The Ranger (42 page)

Arthur slumped in the chair, trying to force gulps of air through his watery lungs. He had at least one broken rib, perhaps more.

“They’ll kill you if you don’t tell them,” Alan said.

Arthur took a moment to respond, trying to pull together enough strength to speak. “They’ll kill me anyway,” he croaked.

Alan didn’t look away, although from the way he winced, Arthur feared his face looked as bad as it felt. “Aye, but it will be far less painful.”

And quicker.

But Arthur had failed in so many ways already; he was determined to salvage what he could of this cursed mission. If he could go to his death without revealing the names of his brethren, he would die with some semblance of honor.

Still, it would be a Pyrrhic victory at best when his failures were so catastrophic. He’d lost everything. Anna. The chance to destroy Lorn and get justice for his father. And the chance to alert the king of the threat. Bruce and his men would be walking right into an ambush, and he wouldn’t be able to warn them.

He’d fail them, just as he had his father.

Being beaten to a bloody pulp, flayed to within an inch of his life, and having his fingers crushed one by one had kept his mind from wandering beyond the four stone walls of his prison. But in the small breaks, he feared the other consequences of his capture.

Lorn loved his daughter. He wouldn’t hurt her. But he had to ask. “Anna?”

Alan gave him a solemn look. “Gone.”

His stomach dropped.

Seeing his horrified expression, Alan hastily added, “She’s safe. My father thought it better that she be removed from the castle until—”

He stopped.
Until I’m dead
, Arthur finished for him.

Air filled his lungs again. She’d only been sent away. But then he remembered. “Not ... safe,” he managed. With the battle coming, Bruce would have war bands all around them, closing in.

The grim line of Alan’s mouth suggested he didn’t disagree. But like Arthur, he’d been powerless to stop it.

“My brothers?” Arthur asked. Dugald and Gillespie might be his enemies on the battlefield, but he didn’t want them to suffer for his choices.

“My father had no cause to believe them involved. They were questioned briefly, and appeared just as surprised as the rest of us.” He paused, his gaze confused. “Why did you save my life? You didn’t have to.”

Arthur shook his hair away from his face to meet his gaze. “Aye, I did.”

Alan nodded with understanding. “You really love her.”

He didn’t say anything. What could he say? It didn’t matter anymore.

The door opened and Lorn’s henchman came back in the small room, a rope in his hand.

Arthur’s heartbeat spiked, an instinctive response to the danger.

“It’s time to go,” he said. “The men are ready to march.”

Arthur steeled himself, knowing his time was at an end. He’d won. They would kill him now. One small victory in a bitter sea of failure.

“He’s to be hanged, then?” Alan said.

The henchman smiled, the first hint of emotion Arthur had seen on his ugly, grizzled face. “Not yet. The rope is for the pit.”

The relief that crashed over Arthur told him he wasn’t quite as ready to die as he’d thought. After what he’d just been through, the dank hole of a pit prison would feel like heaven.

“Maybe the rats will loosen his tongue,” the henchman laughed.

Or a living hell.

The blast of terror that shot through him gave him a primitive burst of strength. He thrashed against the steel of his bindings like a madman. His bruised, shredded skin crawled with the sensations of the rats covering him.

He had to get away.

But he couldn’t. Chained and wounded, he was no match for the guardsmen who dragged him from the guard house to the adjoining room. In the end they didn’t bother with the rope, but just tossed him in.

Dark.

Squeaking.

Falling. Reaching.

A hard, bone-shattering slam.

And then—blissfully—only blackness.

“Ewen, I’m afraid I’m in dire need of a moment of privacy,” Anna said, feigning a chagrined blush.

“Already?” He looked at her as if she were five years old. They were deep in the forest, near an old burial cairn, not two miles from the castle. “Why didn’t you go before we left?”

She shot him a glare that told him she didn’t appreciate him talking to her as if he were their mother. “Because I didn’t have to go then.”

He scowled. “We’ll stop when we reach Oban; it’s only another mile or so.”

Anna shook her head. “I can’t wait that long. Please ...” She begged in a high voice, wiggling around in the saddle a little to emphasize the urgency.

