Highlander Avenged (19 page)

Jeanette’s breath caught in her throat.

“Duncan found her tracks, and only hers, leaving her tent and heading into the wood that way.” Denis pointed in the direction of the castle. “Uilliam went with Duncan to track her and took about half the men who were here with him.”

Jeanette did a quick figuring and decided that was probably seven or eight men.

“He told me to stay here and await your return. He sent the women deeper into the wood with a couple of the older lads, and set the rest to watching for you in case this was some sort of ploy by the English to set up a trap here and capture Rowan upon her return.”

“So far that does not appear to be the situation,” Nicholas said. “Though we definitely need to see to the safety of the Guardians.”

Denis looked from Nicholas to Rowan and back, his eyes full of questions that he did not ask. Nicholas pointed at one of the warrior escorts. “Go and join the watchers in the wood. Tell them to spread out around this camp so they may warn us upon anyone’s approach, friend or foe. The rest of you”—he indicated the five warriors left standing with them—“spread out and keep watch just beyond the camp, in case someone slips by the watchers.”

“Should we not abandon this camp, Nicholas?” Jeanette asked.

“Aye, we will.”

“But . . .” Rowan’s brows were drawn down, and she held the ermine sack in her hand, stroking the soft fur with her thumb. “What if . . .” Nicholas, Jeanette, and Malcolm waited for her to finish but she didn’t.

Jeanette wondered if this was what she looked like when she was lost in thought. Her curiosity got the better of her. “What if what, Rowan?” she said, more sharply than she’d intended, earning her a scowl from Nicholas.

Rowan looked up at her. “What if we could set a barrier around this camp? Like Auntie Elspet did when the curtain wall fell?”

“Can you do that?” Jeanette asked. “ ’Tis a variation of the blessing I was teaching you.”

“You were trying to teach me. I have not mastered that yet.” She rolled her eyes. “I have not even practiced it. But
you
ken it already and now you are a Guardian.”

Jeanette was startled by the idea, and a little ashamed that she had not thought of this herself. Her ideas about the Guardian and what she could or couldn’t, should or shouldn’t do, were so strong, she had not considered that she might now take up some of the things her mother did for the clan that Rowan and her unusual gift could not, at least not yet.

“Perhaps this is
why
I’ve been made a Guardian,” Jeanette said, now lost in her own thoughts as she considered whether she could do it or not. “Someone must know the prayers and rituals, or perhaps it is only something the line of MacAlpin can do?”

Rowan nodded. “Perhaps that is why the ways of the Guardian, the traditional ways of the Guardian, are so hard for me. We have always made a good partnership, Cousin. Now we shall see if that remains true for us as Guardians. What do you need to create the barrier?’

Jeanette let her travel sack slide off her shoulder. Malcolm grabbed it before it hit the ground and laid it at the base of a nearby tree, leaving his own there, as well as the four water skins he had insisted on carrying himself.

“I shall need the Targe stone. I do not ken if I will need any of the water, but it could not hurt.”

Before she could even ask, Malcolm was filling the wooden cup she pulled from its carrying place in her arisaid. “My thanks,” she said. He nodded, his face now a scowl that was so at odds with her grinning golden warrior, he seemed a stranger to her. Sadness wrapped around her. She already missed him and he wasn’t even gone yet. What would she do when he did leave? Would she be required to choose another as her champion?

“Jeanette?” She was grateful that Rowan drew her attention back to the task at hand. Jeanette took the ermine sack from her cousin, loosened the thong that cinched it closed, and set the wide-open bag on the ground with the stone centered on the sack. Although she couldn’t explain why, she felt compelled to turn the sack until the mirror symbol was closest to her. She noted that once more Rowan stood where the inverted V symbol lined up, leaving that third symbol, the broken arrow, without anyone near it. Once more the question of exactly what the symbol meant drifted through her thoughts, but she set that aside to be pondered later.

