Betrayal In The Highlands (Book 2)

by Robert Evert

  Shoulders bent, Edmund exhaled. “No. I’ll do it by myself.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  To keep spirits high, a great bonfire was being lit in Rood’s town square. The gates were manned by companies of well-armed, experienced soldiers, and the rising full moon was bright enough to fight by. Everybody was ready. Everybody except Edmund.

  Standing in front of Molly and Norb’s bleak house, he sucked in a deep breath and, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants, looked down at Becky.

  “Well, I suppose we should get this over with.”

  Becky cocked her head at him. Edmund again examined the wobbly steps to the porch.

  “Oh, for the love of the gods!” Abby cried, several strides behind him. “Just get it over with!”

  Edmund turned. Next to Abby, Pond nodded his encouragement.

  “I told you two I could do this by myself,” Edmund said.

  “Yeah, well, we’re here to make sure you don’t do anything stupid,” Abby replied. “Now hurry up.”

  Inhaling again, Edmund climbed the steps.

  You can do this.

  He tapped on the door with a single knuckle then waited.

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” Abby stormed up the stairs, stomping footfalls shaking the rickety porch. She hammered on the front door. The warped wood buckled under her assault.

  Nobody answered.

  She hammered again.

  Becky dug at the edge of the door.

  She’s not here.

  They left with the others. They left! Oh, this is perfect!

  Finally able to breathe, Edmund peeked through the window.

  His heart stopped.

  Norb still lay on the floor of the front room, almost exactly where they’d left him the day before, but his head was now thrown back, throat slit from ear to ear.

  “Damn it!” Edmund drove his shoulder into the door. It popped open with a crack. “Norb! Norb!”

  But Norb didn’t move. The blood that had pooled about him had already turned thick and tacky. His pale body was as cold as wet clay.

  “Norb!” Edmund knelt next to him.

  Pond and Abby peered in from the front porch.

  “He’s dead,” Abby said. “I’m pretty sure he’s not going to answer you.”

  Edmund shouted for Molly.

  Abby rolled her eyes.

  Nobody answered.

  If she’s dead …

  “Becky! Go find Molly! Okay, girl? Find her!”

  Becky shot into the house and raced from room to room while Edmund searched for clues to Norb’s death.

  “There are footprints in the blood over there.” Pond pointed toward the hallway. “Several different footprints by the look of it.”

  Returning to the living room, Becky darted past Pond and Abby and out onto the front porch. She barked then looked back at Edmund.

  Molly left?

  So she must still be alive.

  He glanced at the expensive furniture and antiques.

  Why would she leave without packing? Or with Norb lying dead on the floor … ?

  No. Not left—taken!

  “What do you think happened?” Pond entered the house, careful not to step in the drying lake of blood. “Did Edith kill Norb so he couldn’t tell anybody else about what you know?”

  Staring at the wound sliced expertly across the former Lord of the Highland’s neck, Edmund shook his head. “No. Kravel did this.” Becky barked again. “And he has Molly. That’s why he wasn’t on the wall with Gurding.”

  “Well, that takes care of that!” Abby flopped down onto the ornate sofa. She coughed and waved the dust away from her face. “She deserves everything she gets. This town will be a lot better with her gone anyway.”

  Torn, Edmund gazed at Becky, quivering in anticipation of the hunt.

  “Ed …” Pond began, seeming to guess what Edmund was thinking. “Don’t! This isn’t your fault. Don’t even—”

  “I have to.”

  “Ed!”

  “Pond,” Edmund said.

  Abby stopped inspecting a crystal vase on a table by the sofa. “You’re not actually thinking of going after her, are you?” Seeing Edmund’s expression, she shouted, “Oh, come on!”

  “Pond,” Edmund repeated.

  “She doesn’t love you!” Abby yelled. “Don’t you get it? You’re nothing to her! You’re worse than nothing! You’re a toy! A plaything she can kick around whenever she needs you! Remember what she said?”

