, she never noticed the column of rushlights cresting the northern hills. It wasn’t until she disarmed her attacker, clubbing him with his own weapon, that she heard the loud hue and cry rising from the slope above the encampment.

  She narrowed her eyes at the parade of torchbearers.

  “God’s wounds!” Pagan spat in weary aggravation. “More English?”

  Deirdre’s heart wavered uncertainly as she studied the procession between blows. Then she smiled in recognition. “Nay.”

  It was the Lachanburn clan, armed to the teeth. And strutting proudly at their fore, as if she herself commanded the army, was Sung Li.

  “More allies,” Deirdre told him, watching the advancing Scots in wonder.

  Rivenloch had always had an uneasy alliance with Lachanburn. For years, they’d stolen one another’s cattle and swived one another’s women, yet when winters were fierce, they’d always shared their hearth if a clansman was caught in the storm. Still, she’d never expected this.

  Chiefly cow herders, the Lachanburns were crude fighters at best, but there were dozens of the red-haired lads. With nothing to do but raid
cattle, the prospect of waging a real war against the English must have proved too tempting. And Sung Li, bless her imperious nature, had somehow managed to wrench them from their beds to take part. Now the battle would be more fairly fought.

  Their faith renewed, the knights of Rivenloch warred even more valiantly. Injuries were suffered, but by God’s grace and thanks to Pagan’s elite warriors, few casualties. Over the next crucial moments of battle, it was mostly English blood now that spilled and stained the soil of Rivenloch.

  After routing a pair of enemy men-at-arms, Deirdre stopped to catch her breath, surveying the progress of the fighting around her. She wiped her brow with the back of her bloody arm and happened to glance toward the giant trebuchet, silhouetted against the night sky. Like a soundly sleeping dragon, it had lay silent while the war waged all around. But now it suddenly roused, lifting its head.

  Her fingers tensed about her sword.

  “Nay,” she breathed in horror, belatedly noticing the English soldiers swarming about the machine. “Nay.”

  They’d decided to damage their prize after all.

  Time seemed to grind to a snail’s pace as she swung her head toward Rivenloch. With so many knights outside the keep, battling the enemy, the castle was practically defenseless. Only Colin, Helena, and a handful of knights and archers remained within the walls. And huddled in the keep, trusting to their protection, were Lord Gellir, Miriel, and the women and children of Rivenloch.

  If the trebuchet breached the wall…

  “Nay!” she bellowed. But her voice was lost in the clamor of war.

  God’s blood! She had to stop them. One more thundering blow would collapse the wall.

  Desperate, she started toward the great beast. As if she moved in a dream, every step felt like she slogged through honey.

  Above her on the hill, four Englishmen hefted a great slab of rock from the sward. A missile for the trebuchet.

  She’d never make it in time. Her lungs burned as she struggled up the slope, fighting her way through the masses of battling soldiers.

  The enemy began to lug the slab toward the sling.

  Bloody hell! The trebuchet was fifty yards away. It might as well have been a mile.

  Still she persevered, barreling forward, cursing her leaden feet and the muddy ground and the relentless distance.

  And then the unthinkable…

  She slipped on a mossy stone. With a sharp cry, she stumbled to the ground, landing hard on her hands and knees, wrenching anew her injured shoulder. Tears of frustration welled in her eyes as she watched the horrifying spectacle continuing above her.

  They dropped the slab of rock into the sling.

  It was too late. Rivenloch was lost.

  But then, whether it was a trick of her watering eyes or the shifting firelight, she thought she saw the shadow of something clambering up the side of the wooden structure.

  She blinked. It wasn’t possible. No one could cling to a vertical wall that way.

  But when she narrowed her gaze, she saw what looked like a human, moving like an acrobat over the crossbars of the trebuchet, a slight figure clad all in black.

  The Shadow.

  Nay, it couldn’t be. She wiped her blurry eyes with the heels of her hands. By the time she returned her gaze to the trebuchet, the figure had disappeared. But where The Shadow had passed shone a curious point of light, and as she watched, it began to spark like a steel sword on a grinding wheel.

  In the midst of the killing, over the shouts and screams of attacker and victim, Pagan heard Deirdre’s faint cry of dismay.

  His heart seized.

  Forcing his current opponent away with a violent shove, he whipped his head around, seeking her.

  There she was—thank God, alive—struggling up the hill toward…

  The trebuchet.

  Bloody hell.

  It was loaded and ready to fire.

  While his knights had been busy fighting hand to hand, the damned English had armed their monster.

  Whatever Deirdre intended, she would be too late. Even as he watched her, she lost her footing, slipping on the slope and going down hard.

  He bit out a foul oath and charged after her. He might be unable to save the castle, curse his willful wife and his defiant knights, but at least he’d keep Deirdre from harm.

  He bolted up the hill, but as he drew near, his gaze caught on a curious flame near the top of the trebuchet. By its light, he spied a dark creature scrambling over the structure. As he watched, perplexed, all at once the figure made a daring leap, appearing to vanish into the night.

