Exiles in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) (8 page)

It was an arrangement similar to that
which the Marcher barons had enjoyed in their lands on the border
of Wales and England—until Wales had gained the upper hand upon the
death of King Edward. Now that David was the King of England, he
was beginning to reel in the Marcher barons even more and diminish
their power in the March. The next Scottish king would want to do
the same for the clans he ruled.

At this moment, however, with no
ruling king, the balance of power lay between the Bruces and the
Balliols. All the other clans lined up on whichever side they owed
the greatest loyalty, through family ties or precedence.

A strong breeze caught Callum’s hood
and swept it off his head. He reached back to pull it up again,
half-turning towards Samuel, who was still scanning the hills to
the northwest. Callum shielded his eyes so the rain couldn’t fall
directly into them. “What do you see?” he said.

“
Nothing,” Samuel said.
“That’s the problem.”

Callum peered upwards, tracing the
line of the hill that rose up from the road immediately to the
left. It might be May and the sun in the sky for twelve hours a
day, but that didn’t make Scotland any brighter on the days when
clouds covered the sky from horizon to horizon, as they had all
that day. The company had made slow progress through the murk, all
the more so because of Kirby’s carriage.

By now, every man in the company was
cursing Kirby’s refusal to ride. Ever since Carlisle, they’d had to
stop every hour, or multiple times an hour, to unstick Kirby’s
wheels from the mud. In addition, nobody had told Kirby that most
rivers in Scotland weren’t crossed by bridges, even on the main
roads. Every time they reached a ford, Kirby had fussed about the
possibility of getting wet. It was very trying. Yesterday, Samuel
had threatened to throw the bishop over his horse’s withers and
make him ride the rest of the way upside down if he complained one
more time. Samuel almost hadn’t been joking.

Fortunately, Kirby had been quieter
today, huddled in his carriage with his hood up and a blanket
wrapped around his shoulders against the rain and cold, so Samuel
hadn’t gone through with his threat. Still, the delays had
continued and it would be dark within the hour.

Callum brushed desultorily at the muck
from a carriage wheel that dirtied his cloak. He was pleased at how
little he cared about the mud on his hands as he might have if he’d
still been living in the modern world. In addition, the further
he’d come from Kings Langley, the more surely the mantle of
resolution he’d worn as a soldier had settled onto his shoulders.
With each day that passed, it wrapped itself around him more
tightly than his actual cloak. His ability to focus on the task at
hand improved too, along with his mood, allowing him to look at the
world with eyes that assessed threat and how to combat it. He’d
known that he’d missed this feeling, but back in London or Cardiff,
he hadn’t admitted how much, not even to himself.

“
Do you fear an attack?”
Callum said.

“
What do I know?” Samuel
said. “I always fear it. That’s how a man stays alive.”

“
We’ve seventy men,” Liam
said. “That should give even the most passionate Scotsman
pause.”

“
Surely no lord would
attack a company sent by King David?” Callum said. “He would be
courting war with England.”

“
Scotsmen aren’t always
known for their sense, especially Highlanders,” said Liam,
revealing his prejudices.

The tension in Samuel’s face reminded
Callum of Afghanistan in other ways, chief among them the constant
fear of betrayal. Callum had learned to pass as a normal person in
the four years since he’d come home from the war, but the closer he
allowed anyone to get to him, the harder it had been to hide his
wounds. Callum had borne witness to man’s inhumanity to man and had
perpetrated it on those weaker than himself. It was a cliché to say
that he couldn’t wash that away with water and soap, but Callum had
wondered sometimes if he hadn’t been trying to. He had been one of
the lucky ones, too, because even if he’d left part of himself on
the battlefield, physically he looked whole.

Callum’s hand went to the hilt of his
sword. Today if it came to a fight, he’d be using his sword for the
first time, killing men up close and personal.

Then Callum straightened his
shoulders. If something was truly wrong, he had no time for second
thoughts or inner turmoil. He looked around for James Stewart, whom
he’d last seen riding near Kirby’s carriage, but James was no
longer there. Callum did notice that the bishop now sat beside his
driver instead of inside the carriage.

Callum didn’t know why Kirby had
chosen this moment to expose himself to the elements, but he
mentally shrugged away the bishop’s peculiarities and twisted in
his saddle, still looking for James. He spied him and Robbie at the
rear of the host of men. Callum directed his horse to the side of
the road and caught James’s eye. James lifted a hand in
acknowledgement and he and Robbie trotted their horses along the
edge of the road, avoiding the columns of riders, in order to reach
Callum more quickly.

“
Samuel doesn’t like the
feel of this place,” Callum said when they reached him. “There are
too many trees and the road is too narrow. His instincts tell him
something isn’t right.”

James sniffed. “We ride on the main
road from Glasgow to Stirling. For all that the English believe
Scots to be barbarians, I can’t believe we’re anything but
perfectly safe—”

“
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH—!”

The cry came long and loud, an eerie
screech that was cut off suddenly. Horses bucked and skittered,
their masters struggling to control them. Robbie’s horse reared,
almost threw him, and then took off, racing back towards Glasgow,
with Robbie hanging on for dear life.

“
Robert!” James dug in his
heels to go after him, and Callum with him, but the five seconds
between Robbie’s escape and James’s response was too long. The
enemy, whoever they were, was upon them.

“
Protect the
Bishop!”

The call came from one of the men near
Kirby’s carriage at the front of the company. Callum turned to see
the long handle of a spear sticking out of Kirby’s back and a bloom
of red across his white mantle. He toppled off his seat and ended
up face first in the muddy ditch beside the road.

Callum’s sword appeared in his hand
without him realizing he’d pulled it from its sheath. He looked for
James, even as he raised his shield and wheeled his horse, trying
to look in all directions at once. “Jesus Christ! Where did they
come from?”

