“And walk out with your sister,” she boasted, still stinging over his comment that she was slowing him down.
“She will be bound. Ye’ll have to cut her ropes,” he said, and tossed a dagger he’d drawn. It stabbed the ground next to Kat. She yanked it out, feeling very much like the Warrior Princess. She just needed some black leather. She also needed a sheath for the razor sharp weapon. What would she do with it, tuck it in her pants?
“You can hold it until I go into the thick of things.” She handed it to Toren, handle first, careful not to slice her palm. He slid it within its sheath. “So we rest now.” She looked around at the dense blackberry bushes across the narrow stream. “Where exactly do we rest?”
Eadan, Margaret, and Sara walked through the trees. Kat smiled at the girl and tried to make eye contact with her mother. Margaret gave another timid smile and hurried Sara toward the stream where they all drank.
“Umm…that’s kind of where the horses drank,” Kat said and waved them up stream. “Up there is probably…tastier.” Margaret and Sara moved up stream while Eadan wiped his arm across his mouth and looked to his brother.
“We make camp beyond the bushes,” Toren said, and jerked his head in the direction of the blackberry bushes. “Just until the sun is high. Then we’ll surprise them just north of Fallows Pass.”
“We attack in the daylight?” Eadan asked. “Two of us against thirty or more?”
“There’ll be no attacking,” Kat said, glancing through the thick bushes. How exactly were they to get back in the clearing without the blackberry thorns ripping them to shreds?
“I have a plan,” Toren said over her words. Eadan nodded and walked back to the horses, totally trusting in his brother and chief to come up with the best plan. Kat shook her head. She had read about the importance of hierarchy in the clan system and how chiefs had to prove themselves worthy. Toren must have proven himself very worthy.
“How do we get in there?” Kat asked, pointing to the brambles.
Toren pulled the two horses behind him and walked to the far end of the bushes. Kat watched him closely, but right before her eyes, he disappeared. “Toren?” she called.
“Follow,” he instructed.
“There’s a path,” Eadan said and moved up stream to escort Margaret. He picked Sara up in his arms.
Kat walked to the place Toren disappeared. The way the brambles grew on a diagonal hid the path that had been forged through them. The bramble branches were cut along the path, but buds sprouted from their severed ends. Someone had cut the path not too long ago.
Kat walked into an open meadow encircled by blackberry bramble. Giant oak trees anchored the perimeters of the spherical field like stately sentries, like standing stones. The tickle of magic ran just under Kat’s skin. This place is unusual, she thought, and turned in a circle as she stared up at the clear dawn sky that filled the ring left open by the green oaks. She closed her eyes and inhaled, feeling the magic of the water in her body, the magic of the place resonating.
“What is this place?” she asked, breathing deeply, eyes still closed.
“A hiding place I stumbled upon.” Toren’s voice was close.
She opened her eyes. Hundreds of butterflies fluttered down around her, their yellow and blue wings whispering. Toren stared. Kat smiled at them, her friends, her mother’s love.
Margaret’s gasp and Sara’s squeal of delight turned Kat’s head where they stood with Eadan, staring in wonder at her fluttery friends. With a shake of her hands, the butterflies lifted upward and caught a stray wisp of wind. They drifted into the woods. All eyes studied her.
“They must like this meadow,” Kat said and shrugged her shoulders. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up being tried as a witch in this century. Of course she was, but not the evil, put-a-hex-on kind of witch.
She moved her hands around. “So we rest now, all of us,” she said, pointedly looking at Toren.
“I’ll take the first watch,” Eadan said.
“Why can’t we all rest?” Kat asked frowning. “The sun will be high in just a few hours. We all need sleep.”
Toren stepped closer to Kat, his voice low. “This place may resonate magic to some degree, but it won’t keep others out.” He turned away as if that were the end of the discussion. Kat took several steps to keep up with him.
“But I can,” she said. “I can keep others out.”
Toren pulled the heavy blankets from the backs of the horses and began to lay down pallets in the shade of the trees.
