Highland Warrior

by McCollum, Heather

  In four long strides, he reached Kára and grasped her other wrist, halting her. His empty hand swooped down to grab her cape, and he tossed it around as much of her as he could. John Dishington came up alongside Patrick, both of them armed and furious. Before they could say anything, Joshua stepped between Kára and Patrick. “Let her go,” he said. “I take her place.”

  “No!” Patrick said.

  Without taking his eyes off him, Joshua spoke, his voice cutting through the cold. “Robert Stuart, would ye rather have a village girl doing your bidding or the Horseman of War?”

  Patrick started to argue. “Hold your tongue,” Robert called down. Joshua glanced above to where the torchlight showed Robert’s pensive face. He weighed Joshua’s words.

  Joshua saw Angus up at the watchtower where the other soldiers tried to light the beacon that would call Robert’s army from the village. The man’s arms flew up in the air as if he were panicked, but the beacon was still dark. Angus had apparently chosen to keep his oath to Joshua. He had done something to wet the beacon. Having a loyal man in the nest of an enemy was more valuable than gold.

  “Think about it, Lord Robert,” Joshua called out as Kára still stood caught by Patrick. “The Horseman of War to do your bidding, to frighten and cow the native peasants so they work for ye, thankful for being alive at all.”

  “He has The Brute of Scotland and Orkney for that,” Dishington called out.

  Joshua raised his muscled arms and turned partway around without releasing Kára. His arm raked out toward the lit moors around Robert’s palace. The poppets did look like shadows of more men ready to attack, outnumbering them now that Angus had told him only fifty were quartered there. Joshua turned back to Robert. “That does not seem to be working for ye.” He heard Dishington’s sword slide free.

  “Hold her, Patrick,” Robert yelled down. “And let us see if the Horseman of War is really protected by God as he fights my Brute with nothing but his frozen jack. If you are slain, Joshua Sinclair, we will take Kára Flett in your stead.” Robert crossed his arms. “Can you conquer my sheriff?”

  John Dishington was fully clothed and armed with a sword and likely a sgian dubh or two hidden on his clad body. It was most certainly not a fair contest, but war was never fair. Joshua forced his fingers to release Kára’s wrist, and she was able to pull her cloak up around her nakedness.

  Dishington did not even wait for Joshua to accept the challenge. With a roar, he plunged forward as Patrick grabbed Kára out of the way. The weight of his muscle and clothing added to the power behind his rush. Joshua sidestepped, ducking down to avoid his sword strike.

  Toes and fingers growing numb, Joshua knew he would need to finish this quickly if he was to save Kára. And he would never allow her to be taken into Robert’s Palace. Even death would not stop him. He would rise up and kill anyone who dared harm her.

  What weapons did he have to pit against Dishington? Only his strength and his training in hand-to-hand combat. Both were in jeopardy with the cold making his muscles stiff. Joshua breathed in large inhales through his nose to feed both muscles and brain.

  He also knew Dishington’s fighting tactics. The mercenary’s style was brutal, without elegance, and easily guessed. His entire stance hinted at his next move, and he obviously depended on his weapons.

  Step one: remove his weapon. Instead of avoiding Dishington’s next lunge, Joshua lowered at the last second, hands clenched together. Slanting his weight, the force of his strike hit Dishington’s grip on his sword, right at the man’s wrist. The immediate reaction was for the grip to open, and Joshua continued the thrust of his shoulder to hit Dishington’s arm. The sword thudded against the packed dirt, skidding to be caught in the tall grass along the path.

  Dishington unleashed a dagger from his vest, but Joshua dove, rolling along the pebble-strewn ground. The sharp stones had surely carved scratches into his back, but the cold had numbed his skin, and it hardly mattered. He rose quickly, his thigh muscles still warm enough to lift him, and turned in a battle stance toward his adversary.

  “No other blade, Dishington?” Joshua asked, his voice low and goading. Step two: antagonize the enemy to get him to reveal his weakness.

  “Once you are dead, Horseman, I will cut your ballocks off and feed them to your woman once I can get Patrick off her.”

