Come the Morning Read Free

The last of them departed through the cottage door; it was the Norseman who had so swiftly skewered Thayer. He paused before leaving. “You’ll pardon us, good Scotsmen, eh? We’ll not leave you hanging long.”
    Laughing with pleasure at his own deadly humor, he exited the cottage.
    â€œYou should have kept your sword, Michael,” Patrick said glumly. “You’d have brought down at least one of the great, ugly bastards.”
    They could hear deep, guttural laughter in the night as the enemy struggled still with Thayer’s body. Then suddenly, they were startled by a thumping sound within the confines of the cottage. A large dark shadow fell behind Patrick, who had been pushed closest to the rear thatched window. Patrick gasped, then held his tongue.
    â€œBy all that’s holy—” Michael began, but Patrick threw up his hands, freed from the leather ties that had bound them. The shadow rose. It was Great William’s lad; Michael had seen him fall in battle, seen him crumple atop his father. He’d been sure the boy, Waryk, was dead. But he lived. Streaked with mud and blood, he was a length of darkness. All that was light of him was the blue fire in his red-rimmed eyes as he stared around himself at the men left to their turn at death in the cottage. Not fourteen yet, he stood well above many a full-grown man with the breadth of shoulder that would eventually fill out with power. This had been his first test of arms, but Michael had seen him work with his father often enough in the open fields, learning his swordplay.
    â€œSweet Jesu,” Michael breathed.
    The lad started toward him. “Your father, your brother,” Waryk said quietly to Patrick, indicating the bound hands of the others in the room. “I’ll free Michael.”
    Yet even as he approached Michael, the Viking warrior appeared in the doorway once again. “What’s this, eh? A nit left alive among the dead lice! A young one for the hanging, this now!” he declared.
    Waryk reached down for Michael’s discarded sword. The blond giant laughed. “A cub would fight with wolves, eh? Have it your way. May not be so merciful a death as the quick snap of a rope, for I’ll slice you from stem to stern, my fine boy!” he claimed.
    The muscled warrior laughed and used his great strength to swing his battle-ax. Waryk watched him for no more than seconds, then let out a cry. The cry filled the night, like something unearthly, borne on the wind. He charged the man straightforward, and before the man’s ax could fall, the “nit” had pierced him through the gullet with his sword. Lord Renfrew’s Nordic mercenary fell to his knees, shock lighting his eyes ’til death glazed them over.
    All in the room stared. Patrick paused in his attempts to slice his father’s bonds. Michael forgot that nooses still awaited them all.
    â€œWhat goes in there?” came a cry from outside.
    â€œQuick!” Michael ordered.
    Once again, Patrick and Waryk set forth to free the men. They worked in swift silence. When another of the enemy came to the door, Waryk spun around again and, this time, met a swordsman. The clash of steel alerted those outside that there was trouble in the cottage, where the last of those they had conquered should have been making peace with their Maker.
    Now it was the Scots who had the advantage, for as each attacker crossed the cottage threshold, he was set upon. Soon the blood ran thick beneath the firelight, and men tripped upon the bodies of others as they fought. Renfrew’s men began to back away, stumbling in their haste now to be free from those so intent upon vengeance. They were followed by the Scots.
    Out in the moonlight, Michael was so fiercely engaged in battle that he was unaware at first of the sound of horses’ hooves pounding against the earth as a troop of men approached them. He hammered the head of a combatant with his