Stranded By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance-Highlander Forever Book 2

by Preston, Rebecca

  “I went down to visit yesterday,” she said quickly, “and left before sunset. Unfortunately, sunset was a little too late. Malcolm rode after me to fight off the goblins, and —”

  Anna gasped, interrupting her. “Goblins? You saw them?”

  “Aye,” Malcolm said grimly. “They’re getting rather bold. It’s their numbers making them brave, I think — Maggie said there’s more on this side of the burgh than ever before. Said it had something to do with the problem with the burgh that the Monster was telling her about.”

  “We took shelter in Maggie’s cabin for the night,” Nancy explained. “Us and the horses.”

  “Wonders never cease,” Donal murmured with some amusement. “I always did wonder why her tiny little cottage seems to fit as many guests as she desires.”

  “Fae magic?” Nancy was fascinated, despite their dire circumstances. “That’s amazing.”

  “Aye. But we’ve other kinds of Fae magic to worry about, I’m afraid,” Donal said heavily. “If those creatures are willing to attack two horseback travelers on the road like that, it’s likely they’re going to launch more assaults on the village… and stronger assaults, too. It’s a good thing we’ve redoubled patrols.”

  “Brendan looks half-dead, by the way,” Nancy put in, glancing toward the walls. “Someone ought to bring him in, make him get a few hours’ sleep.”

  “Aye, the old fool,” Donal said irritably. “I told him to take the first watch then go to bed. Are you telling me he’s still on the wall?”

  “I’ll relieve him,” Malcolm said regretfully, his eyes lingering on Nancy. “I got a full night’s sleep last night, it’s better than most are doing.”

  And with that, Malcolm and Donal strode off, leaving Nancy frustrated again. Was it too much to ask to get a tiny bit of alone time with Malcolm that wasn’t shared with a priest, a Fae witch or two horses in close proximity?

  Chapter 45

  Nancy passed the rest of the day in reading. She wanted to know more about goblins — their weaknesses, ideally, but also their strengths, so she asked Aileen about goblin stories. The woman responded with half a dozen enormous books of old stories — and she set in on them with pleasure, happy to have something to occupy her mind that wasn’t Malcolm. She’d considered going to join him on the wall… but she didn’t want to get made fun of by the other men on the watch, and at any rate, she was a little annoyed he’d volunteered for watch duty instead of taking the opportunity to spend time with her. Still, it had been good to see Brendan shuffling off to bed. He looked like a zombie, the poor man — he was definitely overdoing it, and they couldn’t afford any nervous collapses from the limited soldiers they had. Not when there was a frighteningly large horde of goblins about.

  ‘Horde’ was a word that came up a lot in the stories. As she read, she began to discern patterns. When they were on their own, goblins tended to be mischievous, but when they formed groups, they started getting very nasty indeed. There were usually a handful of ringleaders, the strongest or cleverest of the bunch, and one central leader who was in charge of the subordinates. It seemed that goblins tended to rise in ranks by way of proving their gifts for cruelty… on the positive side, she learned from the stories, if the ringleaders could be killed, the rest of the horde was likely to scatter.

  She wasn’t any closer to learning what was happening at the bottom of the Loch, though, and that was beginning to worry her. She was acutely aware of where her scuba gear was stashed. It would be the work of a moment to just slip down to the shore, pull her drysuit on, hook up her gear and dive. She even remembered where the burgh was, and if she talked to Maggie, she was sure she could figure out what it looked like. She resolved to ask Donal, later, for his blessing. Surely, with the problem escalating so sharply, he wouldn’t be able to help but to say yes. Who knew how many goblins were creeping out into the world every night? The sooner she went, the sooner the problem was solved.

  The day passed quickly. Once her eyes were refusing to take in any more stories, Nancy closed the books, thanking Aileen for lending them to her — the woman just smiled, waving her on, still lost in her own research. Not a bad life, Nancy thought, reading and studying all day. She wondered what had brought Aileen to the castle, to this way of life? She certainly seemed to know a great deal about faerie creatures. Perhaps she was a Changeling like Maeve — or perhaps she was just a clever woman who’d found a way to do what she was best at in a way that helped keep people safe.