Kat caught his arm, ignoring the steely muscle beneath the fabric. “I’ve done it before. We’ll be totally guarded. No one will be able to get in here,” she whispered. When he picked her up and set her on one of the throws, she lost her patience.
“Stop placing me where you want me,” she snapped, and saw his face tense. So what if she irritated him. He was irritating her, too.
He opened his mouth as if to say something and then closed it again. He sat down on the pallet.
Kat sat back on her heels. “Where exactly do you think we will be able to hide once they realize Brianag has been taken? Were you expecting to high tail it all the way up to Scotland with an army of thirty peeved Highland bad guys after us? That’s a long way off.” She wasn’t sure of that, but it seemed so riding horseback. “We need to have somewhere to hide where they can’t find us no matter how hard they look.”
Toren watched her closely. She’d finally gotten his attention.
“Ye can make this place invisible?”
Kat nodded. “I’ve put glamour spells around small places where I needed to hide things.” She blushed and then pushed the guilty feeling away as she remembered the stash of money she had shielded in the gym locker. “The magic in this area,” she said waving to indicate the meadow, surrounded by brambles and oaks, “will enhance my power.” Kat stood up and placed her palm on the oak. She closed her eyes and concentrated. The magic didn’t tickle through her hand. She looked down. A flat boulder sat embedded near the trunk of the tree. She knelt and touched it. She yanked back as if she’d touched a hot burner. The rock buzzed with power.
She smiled at Toren. “It’s the rocks.” She spotted several others sitting at odd angles around the ring. This was a circle of stones, just very low stones.
Eadan walked over to them. “What is the lass doing?” he asked Toren.
Toren watched her. “Do ye remember Ma?”
Eadan nodded slowly. “A wee memory of her.”
“Kat has a touch of the wisdom.”
Kat closed her eyes, focusing her magic on the crystals embedded in the rock.
Hide, invisible, only people full of honor, full of heart. People with a true need to hide will be protected here, invisible from the world, invisible from every entity worldly or unworldly.
Kat spoke inside her head, imagining the lines that formed an invisible web around the meadow, interwoven like a blanket. She tied off the weave and moved to the next stone which was nearly covered with moss and stray daisies. Twelve stones in all. By the time Kat laid hands on the last stone, she swayed on her feet. This stone was several feet high and she leaned over it, concentrating on the tight blanket she’d woven over the entire field. Hide, invisible, let only those with need and true hearts enter. She recited the words through a numb mind. With the last bit of strength, Kat tied off the flow of magic around the large stone and collapsed over it.
She felt Toren’s arms lift her away from the hard granite.
“Lass?”
“You can rest now. We can all rest now,” she said through slurry lips. Toren lofted her higher in his arms and carried her to a pallet. He settled her on the blanket and covered her. Just before blackness overtook Kat she felt Toren lower himself and lay out against her back. His arm pulled her into his warmth. Kat smiled inside. Now they could truly rest. It was a good thing he’d brought her along.
****
“Achoo!” Kat woke on a sneeze. Something tickled her nose. She
opened eyes to find dozens of butterflies perched on her, some fluttering above. Eadan, Margaret, and Sara stared.
Go please, Kat pushed the thought out toward her little friends. “Thank you,” she said as they alighted and moved upwards.
Sara’s mouth hung open. “How do you call them? Even in your slumber.”
Kat sighed and ran fingers through tussled hair. She was sore but felt much better than before the little nap. “It’s sort of a family trait.”
“I thought ye were an orphan,” Eadan said, eyeing the fluttering wings that were well past the oaks into the blue sky.
“Well, so I’ve been told. My mother died, but she didn’t want me to be alone,” she said glancing around for Toren. “She sent her sash with me.” The three stared like she’d grown a second head. Kat pushed herself up. “It’s complicated.”
Eadan gave Kat a faint smile. “My ma had a touch of magic. The kind that runs through things of nature.” Margaret turned to look at him. “She was a good Christian woman,” Eadan defended. “She just had a way of influencing natural things. It was a gift from God.”
“I like your butterflies, Lady Kat,” Sara said.
