Medieval Ever After (127 page)

He forced one foot in front of the other as he led his brothers and cousin away from the small cottage. As they mounted and spurred the horses toward the village, he dared one last look over his shoulder. The cottage was already almost completely obscured by the thick forest. With a prayer for her safety, he hardened himself for the battle ahead.

Rona sank onto a stool by the hearth as Mairi pressed a bowl of warm stew into her hands.

“You must have been through something horrible,” Mairi said as she took the stool next to her. “But you’re safe now. Try to eat, and then you’ll need to rest.”

Despite the weariness, the aches, cuts, and bruises, and the storm of emotions raging inside her, Rona felt a spike of energy and clarity course through her body. She took a spoonful of stew into her mouth, savoring its heat. Only a few bites in, she could feel the stew giving her the energy she’d need to complete the task ahead of her.

Ian was watching her closely.

“We’ll not pressure you to tell us what happened,” he said carefully. “But you look to be hatching a plan. What are you thinking?”

She swallowed another spoonful of stew and shook her head. “I need to help,” she said as a warning. “Don’t try to stop me.”

Mairi stood and looked down at her with a frown.

“We’ll not let you endanger yourself, not when we gave Daniel our word to protect you, and certainly not when you’re in this state.” Mairi gestured from Rona’s head to her toes, encompassing everything from her wild hair to her dirt- and blood-encrusted skin to her tattered dress and boots.

“I promised Daniel I wouldn’t go to the castle—nothing more,” Rona replied levelly. “I’ll stay away from the attacking army to the east. But I have to do something. I can’t just leave the castle and everyone inside to fend for themselves.”

Ian and Mairi exchanged a look, and Rona knew from years spent with them that they were silently disagreeing. Finally Mairi turned back to her.

“At least rest a little while, dear,” she said, a crease in her brow. “Eat more. Try to sleep. Maybe visit Bhreaca.”

The falcon’s name made Rona’s chest squeeze painfully. What she wouldn’t give to take Bhreaca on her arm and send her soaring over the forest without a care or worry.

But she couldn’t escape into her own pleasure and comfort now—not while Daniel and everyone inside Loch Doon were in danger.

“You can help me pack more food and a waterskin,” she said with a heavy heart. “And saddle up old Bella.”

Ian exchanged another long look with Mairi before nodding slowly.

“I’ll see to Bella,” he said.

He crossed to the back of the cottage and exited through the rear door, which led to a small stable where they kept their old mare.

Mairi didn’t say anything but went about gathering several apples, a loaf of bread, and some smoked meat. She placed each item in a kerchief, and then tied the cloth ends together snugly. As she filled a waterskin from a bucket of fresh water she kept in the kitchen, Ian reappeared from the back door.

“Bella isn’t as fast as she used to be, but she’s steady. She’ll take care of you,” Ian said, his voice unusually gruff.

Rona quickly knelt on the floor next to the bucket and splashed water over her hands and face. Her cuts stung, but the water was surprisingly refreshing. It would have to take the place of getting any real rest.

She stood and dried her face and hands with the length of Daniel’s plaid around her shoulders. She let herself inhale against the fabric, savoring his masculine scent. Forcing the tears back down her throat, she gave first Ian and then Mairi a quick hug.

“Stay close to the cottage. When this is all over, I’ll come check on you to make sure you’re safe,” she said, her voice pinched.

Mairi cupped her cheeks for a moment, holding her gaze with shimmering eyes.

“Fly, little falcon,” Mairi whispered to her.

Rona nodded but couldn’t speak around the tears threatening to choke her. Instead, she turned and strode through the cottage’s back door.

Bella stood calmly in front of the small barn at the back of the cottage. Ian came to her side and tucked the kerchief of food and the waterskin into one of the horse’s saddlebags. Silently, he gave Rona a boost into the saddle.

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.

HIGHLANDER’S RECKONING

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“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.