  Joshua allowed a smirk to grow on his mouth, as he remembered another weapon he possessed. Dishington frowned deeper at failing to win Joshua’s disgust. Joshua stood tall, his arms raised together as if he held his sword high in the air.

  With a large inhale, he spoke. “When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, ‘Come!’ Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill one another. To him was given a large sword.”

  With the emphasis on the last two words, his muscles mounded and bulged. The way he held his arms gave the impression that he did, in fact, have a sword in his hands, a sword wrought by God himself.

  Joshua did not need to look along the wall to know his words stirred something primal in those men who heard him, God-fearing men who were raised on legend and biblical warnings. His gaze centered on Dishington. “And when I kill ye, I will walk away and forget all about ye, as will everyone else. And your name will fade into nothingness.”

  The tightness in Dishington’s face told Joshua he’d chosen the right threat. The man had named himself The Brute, a name he felt would haunt the world well after he was gone. The biggest insult to the mercenary was to promise him that he would be forgotten.

  Step three of combat without his sword: use the environment at hand. Joshua did not have time to rummage around on the side of the road for the lost sword or dagger, and he really did not need them at this point. With a scrape of his nails and numb fingers, he grabbed a handful of dirt and stone. Before Dishington had a chance to rethink a strategy, Joshua ran at him, whipping his arm around with the force of his entire body. The fragments hit the seething man in his face and eyes. The man yelled. Temporarily blind, he swung wildly with his meaty fists.

  “Son of a whore,” Dishington roared.

  Step four: hit where unprotected. Joshua ducked and kicked the man’s shin with the side of his foot. Leaning the other way, he swung around his other foot to hit the other in rapid fire. Dishington lost his balance, grunting as he fell hard onto the ground.

  Joshua stepped his one bare foot on the man’s leather-clad chest, placing the majority of his two hundred pounds square over his lungs so that Dishington gasped. As he managed to clear the gravel from his eyes, he stared up to the sight of Joshua’s ballocks and jack hanging over him in utter disrespect.

  “Fok,” Dishington spit out, gasping for air as Joshua pushed down harder.

  “Ye have lost, Dishington.”

  “I am not dead,” he said, swiping at Joshua’s leg.

  Joshua lifted it, setting his heel back down, but this time on Dishington’s jaw, making his head turn to the side so far that if he continued, the pressure would break his neck. “Not yet, but it can be remedied if ye wish.”

  Dishington struggled to lift his legs but could not reach Joshua, who continued to twist his head to the side. Joshua glanced over to Patrick. “Release her now.”

  “I will not,” he said. He had dragged Kára before him, a dagger at her throat to prevent her from pulling away. “He is not dead.”

  “That was not the contest,” Joshua said. Step five: make the enemy think they had won. War was built on deception. He raised his voice. “I have won, Lord Robert. Order her release, and I would talk with ye about my services.”

  He felt the movement before he looked, knowing Dishington had decided it was better to die than lose and live. Before Robert could answer, Dishington kicked his legs over, rolling toward where Joshua smashed his face into the ground. Joshua
let him rise, but before he could run at him, Joshua punched him directly in the nose with a jab and then swung his other fist around to hit his jaw, making his head swivel the other way. Dishington hit the ground and did not move.

  Joshua turned back to Patrick. “One step and she is dead,” Patrick yelled.

  “I have won,” Joshua said evenly. “Let her go, and I will go inside as your father’s servant.” He would, giving Kára and her people time to escape. Then he would find his way back to Caithness eventually. Nothing but death would stop him from finding Kára again.

  He did not move his gaze from the blade at her throat, but his voice rose for Robert’s ears. “They will attack, Robert Stuart, if harm comes to her. Brutality against a child and a woman will not be tolerated by the people of Orkney.”

  “A hundred weak peasants against a fortified castle means nothing,” Robert yelled back.