Kat smiled. “Thank you.” She looked toward the horses where Toren fastened their bags. He walked over as she stretched. His hands clamped down gently on her shoulders and he ducked to look into her eyes. “Ye are sound?” They had only been back in his century for a day or so, but already his thick Scottish accent rolled across his tongue.
Kat could listen to that roll for hours. Kat’s heart jumped at the concern written in Toren’s piercing eyes, genuine concern. She smiled slowly. “Aye, I’m fine,” she said mimicking his brogue a bit. “I just need some water.”
Toren handed her a flask and she drank the whole bladder dry. “Water in, water out,” Kat murmured and looked around for a large bush for some privacy. She wasn’t getting back on that horse without taking care of business first.
Kat sat behind Eadan as Toren rode up ahead to scout the most obvious route for the Campbells. Since Fergus Campbell didn’t know they followed, he wouldn’t try to hide.
“He won’t charge into them all on his own, will he?” Kat asked Eadan. “You know, lose his head with fury and bellow a battle cry and charge in to save his sister.”
“I have not seen Tor lose his head before,” Eadan said. “When he has a plan, he sticks to it unless the circumstances change.”
“Could the circumstances change?”
“Circumstances always change,” Eadan said, a smile touching his voice. Kat noticed that Margaret smiled although her eyes stayed forward.
The plan was for Toren to find the Campbell camp up ahead and ride back to get her. Which was not what Kat had wanted. It made much better sense for Toren to take her with him. So if the circumstances changed she’d be there to cloak them. Kat huffed loudly.
“Be sure, Lady Kat,” Eadan said. “Tor’s plans usually work out perfectly.”
“Hmmm…usually.” Kat swayed along with the slow moving beast, her ears tuned into the world. No planes roared overhead, leaving white trails amongst the clouds. No hum of an unseen highway muted the sounds of nature. Twittering birds hunted for food. Small animals scampered around the trees as they rode along the wide path they called a road. Time stretched lazily onward with laborious seconds as Kat waited. She tried to relax in the quiet, but the wondering put her on edge. Kat turned her attention to her sixteenth century companions.
Margaret watched Eadan under lowered eyes. Sara sat behind her mother, hugging her gently, her head moving from side to side to spy wild cornflowers and buttercups. Who was Sara’s father? She couldn’t ask in front of the child even if she were on close terms with Margaret. Sara looked nothing like Toren or Eadan.
Eadan asked Margaret several questions about her home which she responded to very meekly with little detail. Yet Eadan didn’t seem to tire of pulling out the scraps of details. Although he barely looked at the woman. Instead his head moved side to side as if he continually scanned the forest.
The sound of hooves pounded from a bend up ahead. Eadan grabbed Margaret’s reins and pulled them both off the road. Kat reached over to Margaret’s horse and threw a cloak around them. If it was Toren, he’d see through the magic.
The thunder beat in the silent forest. The space of several heartbeats passed while Kat held her breath. She let it out finally when she saw the large Highlander pushed forward over the neck of his warhorse.
Toren’s determined stare met her eyes, and he reined in. The other horses shied and nickered off to the side as Eadan fought for control.
“They prepare to move on. Come Kat,” he said and pulled her easily from Eadan to sit before him. The feel of his arms sent a sizzle along her skin. This, with the sudden realization that she was being thrown into the thick of history hammered, making her light headed. She concentrated on the solid feel of Toren’s strength as he wheeled the horse around.
“Take them”—Toren’s head nodded toward Margaret and Sara—“back to the blackberry grove. We’ll bring Brianag. They won’t find us there.”
“Tor,” Eadan said hesitantly. “They are at least two score in number and ye take a woman into battle?” He paused. “And send me to hide in blackberry bramble.” Eadan’s chin rose a notch as he stared his older brother and laird in the eyes. “I am going with ye.”
Tense silence sat for a moment until Margaret’s quiet voice broke in. “We’ve only come a short distance. I know the way back to the grove. Sara and I will wait for ye there.” More tense silence.
“I have a plan, Eadan.” Toren’s voice sat low, crouched as if ready to jump and conquer any weakness.
“Circumstances change,” Eadan said with much less humor than when he’d discussed the topic with Kat. “And I don’t ken why ye’d risk yer lady.”
