Free The Warrior by Margaret Mallory

servants would have good cause to go to the rooms
     above at this late hour.
    Duncan waited until there was a burst of laughter from the men around the hearth,
     then strode through the doorway and started up the stairs.
    When he was halfway up, a woman’s scream came from above, piercing the air—and his
     heart. It was Moira. Duncan charged up the spiral stone stairs three at a time. The
     door on the next floor was closed. Without pausing, he slammed his shoulder against
     it. The door crashed open and banged against the wall.
    Moira lay on the floor in a pool of blood with a man on top of her.
    Duncan was across the room in two strides. He jerked the man up by the back of his
     tunic with one hand while he brought up his dirk with his other to slice the man’s
     throat. He stopped his arm midswing. The man he was holding was Sean, and he was already
     dead.
    Duncan looked down at Moira. Oh, Jesu. One of her eyes was swollen purple like a ripe plum, and the rest of her face was
     battered. Her gown was torn and gaping open.
    Blood was everywhere. In her hair. On her hands and face. Soaking her gown. Duncan
     dropped to his knee beside her. Grief swept through him. God, no! He was too late to save her.

Chapter 10
    M oira moaned and struggled to sit up.
    Praise God, she is alive. Duncan put his arm beneath her shoulders. “Are ye hurt badly, mo leannain ?” My sweetheart.
    “Is Sean dead?” She sounded dazed.
    “Aye,” he said. “Can ye walk? We must leave the castle at once.”
    Even while he said it, he heard boots on the stairs. If the men found Moira covered
     in blood and their chieftain dead, it would not go well for her.
    Duncan lifted her to her feet. Holding her with one arm and his sword in the other,
     he started out with her just as one of the MacQuillan warriors filled the doorway.
     Two more were right behind him. Duncan needed to dispatch them quickly before they
     raised the alarm and brought the fifty men sleeping in the hall into the fight.
    “What have ye done to—”
    Duncan cut the first man down before the words were out of his mouth. Then he shoved
     the next one backward into the third, sending the pair tumbling down the stairs.
    Holding Moira to his side, Duncan leaped over the flailing men and continued down
     the stairs. The noise had drawn three more warriors into the bottom of the stairwell.
     But the fools did not have their blades at the ready. Before they could unsheathe
     them, Duncan kicked one in the gut, swung his claymore into another, and rammed the
     third with his shoulder.
    Damn. The commotion was waking the other MacQuillan men. When Duncan started through
     the hall, some of them were already on their feet and reaching for their swords. Duncan
     lifted Moira over his shoulder and ran like hell for the door.
    He burst through it, cleared the steps in one leap, and ran hard through the darkness
     of the bailey yard to the gate. Knowing he had removed the bar, he hit the gate running.
     It was made of heavy oak, but it swung open against his weight.
    After a few yards, he was in pitch blackness. The MacQuillan men were on his heels,
     and Duncan could not see the path to the beach. He was running blind.
    A dog barked. A moment later he saw the wolfhound in front of him, leading the way,
     his golden fur just visible in the night.
    Moira moaned, and Duncan thought of her bruised and battered face bouncing against
     his back. But he had no choice. He must get her away from here at all costs. The shouts
     behind them were growing closer, but so was the sound of waves crashing on the beach.
     As he crested a hill behind the dog, he saw the white foam of the curling sea swells
     through the darkness.
    “Niall!” he shouted as he followed the wolfhound down the bluff to the beach.
    “Over here!” Niall called.
    Duncan saw the black shape of their boat.
    “There they are!” a voice came from behind him. “Stop them!”
    Niall was already pushing the galley out when Duncan