Highland Warrior

by McCollum, Heather

  Joshua wished he’d been born with his other brothers’ patience. As the trickster who was never told to pull back when angry, since he was the Horseman of War, the act of staying calm was almost too hard. His jaw ached with the control he exerted on himself. He allowed his familiar mask of brutality to surface across his face as he stared at Erik. “And what are ye going to do to help, weakened from torture and healing?”

  Erik raised his chin. “I will command them in their attack and throw down my life to help.” Several men nodded around them.

  Joshua let go of Kára, his hands fisted at his sides to stop him from scrubbing them down his face in frustration. “So,” he said, “ye plan to throw yourself on Robert or trip his men with your dead body in the middle of it.”

  No one said anything. Let them be shocked at his candor. He had no talent or time to walk carefully around their tempers. Joshua let his gaze meet those of the men he had been working with over the week. “Will ye do the same then? Run in there to be shot down, adding to Erik’s barricade?”

  Joshua scratched his chin. “I know Robert is a fool, but his men know enough to march around your bodies. The still-warm corpses will hardly slow them down as they proceed on to Hillside to imprison or slaughter your women and children in retaliation.”

  “What do you want us to do then?” Osk yelled from the back. “Abandon Geir along with our isle?”

  Joshua didn’t care what Kára’s brother thought, but what did she think? He looked to her, and she lifted her gaze to the men. “Joshua will not leave Geir behind, but when we retrieve him, I will be taking him to Scotia, and I advise you all to follow us.”

  Erik’s face was still hard as granite. “And what if Geir cannot be saved? Will you leave the isle where he is buried?”

  She looked straight at him. “No, because I will then be buried with him.”

  The thought tore through Joshua. He had seen death, lots of death in battle. He remembered his mother’s death three days after she gave birth to Bàs, his youngest brother. How his father had cursed the sky and God and the world around him. How he’d turned his sorrow into rage, going on to name his sons the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as if the end of days were near. Would he go insane, too, if he saw Kára cold and lifeless, her blank eyes staring up at the gray sky?

  “I will prepare your warriors,” Joshua said. “Prepare them to fight and lead them into battle against Robert Stuart.” The promise tumbled from his mouth despite the warnings shooting through his head.

  His hand curved over the tops of her shoulders as he stared into her eyes, hoping she would see the resolve in his gaze, in his soul. “I will save Geir and take ye both to my home where a Stuart can never touch ye or anyone ye love again.” Could she hear the oath in his words? For he felt them as if he held his fist over his heart and his sword in his hand.

  Pastor John stood with the men, his eyes wide, but he said nothing. Did he realize Joshua was endangering the Sinclair clan by going up against the royal house of Stuart?

  Joshua looked away. He would not let Kára die, so there was no question of him reconsidering. He looked to Calder who stood next to Torben. “We need pitch from the bogs. Your men must soak their wooden shields in water. I want arrow tips wrapped in wool and long ropes in case they ride at us on horses.”

  His gaze rose to the forty men before him. “All your swords and daggers must be sharp. And each man must find a sack and fill it with dry grass until it is the size of his head.” He looked to Calder. “We need whatever spears, brooms, or staffs can be found. Or anything that can be made to look like a weapon.”

  Calder began to yell orders to the men who ran off in various directions. Joshua’s eyes sought Kára’s, and he saw the flush in her cheeks. “Thank you,” she said.

  He nodded. “Have those who stay behind prepare to flee to mainland Scotland or hide underground. The doors below the hill should be better hidden with scruff and boulders. And we need to have Asmund set up passage with your ship captain as soon as he returns from his task at sea.”

  She nodded, striding across to the tavern keeper. Joshua watched her walk away, the growing distance almost like a physical ache. So much could happen to her when she was far from him. The wind blew, and he wrapped his cloak tighter around his arms.

  “And what am I to do, Horseman?” Erik asked.

