Page 8 of Promised to the Cursed Laird

She looked at Marcas MacKinnon, who was looking at the guards with a calm expression.

"Ye have men outside," she said. Not a question.

"Ten," he said. "Waiting on my signal."

"And what's yer signal."

He raised his sword to a specific angle and held it for three seconds.

From beyond the walls, a horn sounded once.

"MacKinnon!"

The cry went up from somewhere near the walls. Neilina stared. For one heartbeat she could not understand what she was seeing.

And then the main gate caved in. The sound was so sudden and violent that every man in the courtyard turned.

It was not just the sound of splintering wood and iron, but everything that came with it: the shouts of the guards who had been stationed there and were now occupied with the much more immediate problem of MacKinnon men pouring through the gap, were compounded by the specific rapid-fire sound of steel hitting steel.

Marcas turned to her, "Hide somewhere safe." Then he ran toward the fight.

"Get inside!" someone shouted.

"Hold the wall!"

"They're through the gate!"

Neilina pressed her body against the nearest wall, trying to make herself small as the fighting spread around her. She had no weapon, no armor, nothing with which to defend herself, and every time she tried to move, another body seemed to appear in her path. A horse reared several yards away, its rider shouting as he fought to control it, while a wounded man stumbled past her and collapsed nearby.

She had to get away.

Move, she told herself. Away from the gate, away from the center, find a corner and think.

MacKinnon warriors in their colors pressed the MacRath guards back toward the keep. The keep disgorged more men who had been woken by the horn, and the courtyard became the kind of place she had no business standing in.

She was standing in the middle of it.

She pushed left, toward the gap between the stable and the inner wall, the one she'd used in her original escape attempt. A MacRath guard stumbled backward into her path and she changed direction, going right instead. A MacKinnon man came past her fast and close enough that she felt the air move with his sword arm.

The well, she thought. Get tae the well, it's stone, it'll give ye something at yer back.

She had almost reached the shelter of the well when a MacRath warrior came stumbling backward, his opponent's blade narrowly missing his shoulder. He caught himself, looked up, and saw Neilina standing behind him.

His expression changed.

"Ye," he said, and reached for her.

Neilina's heart lurched and she recoiled, but before he could seize her, another clash of steel drew his attention. He turned, saw Marcas fighting his way across the courtyard, and raised his sword.

The blade never reached her.

Marcas came in from her left, moving fast and low, and the two men collided with enough force to drive Neilina backward. Their swords met again, Marcas turning the first blow aside, but the MacRath warrior came again immediately, swinging hard and fast. Neilina found herself trapped behind him, with nowhere to move without risking the path of the blades.

"Get back!" Marcas shouted.

She stumbled sideways. The warrior swung again and the blade came toward her.

She saw it coming and froze, her body refusing to obey her as the sword cut through the space between them. Marcas moved faster. He stepped in front of her and caught the blow on his own blade, the impact jolting through his arm.