Heart of Ashes (Hearts of the Highlands Book 1)

by Paula Quinn

“And give up all to them?” she asked softly while a breeze blew her dark hair across her face.

  “You will have your life.”

  Would she? What would she have left? She would lose everyone she loved. She would be forced to live with her cousin Geoffrey in Normandy, only to be married off in the first month.

  No. This was her home. She would rather die than give up her knights, and Mattie and Elizabeth, not to mention all the villagers. No, dammit. She was master of her ship. She liked it that way. She was prepared for this, confident in her prowess and abilities. But she knew Richard wouldn’t leave her.

  “Perhaps, you are correct,” she said, looking off into the distance with a slow sigh. “What can I do alone against savages? What can any of us do? I…I do not wish to see my brother so soon.”

  She sniffed and looked away, mostly to keep him from seeing the satisfaction in her eyes when he agreed in his gentlest tone.

  “I knew you would come to your senses, my lady. ’Tis best. I will bring your things to the doors.”

  “Thank you, and Sir Richard?” She waited while he paused to look at her. “If Giles were here, he would agree that you have taken the very best care of me.”

  “I will continue to do so, my lady.”

  She listened to the tapping of the knight’s boots growing fainter as he left the battlements.

  She felt terrible for deceiving him, but it couldn’t be helped. She would leave Lismoor with him and find an inn where she would pay the innkeeper to lock Sir Richard in his room, or she would bar his door herself. Hopefully, by the time he found her, she would have killed their enemies—one way or another—or died trying.

  Emboldened by her purpose, she looked out toward the forest, where, with the help of the villagers, she had set hundreds of deadly traps.

  Let them come. She was ready. She was waiting.

  Turning from the wall, she made her way back inside the keep and met Sir Richard on the stairs. She didn’t look back as she walked out of Lismoor.

  She would not be gone long.

  A light blanket of dew covered the ground and Aleysia’s painted, hooded face. Dawn was about to break and, with any luck, Sir Richard was still asleep in his bed, unaware that she was gone.

  From her carefully plotted vantage point perched high in a tree, she could see in every direction. How many would come? How many could she possibly kill by midday? She carried thirteen arrows and her dagger. Once she cut the ropes, she wouldn’t have enough time to miss—so she wouldn’t.

  She tried to remain calm, but the silence was too loud. Over the past four years, she’d prepared for everything. She’d even learned to climb trees. She hadn’t been able to train for being completely alone though. She knew she would be, but she couldn’t prepare for the haunting echoes of life around her. She hated the Scots for driving out her beloved villagers and her dear friends. She had no choice but to let them go. She would bring them all back when this was over. But she had to be quick. It had already been almost a pair of months that they had been away. Some stayed with family, others with friends. They couldn’t impose much longer.

  With the thought of victory firmly emblazoned in her mind, she listened to the quiet, instead of trying to drive it out.

  According to rumors from Berwick, the Scots liked to attack at first light. From the sound of their pipes last eve, they were close.

  Would the Bruce send more men after she killed these? Would it ever end?

  Her eyes caught sight of a flock of birds rising from the treetops not far away. Such an occurrence was not a usual sight. She tensed on her perch, slowly releasing her dagger, watching.

  She waited with her heart slamming against her ribs. Listening to her breath, trying to slow it down. This was real. There was no way to practice for it. An army of Scots was coming! She couldn’t panic.

  She heard the sounds of horses and underbrush being trampled.

  The waking forest went still as they appeared through the trees along the winding path that led to Rothbury.

  Aleysia quickly determined that there were at least twenty men. Not a large army as she had feared, but enough to make her task a challenge. Besides that, they were Highlanders, the most savage of them all. The traps had to work.

  She didn’t move. It wasn’t time.

  She surveyed the men, trying to determine who was the leader. It didn’t take long to find him once she spotted the priest keeping pace beside him.