  Joshua tore his gaze from Kára to take in the battered chief. Making him stay behind to heal would lead only to his revolt and senseless death. “We will need a protected source of fire to take with us.”

  “You will send in a volley of lit arrows?”

  “I know where inside the bailey they keep their hay piles and peat stacks.” He stared hard at Erik. “But ye know that not even a surging bonfire will stop a hundred trained warriors bent on blood.”

  Erik’s face was grim. “We need to distract them enough to find one person.” But his look did not say that the one person was Geir.

  “Ye intend to kill Robert no matter what,” Joshua said.

  “He took my arm, and I will take his head,” Erik said.

  There would be no sense in arguing with the chief. If someone had taken Joshua’s sword arm, he would feel the same conviction. “Do not get in my way and do not order the men whom I command, or I will take your head,” Joshua said. They stared at each other a long moment until Erik nodded and turned to walk back into the house on the hill.

  Pastor John came over. “Joshua,” he said, the wind whipping his robes about. “An attack against a Stuart…” He left the statement unfinished, knowing Joshua must see the possible consequences against the Sinclairs.

  Joshua fished out the small sheaf of parchment from his sash. He had composed the short letter after killing Henry Stuart at the chapel.

  “I must get word to Cain. Please…” He held the letter out to the pastor.

  Pastor John took it, unfolding the stiff sheet.

  First Day of November 1589

  Chief Sinclair and Brother,

  I break my oath to you and the Sinclair clan. My actions are my own and go against your orders to support the royal Stuart family. I know that if I am found guilty in my actions, you will execute me like a traitor, and that you and Clan Sinclair remain loyal to King James and the house of Stuart. Consider me dead and lost to you.

  Your unfaithful brother,

  Joshua Sinclair

  “Joshua,” John murmured, his head shaking the slightest as if he mourned what Joshua must do to protect his clan.

  “Ye must leave within the hour.” Joshua’s gaze caught and held the young clergyman’s stare. “On my horse, Fuil.” Just like the warriors back in Caithness, Pastor John helped keep horses for Clan Sinclair. He knew how to care for them and ride.

  “On your horse?”

  “Aye. Ride him back to South Ronaldsay and find passage for ye and my horse back to Girnigoe Castle as quickly as possible. Ye must deliver my message to Cain. I am a rebel and working alone against the Stuart Clan here on Orkney.” A wry grin tipped up the corner of his mouth. “I am the Horseman of War, after all. ’Tis what I do and how I will die.”

  “But Joshua—”

  “If I live, I am no longer part of the Sinclair clan. I break my oath to Chief Cain Sinclair and find myself as enemy to his people. Do ye understand, Pastor?”

  Pastor John nodded, sorrow and understanding heavy in the lines of his face. “I will go.”

  Joshua clasped his arm. “Take care with my horse.” He exhaled. “And he will do about anything for a turnip.”

  “You have my promise.”

  Joshua watched him walk toward the barn and turned to the men hurrying about with swords and buckets to gather pitch. On the other side, down the hill where the doors to their homes sat, a group of children were being directed by Brenna, her bairn strapped to her chest. They’d found a boulder and had started the work of
rolling it toward the doors.

  “Bloody hell,” Joshua whispered, his gaze once again finding Kára where she directed the men along with Torben. Determination kept her arms and lips moving, hurrying the men to prepare, the thought of her son being frightened and tortured spurring her as fast as she could go.

  He inhaled and walked down the hill toward her, ready to do something he’d sworn never to do—lead unprepared people into battle where they may all die.

  …

  Robert has Geir.

  Every time the thought surfaced in Kára’s mind, her body clenched and her heart picked up its frantic race again. It was her worst nightmare come to life. “I am coming,” she whispered as she tightened the girth belt around Broch. “God, please,” she said, leaning her head into the side of her horse.

  She heard Joshua walk up behind her, and the warmth of his palm over her shoulder nearly pushed the tears from her eyes. “We will get him back,” he said, and she pulled in a ragged breath, trying to stamp the dread down into her stomach where it could stew without interfering with the upcoming battle.

