Highlander's Reckoning (The Sinclair Brothers #3) (27 page)

Partway through her story, the guard entered
silently and deposited a cup of spiced wine and a trencher of food in front of
her, along with a bowl of hot water in which to wash her hands. The Bruce waved
for her to help herself as she continued with her account. By the time she
neared the end of her rushed story, the wine warmed her belly and the food had
revived her somewhat.

The King stood and paced as she spoke, clearly
agitated. Even before she’d finished speaking, he began darting around the
tent, first strapping a sword to his hip, then tossing the papers that were
strewn across his wooden desk into a drawer.

“David!” he shouted when her tale was concluded. The
guard immediately appeared at the tent’s flap. “How soon can we move?”

“Only your tent remains, sire,” the guard replied.

The Bruce nodded curtly and strode to Rona. “Do you
have the strength to ride?” he asked as he helped her up from the chair and
moved toward the tent flap. “If not, we can leave you here with the more
cumbersome supplies and the other women who help run the camp.”

“I’m going with you, even if you have to tie me to
the saddle,” Rona said, feeling a spark of her old self kindle within her.

The Bruce paused outside his tent and quirked an
eyebrow at her.

“I imagine you fit right in with the Sinclairs. I’ve
matched you well.”

Before she had time to respond, Finn and Ansel
appeared on horseback, along with another young warrior.

“The men are ready to move with all haste,” the
fair-haired young man said.

“Thank you, Colin,” the Bruce replied.

Just then an enormous, gnarled old warrior
approached, leading three horses behind him. His unruly hair and beard matched
Rona’s fiery locks. The giant handed one set of reins to the Bruce, who swung
easily into the saddle. Then the old warrior guided a horse in front of her and
she realized it was Bella, looking surprisingly refreshed even though she’d
only been resting in the camp for about an hour.

“I gave her a rubdown and a few extra lumps of
sugar,” the red-headed warrior said to her with a wink, seeming to read her
mind. “I’m Angus.”

Without waiting for a reply from her, Angus wrapped
his large, knotted hands around her waist and hoisted her into Bella’s saddle.
Then he mounted his own horse, and Rona took the opportunity to look around.

The fog from earlier in the day had burned off,
revealing their surroundings. What had been a teeming camp a mere hour ago was
now just another patch of forest—a patch of forest filled with hundreds of
Scottish warriors bristling with weapons and looking expectantly at the group
on horseback surrounding her.

At the rear of the sea of soldiers, she could make
out a gathering of unarmed people and a few tents that remained erect. Those
people and supplies must be staying to allow them to move more quickly. Even
without them, how long would it take an army of several hundred men to march to
Loch Doon?

The King turned to her, pulling her out of her churning
thoughts.

“How do you suggest we approach the castle?”

Suddenly, she felt several intent sets of eyes on
her. She nearly shrank back, terrified at the thought of commanding the King
and his army. But she knew if there was ever a time for her willfulness to
emerge, this was it.

“The English came from the east. They are likely on
the loch’s eastern shore. As we head south, we should cut east enough to move
in on them from behind, pinning them between your army and the loch,” she said,
doing her best to keep her voice steady.

The Bruce nodded to her, his eyes alight with
urgency and fervor. He turned his attention to the men gathered before him.

“We are headed into battle, men!” he shouted.

A fierce rumble went up from the warriors.

The Bruce sent up a whistle, which was picked up by
the other men on horseback surrounding her. Then he gestured with his arm
toward the southeast and spurred his horse forward. The army marched in triple
time behind them, their feet setting the ground rumbling.

Rona dug her heels into Bella’s flanks, praying they
would make it in time.

Meredith darted from the door to the great hall
toward Daniel, her arms full of tallow candles.

“This is the last of them,” she breathed as she
passed the armload of candles to Daniel.

She turned and scrambled back toward the safety of
the great hall, looking overhead as she did. Arrows continued to drop
occasionally over the curtain wall and into the yard, though blessedly the
locust-like swarm of arrows raining down on them had ceased.

Once he saw that Meredith was securely inside the
great hall, he spun around and strode to the enormous iron caldron in the
middle of the yard. One of the men used a long wooden pole to stir the contents
of the caldron from several feet away to avoid the heat of the roaring fire
underneath it.

Daniel dumped the castle’s candles into the caldron,
watching the tallow melt and blend into the rest of the animal fat almost
instantly.

“Is it ready?” Robert said as he strode toward
Daniel from the wall.

“Aye, but Robert…this is all of it.”

Daniel locked eyes with his older brother for a
moment. They’d dumped the storeroom’s entire barrel of tallow into the caldron,
and Meredith and Alwin had been at work collecting every last candle within the
castle. They’d even slaughtered the few animals kept at the castle and rendered
their fat as best as they could. Normally they would have kept the animals
alive as long as possible in case they were trapped in the castle for several
weeks and needed fresh food. But they wouldn’t withstand the attack from
Warren’s men for another week or even just a few days. This was their last
hope.

