“Alright then, I guess you can go on inside,” He said as he stood up stretch his back. “And by the way, I kind of like that have you go to bed without any supper idea you came up with. Let’s go with that for your punishment.”
And this was exactly what it was like to be on a war party with my Da. He was slow to make up his mind and appreciated when you offered him a suggestion on how to do something. Now mind you, he didn’t want the idea pushed down his throat, but he’d consider it and take it serious all the same. And my Da loved to make us drill why he sat making up his mind about things like which direction to into or whether or not we should sneak up on a small band of English or just attack ‘em full bore. It was a bit bothersome, but he rarely made a false move or endangered his people unnecessarily. Besides, he was the head of the entire clan so it wasn’t like you could tell him to bugger off without committing treason, and that went doubly for me.
It was two weeks into my first war party that Da had to make this kind of decision that made him sit and ponder all day. But it was an important one. Our runners had spotted a small band of English traveling through the far corner of the clan’s holdings. Ten soldiers plus mounts and they were no more than 3 miles away. Because they were on the far southern border, there was a better chance than not that they were moving onto somewhere else, or they could be heading north right into the heart of our lands. Whatever the case was, they both made Da nervous. Ten soldiers all on horses was a bit of a challenge. Well, not a bit exactly, downright impossible when it comes right down to it.
When you encounter a riding party of any size, it's best that you have the men to also match the horses. So if you’re fighting a party of twenty mounted soldiers, you needed to attack with at least forty men if not more. A horse enhanced a warrior’s height, weight, speed, and striking ability. You basically had to kill the horse along with its rider. But what else Da had to consider was the fact that the clan could use all of the things the soldiers were carrying. Their weapons, they’re armor, their clothing, their food, the horses themselves. The clans could and would reuse all of these things, and because of this wealth, it made a bit of sense to attack them.
After the sighting was reported to him, Da had us sit around for half the day as he decided what our course of action should be. As the sun began to set, turning the day into night, Da announced:
“Alright, then, we’ll find them in a little bit. We’ll take care of them at night while they’re not expecting us.”
It didn’t take us long to spot ‘em because they had a massive bonfire burning as bright as day and were roasting some kind of fresh meat while singing songs. There was even a better chance than not they were drinking as well. As we watched them stumble about, Da leaned into my ear.
“They’ll be sleeping well tonight, that’s when we’ll take them.”
Attacking men in their sleep, I didn’t know how I felt about that? I know now that if the roles had been reversed, the Englishmen wouldn’t hesitate to kill a highlander in their sleep. It was the path of least resistance. But back during my first war party, I was only sixteen, I was young and idealistic and always believed that the best course of action was to face a man on the battlefield, one-on-one, blade-to-blade. But I followed Da’s orders and we snuck down to the English camp a couple of hours after they all went to sleep. The English were so overconfident that they didn’t even bother to post a sentry.
We tiptoed between the sleeping bodies and that’s when Da showed me what he wanted me to do. He held a long dagger up to my face in the moonlight and then he plunged into the sleeping man’s neck and he died not making a sound and perhaps not even knowing he was dying. He then put the knife into my hand and pointed at the man sleeping a few feet away from the one he’d just done in. I’d never killed a man before and this wasn’t exactly how I pictured myself taking a man to his maker. I took the knife and we snuck over to where the man was snoring as peaceful as he could be. I stared at his face for a moment, trying to memorize the look of him so that I’d never forget it and would recognize him even in my dreams, and then I brought the dagger down and it caught in his neck.
The Englishman sat straight up, my father’s blade sticking out of his neck, spurting blood, and he’s screaming at the top of his lungs. Our party had already killed most of the men, but those who were still living had been rousted from their sleep by my man’s caterwauling and the party had to act quickly before the soldiers could arm themselves. At that moment, the man stared over at me, his eyes locking with mine, and I saw all of the pain welling up in them. I saw the shock and surprise that dying brings on; it was like he was stuck between this world and the next, and it was my job to usher him the rest of the way there. But in that long, painful moment, I froze up and felt like I wanted to scream in fear, too. But my fear was because of the thing I had done and how the good lord would punish me for this later on.
It seemed like hours, but I know it was mere seconds, my father finally pulled his dagger from the screaming soldier’s neck and then properly cut his throat. Da held the knife under my nose, making me smell the copper tang of the blood. He then made me hold out my shaking hand and he gently placed the blade in it.
“His life is yours now. You always carry the blade as a reminder that he was once alive and to also remind you never to hesitate like that again. That could have just easily been your blood on that knife, you know?”
I stared at the knife, my eyes welling with tears, but I sniffed them back. This was the life I’d chosen and for as long as I’ve lived, I’ve never forgotten that screaming soldier. In fact, he comes to visit me every night along with all the others that I’ve taken.
