He thought for a moment, then nodded, and she saw a flash of guilt cross his features. “I’m sorry I left so quickly, but after we lost both Mama and Papa, I couldn’t stay.”
“I stayed for two years. ’Twas long enough for me. But I don’t want to lose you. You may be a stubborn ox, but you’re the only family I have left.” She rubbed her arms in an attempt to chase away the chill that had sped through her as soon as Els left her side. While she still loved her brother, she didn’t trust him. Who knew what he would do? As far as she knew, he still had not declared for Robert.
“So who is this Els to you?”
“He’s a friend. They all are, and they have agreed to help me find our king. I don’t know if you recall, but both of our parents were proud to be Scottish. I think they’d be proud of me for helping Robert’s cause. They’d be proud of you, too, if you’d join me, and I’m sure the Scots could use all of our help.” She held her hands in front of her, clasped tightly, because she refused to knead them mindlessly. Her nerves would not master her—she’d long since learned to control them. “The English are relentless and ruthless, and no one expects that to change as long as King Edward is still on the throne. He has no conscience. Even if he dies, his son is no better.”
Derric paused and stared up at the gray sky, still working his jaw from the punch Els had so swiftly delivered. “All right. I accept your situation. I don’t like it, but I’ll not insult you again. I regret leaving you like I did, but I have my own life now. Our paths might converge for a time, but I cannot take you with me. Do you understand?”
She sighed, not having expected any more than that. At least they’d made their peace. “Aye.”
She started to walk away, but his voice stopped her. “Joya, what say you of King Robert? Is he trustworthy? A man worth fighting for?”
Turning around, she put her hands on her hips. “King Robert is indeed trustworthy. He’s the one who gave me a reason to live. After I left our aunt, I was captured, abused, and left for dead by some cruel men. Robert found me and gave me a reason to live, something I needed desperately. He’s always been true to his word.”
A brief flash of concern crossed her brother’s features, but it was there and then gone. “I’m sorry that happened to you. Had I known, I would have helped you.”
Joya glanced up at her brother and whispered, “Would you have?”
He acted like he hadn’t heard her, but then his features softened. “Joya, I was young. I buried both of our parents and kept you away. I didn’t want you to see the image I’d seen. I wasn’t thinking clearly, I’ll admit. All I wanted was to get away, but I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known it would have cost you so much.”
Joya hadn’t thought of it that way. “I thank you for burying Mama and Papa.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And for keeping me away. I don’t know how I would have done seeing them…”
“I did what I thought was best and mayhap part of it was wrong. I hope you’ll accept my apology. We were both too young. If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with your friends,” Derric said. “Is that all right with you?”
She nodded and followed him back over to the group, all of them on foot, the obvious separation between the two indicating the two factions still regarded each other as enemies.
Derric said to Els, “Where are you headed and what have you heard?”
“Just that the Bruce lost two more brothers. ’Tis said he’ll probably be coming from the Western Isles soon, but no one knows where he’ll land. We’re headed to Ayr, hoping to stand for our country, but we hear there are English everywhere.”
“There are. We’re headed the same way, but we just ran into a Scottish sheriff who said there’s a small group of English waiting nearby, ready to attack any Scots they see. I’d like to dispatch of the bastards quickly. You care to join us? See if we can get past them?” He motioned to his friends to include them in the conversation.
“Which sheriff?” Els asked.
“Didn’t know him, but he claimed to be Scottish.”
Els glanced at Alasdair and Dyna, each giving him a brief nod.
“We’ll join you. We’re all fighting for freedom. No reason to be enemies when we’re all Scots,” Alasdair said.
One of Derric’s friends asked, “Are you from the large Grant clan in the Highlands? The one with Alexander Grant and his sons?”
“Aye,” was all Alasdair said.
Joya wondered if he wished to hide that they were direct descendants of the great man, so she didn’t say anything.