  “Ed,” Pond said tenderly, “Abby’s right. It’s time to let her go. Do you really want somebody like that in your life? Forgive me for saying this, but … Molly’s a bitch.”

  Listen to him!

  Edmund stared down at Norb’s body. Dark blood had sunken into the expensive rug.

  “It’s not that.”

  “Ed, this isn’t your fault. Kravel was coming to get her regardless of whether or not you came back to Rood. Had we come a day later, she would have already been gone.”

  Listen to him! Forget about Molly! You know she never cared for you. She treated you like crap your entire life, taking your gifts and leading you on …

  Becky barked again, nails clicking on the porch in her excitement.

  “Ed,” Pond said again, pleading.

  “Think!” Abby tapped her temple. “Think about everything that bitch did to you.”

  Edmund studied the bloody footprints. “She’s only been gone a day, a day and a half at most.”

  Shaking his head, Pond swore under his breath. “Fine! I’ll get some supplies.”

  Abby shot to her feet. “What? I’m not going after that woman! Not after everything she’s done to you. Let her rot, that’s what I say. I’m not going.”

  “No,” Edmund said quietly. “No, you’re not.” He put a hand on Pond’s shoulder. “And you’re not going either.”

  “Ed!” they both shouted.

  “She doesn’t love you,” Pond said. “You understand that, don’t you?”

  “She never did!” Abby added.

  Edmund stared outside. The huge bonfire blazed orange in the middle of town. Cheering men threw more logs on the leaping flames.

  “It’s not that,” he said.

  “Then what?” Pond asked. “Why are you doing this?”

  “It’s not about … her.”

  Hundreds of sparks swirled into the darkening sky.

  “It’s …”

  “What?” Abby demanded. “What is it? You’re afraid nobody else will love you? Is that it? You don’t want to grow old alone? What?”

  Becky barked again, more insistent than before.

  “It’s, it’s about … me,” Edmund said.

  “You!” Abby cried. “You didn’t do a damned thing to deserve how she treated you. You treated her like a princess, and look how she repaid you!” She flung her hands toward the furniture. “She bought all this crap with your money! Your parents’ money!”

  Edmund cringed inside. “What I mean is … what I’m trying to say …”

  Pond and Abby were so livid they couldn’t look at him.

  “I don’t want to be eighty years old, thinking about this,” Edmund explained. “I don’t want to be, to be haunted about what I should have done, like I am with Turd.”

  “Turd?” Abby snorted. She turned to Pond. “What’s he talking about?”

  “I need to forget about her, I know that.” Edmund sighed. “But I never will, not if this is how things end.”

  Pond shook his head.

  “Pond,” he said. “You know what will happen if they bring her back to the tower. They won’t kill her. They’ll keep her alive. They’ll keep her alive for a long, long time.”

  “Who cares?” Abby shouted, but her tone had lost much of its anger. Perhaps she’d pictured what the goblins would do to a woman and how many things were worse than death.

  “They only have a day’s lead,” Edmund said to Pond. “With a horse and with Becky tracking them, I could catch up by t
omorrow night or the next day. Either way, I can get to her well before they reach the mountains. That’s all I want. I want to get her before Kravel brings her back.”

  Pond peered out the window. “What about the men, Ed?” Everybody who wasn’t guarding the gates celebrated around the fire. “What about everybody who stayed? They’re expecting a battle soon. Many of them are preparing to die. But they’re willing to fight because they believe in you and what you told them Rood could be—someplace where they can make their own fortunes and control their own destinies. Are you just going to leave them, right before the goblins come?”

  “They aren’t coming.”

  “They don’t know that. These men are willing to face death for you. They deserve better than you running out on them like you did to me back in Long Ravine.”

  This hit Edmund like a punch in the stomach.

  He looked at the men singing by the bonfire. His place was here with them in the Highlands. He knew that deep in his heart. Still, he imagined Molly strapped to a bed in the High Cells, Kravel gloating over her naked body as she thrashed about helplessly. Year after year, she’d have to endure them. Year after year, without any hope of escape.

