Highlander's Reckoning (The Sinclair Brothers #3) (25 page)

This was it. She knew what she had to do.

She had to reach Robert the Bruce’s army as fast as
she could. She had to tell them that Loch Doon was under attack, that the
Bruce’s army must somehow race to the castle’s aid and beat back Warren’s men.
She had to save Daniel, her love, her life.

With one final wave to Ian and Mairi, she pointed
Bella due north and dug in her heels.

“One, two, three—heave!”

Daniel lifted the wooden rowboat with a grunt. The
others hefted it at the same time so that the boat swung upside down over their
heads. With the boat hoisted above them, they shuffled as quickly as they could
toward the village’s docks.

The villagers, seeing the gathering swarm of
soldiers on the far side of the loch, had dragged all the boats ashore and
hunkered down in their crofts and shops, praying that the attacking army
wouldn’t cross to their shore.

Daniel and the others had left their horses in the
village stables and then simply taken the rowboat they now carried overhead. If
they made it through this battle, he’d repay the owner of the boat. But if they
didn’t get to the castle soon, it wouldn’t matter.

Once they reached the end of one wooden dock, Daniel
counted off again and they hoisted the boat off to their right. It landed
hull-down with a smack against the loch’s waters. Only then did Daniel let his
gaze shoot to the castle.

“Christ,” he breathed. His stomach twisted in horror
at the sight before him.

The castle still stood in the middle of the loch,
but the air between the castle and the far shore was choked so thickly with
arrows that it looked like a swarm of locusts was descending on Loch Doon.

Daniel’s eyes darted to the far shore, and he swore
again. The shoreline teemed with hundreds of soldiers, their metal helms and
chainmail glinting dully in the midday sun. In the distance, he could see that
several trees from the surrounding forest had been cut down. Along the
shoreline, armored men were strapping tree trunks together to form rudimentary
rafts.

“We’ve got to get to the castle!” Daniel bit out,
throwing himself into the boat. He took up one of the oars as the others jumped
in next to him. Burke took up the other oar, and Robert gave a shove against
the dock.

The loch waters were calm, which made rowing smooth,
but would also make the soldiers’ passage easier as well. Daniel leaned into
the oar, digging its blade into the loch with even more force.

“The walls are strong, Danny,” Robert said, clearly
picking up on his agitation. “The castle is still in one piece.”

“Aye, but for how much longer?” Daniel barked back,
uncaring that his elder brother didn’t deserve his frantic rage.

The castle loomed larger and larger before them as
they rowed furiously. Halfway across the open waters between the village and
the castle, Robert traded places with Burke, giving the boat a new surge of
speed. Daniel wouldn’t give up his grip on the oar, though. Fear and
determination mingled in him, spiking his blood with yet more energy.

Garrick drew an arrow back in his bow, ready to fire
if Warren’s soldiers came in range. But since their boat approached from the
west and the soldiers were pushing their rafts off from the eastern bank, the
towering castle, perched on its island, stood between them.

As they drew within a few dozen yards of the island,
Garrick sent up a whistle to the castle’s battlements. Daniel spotted several
heads pop up briefly above the curtain wall’s lip, and then all of a sudden the
crenels were bristling with arrows pointed at their boat.

“Hold your fire!” Garrick bellowed up to the men. He
snatched the end of his tartan, which wound over one shoulder, and waved it
frantically in the air. The arrows were suddenly lowered, and another whistle
sounded from the battlements in response to Garrick’s.

“Thank God you brought some Highlanders with you,”
Garrick said, shooting Robert a half-grin before dropping into a serious
expression once more.

Just as the rowboat scraped against the rocky
island, a multi-voiced shout went up from the other side of the castle. Burke
and Garrick leapt from the boat onto the island, followed by Robert and Daniel.

Robert motioned for Burke and Garrick to go around
the left side of the island, and then nodded for Daniel to follow him to the
right. Burke drew his sword as Garrick pulled his bowstring back, both men
slinking silently around the island’s rocky shore.