Els said, “We’re from a clan that knows women can prove their worth many times over outside of the keep.” Then he glanced at Derric. “So stop thinking ’tis the only place a lass belongs. You’re fools if you believe that.”
He held his hand out to Joya, and she had to fight tears from flooding her cheeks as she took it.
Els had just said the nicest thing she’d ever heard from any man.
This man was special, and she probably should pay more attention to him.
Chapter Nine
Els rode next to Joya, trying not to worry, but he had a bad feeling about the English outside of Ayr. While Joya had ample experience spying, spying wasn’t the same as fighting. How many battles has she been in? Would she be able to fight for her life if the need arose?
Els was encouraged by the way he’d fought at MacLintock Castle, yet he still didn’t feel comfortable. Fighting still took thinking. Battle had not yet become an instinct for him again. Worrying about Joya could cause him to hesitate, which could prove to be his downfall.
“Joya, if there are enough English that it becomes a true skirmish, go with Dyna. You can climb a tree and hide from the men.” He glanced over to make sure she listened to him.
Joya glanced at Dyna. “Do you mind? I have breeches on so I can climb.”
“Absolutely come with me. You don’t wish to become a target of the enemy.” Dyna gave her a quick smile, drawing her horse closer to her. “Let’s hope we don’t see many.”
No one realized how wrong Dyna’s statement would prove to be.
They rode further along, which was when Els started to hear the sounds of horses and men moving in the bushes around them. There were far too many.
“Shite,” he said. “’Tis an ambush.” He gave a scathing look at Derric and said, “Scurrilous bastard.”
A few seconds later, a group of over two score Englishmen came out of the forest toward them, some of them knights in full armor.
“I had no idea,” Derric bellowed back. “The sheriff set us up.”
“Joya, go with Dyna,” Els shouted. “Get the hell out of here.”
Dyna yelled, “Follow me.” She headed in the opposite direction of the English, seeking out a copse of trees for them to hide in. With one glance back at him, and her brother, Joya followed her.
Els counted quickly as they made the final approach. They were outnumbered two to one. This would not be a good battle. Fortunately, Grandsire, his father, and the two lairds had made them practice fighting men in armor, learning how to thrust their blades between the openings and twist them for the most damage. The three of them had cursed the lessons.
Next time he saw them, if he saw them again, he’d thank them.
Alasdair gave directions to their guards and then fell in next to him.
How he wished Alick were here so they could attempt to summon the power again. But it had never worked without Alasdair, and he suspected the same was true of his other cousin. At least Dyna was with them. They needed her arrows more than ever.
As if on cue, two arrows sluiced over their heads, hitting unarmored men. He thanked the Lord for such a talented cousin who could think well enough under battle conditions. She knew her arrows would be nearly useless against men in armor.
At least five men went down in rapid succession while the rest charged their group with swords raised and ready. Els swung his blade flat up against the armor
ed men if he could. If not, he struck down on their legs, hoping to sever a good bleeder to weaken them.
The screams of battle filled the air around him. And then it happened. He realized that he’d gone into battle mode without any fear or hesitation—and that realization undid him. The weight of this moment, of the need to protect his cousins, Joya, and the other Grant guards weighed on him, and he could no longer fight with the easy, fluid movements that had come so naturally moments before. One armored knight came at him, sword arm raised overhead, and Els froze.
Alasdair noticed and bellowed, “Els, knock him off his horse!”
The knight was teetering on his horse from the weight of his blade combined with the armor, so Els easily brought the blade of his sword flat against the knight’s torso. The bastard flew off his horse, taking another knight down with him. Alasdair followed the two men, plunging his blade into an open spot in the second man’s armor.
Els swung at two others who approached him from both sides, taking one out with a slice to his side and nearly severing the sword arm of the next one. He turned to see Alasdair about to strike the other man, who’d fallen to the ground but was still thrashing about with his sword, when another armorless enemy entered his blind spot.
