Maclean’s thrust to miss its mark. Furious, the Maclean had turned on Alysandir and sliced his hand in retribution. Their father had evened the score by running his sword through the Maclean.
Alysandir did not anticipate such a large number of warriors as there had been that day. Old Angus was too proud to take a large party of Macleans to deal with three Mackinnons—and one of them a novice. Alysandir and his brothers rode on, following no track and leaving no signs that they had passed. Before long, they left the cloak of trees and rode into the clearing of a glen.
Ahead of them, the peaks of Ben More rose up. The mountain’s shoulders were bare now, all traces of snow having melted away. Alysandir wondered if his brothers remembered how their father had taken them to climb Ben More when they were young. He caught a flash of movement in the screen of trees just ahead.
“Have care, lads,” he said, speaking softly. He said a quick prayer as six Macleans poured over the hilltop and thundered toward them. The Mackinnons drew swords, with the ringing sound of metal against metal, as they spurred their horses forward crying out the Mackinnon battle cry, “Cuimhnich bas Alpein!” “Remember the death of Alpin.”
The Macleans, their crests clearly visible and their swords already drawn, charged into the center of the opposing threesome. Like the Mackinnons, they were in light armor—surcoat and leggings and a chain-mail byrnie over their tunics to cover the head and shoulders.
“Hold fast,” Alysandir said.
The words were barely spoken, when one of the Macleans charged and rode at full gallop to crash into Colin’s horse. Colin fell to the ground, somewhat stunned by the blow. Then, with a spring like a grimalkin faëry cat shooting out of the woods, Colin leapt up. He didn’t have time to draw back his arm for thrust or parry, so Alysandir raised his sword, slashing his blade to meet Colin’s attacker. His blow missed the chain-mail byrnie that covered the Maclean’s head and drove deeply between it and the man’s chin, where it pierced him just below the collarbone, sending him to the ground.
That left five Macleans still mounted.
Another rider charged Colin, who seemed to be holding his own even without a horse. Alysandir saw him deftly swing his sword to the left to push aside a blade that struck his helmet. The blow glanced against his steel mesh shirt before it slid harmlessly down his arm, where it made a slicing cut at his wrist. Colin, like Alysandir, would have, for the rest of his life, a reminder of his first encounter with a Maclean sword.
Drust was charged by one of the more skilled Macleans. A moment before the rider struck, Drust’s horse made a quick turn and leap to the side, which caused the Maclean to inaccurately thrust his sword, and he hit nothing but air. Drust, meanwhile, rode toward the Maclean, fast as a young colt turned out to grass, and managed a deep, slashing cut that laid open the man’s leg, causing considerable damage to the bone.
The wounded rider swayed in the saddle and rode for a few feet, barely managing to hold on while leaning heavily to the left, before he fell to the ground and landed on his back. With a quick yank on the reins, Alysandir pulled his horse into a tight turn and charged after the fallen Maclean, driving the point of his sword through the mail-covered chest. He yanked the blade free and turned back to join his brothers, never seeing the blood that spurted red. Four Macleans now. The odds were improving.
Alysandir deflected the blow from a Maclean and glanced toward his brothers to see how they fared. Stunned, he could not believe what he was seeing, for his brothers and the Macleans had ceased fighting. Not a sound could be heard on what had been, a moment before, a place of battle. The Macleans remained on one side of the glen and his brothers on the other, separated by some ten feet or so. All of them were stuck dumb, staring bewildered at
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