  Kára turned to Joshua in the darkness of the barn, a single torch the only light cutting through the shadows of the night that had come on. “Alive. I need him back alive. If the sacrifice must be me or Geir, get him to safety. Do you understand?”

  Joshua’s face was taut, so fierce she thought he might deny her request. Finally, he nodded. “And I need ye to trust me,” he said, “even when ye do not agree with me.”

  “He needs to come back alive,” she repeated.

  “Aye, and so do ye, even if ye do not see my strategy.”

  Her brows pinched together as she stared hard into his eyes. They were dark in the shadows of the barn even though she knew them to be a light blue. “What is your strategy?”

  “It is forming in my mind,” he said, frowning.

  “Things you have learned from your little book,” she said, referring to the small book translated into French that Osk said was called The Art of War.

  “Aye, and from my experience.”

  “But you do not have five hundred horses this time,” she said.

  “That is something of which I am well aware,” he said and caught her arms in his hands. He bent his head to level his gaze with hers. “Kára, we will save your son and ourselves.”

  She nodded, her stomach still feeling too low in her body. “Or I will die trying, because I cannot live with the failure to save him,” she said, shaking her head. How could she make him understand the twisting emptiness of shame that plagued her? “I…I rode with my father to punish Robert last spring when Robert’s men attacked the village at Birsay. We rode out before making sure everyone was safe, and… We were not there to save my sister and mother,” she said, her voice weak at the memory of finding them on the floor of a house that had been blocked and burned. “And then my father and our horses were taken. They kept Broch but returned my father’s body as a warning.”

  Joshua slid his thumb across her cheek, and her eyes closed for a moment as she absorbed the feel. Memorizing it as if this might be a goodbye. “I cannot fail again,” she whispered.

  He pulled her into him, and for a moment she took the comfort he gave, building strength back from it. She opened her eyes at the deep timbre of his voice.

  “Despite my calling, I do not relish war,” he said. “But I have studied it my entire life, and I am very good at it.” He pulled back to brush her lips with his. “I rage war against anyone who would harm ye and your son, Kára Flett. If that brings treason on my head, I will take ye to Caithness to my brother, and I will head south.”

  The thought of him leaving her to travel on alone… It tumbled like stones in her head, making it even harder to swallow. “I will go with you,” she said without thought. It was an emotional reaction without concern for her family, her son. But at that moment in the darkness of the barn, with the feel of his touch still on her, she would not let him walk away from her.

  He kissed her lips once more, sliding his hand down the side of her face. He said nothing, just stared down into her face. Was there no sense in planning a future that would not happen? He took her hand, and they walked together out into the firelit night to prepare her people to fight.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Birds rising in flight is a sign that the enemy is lying in ambush; when the wild animals are startled and flee he is trying to take you unaware.”

  Sun Tzu – The Art of War

  “Do ye understand?” Joshua asked Erik Flett. As the chief of Kára’s people, his acceptance of Joshua’s leadership in this was crucial. “Ye must stay in the dark with your men. Let Robert think Kára, Torben, Calder, and I come alone.” The man frowned but nodded.

  Joshua turned to the gathering of men and some trousers-clad women standing with torches in a semicircle around Erik and him. They’d gathered sharpened swords, daggers, and pitchforks, as well as spears, poles, and bags stuffed with hay. “Ye will all wait crouched in the tall grass, each of ye and your extra warrior,” he said, holding up a stuffed head of straw.

  “Stay hidden by darkness and grass until ye see my signal.” Joshua raised his torch high into the air. “That is when ye will rise and Chief Erik will pass the fire among the ranks. Ye will set up your false warrior and keep the light away from them. Robert will but see a shadow of what he thinks is another warrior.”

  “He will think we outnumber him?” Osk asked. For once the boy’s tone did not hold contempt.

