Dusk, the shadowy time between day and night, had fallen. Rory scanned the fields in the valley and hills that surrounded the farm and saw nothing to worry him.
***
Whoosh. Whoosh.
Rory held his shield up to protect himself from English arrows flying at him. The smell of smoke filled his nose, and he heard the crackle and snap of flames. Good God, the English had set the field on fire.
He was back in the Battle of Flodden, but through the fog of his dream something nagged at him. There had been no fire in the battle… Curan’s frantic neighs pierced the air, and Rory bolted upright, wide awake to find the bedchamber filled with smoke.
“Sybil!” Rory shook her by the shoulders, but she would not wake up.
He pulled her to the floor where the smoke was not as thick. He reached for the basin of water and drying cloth on the side table and splashed water on her face.
“Is that fire?” she asked in a weak voice.
“Aye, we must get out quickly.” Praise God she was awake. He soaked the cloth in the water and pressed it to her face. “Keep this over your mouth.”
Sybil attempted to rise, but she was too groggy from the smoke. He pulled his boots on, slung his sword over his shoulder, and picked her up. When he opened the chamber door, the blast of heat knocked him backward.
As he lay sprawled on his back still holding Sybil, the thatched roof overhead exploded into a fireball, dropping flames to the wooden floor. He got to his feet again.
“We’ll have to jump.” The smoke was growing thicker by the moment, and the heat from the floor burned the soles of his feet.
Sybil was limp in his arms as he carried her to the window. He had no time to lose. Coughing against the smoke filling his lungs, he unhooked the shutters with one hand and rammed his shoulder against them. They did not budge. He rammed them again.
God damn it, the shutters were nailed shut from the outside. Someone was trying to burn them alive.
Fury blazed inside him brighter than the flames. Coughing and hacking and blinded by tears from the smoke, he kicked at the shutters again and again and again.
With acrack, they finally broke. Rory grabbed Sybil’s cloak from the floor and wrapped it around her for what little protection that would offer from the fall. Holding her across his chest, he flung one leg over the windowsill. Flames shot up through the floor as he pivoted on the sill and brought his other leg through.
He hoped to hell whoever was trying to kill them was not waiting below.
O shluagh, it was a long drop. With the fire scorching his back, his instincts screamedjump, jump!He shifted Sybil to one arm so that he could hang from the window to ease their fall.
As he reached for the windowsill with his free hand, the fire burst through the chamber door with a force that sent him flying through the night sky in a spray of sparks.
CHAPTER 22
Sybil awoke falling into a night lit by fire.
“Oof!” She landed with a hard thump, her fall cushioned by Rory’s body beneath her. Rory scrambled to his feet while she remained on the ground, coughing and hacking, trying to clear her burning lungs.
Through watering eyes, she saw him, backlit by the flames, standing between her and the darkness. He was naked except for his boots and brandishing his sword as if he expected demons from hell to emerge from the darkness. When none immediately appeared to challenge him, he dropped to one knee.
“We must movenow,” he said, his eyes darting back and forth between her and the darkness. “Can ye walk?”
“Aye,” she said, though she felt woozy, her eyes were streaming, and she could not stop coughing.
All at once she understood that someone had intentionally set the house on fire and that they could still be in danger. When Rory lifted her to her feet and took her hand, she held on for dear life and ran.
He helped her over a stone fence, and they crouched behind it. The entire roof of the house was ablaze now, and flames were shooting out the upstairs windows. She wiped her eyes and held her cloak over her mouth to stifle the sound of her coughing.
Rory was still for a long time, his gaze sweeping the house and the field surrounding them. “He’s gone.”
“Are ye certain?” she whispered.
"Aye,” Rory said. “If Duncan of the Axe was here, he would have attacked us the moment we hit the ground.”