  She met up with Donal and Malcolm for dinner — the two men looked tired but happy enough, having spent the afternoon keeping watch from the wall. Brendan was up again, too, having spent most of the day asleep, and he joined them for dinner, looking a little less miserable — and less miserable again as he tucked into a hearty bowl of stew. Nancy wondered if Brendan was seeing anyone. Surely if he had a wife or girlfriend, she’d be able to stop him running himself so ragged…. not that it should be a woman’s job to make sure her man took care of himself, of course, but still. It seemed odd that a handsome man like Brendan didn’t have anyone in his life.

  “Married to the job,” Anna said, rolling her eyes, when Nancy took the opportunity to lean over and ask about it. “I’ve been hoping some woman would come and sweep him off his feet, but so far nothing.”

  As the meal ended, Malcolm rose to his feet. Nancy looked up at him, dismayed.

  “You’re not going back on guard duty.”

  “I am,” he said regretfully. “Taking the first watch, I’m afraid.”

  Nancy didn’t care what the others thought. “Can I keep you company?”

  He hesitated, glancing at Donal, but the Laird made a show of studiously adjusting his collar, ignoring what was happening completely. Malcolm grinned down at her. “Sure. You’d best dress warmly, though. The walls get cold at night.”

  She ran up the stairs to grab an extra layer of clothing, glancing out the window of her room as she did so to eyeball the dark sky. No moon tonight — a thick covering of cloud had come over in the late-afternoon, darkening the early autumn day and putting an unusual chill into the air without the sunlight. That made her worried, somehow. The moonlight — for the moon was waning, but still quite bright — seemed to make the night easier to handle. She certainly imagined it made the watch easier. But without the moon or stars, the night looked pitch dark… and she had too many memories of chittering figures just behind her to make that feel anything less than terrifying…

  Nancy clenched her jaw resolutely. She wasn’t going to let a dark night scare her away from doing her duty… and, for that matter, from spending a little time with Malcolm. They had a few things to talk about, after all, she thought with a grin. She pictured them sitting on the wall together, wrapped in their cloaks, cozy and close… maybe, if the night was quiet, they could even get away with sharing a few kisses… maybe more than a few. Maybe when the watch ended, we won’t go back to separate rooms, she thought with a blush creeping into her face, even though she was alone. She glanced sideways at her bed as she added her riding cloak to it. Not a huge bed, but they could make do… and perhaps Malcolm had a larger bed?

  First things first, Nancy, she told herself with a combination of amusement and exasperation. Do your duty to the Castle. There was no sense getting ahead of herself — they had a long night of watching ahead of them first. She headed out of her room and down the stairs, finding Malcolm still waiting for her in the entrance hall. He, too, was rugged up, with his cloak over his armor and a pair of warm woolen gloves covering his hands. She twitched her fingers, aware that she didn’t have any… and he grinned at her, reaching into a pocket to withdraw a pair just like his and offer them to her.

  “I thought you might not have gloves,” he explained, smiling, and she had to strongly resist the urge to throw herself into his arms. Instead, she just put the gloves on.

  “Thank you, Malcolm,” she said, smiling. “Wouldn’t want my fingers to freeze off.”

  “Aye, you need
those for all kinds of things, so I hear,” he said, leading her out through the huge wooden doors and toward where she knew an interior staircase lead up to the top of the wall.

  “Oh, yeah. Typing, texting, driving a car…”

  “What in heaven is texting?”

  Nancy laughed merrily. It was going to be a long night, she could see — and she was looking forward to spending some alone time with Malcolm. Perhaps they’d even get onto the subject of their relationship… there were a few things she wanted to get straight about the connection between them. No matter what Anna had said about him being a good guy, she wanted to make her expectations very clear before they began anything more serious than their current state of flirtation.

  But unfortunately, that particular vision was destined not to come to pass. When they reached the top of the wall, Brendan was there, looking tense and guarded, but a little less shattered than he had that morning when they’d come back to the Castle. A morning and afternoon of rest had done him some good, but Nancy could tell that the man was still behind on sleep by a week or two, and definitely not firing on all cylinders. Still, he was armed and ready, wrapped in a cloak and with a determined glint in his eyes.