“’Dair! Your side!”
Els went after the man and plunged his sword into his back, but not before the bastard slashed Alasdair’s leg. The very leg he’d injured in battle three years ago.
“Alasdair, get to the side and we’ll finish this.” Arrows continued to find their mark from above, and most of the knights were now down. Two of Derric’s men fell and one of the Grant guards, but the guard still lived. He wasn’t certain about Derric’s men. The other Grant warriors took out three more armored men while Els fought to regain control of his senses, to get back in battle and fight.
Five unarmored English, the only enemies still fit to fight, gathered themselves and charged straight toward Alasdair, Els, and Derric, who’d just joined them. Els moved in front of Alasdair to defend him, but then a seemingly continuous barrage of arrows streamed through the air and hit their targets, one after another in perfect succession, taking the last five men out.
Derric’s remaining friends froze on the field. They’d likely never seen one person fire the way Dyna just had.
Derric turned his head toward the tree. “God’s bones!” he said. “Who did that?”
“The one who threatened your bollocks,” Els drawled. “Never consider her words empty threats.”
Derric whistled and said, “Hellfire, that deadly attack came from a lass? She hit every target.”
“You’d be wise not to forget that.”
Alasdair said, “The best archer in the Highlands.” He dropped from his horse and pulled a plaid from his saddlebag, tying it around his leg where the blood had soaked his trews.
Dyna looked over at him and shouted, “Alasdair, push on it hard.”
Joya moved from behind her and rushed to Els’s side. He wrapped one arm around her, pulling her in close enough to take in her scent. “You are hale?”
“Aye,” she said, hanging on to him a little too tightly.
“You’re trembling. Do you fear them that much? I’d not let them get to you,” he said, pulling back to look at her from head to toe. What was he missing?
“I’ve been around many Englishmen. Reivers bother me more because they’re driven by nothing but greed. I just…” She put her fingers to her temples and pressed, closing her eyes. “’Tis a funny thing, but this group of men seemed more like reivers to me.”
“Say no more,” he said, kissing her forehead. “You don’t need to give me a reason. You’ve met with much more trouble than most of us have.”
“She could be right,” Alasdair said. “They could have been English reivers. I’ve heard they’ve come into the Lowlands to take what they want, following Edward’s lead.” Alasdair limped away from his horse, yelling for their guards to check their men, the dead, and look for any stragglers.
Els’s insides were in turmoil. “Alasdair, ’tis all my fault. I froze for just a few moments, and had you not yelled at me, I may not have been able to knock that man off. Had I been fighting the way I should have, I’d have taken him out, not just unhorsed him.”
“You couldn’t have,” Alasdair said. “They were in armor. The only thing you could have done was knock him down. You did what you had to and it gave me the opportunity to finish him off. We won. And you warned me about the one coming from the side. True, he still cut me, but ’tis not a fatal wound. We’re all still here. No reason to question every move we made, Els. Leave it be.”
Alasdair stopped to look at his leg about the same time Dyna raced toward them, tossing her bow down as she approached. She took one look at him and shoved at his chest, knocking him down because he was too unsteady on his feet.
“What the hell, Dyna?” he bellowed at her.
Els stifled a laugh, amused by the sight of his reed-thin female cousin knocking over his brawny male cousin as if he weighed no more than a reed waving in the breeze in a loch. There was much power in that lithe frame of hers, but she also knew how to control her movements. A man worried about the strength of his push. Dyna knew how to use the angle, the swing, and the length to boost every move she made.
And she could be deadly.
“You’re bleeding too much to be walking around,” she hollered at him. “That kind of wound can kill you if you don’t put enough pressure on it.” She knelt next to him and put both hands on his wound, putting all her weight on it.
Alasdair didn’t try to stop her, instead leaning back on his elbows while she applied pressure to his wound. “’Twill stop. You need not worry.”
Els had to admit, the three of them rarely argued with Dyna. She was too often correct.