  Joshua raised his fist in the air, jabbing thrice. Calder mimicked it with the torch Joshua had left with his clothes so the Hillside warriors could see. The leaders of the small groups set up to attack from each of the sides of the fortress passed along the order with their own torches. Arrows were lit by lads running between the groups. Before another insult could form on Robert’s tongue, arrows shot through the dark night air, balls of fire flaming with their pitch-soaked ends in a high arch from all sides.

  Bloody good hell. The Hillside warriors had followed orders and followed them well. Pride pushed Joshua’s numb lips into a smile. Maybe if they set the whole place on fire, he could feel some of its warmth.

  Shouts came from within as the arrows hit areas where Robert’s men kept their dry peat and haystacks. Apparently, they hadn’t built covers over them like he’d suggested. Several fireballs fell upon the thatched roofs of some of the smaller buildings inside the wall.

  “They are trained, Lord Robert,” Joshua said, his voice booming. “Trained by the Horseman of War!” Even as he spoke, he kept his gaze centered on Kára and the soon-to-be dead man who held her. “And if one drop of her blood is spilled, you and your family will perish tonight.”

  “Traitors to King James!” Robert yelled, his eyes wild as the fire leaped up behind the walls. “He will send troops.”

  “To pay their respects at your mass grave?” Joshua yelled back. “Or will ye release the woman and let me walk into your fortress alone, sending these hundred trained Orkney warriors away?”

  Joshua forced himself to breathe, ignoring the slicing wind. Behind him, he heard Torben swear. What did he have to damn? He wasn’t standing naked in freezing temperatures. Joshua shifted his weight, wishing for action to warm his muscles. Perhaps he would rush Patrick and kill him in an effort to stay warm.

  “You will pay for your treachery,” Robert said, pointing down at him. Then he looked to Patrick. “Release her.”

  “No,” his son answered, his lips in a snarl. He still held Kára before him, her wool cloak barely covering down to her knees.

  Robert disappeared from the top of the gatehouse to leap down the ladder. He strode out the gate yelling, “I said release her and take the Horseman!”

  “And ye will let her go with her people,” Joshua said.

  “No!” called Torben behind him, but Joshua did not take his eyes off the situation before him. Kára in the arms of a man bent on raping her and Robert Stuart, a sadistic strategist who had no respect for the Orkney people.

  “What are you doing?” Calder yelled.

  “Ending the rule of Robert Stuart, my bastard father,” Torben called, making Robert momentarily shift his gaze away from Joshua.

  His father? Torben was a Stuart bastard? No wonder his mother wanted Robert dead with such vehemence. Had she been his mistress or raped?

  “No,” Calder yelled. Joshua waited until Patrick also looked past him to glance over his shoulder. What he saw made his stomach clench. Torben swinging the torch wildly, the signal for complete attack on Robert’s palace.

  A roar rose behind them as the Hillside warriors rushed forward. More lit arrows flew high overhead like large shooting stars falling to earth. Horns blown by the boys in the back blared angry notes to send a chill through the earl’s soldiers. Loud and long, the notes rose with the war cries, heralding death and destruction. Those without blades swung long, leather straps that hurled stones with such force that they could cut through any unprotected flesh. The small holes drilled into the stones made them shriek as they flew, adding to the noise.

  “Bloody hell,” Joshua cursed, but things were in motion. There was no going back. From the back fields, the waiting Hillside warriors could not see that it was Torben and not Joshua who waved the signal torch.

  Torben dropped the torch and leaped forward to attack Robert, but the wiry man had his own sword. Joshua took a step closer to Patrick and Kára, noting that Erik Flett ran forward to come even with Torben, the two attacking Robert.

  “I will kill her,” Patrick called, dragging her backward with him. “Leave her with me, and she will live. Unless one of her own people kills her. The fools!” he yelled, using her as a human shield.

  Robert’s men ran out from the open gate, armed with shields and swords. Liam and Tuck clashed with Calder and another Hillside man. But Joshua focused solely on Kára. Where was Patrick taking her? Wild eyes and clenched teeth told Joshua that the man probably did not have a plan and was spurred by panic. In his haste and insanity, he could easily slit her throat.