“She fits into my plan, brother,” Toren replied, without a hint of giving ground.
“Ye would use a lady in yer battle plan?” Eadan sounded aghast, astounded, and very judgmental. Kat felt Toren’s body flinch behind her back as if his brother had delivered a blow.
“She…the lady, has certain abilities that will be of use,” Toren said, and pulled his horse to cut off the conversation. “I do not answer to ye.”
“I am coming with ye,” Eadan ended, and glanced at Margaret. She shooed him with a hand and turned her horse around. She took off in a slow canter, not even waiting to see if Toren would demand Eadan stay behind.
Kat understood pecking order among boys. She grew up with ten or more of them and had been raising just as many. Normally she’d encourage them to go play an aggressive game of basketball or assign them kitchen duty until they worked things out. But she didn’t have time to positive parent these two warriors. Kat turned her face to Toren. “Let him come. If something happens, we’ll want the extra sword.”
“And in one battle the MacCallums of Craignish will be no more.” His words rang eerily against her heart. She pulled the bladder of water to suddenly dry lips and drank long gulps.
Kat’s backside still throbbed from the frantic pace Toren had set. She most certainly had bruises. Kat pushed back into his rock hard chest as they rode, trying to redistribute the jouncing off her poor gluteus muscles. It was like leaning into a rock cliff. Toren hadn’t relaxed one bit since Eadan’s defiance and had kept the place ahead of his brother along the narrow road. Poor Eadan was probably swallowing his brother’s dust. She gave Eadan credit for not slowing down, nor trying to ride next to Toren. The young man knew something of diplomacy.
Toren slowed his horse and veered away from the dusty road down a path that wound into a glade of trees and low bushes. They followed the trail around large boulders outcropped amongst the old growth oaks. It was good Toren knew direction as Kat was completely lost.
The thickness of early spring foliage hid the camp from sight until they were nearly upon it. The low murmurs of men, broken by an occasional curse or throaty chuckle tightened Kat’s chest wit
h unease. This was the closest she’d come to a battle, a bloody Highlander battle at that. Reading about one in a book was very different from living through one in flesh and blood.
Toren signaled for them to dismount and held Kat against him until she could rub some feeling back into her thighs and butt. Eadan came up covered in a layer of dust. Toren and Eadan moved ahead to spy through the foliage. Once the blood moved freely, Kat stepped closer to peer through the leaves, conscious not to kick anything that would alert the small army of their presence.
The Campbells were obviously not too worried about anyone nearby. Their cook fires smoked, their loud voices carried, and their mood was far from wary. They moved around wearing dirty, rumpled versions of ancient kilts that Kat had studied. They gathered bundles together, and a few checked the horses.
“Holy Mary, they’re about to leave,” she whispered. The sun had begun its decline, slanting rays through the birch and oaks that threaded through the camp. A rotted tree had been chopped into stumps that the men used to form a circle around a central fire pit. One large Campbell with crusty war paint on his cheeks kicked ashes over the smoking cinders and grabbed the blackened spit that had roasted some animal. The others packed up bed rolls and weapons. One man stood near a tree peeing.
Kat jumped as Toren’s hand moved around her shoulder. His finger pointed to a familiar form against the base of a tree on the far side. Brianag sat with hands behind her, most likely tied. Her gaze watched the men with a frantic fluttering. Her eyes were red and her cheeks streaked. She sat in a torn and muddied gown without the comfort of even a blanket. A tall, dark-haired man paced before her. She turned away from him when he spoke until he gripped her face, forcing her to look at him. This was no bride eloping with her love. This was a hostage situation. Kat’s anger took root, building along her spine, dissolving her fear. She pulled at the water in the air, small molecules of humidity, and wrapped them around, preparing to vanish.
Toren’s lips brushed warm against her ear. “That’s Fergus Campbell,” he said in a clipped whisper. Kat felt his fingers tighten on her shoulder but he let go before he rendered a bruise. “Ye must work quickly. They prepare to ride.”
Masquerade (The Dragonfly Chronicles Book 3) Page 14