The horses disappeared around a hillock. Samuel couldn’t have been comfortable at that pace with his wounded leg, but the horses were Scottish, not war horses. They were bred to the hills. They wouldn’t let the men down and could start to move even faster as they descended into the village. The starless darkness on the western horizon threatened to swallow all light completely, but the moon took that moment to shine out brightly. It would allow them to see where they were going for a little way at least.
Callum stepped off the path and crouched down. The trees were sparse up here and he was counting on his stillness to hide him from the sight of whoever was coming. The patter of feet came closer and as he listened, Callum realized that the noise came from a single runner. He straightened and stepped into the road. “It’s me!” He caught Cassie by the arms as she barreled into him.
“God! You scared me!” Cassie gasped for breath. “We need to keep moving. How far ahead are the others?”
“I just sent them on—a matter of minutes,” Callum said.
Cassie looked behind her, and they both stilled to listen. “I don’t hear anything,” Callum said.
“That doesn’t mean they’re not on their way,” Cassie said. “They followed me east for a little way, but then it looked as if I hadn’t convinced them sufficiently. I shot one. Once they figure out that nobody is shooting at them anymore, they’ll come after us. I’m out of arrows.”
“If they come, they come,” Callum said. “Can you keep running?”
“Of course.” Cassie said.
Callum accepted her assessment. Few qualities in a woman were more attractive than quiet competence, something which Cassie had in abundance. “If we hurry, we can catch James and Samuel before they reach the village,” he said.
Callum and Cassie set off, but it seemed the horses had moved more quickly than Callum had thought they might. Cassie and he approached within half a mile of the village and still hadn’t caught up with them. Callum slowed. “Could they have taken another path?” he said.
“There is no other path,” Cassie said.
Then Samuel stepped from a stand of trees near the river where the terrain flattened out. “Callum!”
Cassie and Callum hurried to greet him. James remained on his horse with John. “His breath is more shallow,” said James.
“We’ve made it to the village,” Callum said. “Let’s see if we’re welcome.”
A river ran from a northwestern loch to a second loch further east. The village nestled between them. The horses clip-clopped across the wooden bridge that spanned the river and along an earthen road, hard packed from years of use, which led into the village. The quiet was absolute. Not even a dog barked.
Cassie’s head was near Callum’s shoulder and she spoke in a whisper. “I know it’s after midnight, but surely our presence will bring someone out? Don’t they keep a watch?”
“It doesn’t seem like it,” Callum said.
The village consisted of a dozen houses clustered around a central green. A little church sat on the north side of the village, a little way from the other buildings. The white plastered stone walls reflected the lingering moonlight. The church possessed a slate roof, the only one in the village, and sported a tower and a metal cross above the doorway. The grounds were protected by a low stone wall pierced by an archway with a bell above it.
“What’s the name of this place?” Samuel said.
“Duncraggan.” Cassie pointed to a one-story building attached to the west side of the church. “I’ll go and ask for help, shall I?”
“Not alone, you won’t,” Callum said.
Cassie made what sounded like a grrr at him but didn’t otherwise protest his involvement. She and Callum ducked through the archway and walked down the path towards the front door of the church, before cutting across the graveyard to reach the back door. Samuel followed to a point halfway down the path but stopped to wait twenty feet away. Once at the door, Callum knocked.
Nobody answered. Callum turned to look at Cassie, who shrugged, and he was about to knock again when a shout came from the road. “You there!”
A dozen men, maybe all of the men in the village, each armed with an axe or a farming implement, stomped toward them. Several of them also held torches. The man who led them had obviously hurried from his bed because even as he walked, he swung his cloak around his shoulders and fastened it at his throat.
Callum strode to meet him, with Cassie and Samuel in tow, and arrived at the archway in time to set his feet and present a composed face before the leader reached him.
Ten feet away, the man pulled up. “Who are you?” he said in Gaelic, “and what do you want? We aren’t accustomed to being woken in the night by strangers.”
“We don’t wish to make trouble,” Callum said. “We come seeking shelter. Several of us are injured and need healing. One is only a boy.”
Callum could see the leader studying him, taking in his armor and sword, and then his eyes went to Samuel and James, still on the horse with John. Cassie remained just behind Callum and not in the man’s line of sight.
The man was six inches shorter than Callum and ten years older, with bristling gray hair and a close-cropped beard. “Tell me your name,” the man said.
“Callum. But my name isn’t important.” Callum gestured towards James. “This is James Stewart, Guardian of Scotland, and the young lord Graham, from Mugdock.”
It wasn’t often that Callum had seen a man’s jaw actually drop, but this man’s did. He recovered quickly, however, bowing abruptly. “My apologies, my lord. My home is your home.” He spun around, organizing the men of the village with a wave of his hand. James and John were helped from their horse and they, as well Samuel, were swept towards the leader’s house. Callum heard the leader tell one of the others to run ahead and wake ‘old Hetty’ and bring her to his home, which sounded promising to Callum.
