Highlander Enchanted

Chapter Twenty Four

Two days without sleep, except for short naps atop the horse, rendered Isabel almost too tired to see straight. But the moment she witnessed the melee in the valley, cold fear drove off her fatigue and replaced it with familiar despair. She had traveled as fast as possible. Was she too late?

She stopped her horse at the top of the hill overlooking the valley, dismayed by all she saw. Laird Duncan's men had swept down one side and the few MacLachlainn warriors – including her brother and Brian – down the other. Fog and magic created a chaotic display, and she was able to make out no one she knew or even who fought on what side. Laird Duncan had sent down an initial group of warriors and was preparing the bulk of his force to overrun the valley. All the fog in the world was not going to protect an army of a few dozen from one twenty times its size.

Niall reined in his horse beside hers. His breath caught.

"I cannot see John or Cade or Brian," she said, distressed by the madness in the valley. She gripped the fur-lined, blue cloak – a gift from King John – to prevent the strong ocean breeze from whipping it around her.

"Cade is here." Niall's tone was hushed.

She realized he was not at all interested in the valley but staring into the sky. Black, roiling clouds laced with lightning were closing in from all sides, stretching from the earth to the sky.

"Is this ... him?" she whispered.

"This is how Black Cade destroyed five Saracen villages."

The man who saved her brother, who rescued her on countless occasions, who thought only of protecting his clan, was capable of great mercy and kindness and of equally great fury. But understanding what she did now, that he had gone mad to heal her brother, she was unable to condemn him as she once had for being a barbarian. Cade was a good man with a pure heart incapable of fending off the madness inside him. The storm was a part of him that had escaped his rigid self-mastery, and she found herself awed by the ability for him to contain turmoil so great. Once she saw the power of his madness splayed across the heavens, she admired him more for having ever mastered such darkness.

The wind turned to a gust that shoved off the helmets of those with her, and fat raindrops splashed onto the rocky terrain beneath their feet. Over the ocean, hail had begun to fall. Thunder smashed across the sky, shaking the ground and drawing a chorus of panicked whinnies from the horses.

Niall muttered under his breath. "I have to find him," he said and twisted in his saddle. "You, with me!" He motioned to the dozen Scottish knights behind him he had selected to accompany him. "Stay here, Lady Isabel!"

She squeezed the reins, unable to take her eyes off the broiling tempest growing closer. She would never understand seillie magic or what it drove Cade to do, but she had seen it take hold of him before, in Laird Duncan's Great Hall.

"I would recommend engaging Laird Duncan quickly," said the man on her other side. The stewart, a cousin to the King of Scotland, had been educated in the English court and plucked for service after he came of age. Long of tooth, he was nonetheless sharp and wise and sent with her by her true father to ensure she secured the lands belonging to her mother.

"I am not a warrior," she replied. "Do what you must to protect my lands."

He signaled the commanders of the small army of knights and warriors lent to her. Two hundred men poured past them into the valley and vanished into the fog.

"The others?" he prodded at her silence.

Isabel could not look away from the storm, could not help but believe Cade would lose control only if he were suffering greatly. What had caused such suffering? How was she to remain here when he was in pain? Most importantly, how did she help him as she yearned to do?