Highlander Redeemed (Guardians of the Targe Book 3)

by Laurin Wittig

  “I said let go of that line!” he said, grabbing Sherwood’s wrist and wrenching it as if he thought that would be enough to make Sherwood release his hold on the one thing that was keeping him from washing overboard.

  Sherwood swallowed bile as the ship pitched hard, and he was surprised that the man who gripped his arm seemed to need no other help to keep his feet.

  “I said, let go and get yer arse back below where it belongs—”

  “Release me,” he said, trying to hold on to his dignity as the ship’s deck bucked and tried to toss him into the sea again.

  Sherwood had put up with too much disrespect from the crew of this ship already, spending days and nights shut in the dark below with his men when the captain should have had them to Scotland a full week past. This latest storm was more than anyone should have to bear, and he was in no mood for further excuses. The king had sent him to find the Highland Targe, take the head of the spy who had betrayed the king by keeping the Targe for himself, and retrieve the red-haired witch who, if the stories were true, controlled the damn relic. The stakes were high if he succeeded, and he’d not let the captain’s fears of storms and roving Scottish and Irish ships keep him from his destiny any longer. Perhaps a purse filled with silver would get the captain to finish this journey with alacrity where strong words and threats had not.

  “You will release me and take me to the captain this minute,” Sherwood said, letting all his years of command lend gravitas to his voice.

  “I’d sooner toss meself into the drink than take ye anywhere. Get below afore you cost someone his life!”

  Sherwood shook his head at the belligerent jackanape, drew his dagger and sank it deep into the man’s gut before the sailor knew what he was about.

  He leaned in close but still had to shout over the gale, “I give you my word, I shall see that you make it into the ‘drink.’” He was pleased at the mix of surprise and pain that suddenly glazed the sailor’s eyes as his grip weakened. “I am on the king’s business, and none of you shall keep me from it any longer.” It was past time he took control of this poor excuse of an armada.

  Sherwood quickly looked about to see who else he might have to deal with, but there were only a few sailors on the deck, and those who weren’t struggling up on the yardarm to lash down a loose sail were focused on the fight. He pulled his dagger from the sailor and watched as the man crumpled, one hand to his gut, the other reaching as if he searched for something to hang on to just as another wave crashed over them, swamping the deck. Sherwood barely kept his feet. When the water fled back into the sea, the sailor lay where the deck met the railing, either stunned or dead. Sherwood didn’t care. He took one more look about to make sure none of the others were bearing down on him, intent to send him back below, then took advantage of the relative calm between the crashing waves to move toward the quarterdeck. He made slow progress though it was not far, stopping every few steps to hold on as a wave broke over the ship and swept off the deck. The third time he looked back the sailor’s body was no longer to be seen.

  Sherwood always kept his word.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DUNCAN MOVED THROUGH the forest like a deer, quickly and silently, stopping only to examine Scotia’s tracks when he could find them. The wily lass had doubled back on her own trail, then veered off through a burn a short way, then out on the same bank and down the ben. He did not know whether to be irritated that she worked so hard to hide from her own kin, or proud of her for making it difficult to track her. Instead of debating his own feelings he braced himself for an argument as he continued to follow her obscure trail down the ben.

  Scotia would not come back to the caves just because he told her to. Nay, he’d likely have to carry her back over his shoulder or drag her back, hissing and scratching like a cat. He did not look forward to it. He did not like the idea of humiliating her that way, but she gave him little choice since she had once more put her own selfish desires before those of the clan, and if that meant he had to treat her like a wean to get her attention, then that was what he would do.

  After more back tracks and false trails than he had anticipated, he heard an odd sound, along with quiet muttering, and knew he’d found his quarry. He crept up to the edge of a bright area in the wood, too small to be called a clearing, and discovered Scotia standing in a narrow beam of sunlight. It glinted off her night-black hair, reflecting iridescence, like the sun on a raven’s wing. She held a stick in her hand like a child’s play sword. A real targe, a round shield, was strapped to her left arm, and she gripped a dirk in that hand. Irritation sizzled through him. He knew she had to have pilfered the targe and dirk from somewhere, perhaps denying them to someone who needed those weapons. He touched the dirk at his hip, just to make sure she had not taken his. If only he could convince her to think of someone other than herself for a change, then he might be able to help her redeem her past behavior. He might be able to convince the clan to forgive her.

  If he could not, he feared the clan might choose to take more extreme steps than shunning her in their midst. They might banish her altogether. Such an action, though justified, would tear her family apart and put Scotia’s life at risk. The Highlands was no place for a woman alone. It was no place for anyone alone. Duncan might not have the role he wished in the clan, but if he could avert the need to send her away, ’twould serve the clan well.

  He braced himself for the verbal battle to come, but before he could make himself known, Scotia began to move, hesitantly and without her usual grace, but so focused on her task he could almost taste her determination. She watched her feet, letting her weapons go slack in her hands. Even so, he quickly recognized the exercise Malcolm had been teaching the lads a few days ago. She shook her head, then started the series of moves again, talking to herself just under her breath. She repeated the process over and over until, all of a sudden, she flew through the short exercise as if it were a dance she had known her entire life, thrusting, parrying, spinning, attacking the dirt-clad roots of a toppled tree. The sharp sound of wood on wood reverberated through the forest like a woodpecker hammering on a hollow log.

