and her clansmen, then changed direction, coming toward them. Their obscene battle cry sent the birds screeching from the trees.
Eoin howled back a challenge of his own. “See to your stray, Kara,” he called. “We’ll carve up these—” The slur was lost in the pounding of hooves and the shouts of two score Gleanedins bent on revenge for the MacGorys’ first raid six months ago and the maiming of their laird.
Kara muttered a hasty prayer for their safety, then raced the short distance to the fallen man. He was stretched out facedown in the mud, a dirk clutched in one fist.
Was this some trap? Or did he cower in fear of the wolves?
“You can get up now, the wolves are but a pack of stinking MacGorys, and Eoin’s seeing to them.” When he didn’t respond, she gingerly nudged his hip with her bare foot. He didn’t twitch a muscle. Unconscious, she decided.
“Damn, you’re a big one.” He must be well over six feet tall, and weigh sixteen stone, at least.
Mayhap he’d hit his head and conked himself out.
Kara hunkered down beside him, staring at the blue-black waves of hair clinging to his neck. Warily she felt beneath his jaw to see if he lived. The jolt of his pulse against her flesh made her own heart stumble. She jerked her hand back, fingers tingling. “What the devil?”
The man remained silent, motionless. Had she imagined the odd sensation? Kara shook her head. Never mind. She had to get him away from here, and she’d not do it alone.
“Hello. Are you awake in there?” She tapped his back. The metal links of his shirt felt cold and slippery to the touch. What an odd garment. She prodded him again, harder.
“Argh! Are you trying to kill me?” He rolled over, coming to rest on his back, an arm flung over his face.
“Nay, I but wanted to make certain you were unhurt.”
“By poking me with hot pincers and leaving me in the desert to be eaten by wolves?”
“Wolves.” Kara whipped her head around, spotted the MacGorys fleeing across the grassy field with Eoin and her clansmen in swift, loud pursuit. “You need not worry about the wolves, they’ve been routed. What is your name?”
“Duncan. Hot...damn me, but it’s hot.”
Hot? A brisk October wind whistled down the mountain slopes, icing Kara’s skin beneath her simple skirt and tunic. “Are you sick?” she asked warily.
“Course not. Never sick.”
“Wounded, then?”
“Antioch.”
That must be a place, though not one around here. “Where on your body, Duncan.”
“Shoulder.”
She ran practiced hands over him and felt the thick bandage on the left one and pressed gently.
He groaned, a low, anguished sound.
“Does that hurt?”
“Nay. I will be fine. Just...just let me be.”
“Men, never wanting to admit you’re hurting,” Kara scoffed, on familiar turf now. She touched his cheek. “Well, you are burning up with fever and like to die if you stay here. Nor have you the strength to rise without help.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. In the gathering dimness, it was all stark planes and shadowy hollows, wide forehead, sunken eyes, straight nose and strong chin. “Don’t need help. Don’t want help.”
“Too bad, Duncan. We seldom get what we want.”
“Kara!” a voice called. Aindreas, captain of the night guard, was just coming on duty. “Hob says the lads are hunting MacGorys and ye’ve a hurt man. Do you need help?”
“Aye, bring torches and blankets,” she shouted back. “We’ll need to rig a litter to carry him.”
“Nay.” Her patient struggled to sit. She pushed him down with one finger and kept him there till the men came. As the torches closed in to bathe the area with golden light, she got her first good look at Duncan.
“Gods!” Kara exclaimed.
“Do you know him?” Aindreas drew his long knife and waved it in the stranger’s direction.
Only he was no stranger to her. “Put that away,” Kara said sharply. “We need no protection from him.”
“Who is he?”
“The man who will save us.”
“Really?” Aindreas leaned closer, looking appropriately impressed. “The one you saw in the Beltane fires this May?”
“The very same.” She sank down on her knees beside Duncan. “I am sorry I poked you.”
He glared up at them, his scowl deepening. “Heathens.”
Aindreas stiffened. “See here, now, no call to—”
“Pagan barbarians,” Duncan muttered. “Got to get away.” He surged to his feet with surprising strength for a man half-gone with fever.
“Duncan, let me help—”
He flung Kara’s hand off. “No help.” Wavering, he turned and started for his horse. “Got to get away.” What he got was two steps before his legs gave way.
Aindreas caught him and lowered him to the ground.
“Filthy pagans,” Duncan mumbled.
Aindreas glanced at Kara. “He’s an odd way about him for a man what’s come to save us.”
“Nevertheless, he has. The vision said so, and my visions never lie.” Kara rose with all the majesty she could muster, trying not to let on that Duncan’s vehemence had shaken her. “He will stay, and he will help us.”
Duncan was still protesting when Aindreas and the others carted him off.
It did not bode well for Kara’s plans.
Chapter Two
“Untie me,” Duncan ordered through clenched teeth.
“You are not well enough to be up and too stupid to realize it,” his captor said cheerily. She stood gazing out of the arrow slit that served as a window for the tiny wall chamber where they’d brought him two nights ago.
Duncan recalled little of it, his memories a jumble of wolves and torchlight and desert heat. Nay, that had been a fever dream. But he was recovered. “My fever has broken.”
“At
