Trudging through the bodies of the men their arrows had felled, Brogan reached the bastard who held Fiona in his grasp. He had a knife at her throat now, and while he mostly looked full of rage, there was also fear in his eyes.
“Did ye think we’d let ye get away so easy?” Brogan asked. “We dinna take kindly to ye butchers hurting our women.”
“You will be found and you will be gutted,” Boyd spat out.
“Maybe, but ye’re already found and about to be gutted, which is a sure thing.” Brogan grinned menacingly, his fingers flexing on the hilt of his sword. Oh, how badly he wanted to run this man through.
“Come any closer and I’ll slice her head right off.” Boyd tightened his grip, the edge of the blade making a dent in Fiona’s precious neck. “And then your show of aggression will be for naught.”
Brogan shrugged. “Ye’ll still be dead, and no’ able to harm another.”
The man paused as if not expecting Brogan to be so nonchalant about Fiona’s life.
Brogan stabbed his sword into the ground, not allowing his hand to leave the hilt. “Tell ye what, step away from the lass and I’ll give ye a running head start.”
Boyd’s eyebrows lifted with interest, his beady gaze shifting to take in all of the Highlanders standing before him.
“I’ll be taking her with me.”
“No’ part of the deal.” Brogan’s voice was lethal. “Run or die.”
Run and die too.
Out of his periphery, he watched Fiona fiddle with her belt. The man didn’t seem to notice as she flicked a piece of the leather open and pulled out a small blade. Perhaps Brogan wouldn’t have to wait for the man to make his choice after all. If she wanted to run him through, Brogan would gladly stand back and allow it to happen.
He scanned her face, their gazes locking. “Ye’re a brave lass,” he said with a nod.
Tears shone in her eyes, but so did determination.
“She’s hardly brave,” Boyd started to say, but she moved at the same time, blade gripped in her left hand, and stabbed backwards behind her into his ribs. There was a moment of astonishment and pain on the man’s face. The bastard loosened his grip, but not long enough for her to get away, and his surprise was replaced with anger.
He was going to cut her throat.
Brogan didn’t hesitate, letting his own dagger fly. It landed deep in Boyd’s right eye, stopping the bastard right in his tracks.
Brogan dove forward to grab Fiona as all life left the man’s body, his arms falling to his sides, and for a moment he teetered on his feet, before tumbling backward into the water.
Brogan caught Fiona in his arms, and she wrapped herself around him, trembling. From behind her back, he watched Milla approach the man’s body, lift her leg, and piss all over him.
Keith, Dugall, James, and Charles splashed through the water from the other side to get to them, all visibly shaken by what had just taken place.
“Are ye all right?” Sorley asked.
Fiona, still trembling, managed to turn around to face them. Her skin was pale, eyes wide, but she nodded.
“He was…” She pressed her lips together. “He is…” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed and stared down at the body. “I knew him before.”
Her gaze met Brogan’s, steady, resolute.
“How?” he asked softly.
She righted herself and walked over to Boyd, bent and pulled her knife from his ribs. “He is the reason I learned to use a knife.”
A chill ran down Brogan’s spine. She had a history with this man, one that was dark and full of fear. He regretted that he’d not forced Boyd to die a more gruesome, painful death.
“And we are all glad he’s dead,” Brogan said.
She nodded. “There will be a lot of people rejoicing in his passing. But there will be a lot of people hunting for his killers too. Captain Boyd… He’s…he was in charge of the garrison at Inverness.”
“Shite,” Brogan said, followed by similar curses from his men.
“Aye, my Kenna and I had a run-in with him some years back too,” Sorley said. “He’s the devil in disguise.”
“We’ll bury them,” Fin said. “No one will find them here.”
“We dinna have any shovels, and doing so will take forever,” Keith said. “Let’s burn them.”
“The smoke will bring attention to everyone within miles.”
“Dump them in the burn then. Let them float.”
Brogan walked forward and pulled his knife from Boyd’s skull. “We’ll bury this bastard and send the rest floating.”
He looked to Fiona for confirmation. “Burying the past,” she murmured. “Burying the devil.”
“We could burn just him if ye want,” Brogan offered.
She gave him a small smile and shook her head. “Thank ye for the offer, but we just dispatched him to an eternity of fire already.”
He bowed to her, his hand over his heart. “I dinna know what happened in the past, but I’d kill him all over again if ye needed me to.”
“There would be no more fitting fate for him than to die a thousand times over and over,” she whispered.
Fiona crouched low, finally unable to stand, he assumed, and Milla came up beside her, nudging her until she could lie on her lap. The poor beast had a swollen eye, from however Boyd must have hurt her.
Fucking bastard, harming women and animals. He deserved what he’d gotten. There was no telling how many Scots the man had killed on the battlefield or tortured in the garrison.
Brogan found a thick branch and stabbed it into the earth, using it to dislodge dirt and dig a grave for the man who’d tormented so many.
* * *
Fiona slid her trembling fingers into Milla’s fur. The warmth of the hound and her soothing licks on Fiona’s chin were a comfort, but still she trembled. How close she had just come to being one of Boyd’s victims.
With every toss of dirt from Brogan’s efforts, she came closer to burying that fear. The man had hurt so many. Gus. Jenny. Had come close to hurting Annie. Sounded like he might have hurt Sorley’s woman too. He’d harassed her on more than one occasion when she’d delivered messages at the garrison. She was lucky he’d not recognized her in the woods. So many women he’d shattered, so many men he’d brutally murdered.
And he was no more. Fiona stared at his body. Lifeless, limp, and all the danger he represented had simply disappeared into the ether with a few fatal blows.