The leader’s hut looked like all the others in the village but for its larger size, and like the other buildings, was built in stone without mortar. It had a thatched roof, unlike the church, and was good-sized for a medieval house: close to twenty feet long with its related buildings clustered behind it. The headman’s much younger and very pregnant wife met him at the door and gave way as Samuel and James were herded inside, along with the two men carrying John.
Cassie and Callum didn’t go inside, instead remaining on the threshold. The leader glanced at them and tipped his head. “Please. Come in.”
“We dare not,” Callum said. “It’s possible we have been followed by men who do not come in peace.”
The leader stepped closer, crowding Callum out of the doorway, and shut the door behind him. “What are you saying? You’ve brought disaster to my people?”
“I hope not,” Callum said.
The man’s chin jutted out. “How many?”
“We hope no more than a dozen,” Callum said.
“We’re farmers and herdsmen!” the leader said. “How can we defend against even that many soldiers?”
James pulled open the door behind the man. “I’m sorry to bring trouble to your village. Our horses are tired, but not blown. If you have a man to spare, he could ride to my family’s holding at Callander. I would go myself, but—” James swayed and Callum caught him by the shoulders.
“Are you wounded?” Callum said. “Where?”
James had been holding his left arm across his torso and now turned his hand palm up to show Callum the blood on it. “It’s not serious or I would have said something earlier. The exertion of riding has opened the wound again.”
Callum looked at the headman. “What is your name?”
“Martin.”
“Do you have someone we can send as Lord Stewart suggests?” Callum said.
“Yes.” Martin’s bluster was gone in favor of brisk certainty. “I will see to it.” He walked off quickly towards the village green where several men still gathered.
“I should be the one to go,” Cassie said as sh
e helped Callum ease James back inside the hut. The only place to sit him was on a bench against a side wall. He needed the bed, but that was taken up by John.
“No, Cassie,” Callum said. “How many of these villagers have real weapons? I need you to fight.”
“I’m not a soldier, Callum.” Cassie’s voice was soft.
“Maybe not,” Callum said. “But you think more like one than any other able-bodied man here.”
Callum meant it as a complement of a sort, but he could see why Cassie might not see it that way, even if she’d made it clear that she didn’t want him to treat her like a medieval woman. She was a woman, and a beautiful one at that.
“I don’t have any arrows left,” Cassie said. “I’m not going to be much use to you.”
“The villagers might have a stockpile.” Callum tugged on the end of her braid and then dropped his hand at her narrowed eyes.
“I’ll ask Martin when he returns,” Cassie said. “But for all that the MacDougalls and Bruces employed archers in their companies, most men in Scotland don’t know how to use a bow. They use snares to trap small animals, but the lords forbid the hunting of big game. Archery requires years of practice to be able to take a bow into battle.”
“That’s how it is in England, too,” Callum said. “Until they fought the Welsh, they didn’t understand how powerful a regiment of archers could be.”
“Given that, do you think it would be better if I stayed here and guarded James and John?” Cassie said.
Callum bent his head to hers. “You’re actually willing to stay behind?”
“No, but I thought I’d give you the illusion of control,” she said.
Callum laughed and shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind having you at my back.”
Cassie turned to the healer, who had slipped in the back door while they were talking to Martin. “How is Samuel?” she said.
As the first order of business, Hetty had bound Samuel’s leg so he could walk if he had to. “He’ll do,” she said.
Hetty went to James next, tugging up his shirt to get at his wound. Cassie moved to crouch in front of Samuel. “How does it feel.”
“I’m fine,” Samuel said.
“Uh huh. You must be James and John’s last defense,” Cassie said.
“I can fight too,” said James from his bench.
Callum glanced over at him. “No.” He held out his hand to Cassie. After a brief hesitation, she grasped it so he could pull her to her feet. “Cassie and I will take care of this.”
Callum rotated his shoulders to loosen his back and shoulder muscles as he and Cassie left the hut. The darkness would have been complete if not for the torches in the hands of the men that Martin had posted on the green and on the bridge, waiting for the MacDougalls to come, if they were going to come.
“There’s no denying I feel naked without my bow,” Cassie said. “I don’t have any other weapon but my knife.”
“I wish Samuel and James still had their swords,” Callum said. “I’d give one of theirs to you, even if they protested. As it is, I think our village chief is arming his men. Maybe he can arm you too.”
Cassie and Callum followed the sound of men’s voices around the back of Martin’s house. In many medieval houses, the byre for the animals was attached to the house, but Martin’s home was more advanced than that. He had a barn and a shed, and it was to the shed that he had brought his villagers. Callum and Cassie watched Martin pass out axes and roughly made swords to each man who asked for one.
Cassie approached and fingered the hilt of one of the swords. “Where did you get these?”
“We’ve been collecting them over the past few years,” Martin said. “When you live as we do, surrounded by powerful lords who think nothing of crossing your fields on their way to marauding, you learn to defend yourself.”
“Do you have any arrows?” Cassie said.
Martin shook his head regretfully. “None in the village have the skill to make them.” Carrying a seven foot long pole arm, he headed to where his villagers waited patiently on the green.
