by Laurin Wittig - Guardians Of The Targe 02 - Highlander Avenged
“You think you can best me?” Malcolm taunted the soldier. “Malcolm of MacKenzie, son of the greatest chieftain in the Highlands and favored warrior of King Robert of Scotland? I have killed a score of your lot single-handedly”—the irony of his words was not lost on him—“on a bad day, more on a good one.” He knew his boasting would bring the man closer and raise his ire. An angry man was not a good fighter.
“Aye. I know it for a fact.”
The man advanced slowly as if he toyed with his prey, his confidence lending him a smug air. Malcolm waited, holding his position, conserving his strength.
Another step, two steps, and the soldier was in Malcolm’s range. He lunged for Malcolm, his sword work hindered by the boulder. Malcolm swiftly shifted the branch in his good hand and, using its greater length, shoved the broken end of it into the man’s unguarded belly like a pike.
The soldier staggered back just as Malcolm’s angel erupted from the wood behind the man, screeching like a banshee, Malcolm’s claymore in her grip, but upside down so that she held the sheathed blade. The soldier swung around to face his new assailant and the woman swung the sword like a war hammer, hitting him solidly on the side of his head with the thick pommel. Gaptooth grunted and crumpled onto his side, his sword clattering to the ground at the same time.
“I am so sick of smug Englishmen thinking they can best a Highlander,” she said.
Blood gathered on the soldier’s temple before spilling down his face to puddle on the ground. Malcolm approached the woman slowly, not wanting to startle her into swinging the heavy pommel at his head.
“Is he dead?” she asked.
Malcolm tossed the soldier’s sword out of the man’s reach in case he wasn’t, then turned him over and listened for his breath.
Malcolm smiled up at his boon companion. “Nay, lass, he is not, but I doubt he’ll come around anytime soon.”
Consternation clouded her face. “I meant to kill him.”
“You did?” he said, surprised by her reaction. “Why did you not swing with the blade if you wished him dead?”
As if she just realized what she had said, her face went white and she shuddered. She shoved the claymore toward Malcolm and he took it from her, laying it next to Gaptooth’s sword.
“Lass? Are you well?”
She shook her head slowly, side to side, staring at the unconscious man as she put more distance between herself and him. “I have never wished to kill anyone before.”
“I can believe that. ’Tis not something healers are wont to do.”
“Aye, ’tis not, unless they have been driven to it by dire circumstances.” She looked at him then and the rosy glow of righteous anger, mixed with a sadness that weighed heavily in her eyes, replaced her pallor. She squared her shoulders as if remembering who and what she was. “Still, I would have him alive so he could be questioned.”
“Better to have him dead.” Malcolm rose to his feet and grabbed the man’s much lighter sword, surprised at how heavy it felt, despite its inferior size and quality. He had lost more strength over the long winter than he had realized. It did not matter. It did not take control to drive a blade into an unconscious man’s chest. “I doubt he will tell us anything, even if he were to awaken. Better to end him now.” He placed the tip of the sword over the man’s heart, just where it would slide between the ribs.
“Nay!” The woman leapt up and wrapped her hands around his that gripped the pommel, pulling him away from their captive. “Any information about the English’s plans for us, even something small and seemingly inconsequential, might be the key to divining our best defense against them. We need to get him back to the castle.”
She knelt beside Gaptooth and began going through the leather sacks that hung from his belt just as Malcolm heard something . . . voices.
“We must go, angel,” he said very quietly. “Others approach.”
“English?”
“I cannot say, but we will not wait to find out. Leave him.” He handed her the soldier’s sword, picked up his claymore, and urged her off the trail and into the deeper shadows of the wood.
“We should stay close and discover who else is trespassing on MacAlpin territory this day,” she whispered to him when they were out of sight of the trail.
“Nay, we need to get to the safety of your castle as quickly as possible.”
THE SHAKING SNUCK up on Jeanette as she and Malcolm made their way down the thickly wooded ben. First her hands began to tremble, and then it seemed her whole body was racked by trembling as if she shivered from a fever.
But ’twas no fever that took hold of her.
The fury that had gripped her when she had seen the English man standing there sneering at Malcolm, and calling her a foul name, had blinded her to anything but making the man shut his mouth. She had not so much as thought about what she was doing beyond choosing which way to hold the claymore. She had wanted to hurt the man, to take his life, just as the English had hurt her family.
Now, as the fury subsided, the danger of the situation, the folly of her actions, took hold of her thoughts. She gave thanks that she had only injured the man, not taken his life, though honestly she could not say if she would regret it if she had. Perhaps she was more like her impulsive sister than she believed. Nay, Jeanette was not a prisoner of her emotions, as Scotia was. Jeanette was the thoughtful sister, studying all sides of a thing before reacting to it.
But not this day. She had sought calm and instead she had helped a strange man because her instincts told her he was no danger to her. This day she had attacked an English soldier because she was angry at his king. This day she had acted from her grieving, angry heart, not from her head, and she did not understand why.
