06

Alana couldn't have been more relieved to escape the confines of her cottage. Something about the Norman with his golden eyes made her heart palpitate in a way that left her breathless and shaky. The rough baritone of his voice, seemed to produce estranged emotions that she had never before encountered.

Willing all thoughts of the golden Norman aside, she focused on the matter at hand as she followed closely at Rowan's heels. Agatha's husband had taken a turn for the worse. The illness had spread rapidly throughout his withered body and Alana feared there was naught more she could do for the village elder.

As she and Rowan approached the hut that Agatha and her ailing husband shared, she was immediately shaken by the putrid smell of death. Her heart quivered apprehensively in her chest as her eyes sought the frail body laying on a corner pallet, an ample woman bent over the incredibly pale man as her sobs resonated through the quiet.

Alana gasped as fear gripped her coldly as feelings of anguish and failure merged painfully to realization.

Hugh was dead. She had failed Agatha. She had failed Hugh. She was a healer was she not? How could she have let this happen?

She felt a strong hand at her elbow, not realizing she had staggered until Rowan steadied her. She shook his hand away and rushed to put as much distance between she and the overwhelming flood of incompetence.

"Alana-" Rowan called from behind.

"Let me be!" she heard herself cry from some isolated part of her mind.

Rowan's hand circled her arm, tugging her to a halt and she rounded on him with anger in her eyes as she shoved roughly at his chest. "Leave me!" she cried loudly.

"Alana, you don't understand-" he started, attempted to dodge her aimless flailing. "-Agatha is relieved."

She froze, suddenly confounded. "Relieved?"

He nodded, "Aye, don't you see? Hugh no longer suffers. You did all you could."

Alana drew in a steady breath, "I could have prevented his suffering."

Rowan shook is head, "Only for a time, my love."

She stiffened at this as the Norman's taunting came back to induce a crimsoned face as his words replayed within her head.

The boy may fancy you but only a man could love you.

She quickly dismissed the taunt and sought an escape. "Where is Nettie?"

Rowan frowned, "I know not, why?"

Alana felt a sudden worry for Nettie was one never to go missing. "When last did you see her?"

Just than, a shrill scream broke piercingly through the village; both Alana and Rowan froze as a woman came fleeing from the trees, her face noticeably pale and her eyes wild with an unmasked fear as she came running toward them.

"Kinsley?" Alana stepped away from Rowan to intercept the frightened girl and gently grasped her trembling shoulders to steady her. "What is amiss?"

"Normans!" the girl cried, "They come, just over the hill!"

A collected amount of gasps sounded as a crowd of curious villagers gathered around them, their eyes growing round with knowing, instilling a look of terror as comprehension settled.

"Are you certain?" Rowan demanded.

Kinsley nodded frantically, her dark curls rebounding against her shoulders as she looked warily around. "Aye, Nettie-"

"Nettie?" Alana's fingers tightened around Kinsley's shoulders with sudden dread. "Where is my cousin?"

"S-she-" Kinsley stammered over her words as panic took root. "-she went looking for y-you, Alana."

Her eyes widened in alarm. If Nettie had gone looking for her that would mean she had taken the same route as the Norman army. "How many Normans are there?"

"Many!" Kinsley cried breathlessly, attempting to wiggle free of Alana's tight grip. "They will kill us all!"

Screams of panic and terror erupted all around her as villagers broken away into a frantic frenzy. Women scooped their tiny children as men gathered weapons while ushering their families into hiding. Kinsley wrenched away and disappeared in the flurry of bodies.

"Come, Alana." Rowan gripped her arm and tugged.

"I have to find Nettie!" she tore away from him and started running.

"Alana!" Rowan's plea was muffled in the outcry but Alana heard naught aside from the violent pulse of her heart beating insanely in her ears.

Curran Macaulay felt a wry grin tug at the corners of his mouth as the cottage door produced a buxom beauty that froze as her blue eyes swept the army planted before her.