“I was not able to draw the Targe’s power on my own this morning,” Jeanette said, now setting the cup of water between her and the sack, though she knew not how she would perform the blessing properly if she needed to touch the water at the same time. “But I’d like to try now. If I shake my head, I want you to draw it and focus it through me as you did at the burn.” She turned to tell Malcolm to stand near to catch her if necessary, but he was already there.

“I am ready,” he said.

“As am I,” Rowan said.

Jeanette performed the basic blessing first, letting herself sink into the ritual of unknown words and graceful hand motions, but she felt nothing unusual, nothing powerful as she had when Rowan had focused the Targe through her this morning. She knelt and gazed into the water as she repeated the blessing. Again, nothing happened. She placed the fingers of her left hand so they just touched the rim of the cup. Nothing. She stood, shook her head, and prepared to start the blessing yet again.

As Rowan lifted the stone in her hands, holding it between them, a surge of pure joy and light rushed into Jeanette, through her, swirling up and over her, around her. She began the blessing and euphoria swept her up. When she moved on to the barrier ritual her mother had used to protect the castle, it was as if she could see the power as she released the words from her mouth, one by one, moving them through the air with the motions of her hands, until she could see the words she did not understand and the power of the Targe weaving together like an ethereal basket of light turned upside down, arching over the entire camp.

Even when the protection was in place, she did not wish to stop the flow of the Targe that was energizing her, pushing all thought, all sorrow, away, while joy flowed from it, through her and out. Her heart was at peace, finally, here doing what she was born to do, being what she was born to be, a Guardian of the Targe.

Just as suddenly as the flow of power had begun, it stopped, dropping her abruptly out of her euphoria and back into the world. Malcolm was shaking her, shouting her name, but she did not understand why he seemed so agitated.

And then his words sank into her, slowly taking recognizable form. “You are hurting Rowan! You must stop!”

“What? Hurting Rowan?” She blinked and looked about for her cousin, only to find Nicholas crouched over her crumpled form, as if she had collapsed right where she stood. “What did I do?!” She pulled free of Malcolm’s grip and dropped beside Rowan. “What did I do?” she asked Nicholas.

“I do not ken. As soon as she joined you, she went rigid, gritting her teeth, her eyes clenched as if she were in pain, but she held firm for a long time.”

“Long time? It was but a moment,” Jeanette said, looking back at Malcolm to confirm her statement. It was then she noticed how much the shadows had lengthened. “How long?” she whispered.

“An hour? Maybe more.” Malcolm offered his hand, lifting her to her feet.

She looked about at the clearing but could no longer see the barrier she had built. “Is she all right?” she asked Nicholas.

“She breathes,” he said, brushing her hair back from her face. “Rowan, love, wake up. I need you to wake up now.”

Jeanette knelt beside her cousin again and opened her healer’s bag, rummaging through it for the pungent salve she used to stop wounds from festering. She removed the leather cover and waved the small pot under Rowan’s nose. Rowan almost knocked it out of Jeanette’s hand while trying to swat it away.

“What are you doing to me?” she asked, her eyes flying open and pinning Jeanette in place. “What did you do to me?”

“I do not ken, Cousin. I am sorry I caused you pain. Can you tell me what happened, what you felt?”

Rowan sat up with Nicholas’s help and blinked, as if trying to clear her vision.

“Jeanette, you built a barrier. I could see it but I could neither move, nor speak. It was as if you were pulling all the power of the Targe from me, taking it before I could even offer it to you.”

“It hurt you?”

“Aye, it was as if I was caught in a maelstrom, thrown around like a leaf in a gale. I tried not to let you take it, but I could not hold it back. You are very strong, Jeanette.”

“And dangerous.” A sudden, terrible thought came to her. “I did not take it from you permanently, did I? You are still a Guardian, are you not?”

There was silence all around her as her companions slowly realized the import of what she asked.

“Where’s the Targe stone?” Rowan asked, her voice tight.

“Here, love.” Nicholas grabbed it from where it lay nearby.