She didn’t give up easily either. “The hell it will, not with you walking and talking like that. You men need to learn that everything won’t be fine just because you will it so.”
“What made you hate men so?” Derric asked, standing to her side.
“I don’t hate men, fool,” she said. “I travel with men all day long and spend more time with them than women.”
“You act like a man, dress like a man, shoot like a man…”
“What of it?”
“Naught, I just…” Derric shook his head. “I’ve never seen anyone shoot like that.”
Els said, “When we were around ten winters old, our kin from Clan Ramsay set up a training for us to learn some skills as archers. Uncle Logan didn’t like the thought that we couldn’t shoot an arrow to hit the side of a wide ravine. So he took us three lads out to a spot to practice and we worked hard. We shot and shot, and I remember being quite proud of myself because I could nock an arrow and release it. Not one of us could even come close to the target, but at least we were shooting straight ahead.”
He chuckled and pointed to Dyna. “Then this one came out with Aunt Gwyneth, picked up a bow, listened, and worked with Auntie for about a half hour. After that, she did her best to mimic her.”
“Didn’t work then, did it? Being a lass, she’d have to work many moons to catch up with you.” Derric cast a wise-arsed grin her way.
If Els had to guess, he would say that Derric was intentionally trying to irritate Dyna. Was there more to the man than he thought?
Alasdair laughed. “I remember it well. Didn’t work? Hell, she hit the target with the first three arrows she nocked, and by the end of the hour, she was hitting dead center. It was the oddest thing, wasn’t it, Els?”
“Nay, not odd. She was born to be an archer.”
Derric coughed through a laugh. “Like hell. You made that up.”
“You didn’t just see her?”
“I saw her, but she must have practiced for many years. She is just a lass.” This time the smirk was gone, but his hands landed on his hips in a challenging stance. He tossed an odd look to Dyna, a challenge.
Dyna loved challenges. Els almost t
hought to step back to give his cousin room to do as she wished. And if he were to guess, that was exactly Derric’s intention.
Els looked at Alasdair. “He didn’t just say that, did he? Did I hear him wrong? Just a lass?”
Dyna said, “Els, push on Dair’s leg right here. As soon as we get the bleeding to stop, I’m taking him back to MacLintock Castle to get sewn up. You two can go on to Ayr to find Bruce. We’ll catch up later.”
Els knelt next to her to do as she asked. He recognized that look in her gaze, one you didn’t dare question, something Derric was about to learn.
Derric whistled. “And she gives orders like a man, too.”
Dyna probably didn’t see the dancing in his eyes when he whistled. The daft fool was doing his best to make her mad.
Els pushed on Alasdair’s leg, but his focus was on Dyna as she wiped her hands on her tunic and stood.
Alasdair clearly hadn’t seen the expression on her face or he’d have never posed his next question. “Dyna, what the hell are you doing?”
“Something I should have done a while ago,” Dyna said.
She moved as fast as a red squirrel in a storm, trying to grab the last two nuts that had just fallen in the wind, and punched Derric square in his jaw.
Her tone as fine as that of any lady, she said, “Shut the hell up, Derric.”
***
Emmalin bolted up in bed. She’d awakened from a nightmare in which Alasdair was calling to her from the far side of their great hall, but she could not get to him. Men surrounded her, and she punched and kicked at them, but no matter what she did, she could not reach him. When she was nearly upon him, he said, “Hurry, Em. I need your help.”
A sheriff had appeared from nowhere and reached for her arms, dragging her away from him. “Sorry, ’tis too late,” he’d said.
From the darkness, she could tell it was the middle of the night, but she knew she’d never get back to sleep. She dressed in breeches and a tunic and, after checking on John and Ailith, went down into the great hall. She forced herself to stand in the spot where she’d stood in the dream, then forcefully walked over to where Alasdair had appeared to her, directly in front of the hearth.
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