The Warrior Trainer (40 page)

   "Griffin?" Ian felt a chill course through him, but he kept it carefully under control. His own fears would not help to heal his brother's swollen and bruised face and body. "Are you all right?"

   Griffin lowered his sword. He started to smile, then grimaced instead as the muscles in his face rebelled against the action. "It takes more than a beating to stop a MacKinnon."

   Ian could only be glad for that. Despite their differences, Griffin was still his brother, his family. "How did you manage to free yourself?"

   "Burke remained hidden until all the others left. He cut us free after surprising the guard."

   Ian nodded. He narrowed his gaze to search the smoke- filled garden. "Maisie and Lizbet, where are they?"

   "We are here." Maisie and Burke, with Lizbet huddled between them, stepped out of the tunnel opening and hastened toward him.

   "I was so worried," Scotia cried as she folded all three people into her embrace.

   Ian smiled faintly as he stood gazing at the four of them. "Are you harmed?" Ian asked the older woman. Anger seethed through him as he search her tired gray eyes for signs of distress. The slashes in her clothes and the welts on her face and body indicated that she had been whipped. Repeatedly. Damn the White Horseman for his villainy. At least they would suffer at his hand no more.

   "I am well." Maisie hugged the little girl beside her. "Lizbet, however, will have none but Scotia comfort her."

   Scotia dropped to her knee and lightly caressed the young girl's battered face. "Lizbet, the White Horseman is dead. Soon this will all be over."

   "I want you to stay with me. I feel safe with you," Lizbet cried as she buried herself in Scotia's arms and held on with all her might.

   "Scotia would stay with you if she could," Ian interceded, "but her duty calls her elsewhere right now."

   The young girl lifted her chin. Tears pooled in her brown eyes—eyes that held an unspoiled innocence despite the horrors she had lived through in her young life.

   "You must be brave, as Scotia is brave," Ian said softly.

   Lizbet stopped crying, and with an effort straightened her slight shoulders.

   "That is better," Scotia said. "There is something I need you to do for me."

   "What is that?" Lizbet asked.

   "You must help Maisie and Burke save the castle. Find a way to contain the fire."

   Lizbet nodded. "What about you?"

   "Ian and I must help the warriors who battle in the courtyard." Scotia patted the girl's cheek and sent her after Maisie and Burke, who had begun filling buckets of water from the garden well.

   "I shall go with you," Griffin said. As he drew his sword, a steely resolve settled in his eyes—a look Ian had never seen there before. Much had changed in Griffin since they had last parted.

   "I would welcome your help," Ian said.

   "As would I," Scotia agreed.

   Together, the three of them headed out the gate and into the fighting now obscured by thick and heavy smoke.

   "Griffin," Ian shouted above the sound of swords clashing. The soft whiz of arrows arching through the air shattered the spaces between the clang of metal and the moans of the dying that raised a chorus of grief over it all. "Go to Father. He is here. Protect him."

   Griffin's face brightened at the realization their father had come after him. "Where is he?"

   Ian nodded toward the melee. "I last saw him at the front gate."

   Without hesitation, Griffin turned and strode away.

   The smoke in the courtyard began to ease. As those who fought became more visible, so did he and Scotia. Two warriors charged toward them. "Fight with me back
-
to
-
back," Scotia shouted.

   She had barely taken her position when the two men reached them. Both fell easily to the ground, only to be replaced by two more. Ian drove his sword through one man's body just as an arrow whizzed past his head, but strangely he felt no fear. He channeled the heat and power of battle sweeping inside him into a cool efficient weapon, as Scotia had taught him.

   He pressed against Scotia's back, finding comfort in her presence there. Together, they moved deeper into the fray.

   "What is our plan?" Ian shouted.

   "Two Horsemen remain as the core of this army. If we take them down, the ranks will dissolve." Scotia searched the wild, twisted fighting for the Black and the Red Horsemen. She and Ian moved as one, farther into the crowd until the fighting closed around them, enveloping them in its midst.

   With a renewed vigor, Ian pressed his attack, clearing a path through the fighting until he saw both warriors ahead. The Black Horseman battled with Griffin while the Red Horseman clashed swords with one of the Ranalds. The Red Horseman's thrusts came more slowly. The tip of his sword dipped slightly, exposing his body. The man was growing weary, as was Keith Ranald.

   The Black Horseman lunged at Griffin, barely missing his thigh. Griffin stumbled in his retreat, but managed to spin out of the way.

   "They are both growing tired," Scotia said.

   "We must intervene." Ian started forward.

   Scotia's hand on his arm held him back. "Not while they are engaged. It would not be honorable. There are other ways to aid Griffin and Keith. Watch."