Malcolm picked up the sack from where it had been spread on the ground and handed it to Rowan. She laid the sack over her lap, and then settled the stone in her hands, resting them on the sack. She closed her eyes. Jeanette, Malcolm, and Nicholas waited in silence.

A breeze suddenly wafted around them, lifting strands of Jeanette’s hair to tickle her face. Rowan dropped the stone onto the sack and the breeze stopped as quickly as it had started.

“I am still a Guardian,” Rowan said. “But the barrier is gone.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

S
COTIA MOVED AS
quickly as she could through the forest,
keepi
ng an eye out around her and trying to be as quiet as possible. She knew the English soldiers could be anywhere, and despite her intention to do grave harm to them one way or another, she wanted to be the one to surprise them, not the other way around. Before too long she reached the familiar path that led from the back of Dunlairig Castle, up the ben to the wellspring, but she didn’t take it. Instead, she crossed it and picked her way down the ben from the cover of the trees. The sudden longing to see her home again hit her and she hurried her pace.

“Scotia!”

She stopped and looked around. The raspy call came from nearby but she couldn’t tell exactly where.

“Who is there?” she called back, trying to keep her voice from carrying too far.

“Wheesht! Up here.”

She looked up and found Myles perched in a tree nearby, watching her. She cursed under her breath, turned away from him, and continued down the ben.

The thump of him landing on the ground behind her told her he would be following her any minute. Busybody.

“Scotia, wait!” he hissed at her, but she kept walking until he caught up enough to grab her arm and spin her around so she would look at him—look up at him. When had he gotten taller than her? She remembered teasing him unmercifully, not too many years ago, about how she could look down upon his head from her greater height, just as he’d teased her unmercifully when her teeth had started falling out years before that. At one time they had even been friends, playing together along the edge of the loch on peaceful summer days. But that was in the past. There was no peace to be had now.

“Why should I wait for you?” she demanded.

“Where are you going?”

She crossed her arms and studied him for a long moment. “ ’Tis none of your business where I am bound,” she said.

He mirrored her pose. “But it is, Scotia. I was told to watch for anyone coming or going from the castle and that includes you. Are you alone?”

Her ire rose at the tone he used. “Do you see anyone here with me?”

“I do not.”

“Then get back up in your perch and I’ll be on my way.”

“You ken I cannot do that, aye? There are others watching. If I let you go on unescorted, they will see and there shall be hell to pay when your father or the chief find out.” He held out a hand to her. “Come, let me escort you back to the camp. We might even make it back before anyone finds you are gone.”

“I will not return to the camp like some sort of prisoner.” She cocked her head and examined him as if he were a bug. “I think I see why the chief does not like you. You are quick to escort people where they do not wish to go.”

“I am only doing my duty, Scotia.”

“Duty? You watch and wait and do nothing. Is that your duty? It is not mine.” She whirled and continued down the ben.

“Wait!” Myles’s voice was low but commanding and that just made her angrier. She was so tired of everyone telling her what to do, where to go, how to behave, while they did nothing to find the English who had them cowering in the wood like frightened rabbits. They did nothing. She was not going to do nothing any longer.

“Scotia, damn it, stop!”

Scotia sped her feet, but Myles was able to catch up with her with little trouble and once more grabbed her arm, only this time he did not let go, but instead pulled her back up the ben.

“You cannot go that way,” he said, anger clear in his voice now. “I shall not let you.”

“Let me!” Scotia yanked her arm from his hand. “Let me? I did not ask for your permission, Myles.”

“Aye, she did not ask for your permission, boy.”

Three English soldiers stepped from behind trees, swords drawn, surrounding them. Scotia’s anger spiked, even as her heart sank. She was supposed to be the one to surprise the English, not the other way around. She heard Myles pull out his dirk as he tried to push her behind him. She was so mad at him, at the English, at herself for not being more aware, that she could not even speak.

“Put your back to mine,” Myles said, and she saw the merit in such a position as she pulled her own dagger and the ax for good measure.

“She isn’t the one,” one of the English soldiers said, a man missing most of his front teeth.