  Pressure crushed down on him from all sides.

  “They need you, Ed.”

  “I know!”

  Edmund collapsed into one of the luxurious chairs, head in his hands.

  Molly versus all of these men …

  And Rood …

  He swore.

  It’s not that easy being a lord, is it?

  I’m not a lord!

  You might as well be. You’re running this place. And whether you like it or not, you have responsibilities here.

  “What are you going to do?” Pond asked.

  Edmund glanced toward the bonfire and the men dancing around it, waving their weapons in the smoky air.

  “I’ll stay here,” he said with the heaviness of a death sentence.

  Pond and Abby relaxed. On the porch, Becky barked at the darkness growing in the east.

  “But if the goblins don’t attack tonight,” Edmund said, “I’m going after her tomorrow morning.”

  “Ed!” Pond cried.

  “Pond. I have to do this. Don’t you understand? I have to. I don’t want to live with her blood on my hands. I have to at least try to do something—now, before Kravel reaches the mountains.”

  Pond sighed. “Fine. We’ll go until we reach the mountains.”

  “No. Not we.”

  “You’re not going by yourself.”

  “I’ll have Becky.”

  Becky barked and leapt.

  “Pond, look, I need you to stay here and—”

  “If you say ‘look after me,’ ”—Abby made a fist—“I’m going to punch you!”

  That was exactly what Edmund meant to say, but he didn’t dare admit it.

  “I was going to say ‘look after Rood.’ The men need someone here to encourage them and assuage their fears. Who better to do that than you?”

  “Ed …”

  “Ed nothing. If my count is correct, there’ll only be three or four goblins left. And Kravel is hurt. So between Becky and this—” he held up his reforged short sword, “you don’t have to worry.”

  Pond grumbled under his breath.

  “What?” Edmund asked.

  Pond turned away.

  “He said he’s always going to worry.” Abby snorted. “Me, I think you’re an idiot.” Yet concern shone in her eyes as well.

  “I appreciate that both of you care about me,” Edmund told them. “I really do. But I need you to promise that you won’t follow me. I have to do what I have to do alone.”

  Silence.

  “Pond, I mean it. Don’t come after me.”

  Pond stared out the window again.

  “I’ll be taking the knight’s horse,” Edmund said. “You’d never be able to catch up.”

  Pond shifted uneasily.

  “Rood needs you more than I do,” Edmund insisted.

  “If you get captured …” Pond grumbled, eyes becoming moist. He glanced away again.

  “Abby?” Edmund said, hoping for help.

  “He’ll stay here. I’ll see to it.” Then her voice cracked. “But you’d better come back, understand? I’ll kill you if you get captured because of that woman.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The goblins didn’t attack that night. Neither did any magic users. By morning, the entire town was filled with men singing loudly and toasting one another with what little alcohol Edmund permitted them to have. They were all exhausted, but they were alive.

  As clouds that hung over the eastern horizon glowed red with the rising sun, Hendrick and Bain brought forth a long table from The Buxom Barmaid. Others lifted Edmund high into the air and paraded him triumphantly to the makeshift stage.

  “Speech! Speech! Speech!” the crowd chanted, waving weapons, hats, and empty flagons above their heads. The nearby smoldering remains of the bonfire snapped and sputtered. Black smoke rose into the morning sky.

  Edmund climbed onto the table and called for them to quiet down, but they only cheered louder when Becky jumped up next to him.

  “All right! All right!” Edmund shouted.

  He pointed to the edge of the crowd where Pond stood with Abby, smiling and clapping along with everyone else. Another cheer erupted as two men picked up Pond, carried him over to the table, and placed him next to Edmund. Edmund and Pond hugged.

  “You did it!” Pond said to him.

  “One night of peace doesn’t amount to much,” Edmund replied.

  “It’s one more than we could have had.”

  “True.”

  “Speech! Speech! Speech!”