With an exchanged look, Robert and Daniel drew their
blades simultaneously. Robert set off to the right, with Daniel creeping
soundlessly behind him.

More shouts went up as they drew nearer to the east
side of the castle. Daniel realized that at least two of their attackers’ rafts
must have made it to the island. He gripped his sword in both hands, taking a
deep breath in preparation.

Suddenly the victorious bellows from Warren’s men
turned to surprised shouts. Then Daniel heard the Sinclair clan’s battle cry go
up from Garrick and Burke around the other side of the island. Simultaneously,
he and Robert charged forward, echoing the cry.

The soldiers were just turning toward Garrick and
Burke’s attack from the left when Daniel and Robert exploded from the right,
falling on the soldiers’ backs. As Daniel raised his sword and brought it down
on the shoulder of an Englishman, one of Garrick’s arrows sank into the soldier
to his right.

The Sinclair war cry mingled with the clang of metal
on metal and the screams of the English soldiers. Time blurred as battle lust
clouded Daniel’s mind. Somehow, Daniel had swung and hacked his way knee-deep
into the loch as he squared off with another one of Warren’s men. With two more
blows, the man fell under his blade, and as his body fell backward into the
loch, the waters began to turn red.

Daniel lifted his eyes from the blood seeping out of
his fallen enemy just in time to see another raft plowing toward him, this one
with at least a dozen English soldiers on it. He brought his fingers to his
lips and sent up a piercing whistle.

“To the castle!” he shouted as he leapt out of the water.
He turned toward the castle’s postern gate on the north side of the island,
Robert falling in behind him. Burke quickly dispatched the last standing
Englishman, and Garrick yanked one of his arrows from a lifeless body before
they both retreated to the gate as well.

Someone on the other side of the gate must have seen
them coming, for right as they arrived in front of it, the heavy wood creaked
open just enough to let them slip through one at a time. Just as the gate
slammed closed and several of the castle’s men lowered a thick beam across it,
Daniel heard another shout go up outside the wall. More of Warren’s men had
managed to land on the island.

Garrick bolted to the stairs leading to the
battlements. Daniel, Robert, and Burke followed him, re-sheathing their swords.

“Hold your fire, men!” Garrick bellowed at the
archers positioned along the curtain wall. “Let those English bastards on the
far shore waste their arrows against the castle’s wall. Instead, take aim at
the men on the rafts, and those who have landed on the island!”

Daniel glanced out over the wall and noticed that
indeed most of the English bowmen’s arrows were falling short of the castle or
splintering against the stone curtain wall. Apparently some arrows managed to
cross the distance between the shore and the castle, though. Daniel let his
gaze travel around the battlement. A few bodies, bristling with arrows,
littered the battlement and the yard below.

Under Garrick’s command, the castle’s bowmen
readjusted their aim to the men swarming around the castle’s base and those
clinging to their makeshift rafts.

“That’s it, men!” Garrick shouted as arrows began
finding their marks in the Englishmen within closer range. Garrick himself
nocked an arrow and let it fly at one of the heavily-laden rafts about halfway
to the castle. His first arrow pierced a soldier’s chainmail in the shoulder,
knocking him off balance. The man flailed for a moment, then tipped backward
into the loch, the weight of his armor drawing him down instantly.

“We need to gather the rest of the men and prepare
them if the castle’s walls or gates are breached,” Daniel said to Robert,
turning his attention away from Garrick.

“I’ll get the Highlanders in order if you can
organize the castle’s men,” Robert replied. Then suddenly his face tightened.
“The women.”

Burke stepped next to them on the battlement, his
face taking on the same fraught expression as Robert’s. Daniel realized that
both men, and likely Garrick too, longed to see their wives, but at the same
time the battle lust ran too hot in their blood. If Rona were in the castle’s
tower, Daniel knew that if he went to her, he would never return to the battle,
so strong would be his desire to stay with her.

“I’ll see to them,” Daniel said. “Burke, gather the
castle’s men in the yard. They’ve trained for this. They only need to be led.”