“Are you sure?” another soldier asked.

The first one glared at the other. “I do not think I will ever forget an auburn-haired witch who dropped a wall of stone on top of my detachment.”

“You were there?” Scotia asked, the question popping out of her mouth before she realized she spoke aloud.

“Aye, I was there,” the man responded, his words clipped and his eyes glittering. With a smack of the side of his sword against one of her hands and then the other, he had the ax falling to the ground and her dagger flying up in the air. He deftly caught the knife and examined the hilt while he gathered the ax and slid it into his own belt.

“ ’Twas Archibald’s dagger,” he said to the other two. “How did you come by this?” he asked Scotia.

“That Sassenach used it to kill my mum.”

Myles groaned and she realized that if this man discerned who her mother was, he might also figure out her other relations.

“It was very kind of the two of you to let us know you were here,” the third soldier said.

“You could not find us without a bit of help, aye?” Scotia said, a sneer in her voice.

“Wheesht!” Myles cast her a glance hot with irritation.

“Who is this girl?” the third soldier demanded of the one with missing teeth.

“No one,” Myles said.

“I am no girl, to be sure,” she said at the same time.

The third soldier stepped closer and rested the tip of his sword at the base of Scotia’s neck. When she tried to back up, Myles did not move.

“Who are you . . . wench?” the third one asked again, pressing the point just hard enough to prick her skin.

“I am . . . I am . . .”

“Wheesht!” Myles turned his head to hiss at her. “Do not answer their questions.” At the same moment, the soldier holding her dagger made a move that she could only see out of the side of her eye, and Myles collapsed behind her with a scream.

“Myles!” Scotia tried to turn around but the sword at her throat was joined by one at her back. When she tried to look down, the sword tip lifted to her chin and forced it upward until she could do naught but stare into the muddy eyes of the English soldier.

“Tell me now. Who. Are. You?”

“Do not!” Myles said, and Scotia could hear a movement by the other soldier as she heard another grunt of pain from Myles.

“Stop! I will tell you who I am if you promise not to hurt him anymore.”

The soldier in front of her considered her request for a moment before replying, “You have my promise.”

She hesitated, unsure if what she was about to do was the best thing for her or for Myles, but she did not seem to have any choice if she was to stop them from doing further harm to him.

“I am Scotia MacAlpin, daughter of Kenneth.”

“That would make her cousin to the witch,” one of the other soldiers said. It sounded like the one with missing teeth.

She saw the one in front of her nod slightly, then heard Myles grunt one more time. Quickly, the smell of blood filled the air.

“Myles? Myles!” There was only a gurgling sound and then nothing. “You promised!” she screeched at the soldier still holding her chin up with his sword.

“And I did not break my promise, Scotia of MacAlpin. I promised that
I
would not harm your companion and
I
did not.”

Rage boiled up within her, roiling through her veins. “I should have expected as much from a Sassenach. What did you do to him? Let me see him!”

The sword at her chin was lowered just enough to let her look down and to the side. Myles was looking straight up at the sky, his eyes unblinking. His right leg looked odd and was covered in blood, as was his neck. Her knees trembled and her breath caught in her chest. The rage that had boiled a moment ago turned to ice, heavy and cold. The dagger that had killed her mum stuck out of his gut, buried to the hilt.

Her stomach threatened to empty itself but she would not give these men the satisfaction of seeing her weakness. She swallowed hard, and forced herself to look at everything they had done to Myles, to remember it, to remember her part in his death, though she did not understand why they had killed him.

Sorrow swamped her then as the reality that Myles was dead hit her, as her part in their being found hit her. This death was on her. She was the cause of it. Myles had not deserved such an end.

She added his death to the tally she kept in the dark place where her heart used to be. She vowed in that moment that she would see Myles avenged, just as she would see her mother’s murder avenged upon these men.

If she lived.