  “I’m a volunteer,” Nancy explained when he blinked with surprise to see her there. “Here to keep morale up more than anything.”

  “At this stage, any number of sets of eyes is better than none,” Brendan said flatly. “You’re looking at the whole complement, by the way. We’ve one more man to take over for us when the Watch changes, but I don’t want just one on the Wall, so I’ll take it —”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Malcolm said immediately, his eyes narrowing. “You’re half dead, Brendan, you’re not doing a whole night’s watch on your own. I’ll be taking it.”

  “Well, it’s you or me,” Brendan said bleakly. “And no end in sight, with the patrols in the village stepped up. It’s the right call,” he added, rubbing his head. “I’m just shattered.”

  “I know,” Malcolm said softly. “I’m going to talk to Donal about getting some of the lads in the village involved, at least for the time being. It wouldn’t take a lot of training, and like you said, a lot of it’s about having extra sets of eyes…”

  “Lads from the village don’t have the fighting training though,” Brendan said, frustrated. “I’ve been thinking about that myself, but we’re just setting ourselves up for carnage if the goblins do get brave enough to attack. They’re whip-smart, some of them at least — they can tell the difference between a group of soldiers and a mixed group of trained men and amateurs. They’ll target any group with too many untrained men in it, you mark my words.”

  “We need to hunt the goblins down, don’t we?” Nancy put in. This wasn’t exactly the cozy chat on the walls she had been expecting, but nevertheless, she wasn’t going to let the opportunity to help strategize go by. “Maggie said they’d have a camp somewhere… could we not send some of the patrols to find that camp?”

  “It’s risky,” Brendan said, frowning. “That’s the thing. Goblins are known for their trickery — they set all kinds of nasty traps. Spike pits, snares in trees that yank you into the air upside down… even if a patrol could find their camp, there’s no guarantee they’d survive the finding. Worst case, the goblins end up with prisoners — and even more power than they have already.”

  Nancy sighed, gritting her teeth. “It’s just so frustrating to see you all wearing yourselves to the bone while the goblins are just out there, getting stronger…”

  “You’re telling me,” Brendan said darkly. “We’ve never had a problem like this before. I truly want to know what Maggie meant by there being a problem with the burgh — we’ve had small gangs of goblins now and again, but usually it’s a matter of four or five. It’s supposed to be difficult to pass through the burgh. I don’t know what the Sidhe are playing at, if I’m honest.”

  “It’s not their fault,” Malcolm said, shooting a worried look out into the darkness as though the Sidhe were going to materialize then and there to scold them for speaking ill of them. “Something’s wrong. We just have to figure out what.”

  Nancy thought of her diving gear and gritted her teeth at Donal’s ongoing refusal to let her use it. It was so frustrating, knowing that there was more information, just out of reach, if only the man would just let her do something a little bit risky. Okay, a lot risky. Okay, downright dangerous… but wasn’t it more dangerous to let the goblins keep running rampant through the countryside? People were already dead, and more were in danger — of death by goblin as well as death by famine if they kept stealing food after the autumn harvest.

  “I’m going to do a round of the wall,” Brendan said, his voice heavy. “See you soon.”

  They watched him go, his stance stiff, his head lowered. Malcolm looked deeply worried about his friend, and Nancy reached out to touch his arm, unable to offer any comfort but wanting to try regardless. He looked down at her, smiling a little. “Well, this isn’t exactly the kind of alone-time I wanted to spend with you…”

  “I’ll take it,” Nancy said, smiling up at him, her heart pounding as he moved closer and closer to her —

  They both heard it at once. A clinking sound, very quiet, but distinct and unusual in the still, silent night. Malcolm looked away from her, automatically looking to the land bridge, to the forest beyond it — and they both froze in horror as their eyes found what was there.

  Five or six goblins, in the flesh, knives in their hands and their beady little eyes fixed on the castle wall.