   Scotia rolled forward, hit the ground, then came to her feet between the fighting warriors. She held her sword at the ready. The motion startled them all. The Horsemen's blades grew still. "I shall let you live if you take your army and go in peace from this castle and this country—go back to England where you belong."

   The Black Horseman grinned at Scotia. "This land will be ours once the White Horseman gains the Stone."

   "The White Horseman is dead. The Stone is lost in the Sea of Hebrides."

   "You
cannot
fool me," the Black Horseman growled, but panic flickered in his eyes. "We will succeed."

   "You have already failed."

   The Black Horseman peered about him, and the arrogance in his stance lessened. His gaze hardened as he turned back to Scotia. "We must prevail where our leader did not." With a slice of his sword, he left Griffin behind to challenge Scotia.

   "Then you leave us no choice." Scotia blocked his strike and quickly returned the blow. It sent him to the ground.

   A small, sardonic smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "My leader waits for me."

   "Then go to him." Her sword came down, its job complete. No sooner had her blade swept free of the body than the Red Horseman charged her. Ian swept forward and drove his sword through the Red Horseman.

   Without anyone to command them, the army gradually fell into chaos and then rapidly retreated. Cheers from Scotia's men followed them out the gate. The battle was over.

   Slowly, the tension that had driven Ian for days left him, leaving only exhaustion in its place. He strode toward Scotia. Her shoulders were rigid, her back straight as she stared at the fallen men scattered across her courtyard. She stood listening to the retreating footsteps of her enemy with her bloodied sword in hand. He knew so intimately the thoughts that crossed her mind. "It is never easy, the life of a warrior."

   The clang of the iron portcullis as it closed behind their enemy reverberated through the entire castle. The sound set her into motion once more. "We must see to the wounded and bury the dead. I shall also need a contingent of men to barricade the tunnel through the cliff. I want it sealed at the garden gate and along the shoreline."

   "Scotia—"

   "Please, Ian." Tears shimmered in her eyes, and something more—a subtle shift in the way she looked at him. With fear? Uncertainty? It was as if she no longer knew what to say to him or how to feel.

   Scotia stepped back, putting more distance between them. "Help me with these things. There is no time for talk or tears." Despair crept into her voice. He reached out to pull her to him, but she moved even farther away. "Nay, Ian. I cannot allow myself to feel sorry for the things that have happened this day. Too much remains yet undone."

   He did not press her for more, allowing her to maintain the thin thread of control she held over her emotions. She looked pale and stricken and heart-wrenchingly beautiful. He had to let her set the pace, to come to him when she was ready to move beyond this moment and into their future.

   Scotia walked back through the charred remains of the courtyard, where several men had already begun work to rebuild the wooden stairs that led into the keep. Thankfully, the stairs were the only part of the keep damaged in the fire.

   Abbus came to stand beside Ian. "You would let her walk away from you so easily?"

   "It is not what she walks away from, but what she walks toward that gives me hope." Ian turned to gaze at the man who had given him so much over the past years.

   Abbus gazed thoughtfully at the burned timbers. "Toward destruction?"

   "Nay. Toward our future, together." Ian allowed himself a small smile. "Father, there is something I must tell you."

  
Abbus's bushy brows arched over his knowing eyes. "What is that?"

   "I cannot lead the clan. Scotia is my destiny now." Ian marveled at how easily the words had come to him, how easy it was to relinquish his past.

   Abbus smiled in that fatherly way he always did when one of his sons finally did something right. "She was always yer destiny. From the moment ye were left at the base of our door. I knew ye would be the one to fulfill the prophecy her mother created while I trained under her."

   "You trained with Scotia's mother?"

   "Aye," he nodded. "Myself, the Ranald, and the White Horseman." At Ian's frown, he added, "Scotia's mother somehow knew the spin her own destiny would take."

   "How could she know?"

   Abbus shrugged. "Perhaps because of the Stone. I never thought to question her. 'Twas from me that she garnered the promise to send her daughter 'a man alone in this world' when she came of age."

   His foster father's words whirled across his mind. "You lied to me about my purpose with the clan
?”
Ian said tersely.

   "Aye, my son. But I never would have sent ye if I dinna think ye were the right man for the task. I had hoped the two of ye would eventually marry," he said with a slight shrug.

   "We did. Last night."

   Abbus clapped Ian on the back. "Congratulations, my boy."

   "No congratulations are due yet. She has not promised herself to me forever. Only a year and a day."

   Abbus's grin widened. "Well, then ye'd best get to the task of changin' her mind."

   Ian watched Scotia as she drove iron nails into the freshly cut planks of wood with more force than was necessary. He would not change her mind. She would have to do that herself.

   And when she did, he would be waiting for her.

Chapter Thirty-two