D
UNCAN SCANNED THE
plants ahead of him, picking out the telltale signs of Scotia’s passage in a broken leaf here, a scuffed-up piece of moss there, and every now and again, an actual footprint. He needed to teach her how to move through the wood more carefully so she could not be trailed so easily, though to be fair, perhaps the difficult woman listened to his lessons sometimes after all, for he doubted many would find her as easy to follow as he did. Still, if she was going to continue to get herself into trouble, she needed some real skills to minimize the risk she brought to others. Her trail might be hard to follow, but it wasn’t impossible, and it could easily lead the English, wherever the bastards were, back to their camp.

“We shall have to move the camp when we get back,” he said quietly to Uilliam, who trailed behind him.

A grunt was all he got. It was all he’d gotten from Uilliam since they’d left the camp to find the wayward Scotia, and experience told him Scotia would not like the greeting she would get from the man when they caught up with her. Uilliam might not be her father, but he was her father’s best friend.

Duncan stopped and studied the ground. “Someone joined her here.” He looked around and could not find a direction the footprints might have come from. Uilliam was looking up and pulling on his black bushy beard.

“Whoever it was, was up in the tree,” he said. He looked in the direction where they both knew the castle lay. “That high up,” he said as he pointed at a large branch that would have been an easy place for a man to sit. “I expect you could see the castle from there. But was it one of our men, or an English soldier lying in wait for one of us to wander by?”

“And did he join her, or follow her as we are doing?”

Uilliam grunted again. Duncan swallowed the worry that seemed his ever-present companion where Scotia was concerned. For as long as he could remember, he had watched over her, rescuing her from trouble again and again, though she had not ever asked him to. She had been such a sweet lass when she was little, winning his heart with charming smiles and a ready laugh. When had she changed? He could not say, but he missed the enchanting lass she had once been, and he despaired of ever seeing her again, even if they succeeded in rescuing the angry, grief-filled, vengeful young woman she had become.

He studied the footprints but the ground was hard and he could not tell much. He motioned for Uilliam to follow him as he continued to track Scotia and whomever she had encountered. It was the only way they would get their answers.

Not much farther down the ben, Duncan spied a body lying in an opening between the trees. The body was a bloody mess with a dagger sticking out of his gut. Duncan stopped abruptly, drawing his claymore, and readying himself for an attack.

“Myles,” he whispered as Uilliam caught up with him, his own sword drawn. “ ’Twas Myles who joined her.”

Duncan pointed ahead of him. Myles had been a good man, young, aye, but loyal, brave. He would have been someone’s champion eventually, Duncan was sure of it. And the man was a good fighter. If someone did that to Myles, it was because he’d been protecting Scotia and wasn’t able to fight the way he could. And if someone did that to Myles, what would that person do to Scotia? A muscle twitched in his jaw and his mind tried to follow that question with every atrocity he had ever seen or heard about. He clamped down on the horrible possibilities and examined the area around the body. If anyone harmed her in any way, they would answer to Duncan’s blade.

When he and Uilliam were satisfied that this was not a trap, they moved closer to the body.

“There were two . . . no, three, soldiers here, and so was Scotia,” he said.

“Aye, ’tis where they got this dagger,” Uilliam said, drawing the weapon from the body and examining the hilt. “ ’Tis the one taken from the spy who killed Elspet. Nicholas had it after Kenneth killed the bastard. Scotia asked for it and he could not think of a reason not to let her have it. Are you sure Myles was killed by the English? That lassie has never struck me as dangerous, but she’s changed since Elspet died.”

Duncan looked at all the marks on the ground, the faint impression of feet standing heel to heel, a defensive stance. Where Myles had fallen, it was clear one set of those prints were his. The other prints were too small to be a man’s. He let go of a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. “ ’Twas not Scotia’s doing,” he said, pointing to the evidence. “Myles had her at his back, as he had been taught. I’ve no doubt she drew that dagger to protect herself.” He shook his head, imagining Scotia, dark eyes narrowed as she said something to their attackers that would only rile their anger. He only hoped that was not the reason why Myles had been killed.