  His breath caught in his chest. She was magnificent. Beautiful. Strong.

  She fought as if demons threatened her life.

  And Duncan could not take his eyes off her. She was everything he would expect her to be if he did not know her so well. That thought stopped him.

  Each time Scotia did the exercise she moved a little quicker, until suddenly her feet tangled in her skirts and she landed hard on the ground.

  “Blast and damnation!”

  Her curse resounded through the wood. Duncan noted that even as she fell she was wise enough to hold her weapons away from her. Clearly she had been carefully watching Malcolm work with the lads, and even without the hands-on guidance of a trained warrior she was remarkably adept at mastering the moves.

  She got to her feet quickly and untangled her skirts, revealing well-worn brogues and shapely, strong calves as she did. She took her starting position and began again, repeating the exercise as she had before, faster and faster, until her sides heaved and she stopped, pushing damp hair away from her flushed face with the back of her sword hand.

  “Take that, you damned Sassenachs,” she said as she stared at the tree roots, her stick once more held at the ready. “I have killed each and every one of you this day and you shall not harry my home and my family again.”

  Duncan’s breath hitched and his mind raced. If this was what she wanted, to be trained as a warrior—and he did not doubt for even a moment that was her intention—he had the weapon he needed to keep her close. If she wanted to be treated like the adult she must become, if she truly wanted to learn to fight for her home and family, he would give her a reason to behave like a woman worthy of her lineage. He would give her a reason to be reasonable. And he did not care if Nicholas or Kenneth or any of the others agreed with his plan. They had given her over to his keeping.

  Duncan would teach Sc
otia to be a warrior.

  The lass was immune to any negative reactions such training might instigate in the clan, as evidenced by her behavior past and present. She could train herself with anger and selfish goals—for he knew she still sought her own vengeance against the English no matter what Nicholas and his council planned. That way would likely end up being even more dangerous to her own kin.

  Or he could convince her to let him train her properly, not just physically, but to fight without anger, to fight with the keen intellect he knew her to have, and to fight with the natural talent she appeared to hold. He could train her to be an asset to her clan, something no one thought she could ever be after the last few weeks.

  He was certain everyone would be safer if Scotia knew how to fight, how to defend herself and those who fell within her realm of troublemaking. If she’d known how to fight, Myles might yet be among the living.

  He held his ground as she once more paced herself through the exercise slowly, just as Malcolm had the lads do, muttering each move as she did so. But this time, when she flew through it, he watched her with new eyes, with the eyes of a teacher, assessing her weaknesses and her strengths—making a plan for her training.

  SCOTIA TRIED TO ignore the pain in her side where she’d landed on a large stone. She must remember to bring the trews she’d “borrowed” from one of the lads and hide them with her training gear. Skirts clearly did not mix with battle.

  She shoved loose tendrils of hair out of her face, reset her stance, and prepared to do the exercise yet again. She refused to stop until she had it perfect. She gripped the stick hard, pulled the targe up to guard her torso, took a deep breath—

  “If you turn a bit more to the side, you shall present a smaller target to your foe.”

  The calm focus she’d been cultivating shattered with the first startling word. She’d spun around to face the intruder, her poor excuse for a weapon gripped hard and held high to defend herself, before she even realized ’twas Duncan.

  He leaned his long, lanky frame against a young oak tree, his thumbs casually hooked in the belt that held his faded green, brown, and the palest yellow plaid about narrow hips, as if he’d been standing there watching her for some time. A fitful breeze ruffled the unruly curls of his shoulder-length, dark-brown hair, and the errant thought that he should braid it at his temples as her da did destroyed what remained of her battle focus. His posture spoke of relaxed indifference but she knew him too well to be fooled. His intense curiosity, a curiosity that easily matched her own, lit his dark eyes, giving the lie to his guise. Damn the interfering man!

  “I thought you were at the council meeting,” she said, turning back to the exercise as if she cared nothing that he had discovered her secret. She hoped he would leave now that he had found her, now that he knew she was not haring off across the bens to kill any English soldier she could find, though she knew the tenacious man would not.

  But her mind was no longer sharply focused on the exercise. Instead, though she took the starting stance, she prepared herself for another of Duncan’s lectures on her disrespect for the safety of others, or on her disrespect for the rules laid down for her behavior by Nicholas, Kenneth, Uilliam, Jeanette, Rowan, auld Peigi, and even himself.

  “Surely they are not done rehashing their plan so soon this morn.” She did not bother to hide the disdain she felt for the blethering that went on and on in that circle day after day.

  “Nay, they are not.”

  She took the first step in the exercise, determined to irritate him further by ignoring him, hoping he would, as he sometimes did, stomp off muttering about how childish she was. But then the words that had startled her came back to her as if Duncan said them only now. She turned her torso a little more sideways, shifting her forward foot a little closer to her center for balance, surprised at how those small changes increased her reach, protected her torso more easily, and strengthened her balance. She began once more.

