Free The Fraser Bride by Lois Greiman Page B

pounding unison. Sparks flashed in the darkness. Steel crashed against steel. The warrior’s blade spun from his hand. He toppled sideways, struck the earth, rolled for an instant, then bounded to his feet.
    The mounted man spun his steed toward the other and stopped, and for a moment his face shone in the fleeting moonlight.
    “MacGowan.” The name left Anora’s parched lips like a prayer, but his attention never wavered from his enemy, for the warrior was backing toward his sword.
    “Touch her and die.” Ramsay’s voice was low and steady, echoing in the dark stillness.
    “She is mine, MacGowan,” rasped her captor. “You have no stake in this.”
    “What is yours?” Ramsay’s bay pranced in place, the sound of his hoof falls solid in the stillness, the jingle of his bit as ghostly as a rattle of chains. “Who are you?”
    Silence settled in like doom for an instant. “I am justice.”
    Ramsay sat perfectly still atop his restive steed. “I have seen the face of justice. It has never before harmed an innocent.”
    “Innocent!” the warrior snarled, and snatching his sword from the earth, he charged.
    Slamming his heels into his steed, Ramsay joined the attack, but an instant before they met, the warrior dropped to the ground and rolled. Gryfon stumbled across his tucked body, and before he found his balance the warrior leapt up and swung.
    Caught off balance and unawares, Ramsay ducked beneath the blow and so doing, tumbled from the saddle.
    In an instant his horse was gone. There was nothing between the men now but three strides of darkness.
    They circled each other in silence, arms stretched wide.
    It was the warrior who struck first.
    Ramsay parried. Sparks erupted in an arc of gold, then burned to blackness. Their breathing was harsh in the stillness.
    “What has she done that you would wish her harm?” Ramsay asked.
    ” ‘Tis none of your concern, MacGowan,” said the warrior, and swung again.
    Ramsay blocked the blow, advanced a pace, met the other’s answered steel and fell back, circling again.
    “There you are wrong,” he said. “For me clan has vowed to keep her safe.”
    “Then you have vowed foolishly.”
    “Why?”
    “No more words,” growled the other, and lunged forward.
    Anora cowered in the darkness. Sparks flared in the ebony night and by the slanted moonlight she saw Ramsay fall to his knees.
    “Nay!” she screamed.
    His face jerked toward her, and amidst the upward thrust he’d planned, his hands faltered. The warrior swung.
    She heard Ramsay’s hiss of pain, saw him stagger sideways, finally finding his balance.
    She whimpered in fear.
    The warrior turned toward her, and her mind spun. Who was he? What harm had she done him?
    “Think back,” he snarled.
    Behind him, Ramsay wrenched his sword from the ground.
    The warrior glanced at MacGowan, then back at her.
    Nay! Please!
her soul whispered, but her lips failed to move.
    Still, the warrior turned as if she had spoken. Their gazes met. Recognition almost dawned, and then he shrieked. The sound echoed like the cry of a falcon, and suddenly his black steed thundered out of nowhere.
    A lunge, and the warrior was aboard. She knew he would come for her, knew even before he spun his destrier in her direction. She stumbled, trying to escape, but he was already swooping down upon her, his cloak flying behind.
    She felt the grip of his hand in her gown and twisted away. A roar bellowed from behind them and he jerked about. Something whistled in the air. For just an instant Anora saw a flash of steel in the darkness. It sang through the night like an angel of death. The warrior screamed as steel struck flesh and flashed past.
    His body tilted. His sword clattered to the earth, and then, like a winged host of evil, he set his heels to his mount and was gone.
    The world fell silent. Anora turned, then staggered toward Ramsay, drawn irrevocably across the uneven turf until they fell into each other’s arms.
    “Mary.” He