…
The Brute clutched Kára up against him, and she could feel his jack pressed against her backside. Brutality apparently heightened his lust. One of his meaty arms encircled her waist while the other bruised her chest with the pressure of the mattucashlass he held against her throat. She would die before she let him rape her, and she had no intention of dying that night, not when Brenna depended on her.
“Drop the sword, Sinclair,” The Brute said. “Or I will lay her neck wide open.”
Kára stared at Joshua where he stood motionless, his largeness and strength obvious even in the shadows and slices of torchlight. Was he alone? Had he not found Hilda?
Thump. Joshua’s short sword hit the dirt floor, and he stood there, his arms open wide. Death painted his face almost like a mask, and she understood how others could believe he was the biblical Horseman of War sent to herald the end of times.
“Let her go. Now,” Joshua said, the rough warning in his tone sending a shiver between Kára’s shoulder blades. Blood would surely wet the earth beneath them.
“You did not leave Orkney? Are you working with the native rabble now?” The Brute asked. “I thought you had learned your lesson down in South Ronaldsay. Did not you swear never to help the helpless again?”
His words pricked along Kára’s spine. There was history between them. South Ronaldsay? Had Joshua been involved in the slaughter there?
Joshua’s gaze never wavered from The Brute’s. “Let her go.”
The Brute pulled her in tighter, his crooked nose inhaling deeply along the skin of her neck. The brush of him against her made the small meal she’d had earlier wash around inside her middle like a whirlpool.
“I agree there is merit to knowing this bit of rabble,” he said. The bastard sucked in through his teeth. “Have you not educated her on the consequences when you become a spoil of war?” He paused a moment to let Joshua answer. When Joshua did not reply, The Brute shrugged, making the blade slide against the surface of her neck, and she felt its sting. “I am certain Henry will not mind sharing her.”
By the devil! She would never let Henry touch her again. She would throw herself onto a blade before she let him take another thing from her.
Not a single muscle in Joshua’s face twitched. He slowly crossed his arms over his chest, his legs braced as if he stood on the deck of a ship. “I came to retrieve something. That is all. The lass but rode with me. If ye do not release her unharmed, ye will die tonight. ’Tis your choice, Dishington.”
“The new chief of the weak islanders happened to ride with you here in the dead of night because you left something behind. If you think that is a believable tale, then you are a fool.”
“Then let us battle,” Joshua said. “The two of us, honorably. As we did in South Ronaldsay. Or are ye afraid I will beat ye again?”
“There was no true winner,” The Brute said, his deep voice snapping out the words. Joshua said nothing, and the bastard continued. “These islanders are a weak people, Sinclair. We are the strong, the mighty, and Lord Robert and the Stuarts will rule this isle. These fools,” he said, yanking Kára up higher against his body, “will die trying to win back their isle.”
She could smell his foul breath as his lips moved near her head. “Bunch of inbred bastards. There is no honor in you if you mix with them or help them. ’Twill lead only to their complete extinction.”
Rage flamed up inside Kára. John Dishington, The bloody Brute, knew nothing of the hardships her people suffered. Cold, hungry, forced to work on Robert’s palaces and fortress walls. Their numbers were dwindling from cruelty and sickness while this bloodthirsty man raped and tortured without justice.
Kára stretched her fingers along her leg to line up with the dagger sheathed in her tall boot, but she couldn’t reach it. The Brute slid his bristled jaw along her cheek, the stubble scratching her.
Joshua’s arms uncrossed to hang ready by his sides. “I said…release her.”
With the blade against her throat, she could barely swallow without drawing blood. Switching up her plan, Kára lifted her hands at the same time she said the devil’s name. “John Dishington, I have a secret for you.”
The Brute snorted. “Oh I am sure you have some secret places upon you I will uncover shortly.”
Staring directly into Joshua’s eyes, Kára slowly drew in breath, fueling her muscles. If she was to die, she wanted to see the strength in Joshua’s face as she left this world.
