Howbeit the brave Sir Piers was slain, and the man who slew him
was the outlaw Roderic MacAlpin.
Duncan Graham, seeing who had done this thing, at once closed with
Roderic, and the two fought with terrible vigour.
Now Duncan, ever since he had received that wound in his chest over at
Coll, had lost the power to raise his right arm above his head, and it
went ill with him. When Kenric, rushing to Sir Piers de Currie's right
side, first saw his enemy, Roderic was in the act of smiting a fearful
blow upon Duncan's bare and outstretched neck. Duncan fell, not even
uttering a groan, so speedily fatal was the blow he had received.
But above the clang of the battle and the thunderous surging of the
waves, there rose at this moment into the air a woman's cry of anguish.
It was the cry of Aasta the Fair.
Wearing the same coat of mail and helmet that she had worn at the siege
of Rothesay, and wielding a light broadsword, she had been fighting with
as fearless bravery as any man there present. She had cloven her way
through the battling men to the place where rose the towering head of
her lover Duncan, and arrived at his side at the very moment when the
sword of Roderic smote him down. Splashed with her lover's blood she
gripped her sword, nor paused to see if Duncan were indeed dead. She
leapt with a wolf-like howl upon Roderic MacAlpin, and so pressed him
with her blows that he stepped back and back.
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