  Then the flame began to spark.

  And Pagan knew.

  “God’s blood!”

  He lunged forward with renewed purpose.

  The sky flashed suddenly white, as if the sun had burst through night’s cloak, and he dove atop Deirdre, shielding her with his body.

  A deafening explosion rocked the earth, flattening them to the ground. He covered his head, certain the world had been cleaved asunder. Gasps and shouts of astonishment rose around him as splinters of the trebuchet pierced the night and trickled down like demon rain.

  “Ballocks!” Deirdre squirmed impatiently beneath him for a better view. “What was that?”

  “That,” he told her in breathless disbelief, “was salvation.”

  “Holy…” She was left speechless, gazing at the grim remains of the beast.

  He eased some of his weight off of her. “Bloody Saints, are you all right?”

  “Aye.” She twisted onto her back so she could look up at him. “You?”

  Gazing down at his precious warrior maid, he was filled with warring emotions. He’d never felt more grateful to be alive. And he’d never been more furious at her disobedience. He’d never experienced such sweet relief. Nor such burning rage. He was bloody and battered, his body a battlefield of cuts that would sting and bruises that would ache once the skirmish was over, but just looking into Deirdre’s adoring eyes seemed to heal his hurts and melt his anger. “I’ll mend.”

  “Do we have a chance now?”

  He scanned the crowd of cheering knights further down the slope. “I think we may.”

  “Then let’s finish this.”

  Indeed, Pagan didn’t want to move. He’d much prefer lying atop his beautiful wife, holding her safe in his arms till dawn. But she was right. They had to make an end to the battle. Soon the English would regroup and launch another attack. The war was not yet over.

  But if obliterating their trebuchet didn’t completely destroy the morale of the English, the thundering herd of red-haired savages charging over the hill like wild cattle sealed their fate. Even before the stars began to wink out in deference to the impending dawn, the enemy, their lords slain, exhausted and finally outnumbered, recovered their dead and fled.

  As the last panicked English soldier retreated over the hill to the sound of Norman taunts and rattling Scots blades, Pagan sheathed his sword, grabbed his wife, and gave her a deep kiss of sweet victory they would remember for the rest of their lives.

  Triumphant cheers echoed along the starlit hills and glens of Rivenloch as Helena threw the castle gates wide in welcome. Indeed, the keep had never known a gathering of such magnitude. The great hall swarmed with the clan of Lachanburn, the Knights of Cameliard, and the crofters and craftsmen and maidservants of Rivenloch. Ale flowed freely, and while winsome lasses tenderly cared for their wounded heroes, tales and exaggerations of tales already sprang from the seeds that would turn them into legends.

  Already, men speculated upon the trebuchet’s destruction. Some said a freak bolt of lightning, hurled by God’s avenging hand, had struck down the machine. Some claimed it was the work of the Devil.

  Still, unless her eyes had deceived her, Deirdre suspected it was neither divine intervention nor demonic mischief, but the hand of their resident outlaw that had saved Rivenloch.

  As the revelers celebrated and boasted and drank to their triumph, Deirdre, bone-wear
y but sublimely content, sat upon a bench, casually suveying the great hall and letting Boniface tend to her injuries.

  “I’ve already got the first lines,” Boniface confided, dabbing at a scrape on her arm. He cleared his throat and sang softly, “More fierce than Ariadne when she slew the Minotaur, More bold than brave Athena when she led her men to war.” His voice swelled with exaggerated zeal as he placed a mawkish hand over his heart. “More valiant than Nemesis with her avenging sword, Was Deirdre, Maid of Rivenloch, the night she—”

  Deirdre seized him about the throat, choking off his song. “You sing that, lad,” she warned him with a dangerous smile, “and I’ll see you get no supper for a sennight.” Helena might enjoy such lofty praise, but it was an embarrassment to Deirdre.

  She released him, and Boniface scowled in disappointment and returned to cleaning her cuts.

  Athena indeed. Deirdre had fought well, but it wasn’t her hand that had turned the tide of battle. That honor belonged to The Shadow. Whoever he was.

  She took a swallow of ale and glanced in speculation about the hall. In one corner, Miriel and Sung Li conversed with Lachanburn and two of his flame-haired sons. Deirdre studied the boys. The mysterious figure climbing on the trebuchet had appeared with the arrival of the Lachanburn clan. Maybe one of the mischief-making lads, unbeknownst to his father, had a criminal avocation.

  Deirdre smiled, then drank from her ale. If so, then far be it from her to disclose his identity, in light of the good he’d done this eve.

  In another corner of the hall, Helena and Colin, who was fully awake now, argued vehemently, even as she carefully tended to a cut on his cheek. Deirdre shook her head. One day, if the two of them ever ceased quarreling, maybe she’d hear the story of their adventures in the woods.