My attacker's hand is a rope around my throat, tightening, dragging me by my neck backward into a thicket of trees. My shoes are quickly lost, and my heels are the only part of my body touching ground, as they bounce and snag over branches, leaves and twigs.
"Oi," a voice hisses from behind us, "shut her up."
I hadn't even realized I'd been screaming.
I am hit harshly across the mouth with a closed fist and catch sight of the culprit - my first assailant: dark hair, black eyes, unshaven and sweaty - just before a dank cloth bag is jerked over my head and tightened around my throat.
Blackness descends. I am blind, choking on the rot of the cloth and the blood trickling into my mouth from my split lip.
And, in a bewildering instant, I am released: brutally shoved forward and left to search my way out of the circle of men. I scratch at the hood over my head, but my arms are swatted away from it, and a man clucks his tongue at me in reprimand.
"Your lovely costume remains on, lass."
I hear the snickering of them all around me as I reach around, blindly scrambling my way away from where I think they stand.
"Lookie, lads," one says, leering. "She's as ripe as a plum. Think Payne'll mind if we have a go at 'er?"
"You take her from behind, I'll make use of that screaming mouth."
Panic chokes me. I try to run but immediately trip over an outstretched foot, falling harshly on my side and feeling a branch stab into my thigh.
I cry out in pain, clutching my leg.
"Aw now, get her up," another voice says. "We're not to harm 'er. Just catch 'er, innit?"
Brutal, impatient hands tug at my arm, nearly wrenching it free of my shoulder as I am jerked back onto my feet. "Git up, lass."
I hold my injured leg, limping forward into the darkness.
"Get her, Tom," someone hisses. "Carry her over your sh-"
"Don't use me bloody name!"
"Sod off, you ruddy -!"
I hear the heavy thud of a fist meeting flesh, a low groan, and then the roaring laughter of a group of men.
Chaos surrounds me; terror becomes a beating drum in my ears.
"Please," I beg. "Please let me go. I'm an ale wench. I'm no use to you."
"Oi, but you are," a voice says, deep and suddenly so close to my ear I can feel his lips form the words against the hood. "Rumor has it you're someone quite special."
"I am not. I assure you."
"You're wed to the leader of the army, innit?" he says, and I am torn apart by relief and by horror: I've been captured not because of my connection to Harry, but my marriage to Liam.
Oh, the irony of it makes my head swim.
"Think the leader of Prince Harry's little army would mind if I took a taste of ye?"
"I wouldn't recommend it," a deep voice comes from somewhere behind me, in the distance.
James.
At the sound of his voice, tears fill my eyes and I cry out to him. "James! I am here!"
There is a tussle, fists meeting jaws, chests. The gusting, groaning exhales of blows landing. Someone grabs my arms, wrenching them behind my back and holding me close.
My back is arched, stomach exposed; terror makes me faint with nausea.
"Don't ye bloody move," a new, unknown voice hisses in my ear.
Hooves gallop in the distance and all around me shouting breaks out, wild yelling, feet stomping as the man holding me lets me go and men disburse from around me. I hear several horses come to a stop only feet from where I've fallen and make to scramble on my hands and knees into the unknown blackness until I feel another hand come around my chest, feel a cold blade press up against my throat.
A wet mouth presses to the side of my face. "Think they'll care we've captured ourselves a servant whore?"
And then: the roar of a voice I know better than my own.
"Release her at once!"
A terrified scream sounds to my right followed by the sickening squelch of a sword meeting flesh.
"Halt, or I'll cut her!" the man holding me yells, right up against my ear, deafening me.
Ringing silence follows, as if I am hearing the replies from underwater. I can feel my captor's heavy breathing, but can see nothing. The tip of the knife presses into my throat as I imagine he and Harry staring each other down, and then the blade stabs forward in a spasm, cutting me superficially as the body holding mine jerks from a blow I did not see coming.
Chaos breaks out anew and the arms around me slowly loosen, the weight behind me falling away. Reaching up, I tear the hood from my head and turn, to see a knife buried to the hilt in the man's head. I whip around to see who else is near to harm me, but James is making his way closer, and bends, pulling his knife from the man's ear.
"You . . . you . . ." I stutter, hysterically pointing at the dead attacker behind us.
"Catie, come!"
He pulls me up and we begin to sprint away from the melee, ducking behind some trees out of sight of the battle. When we crouch, watching with wide eyes, I see that Harry stands beside Liam and Niall, swinging their swords and fighting a much larger circle of men clutching short daggers.
As I watch, my countrymen land blows and knock down man after man until none but the three of them remain, standing with their backs to the others, forming a protected circle.
Harry steps one foot on the chest of a fallen enemy: the man who grabbed me from the trail, the man who split my lip.
"That's him," I gasp to James. "He's the one who grabbed me."
James calls out to him across the distance. "Aye, Harry. That one."
I am shaking. I feel my morning meal rising in my throat.
Liam and Harry glance to where we stand, partially obscured by trees. Harry seems to nearly collapse in relief. With fire in his eyes, Liam comes up beside Harry and together they survey the men crawling away, or clutching shallow wounds.
Harry and his soldiers did not intend to kill all of these men; they intend to warn them.
"You dare to come to my land, and threaten my people?" Harry booms.
The remaining men scurry back on hands and feet.
Bending, Harry reaches for a handful of my assailant's hair and tilts his head up. "Carry this trophy back to your leader. Tell him I will slaughter without remorse anyone who dares touch her - or any of my people - again."
With a tiny nod to Harry, Liam bends, and beheads the man who attacked me.