She did know she was lucky, that no harm had come to her or her companion from her rash actions . . . so far. It did not appear that they had been followed by whomever Malcolm had heard, but they still had to get back to the castle and warn her family that the English were back. At least one of them was.
But she could see that Malcolm was nearing the end of his strength, and it would take them longer to return home through the wood than by the trail. Though he was not admitting such to her, he had started to stumble over tree roots and let his arm hang, weighed down by the claymore, rather than holding it more closely to his body to keep it from damage or tangling in the wood. His right sleeve showed speckles of blood where her dressing should have protected his wound.
Jeanette knew a burn ran down the mountainside not far in front of them. If the man’s pride, or stubbornness—she didn’t know him well enough yet to judge which—kept him from admitting he needed to rest, she was not so encumbered.
“I AM THIRSTY,” Malcolm’s companion said from behind him, her voice still wisely quiet, but it held a tremor he had not heard before. He stopped to let her catch up with him. “There is a burn not far ahead. ’Twill not delay us long to quench our thirst,” she said. She looked pointedly at his injured arm. “ ’Twould appear I need to re-dress your wound, as well.”
“ ’Tis a good idea,” he said. The idea of sitting for even a few minutes, and slaking a thirst he had not been aware of, sounded like a reprieve from the lethargy that was quickly overtaking him. “Why do you not lead the way?” He motioned for her to pass, giving him the opportunity to see if she was as fatigued as he.
She clearly wasn’t fatigued as she strode by him. She was pale, though, even for her, and her hands trembled. He recognized the signs of the shock of battle settling over her. He had seen it many times with lads after their first battle was finished and the surge of battle lust subsided, leaving trembling limbs and queasy stomachs in its wake. She was a brave one, this lass whose name he had yet to learn. Strong, steady, and the look in her eye when she had felled the soldier was no less satisfied than any warrior’s he had seen taking down a foe. Until she’d realized what she’d done.
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It was clearly not in her nature to hurt anyone, yet she seemed to feel no remorse over felling the English soldier. There was much to this woman he did not understand and he found that remarkably intriguing.
Before long they came to the burn, which was still rushing with spring runoff between steep banks. His companion looked at him, then back at the burn and sighed.
“If we follow it down a little ways, it comes to a clearing where the banks are much more gentle,” she said, and she headed almost straight down the ben now, following the burn so quickly it was as if she raced it.
Malcolm had to push himself even harder to keep up, losing sight of her in the thick foliage now and then, until he almost ran her over when she stopped suddenly.
“Angel, what is wrong?” he whispered near her ear.
She was standing statue still, her breath hitching as if she could not draw air into her lungs, still trembling like a leaf in a summer gale. A beautiful clearing opened up before them, the burn running strong on his left, but with a bank so gentle, he knew the clearing must flood at times. When he glanced at her again, her eyes were fixed upon a set of three large boulders to her right and her blue eyes were filled with a misery he did not understand. Was she suddenly taken with remorse over the soldier?
He touched her shoulder lightly, earning him a startled look as if she had forgotten he was there.
“What troubles you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing.” She walked into the clearing, knelt beside the burn, then began to wash her hands, using the coarse sand she found along the edge of the water to scrub them clean. Malcolm looked at his own hands and discovered they were blood-splattered and dirty from their scuffle with the English soldier. He joined her at the burn, scrubbing as best he could with a hand that did not function well. Each movement pulled at his wound, making it ache even more. He clenched his teeth and finished washing, determined, as always, not to let the wound get the better of him.
When he was done, the woman pulled her cup out of the fold of her arisaid and filled it with the crisp clear water, and offered it to Malcolm without a word.
“I thank you,” he said, letting his fingers brush hers as he lifted the cup from her hand, hoping, as his touch had done a moment ago, the contact would pull her out of whatever evil thoughts held her hostage. He drank deeply, then rinsed the cup out, refilled it, and handed it back to her. She took it and drank, but the haunted look in her eyes did not fade, though the trembling had mostly subsided.
Perhaps distracting her would help her break free.
“I still do not ken your name, angel, and after what we have done together this day, I feel it only fair that you share it with me.”
She sighed and sat back on her heels. She gave him a formal head bow. “I am Jeanette MacAlpin, daughter of Kenneth.”
“It is my great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Jeanette MacAlpin, daughter of Kenneth,” he said formally, returning the head bow with an ill-concealed grimace and a small adjustment of his right shoulder.
“I need to tend your arm,” Jeanette said.
He pulled off his tunic without a word and turned so his injured arm was close to her, the linen bandage fallen to his elbow and the moss now on the ground. He could not stop the sigh that escaped him when she laid her hands on either side of the wound, calming the ache with just her touch. He looked down at her and was pleased to find the haunted look now completely replaced by one of deep thought. At least some good had come of his damned wound.
“Have you had this fever before?” she asked, her voice once more that soft but firm tone he had heard when first she’d seen his arm.
“Aye, off and on for months, though it seems stronger now than it has been in some time.”
She nodded and caught the side of her full bottom lip between her teeth. “Sometimes the fever works with the wellspring to burn out what cannot be washed away.” She dipped another cupful of water for him. “Drink. You need to drink a lot when you have a fever lest it burn right through you.”