Her brother muttered an oath, then turned to put a halt to the score of guardsmen who’d accompanied them on the roughly thirty-mile journey to Innis Chonnel—a journey that would be made much more swiftly by boat, but her father, before he’d sailed from the castle with his fleet, had decided it would be too dangerous.

“Hurry up, then,” Ewen said impatiently. “One of my men will accompany—”

“That won’t be necessary,” she interrupted hastily.
It
would ruin everything
. “I ...” She didn’t have to fake the blush this time. “I fear I ate something this morning that didn’t agree with me. It may be a while.”

Her brother looked properly mortified by her sharing of the too-personal details of a subject that shouldn’t be mentioned at all. Anna was appalled at herself for the nature and depth of her duplicity, but she needed as much time as possible to get away.

She had to get back to the castle. She couldn’t explain it, but ever since she’d left her father’s solar this morning, she hadn’t been able to shake the overwhelming sense of foreboding. Perhaps it had been triggered by something her father said, but she knew something was wrong—terribly wrong. The feeling had only gotten worse as the castle faded into the sunlight behind them. She didn’t know what she was going to do; she just knew that she had to do something.

They might not have a future, but she didn’t want him to die.

Since her father had left the castle just before they did, this was her chance.

Mustering as much dignity as she could—given the humiliation of having roughly twenty men watching her tread off to relieve herself—she accepted the aid of her brother’s squire to slide down off her horse, handed him the reins, and walked regally into the dense canopy of trees and bracken. The moment she was out of sight, she picked up the edge of her skirts and started to run.

It would take her about ten minutes to run back to the castle from here. How long it would take her to talk her way into the guard room where the prisoners were housed, she didn’t know. But she hoped she could reach it before her brother realized she was missing. It wouldn’t take Ewen long to figure out where she’d gone. And unlike her, he would be on a horse.

She raced through the trees, running parallel to but out of sight of the road, trying to make as little sound as she could. But the dry leaves and branches littering the forest floor made silence impossible.

She heard a sound behind her and wanted to howl with anger. How had they discovered her missing so fast? She ducked behind a large rock, hoping to hide, but found herself lifted off the ground from behind.

“Let go of me,” she said, trying to twist free. As she was expecting it to be her brother or one of his men, when she turned and found herself looking into the steely-eyed gaze of a brutish, nasal-helmed warrior, the blood drained from her body. She let out a cry of alarm that was muffled by his hand.

“Shush, lass, I don’t want to hurt you.”

His fearsome visage didn’t inspire a lot of confidence. He was built like a mountain, with rugged, rough-hewn features to go along with his bulk.

She forced herself to still, pretending to believe him, then as soon as he relaxed, she kicked him as hard as she could with the edge of her booted heel and shoved her elbow as deep as she could into his leather-clad chest, wincing when she connected with the bits of steel.

He let out a grunt of surprise, but never loosened his hold enough for her to free herself.

She gazed back at him in frustration again, and she stilled—this time for real. There was something familiar about him. Nay, not about him, but about his attire.

She sucked in her breath. The blackened helm, the black leather
cotun
studded with mail, the strangely fashioned plaid ...

It was the same distinctive warrior’s garb worn by the handsome warrior in Ayr and by her uncle. This man was part of Bruce’s secret guard.

A fact that was confirmed only a moment later. “I don’t think my former niece believes you, Saint.”

Anna gazed in stunned surprise as Lachlan MacRuairi emerged from the trees alongside another warrior.

“Saint, Templar,” he motioned toward her, “May I present the Lady Anna MacDougall.” He waved off the man holding her. “You can release her. She won’t scream unless she wants to see her brother and his men killed.”

Anna rubbed her mouth as soon as she was free, trying to return the sensation. She looked around. “There are only three of you.”

The men looked genuinely amused by her comment. “Two more than we need,” the third man said. He was slightly smaller of stature than the other two men—she was beginning to think being a muscle-strapped giant was a requirement for becoming a member of Bruce’s secret army—and beneath the shadow of his nasal helm his grin was both good-natured and friendly.