“Maybe Martin doesn’t need our help after all.” Callum picked up a weapon that resembled nothing less than a goblin sword from The Lord of the Rings. It was composed of a thick, flat strip of metal with a leather grip wrapped around one end.
Cassie eyed what Callum had chosen and then picked out a similar weapon for herself, this one with a wicked point. “This is one hell of a sword.”
Callum glanced to where Martin waited with his villagers, whose numbers had grown in the last hour. Men who lived in the surrounding countryside had come at Martin’s call. Martin lifted a hand to Callum, who nodded, understanding that the men were waiting for him to instruct them. First, however, Callum put a hand on Cassie’s shoulder, focusing her attention away from her weapon and towards the green.
“Look at Martin’s pole arm,” Callum said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Cassie said.
“That’s because it’s made of steel.”
“How is that possible? Where did he get this stuff?” Cassie said.
“My guess—and I think it’s a good one—is that we’ve just found Meg’s friend Marty. These weapons are the remains of his airplane.”
Chapter Fourteen
Cassie
They’d stayed up all night again, and Cassie had never been so glad to see the sky lighten. Callum had left Cassie to give a pep talk to the women, while he oversaw the men who would stand as their first and only line of defense against the MacDougalls. While all but a few of the villagers appeared to be shivering in their boots, Cassie had to trust that they would find their courage and do what had to be done when it came to it. The fact that they would be defending their families helped.
“We could have hidden James, Samuel, and John and waited for the MacDougalls to pass by,” Cassie said when she finally had a chance to talk to Callum again. “Surely Marty could lie sufficiently to send them on their way?”
“Martin and I talked about it while you were overseeing the setting of snares on the path,” Callum said. “If we let the MacDougalls into the village, we lose any advantage we might have gained by confronting them with a strong force. They are fighting men and the villagers aren’t. They could wipe the villagers out because they felt like it.”
Cassie had lived long enough to have seen the casual brutality that was a way of life for some men. “I’m rethinking those snares, then,” she said. “As soon as they see them, the MacDougalls will know we’re here.”
“I’m not rethinking them,” Callum said. “To face fewer MacDougalls when they come—if they come—is worth the the loss of surprise.”
Cassie and Callum reached the village end of the bridge. Cassie looked across the river to the hill that the MacDougalls would come down if they were coming. “I’m glad you think so.”
“You don’t have to be perfect all the time, you know,” Callum said. “It’s okay to make mistakes.”
Cassie found her hands worrying at the fabric of her cloak and forced them to still. “Not in my experience.”
“Cassie—” Callum reached out a hand towards her, but she took a step back before he could touch her.
“I should check on the scouts again,” Cassie said.
Callum nodded and didn’t try to stop her. As she reached the first turn on the trail, a tentative shaft of sunlight broke through the mist and cloud cover that were typical for a morning in Scotland. She glanced back to the bridge. Callum stood where she’d left him looking after her, with a half-dozen men guarding the river.
He noticed her attention and lifted a hand. Cassie nodded, though he might not have been able to see the gesture from that distance. She turned back to the trail and kept walking, forcing herself to think about the coming fight rather than her developing feelings for Callum.
Five minutes later, the ray of sunlight was squelched by the rain that had been threatening from the west all night. The first drops pattered on the trees
above Cassie’s head. She’d gone two hundred yards when two men who’d been sent to watch the path came running back. The first one practically leapt over her in his fear, while the second caught Cassie’s arm as he passed her and spun her around. “They killed Rod!”
“How many come?” Cassie said.
“Two dozen!” The first man shrieked the words.
Cassie hesitated, listening, letting the men get ahead of her. Even through the plopping noises of the rain on the leaves in the path and on her hood, she could hear the progress of the MacDougalls. Cassie wanted to doubt the man’s guess at their numbers. If the MacDougalls had brought two dozen men, the villagers would be outnumbered.
Cassie gave up on the idea of getting an actual count. They’d know how many men came against them soon enough. She ran back down the trail after the villagers, almost losing her footing several times as she skidded in the dirt that had turned to mud in the last ten minutes. The wind blew her hood off her head and a wash of rain flew into her face. She didn’t mind the coolness of it, since she was hot from running. It also helped to calm that first rush of adrenaline brought on by the villagers’ panic. Cassie slowed as she reached the bottom of the hill and jogged the last thirty yards to where Callum waited.
He moved off of the bridge to meet her ten paces in front of the men who stood behind him. “You heard that they’re coming?” Cassie said.
Callum nodded. “I heard.”
“Do we know how far it is to the nearest ford?” Cassie said.
“The men tell me there isn’t one.” Callum shrugged. “The MacDougalls could swim the river and come at us from another direction, but if they really have twenty-four men, they’ll have too much bravado not to challenge us here.”
“We could destroy the bridge,” Cassie said.
“I would do it if we had archers and arrows,” Callum said. “You alone could decimate their ranks. A few spears aren’t enough, and the villagers wouldn’t throw them accurately anyway.”
Cassie glanced behind her. The MacDougalls hadn’t yet appeared. “It would be easy,” she said.
Exiles in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) Page 17