The Lady's Protector (Highland Bodyguards #1) by Emma Prince Page B

below.
    “Eachann,” Ansel breathed. He strode to the shutters and pulled one back. Isolda followed, peering around his broad shoulder at the moonlit yard.
    “Your horse?” she asked softly.
    “Aye.”
    “There.” She pointed to the far southeast corner of the keep, where the wall stood highest. A swish of the horse’s tail flashed out of the shadows, followed by another soft whinny.
    “Something is wrong.”
    Ansel’s hard, flat voice sent unease rippling through her.
    “What is—”
    Before the question was out, the quiet night was shattered by the battle cries of a dozen men.

Chapter Ten
     
     
     
     
     
    The shadows were suddenly alive.
    Below Lady Isolda’s window, the yard filled with swarming warriors, their drawn blades flashing in the moonlight.
    Christ . Dread flashed for one blinding moment in Ansel’s brain. They were under attack, but this was no game or test.
    “Nay!”
    Isolda stumbled back from the window, barely catching herself before she tumbled to the ground by gripping one of the thick posters on her bed.
    Instinct suddenly fused with the long years of training, sending a strange clarity through Ansel’s mind even as his body surged with energy.
    “Stay here,” he said, striding toward the door.
    “What about Bertram?” Isolda’s voice hitched close to hysteria.
    “Dinnae fear. And bar this door behind me.”
    Even before he’d crossed through her chamber’s doorway, his hand wrapped around his sword. The sound of metal hissing against leather as he unsheathed the blade was a familiar comfort.
    As he bolted down the stairs, he heard the heavy thump of the beam being placed across Lady Isolda’s door. She would be safe. He would make sure of it.
    But as he reached the bottom of the spiraling stairs, he heard a bellow that sent a stab of foreboding into his belly.
    Bertram .
    Ansel dashed to the door, which he’d closed behind him when he’d entered earlier. He ripped open the door just in time to see Bertram slumping to the ground before it. A darkly clad man yanked his blade free of the old soldier, then turned toward Ansel in the open doorway.
    Though his ears were filled with the roar of battle and the pounding of his own blood, Ansel’s mind went quiet. Now was not the time for thinking. There was only the man directly in front of him.
    He rooted himself where he stood, raising his blade in invitation to his opponent. The darkly clothed man charged with a wordless battle cry, driving his blade forward to impale Ansel.
    But Ansel used the doorframe to his advantage. He twisted out of the way at the last moment, then pinned his attacker’s blade between his own and the wooden doorframe. With a swift thrust along the length of the other man’s sword, Ansel’s blade found its home in the man’s chest.
    He barely had time to boot his dying opponent away before an identical attacker set upon him. His body turned liquid, each move so familiar that he might have been floating in a dream. But with every parry, with every lethal blow, with every strike that drove one opponent back, another would surge forward.
    How many were there? Ansel was a fraction of a second too slow blocking the arcing blade of one of his attackers. His sword took the brunt of the force, but the blade sliced across his shoulder. The sting barely registered, but he knew distantly that when the battle lust cleared, the wound would need stitches.
    Sweat and blood—his or his enemies’, he couldn’t say—mingled, stinging his eyes. His muscles burned dully, yet he sensed an ebb in the wave of attackers. He at last stepped from the protection of the doorway to meet the last man standing in the yard.
    Moonlight glinted off the man’s pale hair. He clutched his sword with two hands, but instead of his hands being positioned next to each other on the hilt, one was balled on top of the other. Something whispered in the back of Ansel’s mind. This man was inexperienced with a weapon.
    Ansel waited for the