Pulling one more breath in, Kára curled her tongue to let out a high-pitched whistle. Surprise lit Joshua’s eyes, and his own lips came together as if her action reminded him that he was still armed. He whistled two short bursts of sound, too.
Kára’s mare, Broch, charged through the stall door that was ajar, and Kára shoved against The Brute’s arm. The surprise gave her a heartbeat to react. She dropped and yanked her dagger from her boot, to leap upright, her arm coming around to slash at the bastard’s face.
The Brute grunted as her blade sliced open the skin of his cheek, and he jumped back, his eyes going beyond her to where Joshua no doubt charged. But before he could reach them, Joshua’s horse kicked his stall door, splintering it. Pieces of wood shot everywhere, and deadly hooves flew out of the stall like an avenging angel sent straight from Heaven. The horse’s nostrils flared, ears back, like when Kára’s brother stupidly tried to steal him from the village. The horse barreled into The Brute, knocking him down, his powerful legs trampling over him.
Joshua grabbed Kára, pulling her out of the way of the two horses. The Brute lay flat on the ground, eyes closed, mouth open, his face bleeding freely.
“Is he dead?” she said, her breath heavy as they faced him.
“What goes on in here?” a voice called from the entrance.
“Bring your horse,” Joshua said and clicked to his own mount before running toward the door on foot, his sword out. He was going to cut their way through whatever waited for them there.
Ignoring the trembling in her hand, Kára grabbed the horn of the saddle that she’d placed on Broch before The Brute found her, climbing up to follow behind Joshua and his horse, who trotted after him. When she reached the torchlight circle near the doors, Robert’s warrior was on the ground unconscious. A woman in a white cloak stood there, a chain attaching her to a large rock that sat next to the bloody man.
“Courage runs in your clan,” Joshua said, lifting the rock and leading the woman over to Kára. “Ye are a clever lot.”
“Hilda?” Kára whispered.
Her aunt glanced at the unconscious warrior. “I was not going to let him ruin things after you got past The Brute.”
“Drape the cloak around the two of ye,” Joshua said and handed the rock chained to her aunt up to Kára. He lifted Hilda behind her. The woman quickly draped the wide cloak around Kára for her to clasp in the front.
Joshua stared up at Kára as Hilda tucked the long cape around their legs. “Ye are Jean,” he said, “going out for a midnight ride with me.” He waited for Kára to nod her understanding.
She studied him in the sharp glow of the flame, and her chest tightened. “Is that lip paint on your face?” Her gaze dropped as her brows rose, anger shooting through her. “And down your neck?” Had he been kissing Jean Stuart, or even tupping her, while Kára hid and then got pawed by The Brute? Could there have been time for that?
“Walk slow until we reach the hill,” Joshua answered, ignoring her questions. It wasn’t the time to ask, but his non-answer was answer enough.
Unable to stop herself, Kára murmured, “Her perfume stink clings to this cloak.”
“If Robert’s men give chase, ye ride on to your den to hide with Hilda while I lead them off.”
“I need to get her to Brenna,” she countered.
He grabbed her hand where it fisted around her reins. “Ye will not be taken. Is that clear? If they are followin
g ye, get somewhere safe. I will bring Brenna to ye.”
“After you kill all of them? By yourself?”
His answer was to turn on his heels to stride to his horse, throwing a leg up to pull himself easily into the saddle of his tall mount. Hilda wrapped her arms around Kára under the cloak, pulling her body close against her. Kára had the irrational desire to fling Jean’s rich cape off, but it was the only way to get them both out of this palace prison.
Joshua waited for her to come up behind him to throw the torch in a trough of water near the door, dousing it. “Stay close,” he said. “Keep your hair covered.”
Of course, she would keep her hair covered. Jean’s tresses were dark while her hair was pale. Anger boiled inside her, threatening to bubble out across her tongue, but she kept her lips pinched. Red lips had slid all over Joshua’s neck and face. Had he even tried to stop her? Would any man?
They rode forward to the raised portcullis. “I thought ye were staying the night,” the gatekeeper called down.