Robert gave Daniel a terse nod, his face grim. He
pivoted and brought his fingers to his lips, whistling loudly. A moment later,
Garrick appeared at the bottom of the stairs leading to the battlements.

“Is it time?” Garrick said, trotting to the smoking
caldron of animal fat.

“Aye,” Daniel replied. “Where are the English most
densely packed?”

“On the island’s eastern shore, though they continue
to move toward the main gate and the postern gate.”

As if to prove Garrick’s words, another loud thump
came from outside the main gate. Daniel tried to block out the sound, which had
started in the middle of the night and had hammered on until now.

He glanced up at the blue-pink dawn sky. This was
the second breaking of dawn since the castle had been under attack. He wasn’t
sure they would see a third.

They’d managed to pass a relatively quiet first
night after Daniel and the others had made it to the castle. The Englishmen on
the far shore had apparently deemed it unwise to try to cross the loch’s dark
waters at night. But as soon as the sky lightened on the first full day of the
attack, the English once again took to their makeshift rafts, some of which
managed to land on the castle’s island.

The castle’s men had had their hands full trying to
pick off the armored soldiers one at a time, and by that evening, there were
enough Englishmen on the island to unlash their rafts and use one of the large
tree trunks as a battering ram against the main gate.

The dull crash of the trunk against the main gate’s
thick wooden doors jarred through Daniel’s thoughts yet again.

“Even if they splinter the main gate, the iron
portcullis will hold,” he said more to himself than his brothers. “We should
concentrate on the men at the postern gate.”

Robert nodded, and Garrick took off toward the
battlements above the postern gate to prepare the castle’s men.

Burke suddenly appeared at Robert and Daniel’s side
carrying a long and thick wooden beam over one shoulder.

“It’s probably time to tell the women to bar the
hall’s doors,” Daniel said to Burke. Despite his initial assumption that
Jossalyn, Alwin, and Meredith would stay safely ensconced behind the tower
keep’s stone walls, they had been an immeasurable help in the last day and a
half. Jossalyn tended to arrow wounds as the attacking bowmen continued to fire
over the castle’s walls. Alwin and Meredith had kept the castle’s staff out of
harm’s way and made sure the men ate heartily to keep up their strength.

“I already did,” Burke replied. “They have a beam
like this over the door, and all the windows, even the loopholes and arrow
slits, have been sealed.”

Burke rolled the wooden beam off his shoulder and
guided it through the hooped handle holding the caldron on a spit over the
fire. Daniel and Robert took up the other end. With another man on Burke’s end,
they hoisted the caldron off the fire and set the beam on their shoulders.
Slowly, so as not to spill the near-boiling animal fat brimming in the caldron,
they paced across the yard and toward the curtain wall.

As they made their way up the stairs and onto the
battlement, the castle’s men moved out of their way. Daniel overheard Garrick
directing the archers’ attention to the men ramming the main gate in an effort
to make the most of this last effort.

They propped the caldron on one of the merlons
directly above the postern gate and inched it into position. As the others
removed the wooden beam from the caldron’s handle, Daniel chanced a glance over
the wall. Dozens of mail-clad English soldiers swarmed below looking for a way
to break down the postern gate.

This was it—their last defensive maneuver before
their attackers would likely break through the castle’s gates and storm the
inner yard. Daniel stepped next to Robert and Burke, taking hold of the wooden
beam.

“Now!” Daniel bellowed. They rammed the beam into
the caldron, sending the hot animal fat, along with the heavy caldron itself,
streaming over the curtain wall.

A fraction of a second later, Daniel heard the
frantic shrieks of the men below. He risked another glance over the wall. The
near-boiling tallow had poured and splattered all over the English soldiers.
Their skin smoked underneath their chainmail as they were roasted alive. Some
tried to scramble into the loch’s waters, but the animal fat clung to them, not
washing away. The screams of agony began to fade, and Daniel turned away from
the carnage.

He suddenly realized that he hadn’t heard the thud
of the ram against the main gate in several minutes. He ran along the
battlements toward the front of the castle, fearing the worst. When he skidded
to a halt above the gate, however, he almost fell to his knees with joy.

Garrick’s archers were raining down a merciless
stream of arrows on the soldiers below, concentrating their efforts in one
mighty assault. The soldiers had dropped their battering ram and had taken
cover by pressing themselves as closely as possible against the curtain wall.

“That’s it, men!” Daniel shouted to them.

A cheer went up around the battlements as the
castle’s men began to sense that they’d won a small victory. Daniel, too, let
his heart surge with hope.

But then he glanced up from the cowering soldiers
below the wall and all hope drained from him. Instead of the trickle of rafts
that had dared to brave open waters, the loch between the eastern shore and the
castle was now choked with rafts. They had been so focused on fighting off the
men who’d reached the island that the English had doubled their efforts when
they realized the rafts were going unassaulted.

Daniel cursed, and the cheer of triumph died along
the battlements as others noticed the swarm of rafts headed right for them.

“Aim for the rafts, men!” Garrick shouted to
redirect the archers’ efforts.