He took the cup from her, but she deftly avoided his fingers this time. He drained it again, while she wet more of her moss and used it to gently wash the greenish mess speckled with pink droplets of blood that oozed from his wound. When it was clean, she bade him to stay where he sat by the burn. He was glad to comply. As she moved away from him, he couldn’t help but admire the way the end of her pale braid just brushed the small of her back, drawing his attention to her gentle curves, and the graceful way she moved, as if she were in her element here in the forest. He’d thought her an angel but perhaps she was more of a wood sprite, or one of the fey, the fairy folk, lulling men into her underground world where everything was beautiful and no one ever died.
She leaned down to gather some newly greening moss from the forest floor and glanced back at him, catching him staring at her. Their eyes locked and he could not look away. Curiosity and concern showed in her crystalline eyes and then she gave him a shy smile as if to ask why he was staring at her. He dared not think what she saw in his eyes while his imagination had been heading in directions it should not. She was just a beautiful lass in the greenwood, and he an injured warrior with fever dreams catching him even while he was awake. He looked away, unsettled by the powerful pull this woman he’d only just met had upon his thoughts and his body. He needed to stay focused on healing his arm so that he could return to the king, and eventually so he could return home to take his place as the next chief. A beautiful woman would only be a distraction from his duty.
She startled him when she laid a large portion of the moss over the wound and bound it in place with the long strip of linen she had used before. She had him back in his tunic almost before he knew what she was up to. When she stepped back from him he immediately missed the feel of her hands, even though there had been nothing even slightly flirtatious in her touch.
“We should away,” she said, and he was glad to notice that the trembling was completely gone and only a ghost of the haunted look was left in her eyes. She was truly a strong lass.
“Aye, you are surely missed by now.” He awkwardly tucked his tunic back into his belted plaid. “Does your family always let you roam the bens by yourself?”
The last wisps of sadness left her eyes, and were replaced now by a snap of temper. He grinned at her, which won him a scowl.
“Aye, they do. Until lately there has been no danger to us on our own land.”
“And yet they let you wander by yourself now that things are indeed dangerous?” He could not stop himself from asking, any more than he could stop the spurt of anger at her kin for not protecting her better. It was a good thing he was with her when they’d met that soldier. He did not want to think what might have happened to her if she had been alone upon that path.
And then he remembered the screech she had let out as she felled the man. The woman . . . Jeanette . . . was stronger and more cunning than she looked. His anger was replaced by a warm feeling that had him smiling at her. He stood, a little more wobbly on his feet than he was comfortable with, but he held his good hand out to her. She looked at his hand, then placed hers in it, palm to palm. He closed his fingers around hers and gently pulled her up to her feet, holding on to her for just a moment longer than was necessary.
“Let’s away, then,” he said.
The lass had her lip caught between her teeth again and Malcolm had to stop himself from reaching out to touch her. He tried to fist both hands, and pain shot through his arm, reminding him forcefully of where his attention needed to be.
“Do you think it safe to take the trail again?” she asked, looking across the clearing at a small path. “It will take us far less time to reach the castle that way than it will by cutting through the forest.”
He considered how far they had come from where they had met the soldier, but those other voices he had heard made him uneasy that the soldier
Jeanette had felled was not the only one nearby. “Let us go to the trail, but we will listen and watch before we step out of our cover, and we must be ready to abandon it at the first hint of anyone else about.”
She nodded and led him down the path, stopping just before they reached the main trail again. He edged out, looking up and down the trail and listening for long moments. Finally, he nodded and they silently set out on the trail.
Not long afterward, they came to a spot in the trail that opened up, revealing a long, narrow loch, a deeper blue than the late-spring sky, and, sitting before it, the battered remains of a ruined castle.
“That is not—,” he said, stopping in his tracks.
Jeanette stopped beside him and, for a moment, stared into the distance, though whether she looked at the ruins or somewhere else, he couldn’t tell. He took a moment to look more carefully at the place. One whole side of the curtain wall, nearest the loch, was gone, though he could not see the foot of it to tell if it was a rubble pile, or was removed completely. And on the left, inside the wall that still stood, were the burnt-out remains of a large building—probably the great hall. A single tower stood opposite the burnt building and it at least did not appear damaged, but closer examination might prove him wrong in that estimation. There was no way this castle could support anyone, let alone keep them safe.
“That cannot be your home,” he said, keeping his voice low.
She turned her back to the devastation and faced him. Her eyes were filled with sadness, but her raised chin and stiff posture spoke loudly of anger, if not rage.
“Aye, it can be,” she said, challenge now burning the sadness from her gaze, “and it is.” She abruptly turned back to the castle and strode down the path.
He pushed himself to catch up with her. There were too many questions raging in his head.
“Who did this?” he asked.
“The wall?” She shrugged but did not slow down. “We do not ken why it fell. But the fire, that was set by an English spy. He killed my mum, too. Murdered her in front of me as she lay in her sickbed.”