The years passed and soon enough, I was no longer having to accompany my father on his war parties and I was folded into others who had lost people in battle or because their bones were too brittle and aching to continue with sleeping on the cold hard ground with no fire to keep them warm. By my 21st year, I had a war party of my own and Da decided he’d had enough of the cold ground and decided that his clan needed him to be closer to home. They needed him there to act as a diplomat as opposed to a warrior.
By the time my Da stopped roving, all of Scotland was now at war with the English because of William Wallace and his band of brigands. Well, I shouldn’t say all of Scotland, because only about half of the nobles supported Wallace, and the rest fought against him because they were frightened of losing their land and titles. Of course, I didn’t really understand their attitudes and beliefs about the English. How could a man, or a whole group of men think they can own the earth? Not only that but what makes them think it was even theirs to begin with? Aye, true enough, my clan claimed vast swaths of land, but we didn’t think only one of us owned it all—although the Scottish nobles and the English thought the land belonged to Da and it was his empire, but he knew that was nothing but a load of spit—the land was there to provide for us and we for it.
My clan largely stayed out Wallace’s war. It wasn’t that we were cowards, and we still killed any English man that stepped foot on our lands and welcomed Wallace and his men when they would come to us for aid. But Da decided to keep our swords sheathed after he met one-on-one with Wallace. The two of them talked for a good long time, and when Wallace left the fireside, he shook hands with my father and then promptly left. When I asked him if we were going to join Wallace’s cause, he looked up at me, his eyes full of sadness.
“No, lass, no we won’t. This is Wallace’s fight and his alone. He knows the English will be coming for him soon, and he asked us to wait and rally behind his death instead.”
At the time, I didn’t quite understand what he meant, all I knew was that I was getting itchy for battle and Da was keeping all of the parties close to home and under his eye. Which to be honest, wasn’t all that bad. True enough, I still spent plenty of nights out under the stars or with the roof of a cave over my head. But a few nights a week, I would stay at the home of my parents and enjoy the warmth and happiness of thei
r hearth. All of my sisters had married and were now having children of their own. Most of them were still nothing more than wee bairns, and every time I held one of them in my arms, something would stir inside, some kind of deeper longing.
Truth be told, I had been feeling it for a long time, well before my sisters bellies were full of their children. These feelings would come to full life any time I was around young Derrick of my war party. We’d known each other for years, as both of us had been trained and hardened by my father, and for many years, I almost thought of him as the brother I never had. We were very competitive with one another and would always try to best each other at every little thing we did. But after a few years of us roving the clans lands and defending it against all who dared to cross our borders, I started looking and thinking of Derrick differently. Instead of admiring his marks and swordsmanship, I began admiring the cut of his face, the blueness of his eyes, and the way his muscles flexed and moved when he was in battle.
I wanted to tell him how I felt, but I was afraid of two things: That he would just laugh at me, or that he would feel the same and would want me to stop roving with the war parties and stay home to raise our family. The prospect of either kept me up at night, staring out into all that blackness, the infiniteness of it all, the possibilities and conflict of the lives I could lead: The lonely life of a warrior born, a true highlander, or as a wife and mother. Being a wife and mother seemed almost impossible to me as I remembered my constant fumbling as my mother tried to teach me how to sew and cook and do all the things a wife was supposed to do, and of how badly I did all of them and how unnatural it felt. But I ached for Derrick, and I could no longer deny my feelings for him.
It was right near the end of Wallace’s war and Derrick and I were out on night patrol. Both of us were very much at ease that night because we knew that the English were far north of us and our land was in no immediate danger, we walked side-by-side, still keeping our voices low and hush out of habit. Derrick was telling me a story of Old Man McAllen the last time his party had been out roving. Derrick’s war party was made up of mostly young men, all except for McAllen, who was close to retiring full time to his village because of the aches in his bones, but he had yet to admit to himself. But one night, the boys of Derrick’s party filled a bowl full of ice cold spring water and placed McAllen’s hand in it. Then they all stood around gapping until the old man wet himself like a wee bairn in the middle of the night and they woke him with their screams of laughter.
I was in near tears as he told it, and Derrick’s face was as bright and red as an apple, his breath hitching with laughter over the memory of the prank. I don’t think I had ever seen him smile so broadly in the entire longtime that I know him. As a calm settle over his face and features went back to normal as we sat silently under the stars, I could no longer contain myself and I leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. He stared back at me with a small grin playing across his lips and his skin beginning to color again. I didn’t know if I embarrassed him with being so forward, but I didn’t care, and as he stared at me with that stunned, witless expression on his face, I leaned in again and kissed him on the lips.
At first he didn’t respond and my heart sank a bit down into the pit of my stomach. But then, he slung his arms over my neck and pulled me deep into his embrace. Our breath became one and our hearts fluttered like pet birds about to be let out of their cage to be set free to the skies. We finally parted and Derrick began kissing my neck. I giggled as the hard scruff of his beard tickled me and I then reached own below Derrick’s waist and gripped his manhood through his kilt. He pulled away from me holding me at arm’s length. Had I been too forward in my advances? Was I scaring him? It didn’t matter, I’d already pushed myself this far in admitting my feelings for him, so why not go ahead and take the next step?