  A priest. She almost huffed. She should shoot that Judas first for standing with the Scots.

  If she did, she was sure the man riding at his side would immediately fall into action.

  Patience, Aleysia. Let the traps do their work.

  She watched the one who had to be the leader. He rode at the head of the group. He was a big man, with straight, broad shoulders, clad in a gray cloak over his Highland plaid. His knees were bare and his hair was long and as dark as his Scottish soul. He exuded confidence in the subtle tilt of his shadowed chin, the straightening of his spine.

  For an instant, Aleysia forgot to breathe as he set his frost-filled eyes around the forest.

  Don’t look up, she prayed. She prayed also that her cloak, dyed to match the colors of the trees, was enough to conceal her if he did.

  He didn’t look up but as if sensing something were amiss, he paused his mount, stopping Aleysia’s heart. The priest stopped with him. Thankfully, some of his men continued onward.

  Her dagger was sharp. Just a few cuts and the first rope snapped. Aleysia smiled as it released a set of small swinging boulders with sticks sharpened at both ends tied together with rope.

  She quit smiling soon enough and almost lost her morning meal when the boulders met their marks and struck two riders in their heads. It was more brutal than she ever imagined and her determination faltered. But what she’d done was necessary. She hadn’t trained for four years just to go soft over death or killing when the time came. People were depending on her. She’d promised to bring them all back when it was safe again.

  The thought of her friends spurred her into action. She drew back her bow and let her arrow fly into the chaos below. She hit three men before the rest realized they were being fired upon. A shout went out and shields were raised.

  She took the moment of them not moving and hiding for cover to run across the thin planks she and her friends had hammered high amid the branches, connecting one tree to another.

  Cradled between two thick branches, she paused and squatted. She was ahead of them now, watching them making their way forward, slowly and cautiously.

  The leader held up one hand to slow his regiment and used the other to hold up his shield. She’d have to take him down but she didn’t have a clear shot yet. Just a bit closer. He was leading them. His eyes were on the ground and everything around it.

  He heard the cry of a horse as it stumbled over a hidden trap to his left. His face went dark in the filtered morning light as he turned to watch the rider launch forward from his saddle onto a bed of sharpened pikes placed in the ground.

  The men around him leaped back even while their leader ordered them to be still. Aleysia wanted to put an arrow into him but he protected himself well with his shield.

  She climbed away instead to another group of branches, where she had a clearer angle of which rope to cut. She picked one that freed a long, sharpened pike from another nearby tree. It swooped down and went straight through a man’s chest and carried him off his horse.

  “Nobody bloody move!” the leader shouted from his horse. “I will kill the next one of ye who disobeys my order! Off yer mounts! Fall in behind me! Slowly! Eyes open!”

  They all dismounted and moved into a straight line behind him, leading their horses at their sides, trusting their lives to their commander’s eyes.

  Aleysia waited while he led them closer to the set of traps—closer to her, until they were once again in range.

  She wanted them to believe they were the ones tripping the traps. It kept them
from looking up. The leader was clever, making them dismount since most of the traps were set for the height of a mounted man. He would note if spiked boulders were flying about when his men walked in his footsteps. He’d start searching the trees.

  So she let the men pass beneath her without cutting any ropes. She readied her bow and nocked an arrow, though, while the last of the soldiers were led away.

  She took the last man and the soldier in front of him down quietly before anyone knew. Without waiting for them to discover that their comrades were dead, she followed the rest from her canopy as they reached the meadow of arrows. So named for the one hundred arrows nocked and ready to fly, ready for weeks. Was it months?

  Pity that all but one of the arrows would be wasted, as they were set out across the wide field. They were meant to kill many, but because all the men traveled in a single line behind their commander, only one arrow would matter—the first one—aimed at the first in line.

  The more she looked at him, the more convinced she became that he was the most dangerous, the most savagely alluring man she’d ever set eyes on. It was almost a shame that he had to die.