  Chapter 46

  Malcolm swore, first. He reached down beside him, where there was a bow and arrow resting, and in a movement that was so fast Nancy hardly even realized he was moving, he’d nocked an arrow to the string and set it flying. The arrow pierced one of the goblins right through the midsection, and Nancy uttered a shocked gasp as it screamed, a high-pitched, hideous sound. The others around it scattered, two of them running back toward the forest, the others bolting forward toward the wall. Malcolm roared for Brendan, seizing another arrow and sending it flying toward the group. He picked two more off before the third was under the wall and harder to see. Nancy moved forward quickly, trying to peer over the edge of the wall to see what it was doing — and to her horror, she saw the little creature scaling the gate, a knife held between its nasty pointed teeth as its hands and feet scrabbled for purchase. It was climbing fast — horribly fast — and she stared back at Malcolm in horror. She could hear footsteps — Brendan, running back to join them, his own voice raised in interrogation.

  “Goblins,” Malcolm bellowed. “Main gate.”

  The goblin scaling the gate was halfway up when Brendan reached them, and Nancy pointed at it in rising horror. She’d tried tossing a rock at it, a loose stone that had been sitting on the wall, but it had just flattened itself against the gate to dodge the rock with a high-pitched laugh that made her skin crawl. The bodies of the goblins Malcolm had hit with arrows were lying still on the land bridge, and Nancy tried to get a closer look at them. They were small, dark in color, wiry … if she had to identify them based on her limited research, she’d say they were Bogans. That meant they were small, clever and nasty.

  The goblin reached the top of the gate and leapt over, agile, grabbing its knife in one horrible little clawed hand as it snarled … and Nancy gasped as Brendan drove a sword through the center of the creature’s chest in a practiced, almost casual motion. It hissed and struggled as it died, black blood pouring from its little body, and Brendan wrinkled his nose as he withdrew his sword. The goblin fell to the top of the wall, blood spreading beneath it. It wasn’t wearing much more than a loincloth, and Brendan wiped his sword clean of blood on the filthy garment.

  “Acidic,” he pointed out, for Nancy’s benefit. “Ruins a blade if you let it sit for too long.” He looked hard at Malcolm. “There’s more than five.”

  “Aye. Nancy, we need your help. Run into the castle. Wake everyone. Tell them we’re u
nder attack and we need iron on every door and windowsill in the castle.”

  She was reeling. “What? You killed them —”

  “This is a distraction,” Malcolm was saying, gathering a quiver of arrows and stuffing it full. She blinked down at them, realizing the arrowheads were iron. “A small group at the front gate while the rest take advantage of the interest to scale the walls all around. We have to go. Send any men or women who can shoot to the wall, get absolutely everyone else laying iron on the windowsills. We don’t have much time. Can you do that?” He took her by the hands, his eyes serious.

  She nodded, frightened but determined to do what she could to help.

  “Good,” Brendan said, grabbing a bow and quiver of arrows himself. “We’ll patrol, pick off the ones we can. Go. Wake the castle.”

  Nancy set off running along the top of the wall, remembering the door that she and Anna had come out of the night that the goblins had tried to attack the castle… it was with a sick lurch that she recognized that attack, now, for what it had actually been. At the time, they’d just thought the monster was being strange, but now she knew it had been an all-out battle. She hoped they hadn’t hurt the creature. Where is Nessie? she wondered as she ran along the top of the wall, stealing glances out over the lake. She hoped the creature was awake and could come to their aid.

  To her horror, as she neared the edge of the castle, she realized that Malcolm had been absolutely right in his assumptions. There, just climbing over the top of the wall, was another Bogan, dark in color. It hadn’t heard her coming — it was still focused on getting safely to the top of the wall, and she saw her change. She’d been carrying the iron ingot that John the blacksmith had given her in her pocket ever since she’d gotten it, like a good luck charm or something, and she could feel the comforting weight of it in her pocket. But would it really do the damage it was claimed iron did to faeries, she wondered? Or should she just turn around now and run back to Malcolm and Brendan, who could protect her from this nasty knife-wielding creature? She remembered the gnawed bones in the woods, pictured her own bones winding up that way… then straightened her spine, anger and determination blazing in her chest. No. She was going to fight her own battle here.