  Around Joshua, the chaos and noise of battle splintered the night. More flaming arrows shot overhead, lighting the space before the wall. Clanging of iron pitchforks and yells filled the air with the shrieks of the flying stones as the horns continued to blow a call to arms across the moor. He could try to run back and order a retreat, but experience told Joshua that, like a boulder building speed racing down a hill, a battle, once started, would not stop until it had played out. Bloody foking hell. Both Hillside men and Scotsmen that he’d trained at Robert’s palace were hammering away at one another, and there was nothing he could do but throw his powerful weight into one side or the other if he were to join in.

  Torben swung at Robert wildly with obvious fury, almost hitting Erik in the process. Robert, a swordsman of experience, sidestepped the man in one turn, and ran Torben through with his sword. Torben Spence crumpled to the ground on the end of his father’s own blade. Erik held his short sword in his left hand. Robert laughed, saying something to him, and walked away. Erik threw his blade, but it fell without power.

  Without his sword or blades or even his clothes, Joshua ran toward the palace, dodging the lowering portcullis to follow Kára into the smoke-filled bailey. He stopped, his head snapping right to left as he tried to see where Patrick had taken her.

  “Joshua!” A man’s voice caught his glance. Angus, up in the watchtower where he continued to keep anyone from lighting the beacon that would bring more soldiers, jabbed his sword around the left-side corner of the keep.

  Joshua ran, the cold forgotten as the heat from his run and the fires building around him radiated warmth. Avoiding the flaming arrows on the ground, he dashed around the side of the keep, being sure to avoid the slits from where at least two guards would be firing. Coming to the base of the wall, he saw no one.

  With a quick glance around, he ran to the wood-plank door at the edge of the sea. Four Hillside men held torches there, two with swords and two with more flaming arrows to send. The soldier guarding the back doorway lay facedown in the tide.

  “The boy is retrieved,” Joshua yelled to them. “Return to Hillside.”

  “But Kára was dragged inside,” one man yelled.

  Joshua didn’t have time to argue with him, turning away to push into the darkness of the narrow, damp stairwell. A distant illumination at the top pulled his focus.

  “Let me go, you swine.” Kára’s voice from above made him surge upward, keeping one hand on the wa
ll to guide him blind, his bare feet slapping the granite as he climbed. Where was the whoreson taking Kára? He did not call out to her, not wanting to alert Patrick that he was chasing. Patrick should expect as much, but forethought was not ruling his mind. If it were, he would have left Kára outdoors. Taking her by force had completely sealed his fate.

  I will kill him. Vengeance whispered in Joshua’s mind as he continued to pound up the steps. His bare toes dug into the damp stone, and his hand gripped the wall to keep him from falling. Patrick had held a knife to Kára’s throat and had dragged her, nearly naked, away. He would die painfully.

  “Let me go.” Kára’s voice funneled down the stairwell. She was struggling, slowing him down, and Joshua was gaining on them rapidly.

  “Hold your tongue, woman,” Patrick yelled back, probably realizing she was trying to alert Joshua to her location.

  He heard an intake of breath as if Kára struggled, and he let go of the wall, using both his fisted hands to propel him in leaps up the steps. When he reached the top, it was empty, and he threw open the door into what must be Lord Robert’s bedchamber. The door leading from the room into the castle was partway open, showing their route, and he followed out into the corridor.

  “Joshua?” Jean gasped, standing outside her room. Her gaze dropped immediately to his nakedness.

  “Get back inside your room and bar the door,” he yelled. “The palace is under siege.”

  “What are you doing here? Why are you naked?” she asked.

  Down below, men yelled, and a door slammed at the end of the hall. “Bar your door, Jean,” he yelled and ran down the corridor. He must reach the door before Patrick could put a bar over it. Joshua’s hand hit the latch on the outside, pressing down as he threw his weight against the door, and it thankfully flew open.

  “I will slice her open!” Patrick yelled, holding Kára up against him, the blade at her throat.

  Her gaze connected with Joshua’s. He saw so much in her eyes—relief, courage, and something he wasn’t sure he deserved. Trust. She’d given him her trust that he would save her people. Did she also trust him to save her?