James flung himself from his horse and
grabbed both his horse’s bridle and Callum’s. “I’d like to know
that too.”

Callum looked north and south, holding
up his shield to protect himself while trying to find the source of
the spears and arrows that flew from the heights on either side. A
dozen men had already gone down. The high wail came
again.

“
Get off that damn horse.”
James pulled at Callum’s cloak and dragged him from the saddle so
that Callum might crouch with him in the muck of the road. They
used their horses as buffers, though the beasts were panicky enough
that Callum didn’t think they’d stay still much longer, no matter
how well trained. “These men are MacDougalls,” said
James.

“
How do you know?” Callum
said. Even he had heard of the MacDougalls. As a clan, they had a
colorful and martial history.

But James didn’t have time to answer.
The spearman and archers had done their work and now a hundred
screaming Highlanders descended the hills that rose up on either
side of the road. The caterwauling cry blocked out every other
sound. A few men even dropped from the tree branches above their
heads.

James and Callum fought back to back,
slashing and thrusting at their attackers. Their company was
outnumbered, though not hopelessly so. They’d been caught unawares,
however, so they fought at a terrible disadvantage. Those months of
practice paid off for Callum, as his arm seemed to move of its own
accord, driving at any man who came against him.

The fighters on both sides gave no
quarter. The MacDougalls seemed intent on slaughter and Callum’s
company just wanted to survive. With war all around, Callum’s mouth
was dry and gritty with the taste of sand, though it was rain he
felt on his face today.

James was chanting in Gaelic what
sounded like a poem. With all the chaos around them, Callum
couldn’t decipher more than one word in three. For his part, Callum
kept up a steady stream of profanity in English—and not the
medieval profanity that cursed saints and bones. That wasn’t meaty
enough for Callum today. He didn’t care who heard him. By that
point, they were going down. Callum had lost sight of Samuel and
Liam long since.

“
In the name of St.
Andrew!” James shouted and leapt at a fiery haired warrior, while
Callum blocked an axe destined for James’s head. James then gutted
a second man who slashed his sword at Callum and with a shout of
his own, Callum launched himself at a man just beyond
James.

“
Hold! Hold I
say!”

The order came through a red haze that
covered Callum’s eyes. A Scottish warrior with a yellow beard and
pale eyes planted himself in front of Callum, ignoring his
superior’s order, and thus, Callum didn’t obey him either. With a
twist and a shove, Callum upended the man and drove his sword
through his midsection. Callum staggered to his feet, his face
streaming with a mixture of water and blood, and swung around,
looking for James. He’d been beside Callum only a second
earlier.

In the moment that he turned, however,
someone cannoned into him from behind and knocked him to the
ground. Callum’s helmet slammed into a rock on the edge of the
road, his sight blackened, and he heard nothing more.

* * * * *

Callum’s eyes popped open in the
instant between unconsciousness and awareness to find darkness all
around him. He lay on his side on the ground, though he had no
immediate memory as to where he was or how he’d gotten there except
that he was pretty sure his vehicle had been blown up by an IED. He
had a moment of panic when he couldn’t feel his feet, but then he
focused harder and shifted them. Relief coursed through him. Callum
lifted his head from the ground and blinked. The air didn’t smell
like the desert. In fact, it was definitely raining.

“
Stay still.”

The words came from behind him, a
woman’s voice, and now that he was awake, a faint glow cut through
the darkness. Instinctively disobeying, Callum rolled onto his
back, towards the shape behind him. As he rolled, he put a hand to
his head and his fingers felt for the wound that was giving him a
headache. It felt like a sharpened stake had been driven into his
skull.

At the sight of the woman, however,
Callum dropped his hand, instantly confused not only by her face,
but because he wasn’t wearing his army-issued combat helmet. The
helmet his fingers probed was metal. “Where am I?” he
said.

The woman put her hand on Callum’s arm
to stop him from touching his head again and said, amusement in her
voice, “Where do you think you are? You’re in a ditch beside the
road, just where they left you.”

And then Callum remembered … he
remembered and it was as if someone had taken the stake from his
head, stabbed it into his gut, and twisted. He tried to sit up but
the woman’s gentle hands forced him to lie back down.

“
It’s okay; you’re
okay.”

Callum let the woman ease
the helmet from his head. His whole head ached and when he pressed
his fingers to his hairline, they came away wet. Because it was
still raining, he didn’t know if it was water or blood he was
feeling. He tasted the moisture on the tip of his finger.
Blood
.

“
I asked you not to do
that.” The woman pressed a hand to Callum’s shoulder, forcing him
to stay on the ground. Then she shone a light into each of his eyes
in turn. “I’m no doctor, but I think you have a
concussion.”

Callum blinked back the rain that
continued to pitter-patter on his face and squinted past the light.
Noticing, the woman directed the light away from his
eyes.

Callum swallowed, trying to find his
voice. The more he looked at the woman, the less he cared if his
head hurt or even if he was bleeding out. There was no way he was
going to lie still another moment, not when the woman was holding
an honest-to-God modern torch—a flashlight—in her hand. Callum
pushed to a sitting position, leaning on one hand, and brought his
face to within inches of hers.

A moment ago, Callum had almost
mistaken the woman for Anna, but now that he was up close, he could
see the differences clearly. The woman’s hair was black and
straight, not brown like Anna’s. Her eyes were also dark and set in
a face with a wide forehead and high cheekbones. “Who are you?”
Callum said.

“
Tell me your name
first.”

“
Callum.”

The woman sat back on her heels.
Callum reached for the hand that held the torch and brought it
between them so that it illumined their faces in a ‘v’ of
light.