  “Put more of your weight on your back foot when defending and loosen your grip on the stick just a little,” he said as she moved into the exercise. “You do not want to strangle it, for that hinders your arm’s flexibility and strength.”

  She did as he said, though it felt awkward. She stumbled as she concentrated on keeping her body turned and her grip relaxed.

  “Damn skirts.”

  “Why do you not kilt them up?” Duncan asked.

  She glanced at him, sure she would see disappointment and scorn in his dark eyes, but was surprised to see a calm gaze, thoughtful, not judging. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, and she knew from long experience that his sharp mind was working on a problem.

  “Never mind,” he said. “’Tis good to train in skirts since that is likely what you will be wearing if ever you are ambushed.”

  She waited for him to say again, but he did not, and she found herself distracted by his change in behavior. He was not attacking her, or treating her like a child, and that alone was remarkable, for nothing about her had changed, so in theory his opinion of her should not have changed either, but it seemed it had, at least for the moment.

  Even though she agreed with him about fighting in skirts, she could not let him know that. Scotia set her weapons and targe down and kilted her skirts, tucking the ends, still damp from the mud puddles at the caves, up into the wide leather belt she wore, just as she had when she’d waded into the burn to throw off the lads who usually trailed after her. But Duncan had not been thrown off her trail. Duncan was the best tracker in the clan and had taught her all she knew of tracking both beasts and people. On her own, she had turned the lessons around and, over the years, become quite adept at hiding her own tracks when she did not wish to be found. Clearly she must work harder if she wished to hide her trail from Duncan in the future.

  She waited for him to say something, but he was silent as she settled her weapons. She started, as she always did, by closing her eyes and moving through each step of the exercise slowly in her mind, fixing it there. Next she opened her eyes, turned her torso, set her feet, checking both balance and that the weight was more to the back foot, relaxed her grip on the stick, and then moved through the exercise slowly, making sure each step was precisely as she’d seen Malcolm doing it when he taught the lads.

  “Good,” Duncan said, circling around to her other side. “Now faster.”

  “I do not need your commands,” she said, still wishing the man would leave her, though his suggestions did seem to help. She brought the face of the gap-toothed English soldier who had held her captive into her mind, then put the memory of his blade to her throat there as well. That was all it took to bring into her heart all the rage and helplessness he had made her live with. She imagined he stood in front of her, that smirk on his face as he’d told her what he would do to her after he and his fellow soldiers had slaughtered her family, what they would each do to her, and when the rage lived within her like a beast she flew through the exercise, repeating it without pause. Exhilaration spilled through her, as it had the last few days as she’d practiced, as if she’d finally, finally found the thing she was meant to do. After nine or ten repetitions her breath burned in her lungs and throat, and sweat dripped from her face. She stopped, resting her hands on her knees as she gulped in the cool air of the wood, damping down the burning.

  “You really are quite good at this,” Duncan said, as if he truly was surprised by what he saw. “But—”

  “But nothing,” she snapped, standing up to face him before he could ruin the subtle warmth that flirted over her skin at his compliment by telling her everything wrong with her, by telling her this was a foolish thing to do, a foolish thing to want. She did not want to hear any of it.

  “But,” he said again, his voice remarkably patient, “you need a proper teacher if you mean to continue.” He held up a hand to stop her next retort.

  But it did not come.

  Scotia knew her mouth was agape, but she was powerless to close it.

  �
�And I do think you should continue to train,” he added.

  He looked a little too pleased with himself so she pressed her lips together hard enough to close her mouth, and tried to understand what he had just said.

  “You cannot mean to let me train with the lads. What are you about, Duncan? Surely you mean only to trick me into letting my guard down before you dive in to tear me apart with sharp, mean words.”

  He nodded. “I do not blame you for thinking that, and indeed, that was my intention when I was searching for your trail.”

  “Searching?”

  “Aye. It took far more work than I expected to discover where you had gone. It would seem you are a good student when the subject serves your purposes.”

  She couldn’t decide if that was a compliment or a complaint, but she did not care. She clearly had more work to do to slip the sharp-eyed Duncan, but she had at least made it difficult for him to find her and that was an accomplishment she could be proud of.

  “I do not think you should train with the lads. ’Twill demoralize them to see a lass who is far more skilled than they are.”

  Pride and surprised satisfaction warmed her.

  “Nay,” he continued, “but I can train you in the ways of a warrior, if you agree to my terms.”

  Scotia realized she still held her weapons at the ready, as if she protected herself from Duncan, which was daft, for though his words had always had the power to sting, he’d never physically hurt her.

  But now Duncan was asking her to allow him to help her.

  Could she do that? Could she trust him?

  “If I agree,” she said slowly, “I get to train with a bossy instructor? What do you gain by helping me in this?” Ingrained wariness held her back from jumping at his proposal.

  “I get to make sure you are properly trained so that you may be an asset to this clan, so that I can be assured that you are able to protect yourself and those you fight with.” The words were almost soft, as if he sought to lull her into accepting his oversight, but they hit her like a slap, a rebuke.