Highland Warlord - Amy Jarecki Page 0,41
legs out from under her, using one hand to break her fall as he followed the momentum, carefully placing his knee on her chest so as not to crush the lass while leveling the dagger at her throat.
“See my point?” she asked, wide-eyed and unruffled as if she almost enjoyed being wrestled to the ground by a brute of a man. “You are a well-trained knight, sir. Not a common crofter.”
“That allays nothing. You are not powerful enough to overcome me or anyone else in this camp.”
She smirked. “Aside from Seumas.”
James stood and offered his hand. “I wouldn’t underestimate that lad. He’s a Douglas scrapper.”
After allowing him to pull her to her feet, she brushed the dirt off her skirts. “Then what would you have me do when I’m threatened?”
“Do you know a man’s weak points?”
Suddenly coy, Her Ladyship scraped her teeth over her bottom lip, her gaze dropping to his loins. “Mm hmm.”
Lord have mercy, he wasn’t expecting that. But she was right. “Aye, a good kick or knee to a man’s unmentionables is a start. But what if you’re thwarted? Men have an ingrained ability to protect their loins. Where would you strike next?”
“The throat?”
“Where on the throat?”
She traced a line across the base of her neck.
“A good option.” He raised his chin and pointed to the vein throbbing along his throat. “If you plunge your blade into either side where the pulse is strongest, he’ll bleed out afore he hits the dirt.”
“Oh, that is amazing,” she said, drumming her fingers against her chin. “Wonderfully gruesome, however.”
“War is ugly. Barbaric.”
“It is,” she whispered. Her haunting tenor reminded James that she had witnessed battle on her own castle when she’d lost her father.
But he wasn’t finished with the lesson. He drew an imaginary line where his leg met his trunk. “Cut your attacker here and he’ll bleed out as well.”
“Truly?”
“Yes. And if you sever the backs of his ankles and he will not be able to walk.” James tapped his chest with the pommel of the knife. “Tell me, why should you not try to go for the heart?”
“Not the heart? Is that not where most mortal wounds are sustained?”
“Nay. Unless you are very strong and very skilled, your blade could be stopped by the ribs.” He slapped his flank. “Go for the spleen or the liver or the kidneys.”
“Good heavens.”
“Let’s say someone grabs you from behind. What would you do?”
“Well, I usually keep my dagger up my left sleeve. So, if I had my back to him, I’d reach in, grasp the hilt, and stab him in his…”
“Loins?”
“Nay. Where you showed me, so he would bleed out.”
James returned her blade, offering her the hilt. “Good. How would you hold the knife when you make such a deadly attack?”
She replaced it in her sleeve, pulled it out, and awkwardly twisted her arm. “Och, that doesn’t work terribly well.”
“Because you’re holding it like a fire poker when you ought to be wielding it like an iron spike.” He changed the position of the knife in her grasp and tightened his fist over hers. “You’ll have far more power if you wield it like this.” He thrust downward with her hand.
“Barbaric,” she whispered.
“Is that not what we just agreed was warfare? Is that not what it takes to fight for your life? Remember, if you decide to use a weapon, you’ll have but one chance, and if you fail, odds are your life will be forfeit.”
“Understood,” she looked at the blade in her hand, thrust it downward then across and diagonally.
James gave a wee whistle, the fire in his blood thrumming with her unfettered inspection. “You look more dangerous already.”
Chapter Thirteen
After her knife-wielding lesson with Sir James, Ailish decided to pay more attention to the training sessions happening around her. And for the past two days, she’d queued up with the archers. Moreover, to her surprise, no one questioned her joining in.
Caelan moved behind her as she pulled the bowstring taut. “Focus on your target. Block out every thought except one.”
Easy for him to say. His brother hadn’t been captured by a tyrant who thought nothing of breaking into a holy church and taking a lad from his kin. And Caelan most certainly wasn’t being distracted by a powerful knight who managed to consume her every other thought. “Focus,” she repeated.
“You must hit your target or all will be lost.”
Those words struck a chord. There was no possible way she would lose Harris to the English. Drawing in a deep breath