I reached under his kilt and filled my hands with his stiff manhood. I gasped as I felt its girth and weight. It seemed so impossibly large and I wondered if it would even be able to fit inside of me. I pushed this thought out of my mind and had Derrick lay back and I took him inside my mouth. Its taste was heady with sweat and something a bit animal. It didn’t taste bad, just something almost unrecognizable and new. I kissed and licked at its engorged head and swallowing it as deeply down my throat as I could, and then Derrick’s body began to shudder and his seed filled my mouth with an odd, thick sweetness and I swallowed it all down, not wasting a drop.
I continued to stroke him as he caught his breath and then I lifted my kilt and moved aside my breaches and straddled him. My maidenhood felt like was sloshing a full of water and I easily slid all of his manhood inside me and began to slowly ride him as if he were a horse. As I rode, Derrick pulled my face to his and we shared a long wet kiss and then he pulled me out of shirt so he could nibble at my breast. His tongue and teeth shot tiny bolts of lightening up and down my back and I suddenly felt my loins fill with fire as I pushed down harder and faster on Derrick’s manhood. I called out to the night like a wild animal howling at the moon as wave after wave of pleasure swept through me. As I still moaned and thrashed, Derrick put me on my back and pushed even further inside of me, his deep thrusts building to a frantic pace and then I felt his seed explode inside of me.
As he calmed, he kissed me deeply yet again and he began to ravage me yet again. As I was washed under another wave of pleasure, I wished that this would never end. I wished that I could bottle this perfect moment and carry it with me always for all time. But I realized that I wouldn’t have to because Derrick was all mine, body, and soul.
Two years after the death of Wallace, all of Scotland was now at war under the banner of Robert The Bruce. All of Scotland, save my clan, the largest and most powerful clan of highlanders in all of Scotland. And it wasn’t that we did not want to fight, we begged my father for us to join the Malay, but we also understood why he was refusing to do so.
Robert was the 16th Earl Of Bruce. His family was one of the largest and wealthiest in all of Scotland, and because of that wealth and his family’s generosity, most of Scotland loved and followed him with complete and total obedience. But the Bruce clan had been long time enemies due to Bruce clan’s allegiance to the British throne, and my father worried that the Bruce led rebellion was nothing more than a ruse so that Robert could be crowned the true king of Scotland and then he would deliver us right back into the hands of the English just so he could inherit more lands and titles. I was in the minority, I agreed with my father’s decision. Our clans had fought long and hard against one another over the decades, and whenever our two clans seemed to reach some kind of peaceful accord, the Bruce would break their promises and the wars would start all over again.
True enough, Robert seemed far more sincere and trustworthy than his wretch father had been, but still, a Bruce was a Bruce and we had been fooled far too many times.
But all of this politics mattered little to me as my life had taken a rather unexpected turn, and I spent my days mostly thinking about Derrick. We had not publicly declared our love for one another, as Derrick knew that once this happened we would be expected to marry and my life as a warrior would be over. He knew my nature and knew that I would be truly unhappy if I was to stop ranging and defending the borders of our lands. But to be honest, even though I loved the life of a warrior, I was also beginning to have deep thoughts about creating home for Derrick and I. I began thinking about spending my days keeping house and chasing after our children all day. At one time, such thoughts would send chills of fear down my spine, but now the thoughts seemed natural, like a life with Derrick was simply something that was meant to be.
When we were not together, all I could do was think about him and the next time we could be together. I dreamt of his body on top of mine, filling me again and again. I would sometimes grow so excited that I would wake up in the middle of the night with my bed clothes sodden and my skin dripping wet with sweat, and it would be long hours before I could go to sleep again. But despite this dreaminess, I d
id not let it interfere with my duty to the clan. The English were now a constant threat and most of our neighbors considered us to be hostile because we would not join Robert The Bruce’s war. It was a hard time for our people, but I knew we would endure just as we always had.
***
I had just returned after a particularly long three weeks of ranging along our northern border. The English were thick in these areas, and as much as my war party wanted to, we were currently not allowed to directly engage them unless they crossed over into our lands with the intent of advancing through them. If this occurred, we could slaughter them where they stood, and we took the same attitude towards the Bruce’s armies. Although we would often parlay with our countrymen before actually engaging them. Of all of the Bruce’s patrols that we encountered, all of them had been friendly and willing to speak and then ride around our lands. All except for one, and they simply took exception with the fact that I was a woman and they thought that I was too lowly to engage with. My party, of course, made them stick their heads up their own asses as they scurried away from the fierceness of our blades.
I was utterly exhausted and wanted nothing more than to return to the home of my parents and sleep for several days. I was so tired and distracted that I barely noticed the village humming with activity and excitement. We had a visitor in our village and he was someone I never expected to see in all of my short life.
A Bride Worth Billions Page 8