Waiting only for a nod from Burke, Daniel turned and
launched himself down the stairs and into the yard. He sprinted to the tower
keep and threw open the doors leading to the great hall. In a flash, he reached
the stairs and took them three at a time. He didn’t pause to check the lower
chambers. The safest place for the women was in the highest room in the tower.

He slammed his shoulder into the wooden door at the
top of the stairs, but it didn’t budge.

“Jossalyn! Alwin, Meredith! It’s Daniel!” he shouted
through the thick wood.

He heard two sets of grunts and a scraping noise as
they moved the crossbeam off the door’s interior. Then the door swung open.
Alwin paced back and forth across the chamber, holding a crying Jane to her
chest. Meredith had her hands squeezed together, her fingers interlocked and
turning white from the strain.

“Did you all make it back safely?” Jossalyn blurted
out as Daniel stepped into the chamber.

“Aye, Garrick, Robert, and Burke are with the men
below,” he said quickly. All three visibly relaxed at that, but then Alwin
paused in her pacing, gently bouncing Jane to soothe her.

“Where is Rona?” she said, the waver in her voice
belying her smooth features.

“She is safe. We left her with trusted friends on
the far side of the loch.”

“And…and my brother?” Jossalyn’s mouth tightened,
but she held Daniel’s gaze.

Daniel’s hands clenched into fists. “Dead.”

Jossalyn exhaled and gave a little nod. Her eyes
drifted to the floor. “How?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” Daniel asked,
watching her closely.

“Yes,” Jossalyn replied. Her voice was quiet but
level. “He is—was the last of my blood family.”

“Forgive me for saying this, then,” Daniel said,
“but I wish it could have been me who ended his life. In fact, I think Robert,
Burke, and Garrick all wish the same.”

Jossalyn’s eyebrows came together in confusion.
“None of you killed him? I thought you said—”

“He drew a blade across his own throat,” Daniel said
quietly.

An uneasy silence, broken only by little Jane’s
whimpers, fell over the room.

“I think we all felt a bit cheated,” Daniel said
after a moment. “Each of us believed we were justified in bringing Warren to
his reckoning. Even in death, he made one last power play against us. But…”

Suddenly the memory of Rona standing over a cowering
Warren came back to him.

None of them will kill you, because I
already have!

“But what?” Jossalyn said.

“Rona said she bit Warren’s cheek. His face was
mangled by a festering wound…”

“Was it oozing?” Jossalyn asked, her attention
suddenly sharpened.

“Aye, and there were red tendrils shooting from the
wound down his neck and across the rest of his face. His eye was also red and
swollen.”

“Blood poisoning,” Jossalyn said almost to herself.
“What else? Was he feverish?”

Daniel thought back to the scene in Warren’s chamber
again. “Aye. He shook and sweated and seemed to grow weaker by the second.”

Jossalyn shook her head in amazement.

“Then perhaps Rona is responsible for his death
after all. He likely would have died from the fever and the blood poisoning
quickly, if my guess is right.”

“That’s some consolation, I suppose,” Daniel said.

“I don’t think you understand,” Jossalyn went on.
“My brother was terrified of disease and illness. He hated me for coming in
contact with the sick. It’s also one of the reasons he hated Scotland and its
people so much—he saw the Scottish as a disease of sorts that would infect the
English with chaos and savagery. He thought it was his task to purify
Scotland—to cleanse it for England’s use.” She shook her head sadly. “So you
see, his end was fitting and deserved. He got his reckoning.”

Something shifted in the back of Daniel’s mind at
Jossalyn’s words. Though they had watched the lifeblood drain from Warren, his death
had felt incomplete until now. But Jossalyn’s insights closed the door that had
been left ajar regarding Warren. The man had gotten his due and now faced his
judgment.

Alwin began pacing with Jane, drawing his mind back
to the situation at hand.

“There must be something useful for us to do besides
lock ourselves away in the tower,” she said, her eyes searching the air. “Let
us help.”

“Nay,” Daniel said, shaking his head firmly. “If any
of you were hurt moving about the castle while we’re under attack—”