Joshua grinned up at the man and reached over to take Kára’s hand fondly. “’Tis hard to keep quiet with her father sleeping next door. Do not give us away.”
The man laughed low and gave him a salute. “Come, love,” Joshua said.
Love? With evidence of Jean’s lips all over him? She almost snatched her hand back but made herself withdraw it slowly to take up her reins. They rode side by side out into the darkness.
“A bit faster now,” Joshua said softly, and she followed him into a trot and finally a full run. The moon kept hidden as they flew across the moor toward Brenna and her unborn bairn.
Chapter Nine
“A leader leads by example, not by force.”
Sun Tzu – The Art of War
Kára was angry.
Joshua knew enough about women that he spotted jealousy quickly, and he knew better than to smile over it. The lass didn’t like the idea of him tangling with Robert’s loose daughter. He would clear up her worries, whatever they were, but for the moment there wasn’t time, and the idea that Kára did not want to share him with another woman lightened his mood considerably.
Robert’s men did not give chase as he’d worried. Was John Dishington dead or merely asleep? Damn, Joshua wished he’d had the chance to knock the stupid grin off his ugly face. After the disaster of South Ronaldsay, where they’d been on opposite sides of the dispute, they had both traveled up to Birsay. Dishington was a mercenary, fighting for whomever had the most gold to give him. Even though Joshua didn’t need the coin, he needed a purpose, and training warriors had seemed like a good one—until he realized whom he was training them to conquer.
They halted the two horses before the three cottages and barn at Hillside. Geir ran out to grab her horse’s reins. “Broch!” he called. “You saved her,” he said, looking to Joshua as he dismounted.
“Your mother saved her,” Joshua answered. If Kára had allowed Dishington to sound the alarm, they would not have gotten past fifty armed men without him having to kill many. “Do ye have an ax nearby?” He dismounted Fuil to help the elderly healer down.
“An ax? Aye,” Geir said and bolted into the empty barn to bring back a short-handled ax.
“Stand here against this boulder,” Joshua said to Hilda as he set the length of chain encircling her waist over the granite.
“You cannot just chop it off her,” Kára said.
“I know,” Joshua answered.
Kára grabbed his arm, halting him. “If you—”
“I think he has a plan, Kára,” Hilda said, “that does not involve chopping me in half.”
Joshua wedged the blade of his sgian dubh through a thick link and lay it onto the top of the rock. He looked to Kára. “Hold it steady while I hit it.”
She held the blade handle so it wouldn’t slide away with the impact. Joshua aimed the ax and slammed the back of it down onto the dull side of the one-sided dagger. Clang. With one strike, the blade cleaved through the iron link where it had been soldered. The chain slid away from Hilda’s waist, and he heard her inhale fully as if she were also shaking off the mental chains of captivity.
“Where is Brenna?” Hilda asked and started walking in the direction Kára pointed. “Tell me what has been done so far.”
Joshua followed them below the hill, into an underground cottage, which was set up in the same way as Kára’s. No one stopped him from continuing into the bedchamber in the back. He should explain that nothing happened between Jean and him.
“Kára,” he said, but the word was lost under the exhausted keening sound of a woman being tortured. The sound shot the hairs up on the back of his neck, and he froze as if encased in ice there in the doorway. Pungent herbs and heat filled the space. Brenna lay on the bed, her face covered with sweat and contorted by pain. Eyes shut, she lay there panting, hands grasping the twisted sheets as agony gripped her. He’d never seen anything so horrible. It was as if she were being ripped apart from the inside out.
“Brenna,” Kára called, hurrying up to the bed. “Hilda is here. She will help you.”
Brenna opened her eyes, tears coming from them. It seemed she couldn’t focus. “Calder?”
Kára looked to Joshua. He retreated from the room, glad for the crisp air of outdoors. He ran up the hill and ducked into the first upside cottage where several men stood near a table in the center.
“Brenna is asking for Calder,” he said.
“He is not here,” one of the older men said. “Gone south to fetch a minister.”
