“Siubhal air!” Cain yelled. His heels pressed in as he leaned forward over his massive white steed, his targe coming up as they flew like one down the hill toward his father. Hooves churning through the spindly flowers and grass, Seraph leaped over partly hidden gullies and boulders as Cain braced his targe to protect his horse’s head and his own. The rest of the noble warhorse was covered in thick leather armor, similar to his own, although without the metal plates lining it.

As the ground leveled out, a hundred arrows sliced downward through the air, hitting men too slow to raise their shields against the onslaught of raining death. Fire caught on some of the sun-dried grasses, but the dew still clung, making the flames sizzle and die. Arrow points thudded against Cain’s targe as he raced toward his father.

His youngest brother, Bàs, had broken off from his army and surged forward from the opposite direction. Bàs yelled, his deep voice rising up as he stood in his stirrups, his black armor and skull helmet giving him the appearance of an angel of death. Men scattered from their paths, both Sutherland and Sinclair, as the brothers roared closer to their patriarch and chief.

Whack. The first arrow hit his da’s upper chest, followed immediately by three more before he fell, impaling his sword arm, stomach, and lower chest.

“Nay!” Cain yelled. Fury shot lightning through his blood, and he leaped from the slowing horse, smacking Seraph’s thigh as he dropped into a crouch to cover his father’s prone body. Arrows continued to rain down, piercing the field around him. “Da!”

A short way off, the meadow was clear of the barrage, the circle of arrow-pocked meadow around only his father. “Bloody hell.” Every foking arrow fired in that last volley had been pointed directly at George Sinclair.

Cain looked up at the rise and saw her there, still standing on her horse. Aye, every arrow had flown at his father, ordered by the thrust of Arabella Sutherland’s raised fist.

Bàs slid off his horse, hitting its flank to get it racing with Cain’s horse to safety. The two brothers formed a barrier over their father. Blood soaked up through the laces of his thin battle armor. A thudding horse came from the hill, and Cain lowered his sword to the grass when he saw it was Gideon jumping down. Only Joshua, leading the cavalry of bay horses to the west, was missing. The battle raged, men yelling and steel clanging, but Cain’s sole focus was on the mighty man wetting the grasses and yellow flowers with the scarlet flow of his waning life.

“Fok,” Gideon swore, his hands trying to dam the welling blood, but it was like holding back an ocean of red.