Highlander Enchanted

Chapter Twenty Three

In the shallow valley, smoke rose from bonfires outside a thatch of forest and campfires inside the forest. The trees had created shelter for his people, and meat roasted on one of the spits near the woods. Blankets were strewn up as walls, horses gathered in a makeshift corral, and the belongings of his clan covered by oiled canvas. The valley was surrounded on three sides by hills.

On the surface, his people appeared to be hiding in the forest. His cousins would never leave them in a valley to be crushed, and he studied the sight before him once more.

His destrier was not among those in the corral. Those of his cousins, and the handful of other warriors in the clan, were also missing.

The seillie magic of dawn was strong despite his physical weakness. He closed his eyes and waited, searching the area with his instincts. A spark of seillie magic lit inside him and connected with the gentle magic of nature. The thrum of sorcery was heavy in the air over the valley, and the forest and earth whispered their secrets to the seillie leader.

The valley was littered with magical traps – and not one seillie was present.

"Give the command," Laird Duncan ordered.

The sound of hoof beats pounding away drew Cade from his inner world. He dwelt over Father Adam's confidence that unleashing the Black Cade side of him would not endanger his own people. He did not feel this confidence, not when he recalled too clearly what he had done in the Crusades. He had slaughtered villages of women and children whose men were away at battle, and he had done so without control or mercy.

But if his cousins and their magic were unable to stop Laird Duncan, Cade did not have to question what he would do. It would not be a choice, for he could never allow anyone to harm his own. Relieved to know his cousins had reached the clans seeking refuge here, he tested his strength and brought the storm closer without unleashing its power quite yet. He had some sense of how far he could push himself without snapping. He only prayed he was strong enough to control the grey area between doing what he had to in order to protect his clan – and not toppling into madness.

Laird Duncan's warriors began to spill down the hill into the valley. Mud made the journey slow and treacherous, with several horses going down before they reached the valley and quite a few more foot soldiers being overrun by men or thrown by mounts.

When the first warrior reached the valley, seillie magic shot through Cade.

The ground opened up beneath the feet of dozens of men, sucking them down to their waists and trapping them in the mud. Trees crashed in the forest and began rolling, stripping their branches as the thick logs hurled towards the invaders. Several dozen more men and horses were knocked off their feet, injured or startled, without being killed.

Cade snorted, fleetingly amused by his clan's creativity. For a non-warrior seillie to kill was to travel to the Dark Court. None of the traps set would slay any of Laird Duncan's men, but this was not the purpose. By blatantly displaying the seillie magic, his cousins hoped to play upon the fear and reverence mere men held for sorcery and omens of misfortune. The less sure Laird Duncan's warriors were, the greater the chances for Cade's clan of not perishing.

Another group of warriors were swallowed by the earth up to their waists, and large boulders propelled themselves out of the woods and began to travel up the hill from whence the invaders had come. They avoided running into anyone but formed a line to help block the movement of horses belonging to Laird Duncan's mounted warriors.

Upon reaching the forest and campfires, Laird Duncan's men were grabbed by brush and saplings. They fought off the shrubbery, some running away from the forest while others plunged farther into its depths to fight anyone they found.