He and his men had trailed this route for nearly a day before finally coming upon this small hut and he was certain the remaining village was not far and he had his orders, but what's a little entertainment in the meantime? He would allow his men this one pleasure to ease away the discomforts of the day, he could tell by the hungry glint in their eyes that they needed a little fruition.

His men exchanged looks of intrigue as one by one they dismounted, slowly forming a circle around the Saxon woman. Curran studied the girl; she was pleasing to look at with her honey-colored hair and bright, blue eyes now wide with the utmost fear. She was fairly tall, well-proportioned and had a lovely complexion of ivory.

She whimpered as his men enclosed around her, trapping her and forcing her further away from the cottage.

Otis, a fairly large man with thinning hair, reached out and tugged playfully at a blond strand. The woman yelped and stumbled around falling directly into the arms of Drugo. His man chuckled as his swarthy arms hugged the flailing woman to his chest, her legs kicking in an attempt to escape as he took her to the ground.

She released an ear-splitting scream that caused Curran to wince. "Be easy on the lass, Drugo!" Chimed Olaf as Drugo shoved impatiently at her skirts.

"Cease!" roared a thunderous voice, causing Curran and his men to still.

Curran stared in a state of astonishment at the enraged face of Fallon 'The Fury' as he surfaced from the cottage, bracing his weight against the frame of the door with his face, severely pale and cinched with pain as he surveyed the men in the yard with an intensity that caused several of Curran's men to retreat, leaving only Drugo hovering over the weeping woman.

"'Tis Fallon!" gasped Otis.

"We thought you dead, milord!" said another with incredulity.

Curran dismounted as his eyes moved over Fallon with disbelief. "You're alive." He said this quietly as though in any moment Fallon would vanish into nothing.

"Release the woman." Fallon growled breathlessly, his face twisting with each agonizing breath.

Drugo, very reluctant to release his prize, peered questionably at Curran.

Curran's face hardened. "My men have traveled all day in search of this village; you cannot mean to deny them the spoils of war, brother?"

"I have given my word that no one in this village is to be harmed, and I mean to keep it, Curran. Now release the woman or I shall have your man killed for his insolence."

"Drugo is my man; therefore he is under my command. What is one Saxon wench to sedate his lust?" Curran exchanged a brief nod with Drugo; the warrior smirked knowingly and turned back to the girl, her cries beginning anew as he began to rip eagerly at her clothing.

"My word is law, Curran!" Fallon retorted through clenched teeth as beads of perspiration dotted his forehead and chest; his arms quivering as he struggled to remain standing.

Curran's grin broadened but before he could reply there was a sudden explosion of earth and hooves as a rider and horse broke free of the forest, a pair of small hands wielding a bow and arrow aimed directly at Drugo crouched over the flailing woman.

The horse pranced precariously sideways but the woman in the saddle remained exact, her aim steady as green eyes focused furiously on his man. Curran watched in stunned silence as hair as red as the sun unleashed in the wind before slender fingers lifted and released the arrow.

It whistled through the air with undeviating speed, impaling Drugo clear off his feet onto his back with the end of the arrow protruding from his heart to lay dead at Curran's feet.

The woman on the ground scrambled to her feet as the other ushered her horse forward and extended a hand, all the while, her sage eyes flashing daggers of disclosed rage. She assisted the other onto the saddle and just like that, both women vanished in the obstruction of vegetation.

"Go after them." Curran said smoothly, his eyes fixated on the spot where the red-haired beauty had vanished.

"Nay!" Curran's men froze in their pursuit at Fallon's violent roar. "Let them be." He growled harshly.

Curran's dark brows drew together in puzzlement. "Have you a fondness for your enemy, brother? Have you forgotten your liege who is now King?"

Fallon straightened at this, "Harold is dead?"

"He lies cold with an arrow sticking from his eye."

"Milord-" spoke Otis from the side, "-an army comes."

Curran turned about just to see Fallon's men pouring into the clearing, at this, there was a disgruntled moan of pain and he turned just in time to catch his brother's large unconscious frame.

**********