Pride Of Lions

“Harry! Harry, it’s a trap! Look there!” she cried.

Harry turned and cursed.

“We have to warn them.” Allisun set her heels into her mare’s ribs.

“Wait! Come back! Ye cannot go down there!”

Allisun knew there was no time to wait. Already the knights and the McKies were moving onto the plain. With the thick grass to muffle their hoofbeats, they’d take her kinsmen unaware.

“Owen!” Allisun shouted as she sent her stout hobbler clattering down the rocky slope. “Behind you! A trap!”

Her words, high and shrill with fear, shattered the still night, freezing men and turning heads across the narrow valley.

The Murrays paused in the act of rousting a score of prime beef, looked around and spied the knights. Over the hail of stones her horse kicked up, Allisun heard Owen roar the orders that set the Murrays to flight.

The knights looked up the hill toward her, cursed loudly and spurred their mounts to intercept her kinsmen.

The cattle, roused so rudely from sleep, snorted, heaved to their feet and stood, shivering with apprehension.

To Allisun, the outcome was as predictable as thunder following a bolt of lightning. The Murrays were badly outnumbered, the weary mounts that had brought them so far tonight no match for the sleek McKie horses. They’d be caught ere they reached the end of the valley. Unless...

Looking over her shoulder, she spied Wee Harry, his face white with dread, his teeth bared as he raced after her. “Stampede them,” she shouted to him, motioning toward the herd.

Harry looked, weighed the moment with the canniness of a man who’d lived long on the Borders. “Aye. I’ll see to it. Get yerself clear, lass. Head back up yon ravine and make for home.”

Allisun nodded, but she had no intention of leaving, not when two figures streaking out of the dark would the sooner set the wary cattle to flight. Just as she reached the herd, she stood in the stirrups and whooped, “Hey! Hey!”

The call was taken up by Wee Harry as he plunged into the thick of things. The cattle started, eyes rolling, whites showing. With snorts of bovine fright, they turned and ran, crashing into the uncertain mob behind them, starting a ripple that pulsed through the whole throng. Backs humped, tails lashing, the beasts fled, filling the air with panicked bellows and clods of soft turf.

Allisun was swept along on the fringe of the tide yet felt no fear, only elation. Her horse bumped along in harmony with the cattle. Over their homed heads, she spotted Wee Harry, urging the beasts on. To her right and a bit ahead, the McKies and their knights bobbed about, struggling to extricate themselves from the jostling mass so they might pursue the Murrays who, having been in front of the herd when it bolted, were getting clean away with a small knot of beeves.

In that moment of triumph, with her heart singing and her kinsmen’s escape all but a certainty, Allisun glimpsed something shiny out of the corner of her eye. Whipping her head around, she saw one of the knights had worked his way up alongside her.

The polished metal helm covered his face, but his eyes glowed like hellfire in the sockets. His breath steamed from the mouthpiece, misting like dragon’s smoke in the cool air.

“I’ve got you, at least.” He grabbed her arm.

Allisun screamed and tried to wrench away from the gloved fingers. The shift caused her horse to stumble. Clutching at the pommel, she fought gamely to keep her seat. But it was too late. She was going down into the churning mass of deadly hooves.

Hunter felt his captive slip, tightened his grip and yanked hard. A quick, expert twist and he had the Murray free of the saddle and anchored securely against his thigh, his arm around a surprisingly narrow waist.

Why, it was only a lad, Hunter thought. Then he noted the soft, unmistakable swell pressing into his arm and realized it was a woman he’d saved.

A woman reiver?

Dieu, what sort of people took a woman along on a raid? His opinion of the Murrays fell another notch. The woman was obviously too frightened to struggle. For which Hunter was thankful. He had his hands full trying to control his mount. Aggressive by nature, the warhorse had been taught to aid his master in battle by striking out at anything that came near. To Zeus, the roiling, grunting mass of cattle represented a terrible threat, one he tried to combat with teeth and hooves.

“Nay. Easy, easy,” Hunter repeated, fighting to keep his voice calm. He had his legs clamped tight around Zeus’s girth, but with only one hand on the reins, it was nearly impossible to direct the horse. “Damn, we’ll never get free of this.”

“Let go of me,” said a slightly breathy voice.

Hunter looked down at the top of the woman’s head, a mass of curls burnished red in the moonlight. “I cannot drop you.”

“Nor was I suggesting it,” she replied dryly, legs milling above the cattle. “Swing me astride before you.”

He eyed the jostling bovine backs. “Can you do it?”

“Oh, I’ve every incentive to try, I assure you.”

Despite their dire circumstances, Hunter chuckled. “At the count, then. One... two... three.”

In a move so smooth they might have practiced it, Hunter lifted her up. She swung her right leg over Zeus’s neck and settled before Hunter, secure between the pommel and his body.

“There.” Hunter grabbed the reins in both hands and drew sharply as Zeus gathered himself to strike. “None of that. Get us out of here, lad.” Pulling hard on the right leather, he tried to make for the edge of the herd.

“Head at the diagonal instead of trying to turn this giant, and cut straight across the herd,” commanded the woman.

Hunter raised his brows, surprised by her tone of authority, but he did as she suggested. It worked. Every step they took brought them closer and closer to the edge of the herd, till finally they burst free.

Zeus tossed his head and trumpeted a final challenge before obeying Hunter’s command to slow. Sides heaving with exertion, the horse expelled great puffs of mist into the air.

“He’s ill suited to herding,” commented the woman.

“Aye. They’re bred for strength, not racing.” He looked ahead, seeing his Carmichaels and the McKies, gamely trying to turn the cattle. The Murrays were doubtless miles in front with their purloined beef.

All except this one.

A minute shift in her weight was all the warning Hunter had before his captive swung a leg over Zeus’s neck and attempted to slide free.

“Nay!” Hunter caught her around the waist, plopped her back before him and anchored her there with his arm. “I’ve lost the others, but I’m keeping you. Who are you? What is your name?”

She stiffened and shook her head.

“You are a Murray.”

She remained stubbornly silent.

Not that it mattered. He had a fair idea it was Allisun Murray he held before him. But he judged it would do more harm than good to confront her here and risk a struggle. “Whoever you are,” he said, and looked toward the last of the cattle, just disappearing between the slim bottleneck created by two opposing hills, “you and yon men are thieves.”

“We are no such thing,” she said hotly. “We’re but taking back the eighteen head the McKie have stolen from us.”

“If that’s true, and mind, I’m not saying it is,” Hunter replied, rather enjoying the byplay, “you got rather more cattle than your due.”

She sniffed. “My men will have taken only eighteen. If the McKies lose more than that, it’ll be because they weren’t skilled enough to find them in the bracken.”

My men. “Is your husband a Murray?”

“I’m not wed.”