“The rest of you, to the yard!” Daniel barked. The
remainder of the castle’s men not firing arrows quickly filtered into the
courtyard. They gathered in a tight knot in the center of the yard, somber and
grim.

Daniel stepped into their midst, and they naturally
parted for him, giving him a little space in the middle of their group.

“The English will shortly breach our gates,” Daniel
said quietly to them. “But that doesn’t mean the fight is over.”

A few of the men nodded, though most looked on
gravely.

“This is our home,” Daniel went on, “but it is also
our King’s home. We will do everything in our power to defend it, to protect
our loved ones, and to hold this castle for Scotland.”

Several “Ayes” rippled through those gathered around
him. Daniel’s eyes scanned the men, and his gaze landed on Robert, who nodded
to him, his jaw tight.

“We will fight with our dying breath to stand
against our English attackers. We will fight fiercely and die honorably for our
King and cause!”

The men rumbled back their approval at Daniel’s
words. Daniel unsheathed his sword and held it over his head.

“You men, stand at the postern gate,” he said to
part of the group. “The rest of you take the main gate. When they break
through, give them hell!”

The yard rattled with the men’s battle cries and
fierce shouts as the group split and took up their positions, waiting for the
dreaded breach of their defenses.

Daniel gripped his sword in both hands as the
seconds crept by. The dull, slow hammering against the main gate resumed.
Enough men must have already landed on the island to overwhelm Garrick’s
archers and take up the battering ram once more. He could hear Garrick urging
on the bowmen, but then a large crack rent the air. The main gate was finally
giving in to the battering ram. Daniel braced his feet and sent up a prayer.

“Daniel! Robert! Burke!”

Garrick’s voice was closer on the battlements
overhead, tight with urgency. Daniel sprinted across the yard, followed by
Robert and Burke, and the three of them bounded up the stairs to the
battlements.

“What is it?” Daniel said, fearing the worst.
Garrick was staring at the far shoreline, his face disbelieving.

Daniel followed his brother’s line of sight, but he
heard the sound before his eyes could make sense of what he was seeing.

“What in the bloody hell…?”

A deep rumbling drifted across the loch from the
shore. The rumble grew louder and turned into a cry. A battle cry.

Before Daniel’s eyes, the forest behind the
Englishmen on the shoreline exploded as an army poured forth and set upon their
attackers.

The Bruce’s army.

Even from this distance, Daniel could make out the
splashes of red, green, blue, and brown plaid that marked the motley rebel
army. The English soldiers fell into disarray, some turning to face their new attackers
while others attempted to flee either along the north or the south shorelines.
But the Bruce’s army had them surrounded, pinned against the loch.

“Christ, they made it!” Burke breathed.

Daniel’s eyes flitted first to the dozens of rafts
floating between the shore and the castle, then to the English soldiers below
as they scrambled onto the island and toward the castle. Apparently they had
noticed the sound of the surprise appearance by the Bruce’s army as well, for
they looked at each other in confused turmoil.

“We should attack,” Daniel said to himself, his mind
suddenly forming a plan.

“What? How?” Robert retorted, bringing Daniel’s
attention to him.

“We should attack those who have reached the
island,” Daniel went on, the pieces of the plan coming into place. “Open the
gates!”

“This is madness!” Robert shouted at him, grabbing
his shoulders and shaking him. “It’s far too risky!”

Daniel wrenched his shoulders free.

“Aye, but they are scattered and confused at the
moment. If we strike now, and strike hard, we could save the castle!”

“With the Bruce’s reinforcements, we won’t have to
worry about withstanding a relentless assault from the soldiers on the shore,”
Garrick said, his eyes scanning the battlements’ stones in thought. “And the
Englishmen on rafts are stranded in the middle of the loch. They would be easy
to pick off.”

Robert stared silently at both of them. Finally, he
spoke.

“What do you think, Burke?”

Burke ran his fingers through his sandy brown hair,
his brow furrowed.

“If we open the gates and the Englishmen on the
island and those soon to reach us by raft overpower us, the Bruce’s army can’t
save us,” he said slowly. “But if we catch them off-guard, and if Garrick’s
archers can concentrate their efforts on the rafts, we could save ourselves.”

“We have to take the chance, brother,” Daniel said
intently to Robert. “Stand by me in this decision.”

Robert closed his eyes for a moment and bowed his
head. “Let’s do it then,” he whispered.

Daniel bolted around Robert and flew down the stairs
into the yard once more.

“Defenders of Loch Doon!” Daniel shouted to the men
gathered before the postern gate and main gate. “We go on the attack! Open the
gates and show our enemies how Scotsmen fight!”

The men shot glances of surprise at each other, but then
several of them moved to open each gate. As the gates were opened with ropes
and pulleys and the portcullis was ratcheted up, the castle’s men stamped their
feet and roared battle cries. As soon as there was enough room for them to
squeeze through the opening gates, the men began pouring out beyond the curtain
wall, weapons flashing in the morning sun.