  Edmund waved for them to settle down. “Gentlemen!” he yelled. “Gentlemen! I’m not going to lie to you …”

  The commotion lessened somewhat.

  “The goblins may have left us alone …”

  There was an explosion of applause and whistles.

  “… but we aren’t out of danger,” Edmund said. “More will come, and we have to be ready!”

  “What do you need us to do?” shouted a man with red hair and a two-handed sword resting against his shoulder.

  “Plenty,” Edmund answered. “We’ve got to clear more trees away from the walls. If anybody comes within a hundred yards of Rood, we want to see them coming.”

  Men nodded.

  Make sure they understand that this is their kingdom. They’ll work harder and fight for it longer if they remember they have a vested interest in its survival.

  “We also have to be ready to fight anyone who tries to take our home from us!”

  “I’d like to see ’em try!” yelled a man with a longbow.

  Weapons clashed on shields.

  “Let me ask you this,” Edmund said. “How many of you can shoot a bow well?”

  At least a hundred hands shot into the air.

  “I mean really well. How many of you could hit a running rabbit from two hundred feet away?”

  Most of the hands went down, but a few remained, including Hendrick’s, Bain’s, and those from the group of seasoned warriors clustered around them.

  “Okay. First, we need to build a parapet around the inside of the wall so we can post archers in every direction. Second, we need you men skilled at shooting a bow to teach others. By the end of winter, I want you all to be expert marksmen.” Edmund pointed to Hendrick and Bain. “Can you take care of that?”

  “Yes, sir!” they called back.

  “Good. We also need to keep working on the winter barracks.” Edmund pointed to Cavin in the middle of the crowd. “Our master carpenter here is in charge. He knows exactly what to do.”

  Several people patted Cavin on the back.

  “And where’s our wonderful cook?” Edmund peered through the crowd. “Where’s the chef of The Buxom Barmaid?”

  A short man raised his corpulent arm as high as he could.

  “Keep cookin
g food like that stew of yours and you’ll be King of the Highlands!”

  Laughter and more cheers filled the air. Several men attempted to lift the cook off his feet but, after several strained heaves, decided to slap him on the back instead.

  “Master chef,” Edmund called out, “we need you to start planning how we’re going to store food for the winter. We don’t have a granary yet, but we can store jellies and preserves. Don’t worry about meat; there are herds of deer and moose that can be hunted all year round. But the winters are long, and these men deserve good food!”

  “I’ll take care of it!” the cook shouted back. “I’ll start organizing the glassware we need!”

  “Good.” Edmund put his arm around Pond and shook him. “And you all know this man!”

  Abby whistled and applauded with the rest of the crowd.

  “But if you don’t,” Edmund went on, “he’s Mr. Pond. There’s never been a finer man or a more loyal friend in these lands or any other!”

  “Thanks, Ed,” Pond said.

  Edmund motioned for the crowd to quiet down again. “Now, you all have your tasks, as do I. We need horses and grain and supplies for the winter.”

  Somebody hollered, “We have everything we need right here!”

  Many of the men shook their weapons in agreement.

  Edmund let their clamor die.

  “But in order to buy what we need,” he said, “we need money.”

  There was a collective groan. The hats and flagons and weapons that were once brandished with a flourish now sunk low as the men of Rood faltered. They suspected what was next.

  “But I ain’t got no money!” a man who looked like a miner yelled at Edmund.

  “I spent all I had to come here!”

  “Me too!”

  Grumbles bubbled through the throng.

  You’re losing them.

  Edmund signaled for calm, but their anger was escalating.

  “Listen to what he has to say!” Bain shouted. “Shut up and listen!”

  Abby whistled, a shrill note that sliced through the commotion like a jagged piece of glass.

  Silenced, everybody turned back to Edmund.

  “As I was saying,” he went on, “thanks to some good fortune, Mr. Pond and I have enough money to keep us all well off for a few years. But after that, we’ll have to make our way using our brains and the strength of our backs.”