Highlander Enchanted

Chapter Twenty

The same evening, from the forest, Cade witnessed the walls of his temporary home burn. He whispered a spell for the rain to fall harder in sheets, partially to stop the fire from spreading and partially to shield him and his cousins from sight as they fled. One of the wounds in his stomach had opened and was bleeding heavily, and he held a fistful of cloth over it. He had come out of one fever soon after Laird Duncan's men attacked early this morning but felt his weakness and knew – without a seillie healer – he was at risk of collapsing into another before they reached the MacCosse lands.

"How many survived?" he asked, resting against the trunk of a tree. The forest seemed to be trying to help him. Brush hugged his legs and tree branches stretched to touch him. He absently nudged leaves out of his line of sight.

"Five," replied a breathless Brian beside him.

"Five of thirty." Most of his kin and the few MacDonald warriors had gone ahead with their fleeing clans. The loss of life was not as great as it could be, but it was a sharp blow when they had too few warriors as it was.

"Ye need a healer," Niall said, frowning. "Forgive me, cousin. I did all I could."

"I ken it, Niall." Cade had listened to the tale of the ambush Niall and Marie faced before dawn with dismay. Of the four of them traveling with him, only Niall survived and was wounded.

From what he knew, Marie's daughter, who had inherited the healing gift, had only ever practiced her healing arts on animals, and small ones at that.

Healing ran in their family as well and had been Cade's gift, until he lost it to the madness. "Niall, ye can stop the bleeding, can ye not?" he asked, turning to his cousin.

"Poorly." His cousin stepped nearer and pushed the branches trying to hug the seillie chieftain out of the way.

"Poorly is better than dead," Brian said.

Cade snorted in agreement and lifted his hand for his cousin to access the wound. He grimaced as Niall's hot magic ripped through the delicate skin around the wound. But it worked, and he ran his fingertips over the skin that had grown over the wound.

"Have ye heard from Angus?" he asked, referring to the warrior tasked with finding Isabel.

"Nay. If he found her, he would return." Niall's tone was hushed. "Yer wife disappeared."

"It wouldna be the first occurrence," Cade said, conflicted. "I did force her t'wed me."

"You didna see her at yer side, cousin," Brian objected. "She took down all yer talismans and draped them around yer body, thinking they would heal you."

Cade smiled at the thought. The talismans were to keep evil away and to calm his spirit so the madness did not torment him. But they had no power to heal flesh. Isabel had no way to know this. That she had done all she could to help him, even entrust his health to the sorcery she often regarded with alarm, touched him deeply.

"I didna say I would let her go," he said, straightening. "But if Laird Duncan doesna have her, and she did not steal my horse, then where is she?"

Niall sucked in a breath, pointing.

Cade leaned away from the tree trunk to see where he indicated.

Laird Duncan's army waited for the walls to finish burning. Hundreds of men were gathered in a crescent shape around the keep, their faces painted and forms clad in the leather jerkins and shields customary in the Highlands.

The newcomers, however, wore metal helmets that reflected the flames. Cade counted twenty knights under Lord Richard's banner. He did not have to see past the walls to know there were likely double that in the shadows.