Templar, her uncle had called him. What a strange name. He was far too young to have fought against the infidel. The last crusade was over thirty-five years ago.

And he’d called the man who’d been holding her Saint. They must be
noms de guerre
—war names—she realized.

Ranger!
That was what the handsome man in the forest had called Arthur. Was that his war name?

“What are you doing here, Uncle?” It felt strange to call someone only ten years or so her senior
Uncle
. He didn’t look much older than Arthur, though he must be three or four and thirty.

“Perhaps I should ask the same thing of you. Why did you flee from your brother and his men?”

She wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t answered her. He’d either been scouting the area or watching the castle. As they were very close to the coast, she figured he’d come by boat. Lachlan MacRuairi was a seafaring pirate to the bone.

“You are supporting Bruce’s attack against my father from the sea,” she said, guessing at his purpose.

He shrugged evasively. “Now, tell me, Lady Anna, why I find you running through the forest.”

“I need to return to the castle.”

“Why?”

She bit her lip, debating what to tell them. But she knew she didn’t have much time. They’d delayed her too long already. She’d be hard pressed to make it back to the castle before her brother caught up with her. Perhaps they would give her a ride?

“Do you have horses nearby?” she asked.

MacRuairi frowned. “Aye.”

She exhaled. “Good. I shall need your help to get back to the castle. I need to make sure Arthur is all right.” None of the men reacted. Nor should they, she supposed. They didn’t know she knew the truth. “I believe you call him Ranger.”

MacRuairi swore. “He told you?”

She shook her head. “It’s a long story. I figured out the truth. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one. My father knows as well.”

He swore again, this oath a vile expletive that even her father rarely used. “Then he’s dead.”

“Nay,” she said, taken aback by his vehemence. “Imprisoned. My father is questioning him.”

MacRuairi spat, a look of raw hatred coming over his dark features. “Then he’ll wish he was.”

What did he mean?

Reading her confusion, he said, “I’ve been on the other side of your father’s ‘questions’ before. He has rather persuasive and inventive methods of exacting information. If Ranger isn’t dead already, he soon will be.”

Her stomach turned at what he was suggesting. “My father wouldn’t—”

It wasn’t the grim expression on his face that stopped her protest, but the memory of the partial conversation she’d heard upon entering her father’s solar. A conversation that now made sense.
Get me what I want. Whatever it takes
.

Oh God
. Anna nearly buckled over, feeling as if she were going to be ill. Her father was torturing him. She knew such things happened, of course, but it was an ugly side of war that she didn’t like to think about. Nor did she like to think of her father being involved in such cruelty.

“We need to help him,” she said frantically, tears pricking her eyes.

Her heart slammed in her chest when she heard a shout go out a short distance away. “Anna!”

She looked at the three men in panic. “They’re calling for me—we have to go
now.
”

MacRuairi shook his head. “There’s no need for you to come. We’ll take care of it.”

“But—”

He cut off her protest. “If you come with us, they’ll follow. It will be easier for us to help him if they don’t suspect anything. Return to your brother and continue on your journey.”

“But you might need my help.” And she wanted to see him for herself. “How will you get in the castle? How will you find him?”

MacRuairi’s mouth was set in a grim line. “I know where he is.” She shivered, knowing from the way he said it that he’d been there himself. But it was the haunted look in his eyes that chilled her blood.

God, what had her father done to him? And what was he doing to Arthur?

“You’ve done enough,” he said. “If Ranger is alive, he’ll have you to thank for it.”

If he’s alive
. Anna bit back her tears and nodded, knowing they were right. The best way for her to help Arthur was to let them go without her. But it didn’t make watching them disappear into the trees any easier. She wanted to go with them.

He’s alive
, she told herself. He had to be. She’d know if he wasn’t. A part of her would have died as well.

As soon as they were out of sight, she started to run back in the direction from which she’d come. When she drew near a small stream, she answered her brother’s calls. She would have some explaining to do, but considering the subject matter she didn’t think her brother would be inclined to question her too heavily.