  She shook her head to clear it of any more thoughts or judgments about him. She wanted him to die. She wanted them all to die. They weren’t taking her home, her land.

  She snatched an arrow from the quiver over her back and raised her bow. She was tired of waiting. If she took away their leader, her traps would take care of the rest of them.

  She pulled back on the bowstring and watched him through one eye as he turned in her direction. Her fingers trembled for an instant before she released her arrow. It flew. He moved his head an instant before the arrow went through his eye.

  But not completely in time to avoid the metal tip grinding against his left cheekbone.

  Aleysia’s eyes opened wide. No! How could she miss?

  She went still as fury flashed across his icy blue gaze. He found her in the branches. Blood dripped down his cheek. He didn’t reach for his wound but slammed his shield to the ground and reached for his bow and arrow instead.

  She pulled another arrow from her quiver and nocked it but he was faster. His arrow flew…and so did Aleysia, through the trees, over planks and thick branches, on a path she’d traveled over many times before, until she was gone.

  Chapter Two

  “Did ye see that?” Cain didn’t wait for anyone to reply before he moved for the trees. Had his eyes deceived him? How could a man travel through the boughs with such agility and speed? Was this some sort of sorcery? No, the bastard was real and responsible for killing nine of his men—for almost killing him. He lifted his fingers to the blood on his face.

  Cain was going to catch him and kill him…slowly.

  “Cainnech, careful!” Father Timothy called out.

  “I think I hit him,” Cain called back. “Amish!” he shouted to his second in command. “Keep the men still.”

  He looked overhead at the web of branches. There didn’t appear to be anyone else. He needed to be certain, and to have a closer look at the assailant’s perch.

  Slinging his bow over his back, he reached the tree and used his axe to begin climbing.

  When he reached the desired branch, he pulled himself up and looked in the direction of where his arrow should have landed. He spotted it jutting from the trunk. Attached to it was a piece of cloth torn from the bastard’s cloak. He yanked the arrow free and replaced it in his quiver and then examined the cloth. It was dyed in the colors around him.

  Clever, he thought as he lifted his gaze for the first time to the branches around him. How many more of these enemies were there?

  He went still as his eyes began to focus on the ropes tied to branches. They were everywhere. Everywhere he looked. The bastard was cutting them as he and his men moved beneath him. If he hadn’t tried to kill Cain and missed, he would not have been spotted and fled.

  They never would have made it through the forest.

  His blood went cold. This was too elaborate. There had to be more than one person here. He squinted into the branches. Would he even see them? He barely saw the one who shot at him. He listened for any sounds of things moving in trees. There wasn’t any, not a single bird stirred. He should have been listening for such sounds or the lack of them earlier. Nine of his men might still be alive.

  He looked down at Father Timothy and shook his head. So much for an easy siege. According to the priest, Lismoor had no guard, no lord. It was the reason he’d volunteered Cain and his men to the king. Take Lismoor for the Bruce and then go to Whitton for some rest. This wasn’t supposed to be difficult.

  Now it was war.

  He climbed down to tell the others what he found. “The ropes must be cut to release the traps. With the bastard oot of the way, there shouldna be any more trouble.” He stopped for a moment to accept a small cloth from Father Timothy and pressed it to his bloody cheek. “I dinna think there are any more of them.”

  A low murmur rose from the men. Father Timothy spoke what they were all asking.

  “One person did all this? Cainnech look.” He stepped over something and called out to the men to stand behind the trees. When they did, he hacked at something in the deep grass and arrows flew. At least a hundred soared outward into the meadow.

  Cain paled. He knew it seemed impossible. “We’ll see,” he vowed. “Keep yer shields raised and yer eyes on the ground. I will meet up with ye all at the edge of the forest.” He turned again for the trees.

  “What do ye mean to do?” Father Timothy called out to him.

  “I mean to see where this leads. If it leads to a village or a castle, I mean to take it and draw the assailant oot.”