The grim faces told Joshua nothing more. Did Calder think Brenna would die and needed a cleric to bless her as she breathed her last? Kára thought she could die, but that was without the help of the healer. And from the look of the pain-bludgeoned woman, Joshua agreed, although he had never seen a woman give birth before. What man had?
“Tell him to come below as soon as he returns,” Joshua said and turned back to tell Kára. He dodged Osk, who was walking in as he ran back out into the dawning light. The woman had been laboring for two days at this point. How much more could she endure?
He noticed Geir had gone to the edge of the bank that led to the sea below. The lad was practicing throwing sgian dubhs the way Joshua had shown him. Kára’s son had good aim, and he would grow in muscle. As long as Robert Stuart and his sons do not work him to death.
In through the door, Joshua strode directly to the bedroom where Kára held a panting Brenna around the shoulders. Kára met his gaze, and she closed her eyes briefly when he shook his head.
“She must be raised up,” Hilda called, pointing to a thick rope that had been looped through a hook above for bed curtains.
Hilda pointed at him. “You. Lift Brenna up into the ropes and help support her there.”
“Me?” he asked, his muscles tightening as if readying for battle. Wasn’t he supposed to vanish from the birthing chamber like every other male so that they did not show their weakness or see things they should not?
“You are the strongest here, and we need her up,” Hilda said. “The babe is coming finally, but it will be easier on them both that way.” She beckoned quickly to him, and he found himself walking over, inhaling fully to gain strength. But the heat and smells did not help him. ’Tis like birthing a foal, he told himself, which he had done many times before.
He stepped up onto the bed, his boots planting behind the heavily burdened woman.
“Do not let her slip,” Kára said, letting him grasp Brenna under her arms. He had no choice but to hold her under her ample bosom.
Just like a mare in trouble. Like a horse. That is all. Done this dozens of times before. If Brenna could only neigh, he would have little problem with this. He opened his mouth to ask but decided against it. No woman he had ever met responded well to being asked to neigh.
Joshua lifted and Brenna groaned, a sound torn from her straining bod
y. Kára leaped up to loop her friend’s arms through the rope.
“She is too weak to hold on,” Kára said, looking at him. “Hold her there.”
“Hold her here?” he asked, his voice rising, but she had already jumped down to the floor, leaving him. “Through the entire foaling…birthing?”
“I see a wee foot,” Hilda called from under Brenna’s wet and bloody smock.
Joshua kept his gaze focused on the door, the place he longed to go. Nothing would make him look down at all the blood and fluids pouring from the woman. He’d rather watch entrails fall out of a man. Or maybe even his own arm cut clean off. The loss of his own blood would not make him feel more unsteady than he did at that moment.
“Brenna!” Calder yelled from the front room. He pushed the cloth separating the room aside and strode in with another man behind him, a man Joshua knew.
“Pastor John?” Joshua called from his position on the bed. The cleric’s wide-eyed gaze snapped up to meet his. “What are ye doing on Orkney?” The last he saw the young holy man, Pastor John was performing the wedding ceremony between Joshua’s brother, Cain, and Ella Sutherland back in Caithness.
He swallowed, his gaze dropping to Brenna and then back up to Joshua. “Chief Sinclair knew I was headed this way and…” He had to raise his voice to be heard over Brenna’s keening. “And uh… uh…Cain wanted me to see if you were well.” His gaze dropped again to Brenna, one hand going to his own forehead before he looked back up with wide eyes. “Are…are you well?”
Kára’s grandmother threw her arms out to stop him from answering, which was good because Joshua had no idea if he was well or not. “This is women’s work,” Harriett Flett called loudly.
“He is no woman!” Calder shouted, pointing at Joshua.
“Calder?” Brenna asked, and Joshua felt a bit of strength return to her body.
“What the hell is going on?” Calder asked.
But Joshua did not have time to answer as the lass yelled again, her body tensing with another wave of pain.
“Dearest Lord, we call upon your blessings. Bring peace and strength,” Pastor John said, closing his eyes and laying one hand on his Bible.
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