“No.” Alex winced as she drew the needle through again. “It was the MacKinnons and a few of their good friends, the MacLeods.”
Sìleas’s fingers froze. “Are ye sure? What would they be doing here, so far into MacDonald territory?”
“That’s a verra good question,” Alex said. “Your step-da Murdoc was with them. And that ugly ox Angus as well.”
Sìleas swallowed back the panic rising in her throat and forced herself to keep her hand steady as she finished up the stitches. Then she took the salve Beitris handed her and rubbed it gently over the wound.
“There ye go,” she said, wiping her hands. “Ye might have a scar, but that will just make ye more interesting to the lasses.”
They worked quickly to clean and bind his other wounds.
“Lie still,” Beitris told Alex, as she got up from her knees. “Now we’d best get clean water and blankets for the others.”
No sooner had they gathered the blankets than Ian burst through the door carrying Duncan. The huge, red-haired man’s head lolled against Ian’s arm, as if he were a sleeping child. Sìleas spread a blanket on the floor by the hearth where Alex had lain a few moments before. Ian dropped to his knees and gently laid Duncan down between them.
“I need to help Niall with Connor.” Ian met her eyes. “He’s verra bad.”
The blood from Duncan’s wounds was already soaking the flagstones of the hearth.
“God help us,” she whispered, as Beitris took Ian’s place on the other side of the moaning man.
“He’s trying to wake,” Beitris said. “ ’Tis a good sign.”
Sìleas suspected Beitris was saying that to give them hope. Taking the knife her mother-in-law had brought in from the kitchen, she began cutting away Duncan’s blood-soaked shirt. She swallowed back bile when she saw the wound beneath.
“Oh God, no,” she said, covering her mouth.
“Let me do that.” Alex hobbled over and pushed her aside. “I’ve tended wounds like this before.”
Before she could argue with Alex, Ian backed through the door with Connor. He was supporting Connor’s head and shoulders, while Niall followed carrying his legs.
Mary, Mother of God!No wonder the MacKinnons had left him for dead. If it weren’t for the straight black hair that was so like Ian’s, Sìleas would not have known this broken man was Connor.
Ian laid him on the blanket she spread for him. Using his dirk, he cut Connor’s clothes off, tossing the pieces of blood-soaked cloth into the fire as he worked. Connor was covered with so much blood, Sìleas could not tell where his wounds were. But the shallowness of his breathing frightened her more than all the blood.
Like Alex, Ian worked with a brisk efficiency that bespoke experience. She knew they had fought in France—and in the Borders before that—but the dangers they faced had never seemed real to her before.
“Can ye get the whiskey?” Alex called out to her from where he and Beitris worked over Duncan.
“There’s a good lass,” Alex said when she got it down from the shelf. “Now pour it onto a couple of cloths for us.”
She did as he said and then stoked the fire to a roaring blaze to keep the injured men warm.
“His whistle saved him,” Alex said, holding it up. The whistle, which hung about Duncan’s neck from a leather cord, was bent in the middle where it had been struck by a sword.
Duncan’s body bucked as Alex and Beitris cleaned his wounds with whiskey-soaked cloths. Though his pain made her cringe, the fight in Duncan reassured her.
Connor only shivered as Ian cleaned his wounds. Sìleas prayed hard while she handed Ian clean cloths.
“Do ye think he’ll live?” she asked Ian in a choked whisper.
“I will no let him die,” Ian said.
She helped him bind the bandages around Connor’s head and chest, and then his arms. Ach, Connor’s skin had a gray cast to it. He’d lost far too much blood.
Lord Jesus, have mercy. Connor is a good man, and the hope of our clan. Do not take him from us.
Ian tried to make a plan as he worked to stem the flow of Connor’s blood. He had to get the injured men to safety. Connor was most likely the target, but whoever had done this had meant to kill them all.