  “Even doubled, we would not outnumber his hundred warriors, but twice the number will at least stall him from attacking immediately. Hopefully, half his men will be off duty in the village north of the Palace.” He held up the false warrior’s head, setting it on the end of a broom handle. “Be sure to keep the fire away from them or Robert and his men will see through the trick.”

  Corey held his stick with a stuffed head on it up high. “And if they catch on fire, that will alert Robert that they are not real.”

  “Aye,” Joshua agreed, rubbing a hand up the back of his head. “No catching them on fire.” He waited for them to nod, several of them securing the string they’d tied around the neck of their poppet.

  Kára walked up to stand beside him, but he kept his gaze on the group of forty. His voice filled the night around them. “We march tonight to bring back a lad, one who was taken from his mother and ye. We will avoid battle,” he said, looking directly at Osk, who frowned. “Because Robert’s men have trained longer, have more weapons, have a nearly fortified structure in which to hide, and outnumber us. And they are being paid by Robert to do whatever he asks, paid so they can feed their own families. They are men like ourselves.”

  Torben scoffed but didn’t say anything.

  “They have wives and children, too. Some are vicious like Robert, but some are in his employ only so they can feed their families and better themselves like any other man. I will use that knowledge in this.” He nodded to the Hillside warriors.

  Knowing the thoughts of one’s enemies was essential to winning any conflict. Robert’s men were Scotsmen like himself. Joshua even liked some of them, but tonight they were the enemy. “Who here has been to Robert’s palace within the last month?”

  A few, who had been forced to work on the new wall, raised their hands. “Those of ye who have not, be sure to be near someone who has in case we must advance. They will have better knowledge of the layout of the palace grounds.”

  He looked out at the grim faces. “We have the advantage of surprise, and under this moonless, cloudy sky, we will be virtually unseen spread across the hill leading down toward the palace.” A ridiculous location for a fortress; it should have been built on the highest ground. “Robert expects us to be in small numbers, so that is what he will be shown.” Joshua pointed to Osk, Calder, and Torben. “Ye three will accompany Kára and me to the front gate.” It was be
st to keep the disgruntled Torben close so Joshua could keep an eye on him. Calder nodded. Osk stood straighter. Torben frowned and crossed his arms.

  “We are outnumbered, but we will use stealth and divide them to different sides of the fortress. That weakens their defense. When we arrive, I want four men, plus their poppets, to go to each of the other sides of the palace: coast, back, right flank. Have a fire source with ye, but keep it hidden until ye see my signal.” He had already checked the tide, and it would be low enough to allow one group to follow the shoreline.

  Corey started choosing and dividing up men and the few women.

  Joshua nodded. “My first signal”—he raised his unlit torch in the air—“will be for the three small groups to light their torches and draw Robert’s soldiers into four smaller groups within the palace. When I raise it twice”—he jabbed it high in the air two times—“then everyone else will light their torches on the hill behind us.” He lowered his arm. “But wait for my signal. There is a chance I will not raise my torch at all.”

  “What is the signal to attack?” Torben asked.

  Joshua turned his focus on the man. “The goal is to retrieve Geir without attacking.” Joshua’s gaze slid out to the warriors before him. “But if I jab my torch in the air three times, those armed with the pitch-soaked arrows will fire them over the wall and at the gatehouse.” He took a deep breath. “And if I wave my torch over my head back and forth, we move forward.” Attacking Robert’s men meant most of these people would die. He would try to remedy this mess without the need.

  “The best outcome will be winning back the lad without bloodshed.” His gaze stopped on Erik Flett. “On both sides.” He paused, but the man did not nod, and Joshua scanned the rest of the crowd. “A forward, all-out attack would see many casualties and deaths, mostly on the side of Hillside. I will avoid it, but if it comes to that, set fire to the fields around the palace.” He looked to three men who held bows. “There are hay piles inside the gate to the left when entering. Fire up your arrows and shoot them high over the wall. Hopefully, they will hit and catch. Either way, the fire will disrupt.”