  “Cainnech, we dinna take villages,” the priest gently reminded.

  Cain stopped and turned back to him. Aye, Cain had sworn never to kill villagers. But the priest knew he had a black heart. It went along with the name, though Cain had never known the story of the murderous son of Adam and Eve until Father Timothy had read it to him when he was nine. “Father,” he said, his voice resonating with authority. “I will know who is responsible fer our men’s deaths.” He already knew who was responsible for their lives. He was. “And then I will put an end to his.”

  He didn’t wait another moment but climbed back up the tree and moved cautiously away.

  On his way around branches and planks, he surveyed the ropes and how they led through the intricate web of branches and leaves to the other side of the woods, where spiked boulders and long, sharp pikes hung waiting for release. The culprit may have been alone today, but he’d had help building all of this, planning it all as if they were expecting Cain and his men. How? Who was it? An English general he’d defeated in battle? Who lived in Rothbury?

  He would find out soon enough, he thought as he came to the edge of the forest. He stood in the branches and looked down at a village spilling over the strath and a small castle on a hill in the distance.

  He peered down at his men and then took one last look around for the culprit before he climbed down and joined the others.

  “I dinna know which way he went,” he told them, “but, mayhap, someone in the village knows.”

  Without waiting for anyone to object, he leaped onto his waiting mount, led to him by Father Timothy, who opened his mouth and then shut it again when Cain rode away.

  The villagers were going to help bury his men whether they wanted to or not. He’d kill any who refused, or refused to help him find the assailant. He didn’t care what Father Timothy believed about attacking villages, or that he quietly agreed.

  Someone was going to pay.

  He was the first to arrive in the village, the first to notice that something didn’t feel right.

  No one was here. Had the village been abandoned? Were the villagers hiding in the forest?

  They searched every house, narrowly avoiding a dozen more traps that were set off upon opening doors.

  “I should burn it all down,” he ground out when Fath
er Timothy brought his horse close. “It may draw him oot.”

  “It might if there were people inside,” the priest remarked calmly. “But this place is deserted, Cainnech. It has likely been this way fer the last four years.”

  “Why d’ye say that?” Cain asked, his interest piqued. What did Father Timothy know?

  “Sir Giles d’Argentan,” the priest said, looking around.

  “Ye said he was dead,” Cain reminded him with a clip of annoyance in his voice.

  “He is. The Norman knight served under King Edward and gave up his life at Bannockburn rather than flee with the king.”

  “Aye,” Cain remarked. “I know the story of England’s hero. Are we certain of his death? Does he have brothers wantin’ to avenge him?”

  “Aye, we are sure. Commander Lamont’s regiment took him down. As far as his kin,” Father Timothy told him, “he has no brothers. I know little aboot him, but whoever is responsible fer what happened today knew we were comin’. He must have heard Duncan’s pipes last eve and planned his attack.”

  Cain his shook his head. “This took time to plan and put together.” He narrowed his eyes on the village. “There were people here and they helped. Fer that, they will now lose their homes.”

  “Cainnech.” The priest turned to him, his large, brown eyes, pleading—and filled with determination. “Ye have agreed to go to Whitton to pray fer yer sins. Will ye add more to them now?”

  Cain laughed softly to himself. How much more proof did Father Timothy need before he would admit the truth? “Yer God obviously doesna want to hear from me, Father.”

  “Ye are still alive, so I would disagree,” the priest replied quietly, turning back to the houses before them. “Dinna burn the village, Cainnech. Do this fer me. I ask little of ye.”

  Cain cast him his darkest scowl. The priest told the truth. He usually did what he wanted without asking. This time he did ask though—and for what? To save some abandoned dwellings to appease his God, who seemed bent on killing Cain?

  “Verra well,” Cain murmured, then gritted his teeth with disgust at his own heart and the softness in it for the old man beside him. “But ask no mercy from me when we catch this bastard.”