Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 95326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
“Is the kitchen secure, Alda?” she called out, seeing the woman and several servants trying to calm the bairns.
“Aye, mistress. No one can enter there,” Alda assured her.
Elsie went straight for the door.
“Don’t go out there, mistress,” Kara’s mum warned, and other women joined in the warning.
Elsie paid them no heed. She needed to get her husband’s weapon to him. He was defenseless without it. That’s not what she saw when she ran out of the keep. She froze as she watched a warrior on a horse swing an axe at Cavell. Her husband was a blur, he stepped out of the way so quickly and just as quickly yanked the warrior off the horse. He wrestled the axe out of the warrior’s hand and with one swing felled him.
“GET IN THE KEEP!” Cavell shouted at her and felled another warrior who descended on him.
Elsie felt helpless. She wanted to help but she was wise enough to realize her presence distracted her husband. She was about to go into the keep when she saw May struggling to get an injured clansman to the keep. She set the sword aside on the steps and hurried to help May. She got him up the stairs and left May to get him inside and rushed down the stairs to retrieve the sword and spotted Mab trying to make it through the fighting to the keep.
Again, she did not hesitate. She went to help the elderly woman. Seeing the fighting was centered in one area, Elsie turned Mab around and took a longer but safer path to the keep. As they approached the keep, her eyes went wide with fright. Her da stood on the bottom step, Cavell’s sword gripped in his hand. At one time, her da could easily wield a sword, but seeing how he struggled to hold the weapon it was obvious he did not have the strength to fight.
May appeared at the top step and she waved her forward. May hurried to her to help Mab while Elsie ran to her da. She wasn’t fast enough. A warrior descended on him easily knocking the sword from his hand and then his meaty fist grabbed him by his shirt and shook him.
Rage, hot and furious, had Elsie running straight for the warrior and as she got near, she heard him shout at her da.
“Which one is it? Which one? Tell me!”
Elsie launched herself at him when she was close enough. She landed on his back, her arms going around his neck, her fingers raking at his face then poking at his eyes to deliver whatever torment she could so he would release her da, and he did.
Unfortunately, she was no match for him. He reached back and grabbed her by the back of the neck and flung her off him, as if she was nothing more than an annoying gnat, to land hard on the ground. Her breath whooshed out of her, and she lay there trying to regain it.
The warrior’s large hand came down on her to grab her by her tunic and launch her to her feet with such force that she felt the slam through her entire body.
“Tell me which one belongs to him, or I will collect all three,” the warrior said, his eyes on her da. “And see the other two dead.”
“I don’t know. Please, I don’t know, or I would tell you,” her da pleaded frantically.
“Then I will collect all three,” the warrior said. “And since you are useless to me…”
He was about to raise his axe when Elsie was suddenly ripped out of his grasp and tossed to the side as her husband plowed into the warrior.
When she regained her wits, she wobbled to her da, still dazed from the two falls, and they huddled together as they watched Cavell fight the warrior. It did not take long. Once the two men got to their feet, it took little time for Cavell to snap the man’s neck and have him fall at his feet.
Cavell descended on his wife with a fury that had her da trying to step in front of her.
“Don’t make me push you out of the way, Norris,” he threatened with a growl and her da wisely stepped aside.
Cavell’s fury turned worse when he saw his wife’s tunic had been ripped down the center and along with it part of her shift, leaving one of her breasts partially exposed.
He yanked the pieces together in one hand and fought to contain his temper as he commanded. “Get in the keep and so help me God stay there! No matter what, stay there!”
“Aye, husband,” she said, placing her hand over his and feeling his grip ease.
“I cannot lose you, Elsie,” he said as if explaining himself.
“Or I you,” she said. “Stay safe and alive.”