from beneath his elbow. Then, moving prudently away, she watched the two swordsmen on the trail.
Neither man’s movements were as agile as they had been before, but although she hoped that Fin would soon pick up the pace and go on the offensive, he did not. He stumbled again, and Comyn leaped forward.
Again, Fin deflected the blow and recovered.
Catriona nocked the arrow to the bowstring and prepared to draw. She was no highly skilled archer, but Ivor had taught her, just as he had taught her to use her dirk. Taking her stance, she drew the bowstring back far enough to make sure that she could. Assured that, although it was not an easy pull, it was possible, she took aim at a point in the shrubbery some yards to the left of the two swordsmen, waited until they danced farther apart on the path, and let fly.
To her shock, just as she did, Comyn leaped to the hillside above Fin, turned to attack again, and the arrow struck right between them.
Both men started at the sight of it, but Fin recovered faster. With an upswing of his sword and a flick of his wrist, he sent Comyn’s sword spinning up and over his own head and back toward the loch, where it made a large and satisfactory splash.
Comyn roared toward the woods, “Ye daft bastard! Ye nearly killed me!”
That was all he said, though, before Fin’s fist connected with his chin and he collapsed much the same way that the man lying a few feet from Catriona had.
Tadhg’s quiet voice from behind startled her nearly out of her skin: “Sakes, m’lady,” he said, “ye missed the villain. He’d ha’ looked better wi’ your arrow through his lugs!”
Fin crouched low, waiting for the hidden archer to reveal himself. When four brawny figures stepped into the moonlight from the forest shadows, he felt the same sense of fatalism he had felt at Perth upon realizing that he was alone against four more Clan Chattan men. Rory Comyn still lay where he had fallen.
As Fin set himself he saw that the others did not. Then Tadhg and Catriona walked out of the woods behind them, and Boreas loped toward him.
Catriona ran ahead of the others, and Fin caught her in his arms. “Don’t tell me that you freed our men whilst I played out here with Comyn, lass.”
“Nay, I did that,” Tadhg said, dancing up behind her. “A score o’ them Comyns was a-waiting for the nine o’ us new lads when we come over in the boat, Sir Fin. But when they sprang out o’ the woods, they went for all our big lads without heeding me. So in the tirrivee, I went tae ground and hid in the bushes.”
“Good thing for us that he did,” one of the other men said.
“Tadhg was very brave,” Cat said. “He’ll make a fine knight one day.”
“Aye, I will,” Tadhg said. “That ’un there that ye clouted took another ’un and they went looking tae see had they got all o’ our watchers. So, I waited long, sithee, till I thought they were no coming back and them guards was all a-sleeping. Then I crept about and untied a couple o’ our men. But that ’un and his man came back then, so we had tae lay low. Then them two said they’d best be getting back to the dam. Next we knew, swords was a-clanging. Their guards looked to see what were happening, so our lads what I’d freed took care o’ them. Then we freed the others.”
“You said there were two men, Tadhg, but I’ve seen only Rory Comyn,” Fin said. “He challenged me alone, but he had a bowman hidden in the woods, because Comyn shouted at him. Sakes, but you must have seen the chap, lads,” he added. “He shot at me just before you came out of those woods.”
“Nay, then, she didna shoot at ye!” Tadhg said indignantly. “She—”
Fin had already felt Catriona stiffen. Holding her away from him, he snapped in amazement, “You shot that arrow?”
Catriona heard astonishment in his voice but wished that the moonlight were not behind him so that she might see his expression. His hands gripped her tight.
The other men and Tadhg had fallen silent. No one moved.
“I meant only to startle Rory, sir, because I could see that you were tired and that your feet hurt,” she said. “I aimed well to the uphill side of you both, but he jumped that way